Sym’s primary fire sucks

In one on one’s…

You don’t focus a single target at all and you are not with your team. Would have killed bastion had those been met. Just another sign of poor use.

The radius is EXTREMELY small. At from what I have just tested in the practice range at roughly 1.5 meters. Meaning it covers an area of 3 meters in diameter from the splash. That is extremely tiny. For comparison Pharah’s rockets splash at 2.5 radius for a coverage of 5 meters in diameter.

did you forget that right click deals splash damage in a team situation too?

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This isn’t true. It’s assuming you can always be firing and landing your orbs directy the entire time. But we aren’t attacking target dummies.

Fights are way more dynamic, and I often find ways to charge my weapon around the edge of a fight in situations where the bit of extra damage from the secondary fire would hardly help. Especially against shields, where 2 seconds of low damage and 2 seconds of mediocre damage aren’t really big losses, but coming in with 180 dps when you move into the mid fight is way, way stronger than the orbs can do.

The problem is the risk required to do this is a bit too high for 180 dps.

Your main complaint is about the damage not being worthwhile enough, yet none of your suggestions increase the maximum damage output… Why?

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You’re WAY more likely to strike enemies with orbs because they are not only explosive, but they are very large.

Also it’s not 180 dps unless you’re 100% accurate and not fighting against an armored target and ALSO have been holding that beam for more than 4 seconds. Those moments are very few and very far between.

The main complaint is not about the base damage, it’s about the applied damage. Increasing the max damage output doesn’t solve the issue against armor.

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Yeah, duh.

The whole point of post was offering video evidence to back up the math. Read the preface please.

Damage can’t be reduced more than 50% by armor. The damage of the primary fire is 30/60/90 against armor. Yes, this is pretty poor, especially compared to things on the PTR. I wouldn’t greatly mind a buff that gives armor penetration to the primary fire, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Partly because you can easily fully charge a secondary fire to eat a bunch of armor without losing your primary’s charge.

Being able to skillfully weave a few secondary fires into your primary use is a really fun way to be better with the character.

Don’t rely solely on her left click.
Use your turrets for potential burst and control, use your right click and then primary fire to clean up, a maxed right click into a split second of primary fire cleans up any 200 hp hero extremely quickly.
Use left click to melt down shields, the range increase should make this even better.

If I get her old photon barrier on the right click and her orbs as primary fire. Than she might start to look like decent hero.

But seriously her primary fire is useless. It is a beginner’s trap so to speak.

i’d much rather have her old primary back honestly.

What on earth? The two suggestions other than increasing the range increase the damage output, either by making it hit max charge faster, or by increasing the BASE DAMAGE so that it hits harder at the first and second levels.

Additionally, having higher base and a softer ramp (same level 3 damage) would help fix the issue of armor heavily mitigating it.

C’mon buddy.

I read the preface. It is nothing but an excuse for poor play. You would have melted bastion had you maintained the target. You didn’t. You would have live had you stayed with your team which means that your beam power would have maintained its power so you can melt targets. You didn’t.

You are demonstrating how NOT to play her then saying she sucks because you played her wrong.

LOL are you not seeing that the orisa literally went up and bodyblocked for the bastion who was straight up outhealing her dps? come on man…

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Didn’t you say something about desperation when attacking the speaker and not the argument? Argue the math. As I stated before and will state again:

It’s to back up the math. I knew it was suicide since I advocate to never use the beam unless you have a HUGE advantage.

Also, such a vid also proves the point to use Orbs over beam.

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If you’re shooting at their feet. When aiming for direct hits, you miss far more often than you get splash damage. Also, the splash damage is 60, which is as bad as the T1 beam, so you shouldn’t be relying on it.

You realize that this accuracy thing is literally an issue for every other hero in the game, right? You don’t take a hero’s overall accuracy, multiply it by their potential dps, and get a reasonable estimate for actual damage in a fight. I have plenty of times where I track really well for the second plus a hair, and get a kill on a squishy ridiculously fast, and it’s a huge play. Sometimes I track worse, too, but if I don’t die, it’s not a huge deal, and the big kills are still amazing and where the beam shines. Getting good enough to do them more often is part of playing Symmetra well.

Symmetra is a damage hero now. We need to stop treating her weapon like it’s comparable to the old weapon. Consistent damage is different from inconsistent damage, and it’s balanced differently. And it’s not as simple as accuracy * damage.

Hitting the max charge faster just makes the 180 dps easier to get to. It doesn’t increase the dps output of an already charge Symmetra. And as I said, I don’t find the charge rate to be an issue. My main issue is that I get to the third level of charge, and then die too quickly once I actually try to do something with it. Making it a little faster to get there doesn’t make it any more rewarding to use, nor does it make it safer to use. And the risk/reward is the issue I have with the primary fire.

Also, I interpreted base damage as increasing only level 1’s damage,. because that’s a really common suggestion. Increasing the damage by 10/20/30 or something similar is something I’d love to see. Sorry about the confusion.

Target was Bastion admitted.

But if you see how Orisa body blocked that showed the damage being done at Max charge. Using that shows extent of damage (arguing for the OP) showing beam is weak.

yes other heroes have accuracy issues too, but not every other hero suffers a 10 meter range, an annoying ramp-up mechanic, and 50% damage to armor on top of their accuracy stuff now do they?

Which is a VARIABLE. One that would have been mitigated if he was with his TEAM. Like I have been saying.

When you provide video of yourself as evidence I am allowed to talk about that video. The video contains poor play. I am attacking the evidence. Not you.

Which only talks of armored targets and the first target you engage. Which is not how all fights or even the majority of fights go. Not all targets are armored and not all fights (or even most) are determined by who has the most people.

You do not talk of the entire fight save for your oppinion that it is only useful for mop ups. Which is wrong.

Farming your primary can be all the difference in the mid fight as the damage numbers against targets at full charge can and does tilt things in your favor with proper play.

Your video contains only initiation and armored targets. A situation that is not 100% of the time nor even half.

ugh i’m really annoyed at this conversation. “You should’ve been with your team” is not a valid argument when being almost any other damage hero could’ve netted you the kill.

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Yeah, different heroes have different strengths and weaknesses. So what?

My point was that you can’t just take Symmetra’s beam’s damage, multiply it by your weapon accuracy and call that your “real” damage. That’s not how it works.

180 damage is capable of melting through tanks, and can pop squishies at speeds comparable to head shots.

I didn’t watch the video, but I’m pretty sure killing a Bastion pocketed by an Orisa solo isn’t easier on Soldier or Sombra (the other two dps I play). Honestly, I’d put my bets on Symmetra being able to do it over those two if she already has her beam charged or uses a turret bomb. The chances aren’t good in any case, though, since you’re going 1v2…

Symmetra’s weaknesses far outweigh her strengths. That’s the WHOLE ISSUE.
Try killing a roadhog with an uncharged zarya beam. go on tell me how that works out for you.

Also don’t talk about the video if you didn’t watch it. Sombra is known for having a weaker DPS and soldier could’ve at LEAST lived if he didn’t have helix rockets. Sombra could’ve hacked Bastion to stop his damage reduction from Configuration: Sentry and his Auto-Repair assuming she got the drop on him. Symmetra has no such strengths, and even the turret bomb could just be melee’d and now you suddenly have 30 seconds before being able to do it again, not to mention the ~3 seconds required to set it up in the first place.