Sym is one of the most frustratingly designed heroes

General Discussion
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Sym is stuck in this weird design space of being in the Damage role that requires her to actively be getting picks, with the damage thresholds to acheive such. While having powerfull utility and restrictions that are commonly found in the support role.

With these two aspects more or less classing with each other on the constant basis.

Like regardless of if you want sym to stay as a DPS, or want sym to have a healing utility and be moved to support. (No none healing supports don’t work, not the topic either) It’s clear that something needs to change in this regard.

As being a DPS she is required to get the bulk of her teams elims, the other roles (currently) are not suited at secure such on full health targets. Or at the very least, have to forgo their normal roles duties to achieve such. But to do so she needs time to set up her damage, that no other DPS has to worry about.

Be in close range without general survivability tools. Or simply poke at the target with slow moving projectiles, that at short - mid range are not that hard to hit do to their size. But again require time to set up, and at times are only good as a set up to her other slow charging tool.

That in it’s self then needs to build up from scratch.

While her utilities such as TP are decently powerful, Like it’s one of the better combo tools in the game if you know how it play around it. But to set that up sym needs to back out of the front line, stop trying to get picks or damage in general. And set up the combo in the middle of the team.

Her Ult also has the same uses as the likes of zen’s transcendence or lucio’s sound barrier, as it’s great tool for counter ults, as well as a way of setting up pushes into the enemy. But again this sort of thing requires her to back up, find the threat and be in a position to set up the barrier safely. Which yet again pulls her away from doing her roles job.

Like I’m not saying that sym can’t be a decent DPS, or that she should be a support. what I’m saying they need to decide which aspect they want to lean into.

Like a DPS sym that basically has a portal gun that only works with herself, but allows that sym to do and set picks no other hero can would be cool. Or leaving most of the kit as is, outside of the healing turrets (some other healing mechanic) and lower damage. Makes her a support in much of the same way that lucio and zen are.

And the worse part is that you can’t even just buff her out right, as in a situation were the team dedicates their play style around sym. they can pretty much lock the enemy team into their spawn, as proven by the OWL. Be it of course this isn’t something that you can do with, or expect from a team of internet randos when someone locks sym.

Like this so frustrating that their are so many cool ideas at play her, but like they need to choose. or maybe split her kit into a new hero to cover those other aspects.

As is it’s just frustrating from a design mechanic.

Edit: posted a bit early new stuff in middle. and end.

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The issue here is a bit more complex.

The issue with current Symmetra (3.0) is that she was reworked to be primarily a team TP taxibot for OWL. This is also the focus of the ExC changes, as ML7 admitted. Thats why the only thing that was completely buffed was TP.

As you said, regardless of what camp people are on, the truth is that the common foe everyone here should have is team TP. Taximetra will be Blizzard’s and OWL players’ priority at the cost of her usage outside taxibotting.

And this is literally what I have been saying for years since the rework.

At this point I dont care about DPS vs healer discussions. I have said my piece many many many times about that topic. But its rather obvious that both Blizz and OWL are too married to the idea of Sym being a taxibot, and its about time that people forced them to sign those divorce papers.

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TP is a team focused utilty that is primarily balanced around it’s use as a team, instead of what sym her self can do with it like other DPS.

It’s a very support like utility like lamp, nade, speed boost, and discord. That can be used soley by(on) the hero themselves, but it is ultimately better if used on the team.

Like even soldier’s healing pod is better as a self sustain tool, as the rest of soldiers kit wants running around flanks getting those back line instant picks. And living to tell the tale.

Same goes for her ult, being something that is better used with her team in mind then something that she can use independently to set herself up. Like you can… but it’s not exactly the best use, like when zen is forced to trans to save himself.

like the specific issue of sym more or less only using to sorten the walk back is kind of the nerfs that prevented her from using it as an (sort of) instant set up tool. like the original 3.0 tele was. Like it’s faster set up and limited up time kept the priority as something that should be use in the moment the situation arises, more so a set forget it kind of thing that most people are forced to use it as.

Be it that points also extend to the turrets,primary and secondary in regards to her limitations that are placed on her kit because of such team focused utility.

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The difference here is that other team utility is the heroes applying that utility and their teams enjoying it, while Sym needs for her team to actively play specific comps and take specific actions for team TP to have value.

