I am very passionate about this hero so I am sorry in advance if I come on strong.
For the sake of your eyes, I’ll break this down into sections. Click on each title to open/close it.
A TLDR of the most important things I’d like for you to take from this post will be at the end.
My thoughts on the new Sym
After playing with Symmetra in the new beta, she feels way worse than she did in the last beta. I played her for the entirety of the last beta without any changes and I honestly feel like she was much better.
The biggest reasons she feels bad to play:
Orbs charge really slow and their damage is pathetic.
Teleporter’s cooldown makes her less mobile, rather than more mobile.
Her primary fire is still hard to charge with less shields and limited range.
Teleporter’s range reduction is way too small.
I feel like the goal of these changes were to edge her out of a utility DPS role and nudge her into more of a stronger damage dealer, like Sombra’s changes. But it feels like the developers were too afraid to follow through and only made half the changes they should’ve, so now we’re stuck with this awkward in-between.
Changes I'd like to see
Primary Fire
Range increased from 12m to 14m
You have not made anywhere near enough survivability changes to this hero to warrant a puny 12m beam. For the love of god give us some range!
Teleporter
Range increased from 22m to 25m.
Cooldown reduced from 16s to 14s.
Now plays an audio cue when teleporter is about to be destroyed.
That last one is really important. Back when she last had finite teleporter, we had an audio cue that let us know when teleporter was about to be destroyed. This lets me know exactly how much time I have to be balls-deep in the enemy’s backline before having to teleport out. Please reimplement this.
Secondary Fire
Speed reduced from 50 to 40.
Size increased from .4 to .45 (midway between old and new).
Charge time nerf reverted.
Total damage increased to 110.
This keeps some faster speed and requires a bit more aim, but makes her feel a bit better to play. The biggest issue with orbs is the charge time nerf. We should be making the hero faster and not slower. Also, nerfing the orb damage means Symmetra can no longer one shot combo a Tracer which sucks.
Why I feel let down, like we haven't been listened to
If a hero requires several compensation nerfs for a couple of buffs, this hero has design problems.
And this is an issue Geoff Goodman highlighted himself when talking about Bastion’s rework (I went over this in more detail here). Now how have the developers not come to the same conclusion with Symmetra?
Why has Symmetra been given some limited changes that make her feel so much worse to play instead of proper attention like other heroes in a similar position have received?
As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, another rework is a frequent topic not just on the forums but on Reddit also. Every single Reddit AMA the devs have done, people have asked if Symmetra will be returning to the support role. This was only further amplified by Geoff Goodman expressing an interest in retrying this, yet clearly nothing has come to fruition.
To see heroes like Sombra, Bastion and Orisa get much needed attention whilst my favourite hero still gets the short end of the stick…it’s extremely disheartening.
TLDR
Symmetra feels slower now rather than faster due to the compensation nerfs to teleporter and orbs.
These changes feel incomplete, like the devs were too afraid to go all in and actually experiment.
Teleporter needs to have an audio cue played to let you know when its timer is about to run out, like it did the last time we had finite teleporter.
So they nerfed everything… but gave her 30 more ammo…? It seems like there was supposed to be an additional buff to her primary to warrant all these nerfs to every other part of her kit…
Yup like I said, these changes feel very incomplete. I don’t know why they’re holding back. If you can’t comfortably experiment with changes on the scale of Sombra’s rework, then for the love of god rework her again.
I will take a completely new Symmetra over what we currently have.
I like the new visuals, but her orbs need a bit more work I think. Though maybe they’re just too small to actually see their new shape effectively
Yeah the nerfs were very unnecessary for compensation compared to the buffs she has received. But in all honesty, her new visuals look really stunning.(still doesn't justify the balance changes tho but thought noting it out)
Yep, it’s that simple. Primary range to equal Zarya (WHY does a TANK outrange a DPS when they both have beam weapons?!). 100 ammo but no barrier recharge is fine if there’s fewer barriers with fewer tanks.
TP is fine infinite but if you’re going to change it put it back how it was at original 3.0 (12s cooldown, 25m range) and just buff the deploy speed.
Don’t touch anything else. Don’t make mains relearn the hero. Those two would make her nice and viable.
And if deploy speed is somehow a problem make it faster only for Sym. So Sym might be able to teleport after 1 sec (for better mobility) and everyone else after the full deploy.
If only we could get honest communication from Blizzard saying something like “we don’t have the time right now because of the new heroes and launch, but it is on our watch. These are the problems, we recognize them, we are working at it and we will fix this. We’ll keep the community updated.” But it genuinely feels like they’ve just nerfed her to ensure she isn’t a “nuisance to play against” during the beta, turned a blind eye and called it a day.
The problem with that is Sym has so much potential to be a popular, fun and specially unique hero, it just doesn’t make sense to let her be in this state. The more heroes get a fresh look/rework for OW2, the better the game will be.
