Symmetra 4.0 Rework Idea

General Discussion
1

Let me start this off by saying I’ve been a Sym main since 2016, have played all of her iterations, and love the character all around. I have 700+ hours on her and I’m at high diamond/low master so I have a decent understanding of what the character does.

What I love about her is her high sustained damage, area denial potential, and utility but this recent “rework” has pushed her into too niche of a place to keep up with other DPS. Now that her turrets deal very little damage, her lethality is totally kneecapped as a short range hero with the slowest projectiles in the game. Any hitscan just shoots her gigantic head hitbox before she can come close to them. Her barrier ammo regen passive is incredibly niche in 5v5 and the slight shield regen does nothing for her survivability. Her turrets sacrificing damage for wall hacks does nothing for her kit since she can’t burst a peeking enemy like hanzo/widow.

The devs have obviously taken their ideas for a reworked support Sym and split them into Lifeweaver (hardlight builder support, platform/lifegrip for positioning teammates instead of tp) and Illari (healing turret, literally just syms gun reworked for a healer, piercing orb dps ult) so it’s safe to say support Sym will never happen again.

So here are my ideas for how to bring Sym better up to date:

-Primary Fire: Symmetra’s photon projector fires a mid range laser that begins dealing sustained damage before ramping up to its final burst. Landing shots generates energy on hit. (Think charge rifle from apex)

-Alternate Fire: The projector can also fire a continuous short range beam that deals devastating damage. Firing this beam consumes stored energy. (Basically 180 charge Sym beam that’s metered like Illari’s beam but charges with primary fire like Sojourn)

-Ability 1: “Hardlight Threads” Symmetra throws out a burst of hardlight threads that damage and slow all enemies they pass through. If the burst collides with a wall, it will bounce once and continue traveling. The burst tightens into a lingering thread where it traveled, connected to nodes on each end that will remain until one is destroyed. Enemies that pass through the lingering thread take damage and are slowed. (Can be thrown out mid battle for damage like they want us to do with turrets now or set up as tripwires for area denial)

-Ability 2: “Teleporter” (Keep Current)

-Ultimate: “Photon Barrier” (Keep Current)

Obviously these are just some ideas to throw out there in the hopes that some Sym main at blizzard sees and puts into the game. Sym has so many bad holdovers from her previous versions that don’t make sense to keep and are no longer justified with the current state of the game. Just make her fun to play again :frowning:

2

Walk me through this:
So the first bounce sets a node and then another is made where the projectile disappears?

3

I was thinking it would be like if it doesn’t bounce it would just work like how her tp works where one node starts on her and the other is at the end of the range. If it does bounce, it would continue to its max range but form a V with the end node wherever that angle ends up.

4

I like the idea with the gun, give her more ranged but keep the beam idea

As for abilites since she is a builder something like buiable cover might be cool, kinda like a mei wall but closer to a shield, Or maybe something like Hardlight armor, grant hardlight armor to her that is similar to her original shield she placed on people.

there so many thing that could be done

5

Yeah exactly. Sym is a character they could do whatever they wanted with deployable/construct wise but they just ignore her. I got the idea for the hardlight threads from the illustrations by Nesskain that went with her short story with zen where she was weaving light together at the temple. I figured in gameplay terms they could be something like damaging tripwires since they don’t want her to have turrets anymore.

6

I want a complete revert back to the shield generator days, lock on beam and 6 turrets.

They way they’ve ruined my favourite char over the years makes me soul hurt.

1 Like
7

Symm suffers from a very disjointed kit which doesnt synergize with each other.
Her turrets like you said provide wall hacks now, but all her damage needs charge time and cant burst enmies down which want to peek around the corner.

Speaking of charge time, if you want to charge her primary, you cant use her secondary as it creates downtime for your primary and you lose charge.
If she hits an enemy with her secondary, it shouls actually build charge for her primary or at the very least retain it.

Also having a big barrier as an Ult for a dps doesnt fit. I said it when they reworked her and i still hold that opinion.

8

Current charge rifle or pre season 18?

9

I’d love this (as a Symm main) but it would also be pretty busted, and I don’t think Blizzard are willing to buff her anymore considering she has one of the highest win rates of any DPS lol

10

It actually won’t.
I’m testing ideas right now using the workshop and this will be the least harmful change in terms of game balance.

11

Yeah exactly, Sym has always been a weird support/dps hybrid that does the job of a tank (which is why I love her tbh).

Since her whole role on a team is defense/area denial, wall actually works well with her kit since she can deny pushes/ults with it. That being said, she can also use her teleporter to push aggressively and take space like a tank would, especially when paired with wall which helps the whole team survive the push better. It’s definitely a weird ult for a dps to have but syms supposed to get her potgs from running down the enemy team at max charge anyway.

But yeah her gun and turrets in their current state are just painful to use and don’t fit with the rest of her kit anymore.