Its not comparable to other team utility at all. She has no agency over its impact at all.

Its design is fundamentally broken from an impact to agency ratio. There is no need for Sym to be mastered or to need to perform well as a hero because her biggest impact is entirely up to her team to maximize and very little goes through her own decision making.

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I agree that TP’s lack of agency is a real detriment that has otherwise been avoided in other heroes. But, one could argue that that same quality is common in the support role.

It’s not two separate issues, they’re cumulative problems that get in the way of making Sym a powerful hero.

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I can say the same with lucio’s speed boost, hereos like winston/soldier/widow/ana has little use for it as they have their own mobility/ want to be in the back line anyway. Or avoid the general interactions where speed boost would be good like pushing long LOS lanes, and just leap into the fight right away.

Were as riens/reapers/meis/mcbyleth and more love the speed boost, and can get a lot out of it.

same goes with TP. That and DPS arnt exactly designed for the utilities to be used for their team. More so themselves, and as such can be powerful and useful to them. As to enable them to get picks. Sym has team focused tool that she her self doesn’t get a lot of immediate use out of. it doesn’t set up kills, or get her into positions safely for her to do damage. As it’s set up is is long and obvious.

Which is an intentional counterbalance for the fact that a rien shatter, or d.va bomb can pop out of it. sym can pepper in 120 damage orbs once a second, from a place people know she going to be in.

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The core issue with Symmetra is that she cannot force allies to use her utility. It’s not that she is high-utility on a DPS, it’s that the rules and requirements for your team to play around Symmetra are inherently different than the rules and requirements for a team to play around any other character.

Even Bastion does not require his team to defend him to get value. However, a majority of Symmetra’s value requires that her teammates use it. Symmetra’s teammates must, indisputably, interact with Symmetra for her to get sufficient value. Every other hero in the game can get value - most often sufficient value - without necessarily requiring that other teammates work with them. This is not the case for Symmetra.

None of these abilities require that you interact with the hero these abilities come from. A team’s potential increases exponentially if you do, but none of these abilities outright require this interaction. You cannot stop a Lucio from speed boosting or an Ana from getting a big Antinade, and so on and so forth. This is not the case for Symmetra.

Symmetra needs her allies to interact with her teleporter - press an otherwise nearly used button while standing near it - to get value. This requirement is what holds the character back. Symmetra would work many times better if Teleporter was more intuitive to interact with, but you can never get rid of this restriction.

The argument to make Symmetra a support, if it does not involve getting rid of her Teleporter (which is, at this point, unlikely), then it involves shifting her value. As a Support, Symmetra does not need to funnel all of her non-ult non-Teleporter value into damage. Of all potential utilities, damage is the most interactible utility because of the existence of healing. If Symmetra could acquire utility that was less interactable (ie, basically any kind of shields people want her to have), then Symmetra would be able to impact a fight on her own without needing her allies to use her Teleporter.

She has to do all that and provide some kind of on-demand healing so people who need healing can be healed as necessary by Symmetra. Experimental Symmetra attempts to resolve at least one of these issues - if Photon Wall (her ult) charges fast enough to be usable every fight or two, then Symmetra is able to provide a massive impact without the need for her allies to use her teleporter.

There’s a massive set of issues with that playstyle by itself. Every time I have tried to brainstorm a version of Symmetra that addresses these needs, something comes up short - her abilities are too complicated, you disrupt some state of Symmetra’s existence that just feels off, and so on and so forth.

(There’s also the issue that people want some of Symmetra’s old ult and weapons which are fairly antiquated in comparison to modern-day Overwatch. Her old barrier is totally workable though I’d love to see something with that again)

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Not really? Mercy chooses who to heal, rez and boost. That Genji doesnt have a choice, he IS getting healed. That Rein IS getting Nanoboosted, no buts or whys. Zen’s team IS getting Transcended, no buts. He decides the impact that Trans have, he decides the targets for his orbs, etc.

If Sym could force her team to beeline to TP and press interact to take it, then we couldnt be having this issue.

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Zen can lay a Discord on a support, but the dps could all focus the tank instead.
Bap can place a lamp and window that his allies walk in front of.
Lucio can speed boost as Rein stands still in choke.
Mercy can damage boost while Widow misses her shots.

Sym is the most egregious example of teammate reliance to get value, but the concept exists to lesser extents elsewhere.

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I mean you can’t exactly force mobility onto your teammates, as that would not only feel bad as a game mechanic to immediately be yoinked into a new loction.

But also create intentional/unintentional trolling moment. like TP your team off the cliff without their consent. Like 1.0 TP could trick someone once.

but a forced TP is just asking for it to happen whenever the cooldown is ready.

Secondly you have to balance for when it is used then “if” it is used. As rien shatter/d.va bomb/ junk tire/ reaper ult can come out of that thing, and those are situations it needs to be balanced around. Even if infrequent.

It is still a tool that is better used to support the team, then it is at getting sym herself picks. And it can’t be balanced for the latter, because it can still be used as the former.

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Except Zen himself can kill. He was made resistant to his team ignoring discord targets.

Bap’s entire kit doesnt revolve around its perfect usage. And once again you can throw it at a place you know your team wont move. Thats not something that Sym can do because her TP only has extremely limited uses but also requires active effort from your team.

Also its far more intuitive for people just stand in the IF than to take a TP.

The list goes on and goes on.

Other heroes have the choice. If their team isnt using their team utility correctly, they can use for themselves, or move around and use it on anyone else.

Sym’s personal TP usage has been nerfed to be nearly worthless, while partial or side uses of team TP are near worthless or very ineffective, like spawn TPs. On top that she is not balanced around a couple of other heroes taking TP, she is balanced around full team taxi TPs.

And even when she gets off good team TPs, thats VERY limited to team comps and strats. Which are actually very few where TP is relevant enough to excuse her use, as she is the worst DPS in the game.

Regardless, one thing is your team misusing your nano or your boost or your IF or your Discord. Another thing altogether is for that utility to be completely ignorable by your own team. It could be like if the target could refuse to be rezzed or Nano’ed, and the abilities still go on cooldown.

2 Likes
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Thats TreeckoRalts’ entire point.

Other team utility can be forced on your team. You cant force people to take TP, and blizz will never let Sym force her team to take TP either.

Thus her impact is entirely out of her hands, as she has been nerfed for years to make space for team TP at the cost of both her own damage and personal TP usage.

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And Sym herself can TP bomb into a backline to get kills and pop back out. She’s stronger when her team works with her, but so is discord.

I never said it wasn’t. TP’s lack of agency is a real issue, and is really holding her back. If it was made to be a tool only she could use to chase kills, instead of providing support-like utility for her team, it’d be a different matter.

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Zen still needs assistance killing the likes of tanks, on top of needing some one to distract the barrier tanks so he has space/los to set up discord and picks.

Like that discord is not saving him from a hog /diving d.va that can either insta kill him do to his fat hit box. Or has tools to negate his damage long enough to get a pick on him.

As a solo support tool it can be given more power/reason for it to be used. like just the speed boost the exp card had allowed for some unique set ups with reaper and mei dives.

that and their are other options. like it giving it a weaker version of the sheild generator mechanics. To halfs dived now in harmany!

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The issue here is that not only Zen has much damage that anything Sym can do while being much safer, but if you arent using team TP you are just using a gimped and overnerfed her to achieve what you can with literally any other flanker more safely, reliably and often.

Zen was designed to at the very least pick up kills on his own if his team isnt properly focusing Discorded targets and that hasnt changed in years, while Sym was been nerfed for years for doing anything that wasnt being a taxibot.

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I personally want us to move away from healing supports

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I rather completely remove the cancer than to paint it gold, thanks.

TP 3.0 is not something inherent to Sym. It was added after a rework, its not a sacred cow that has to be defended.

And you already saw the price that ML7 was ready to make Sym pay for more taxibot buffs.

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This isnt league of legends where assassins with a touch of CC or literal burst mages can be ‘‘supports’’.

There will never be ‘‘non-healing’’ supports in OW and you will need to live with that.

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I mean it can be scraped entirely if they want to go the full dps route. or as I mentioned in the post it can be recycled onto another healer.

Like Sym ends up leaving visgar, and ends up changing what her kit can do because of it. With a new visgar member being her replacement take up those aspects she left behind.

Low healing/non-healing focus kits can work, their just has to be a “healing” factor.

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I agree. If one were to get rid of her taxi-bot function, she could be buffed to be a half-viable dps. Her current design is halfway between supportive utility and close-range dps, and as a result fails at both.

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