Symmetra has been stealth nerfed multiples times

General Discussion
1

I want to summarize every change to the game that hurt Symmetra 3.0 unintentionally despite being in an overall bad state.

6/26/2018 Patch 1.25.0.1
Beam now has 20 ticks per second

Let’s start where it all began. The day when Symmetra 3.0 went live.
While Symmetra was on the PTR there was a bug that let Symmetra deal an insane amount of damage. To fix this Blizzard increased her tickrate from 4 to 20. I don’t want to explain what tickrates are but you can go to this thread.

Back then it was by far the worst weapon the game. Thankfully the tickrate got fixed when the winter event started.

8/9/2018 Patch 1.27.0.1
Teleporter can not be used in spawn anymore

I’m not really sure if it was in this patch. (It was not mentioned in the patchnotes.)
I know they did this because of Reinhardt but it hurt Symmetra in different ways:

  • Symmetra can no longer reach high ground in spawn like on Kings Row.
  • Symmetra can no longer tp bomb from spawn.
  • Symmetra is rip if she’s getting spawn camped.
  • Symmetra can’t use her tp for faster respawn as soon as she wants. Because of this the tp might be still on cooldown when she reaches the point again.

11/13/2018 Patch 1.30.0.1
Reduced the setup timer for Assault, Escort, and Assault/Escort maps from 1 minute to 45 seconds

This affects Symmetra only on defense. She has less time for her turret setup during the preparation time and she carrys less turrets when the match starts because of the 10 seconds cooldown.

3/19/2019 Patch 1.34.0.1
Beam-type damage is now reduced by 20% when hitting armor

They changed how beam weapons and DoT effects work against armor. In Symmetra’s case she deals significant less damage against armor when full charged. I don’t know how the turrets changed.

8/13/2019 Patch 1.39.1.0
So called teleporter buff

Infinite duration and +5 meters are nice but the compensation nerf (cooldown starts after destruction) made the teleporter worse than before. I don’t want to go into this too much because there are enough threads about this change.

8/13/2019 Patch 1.39.1.0
Slowing Effects: Instead of stacking together, friendly and hostile slowing effects are now separate, and movement speed will be determined by whichever is slower.

Her turrets doesn’t slow anymore when the enemy is slowing himself stronger than the turrets do like scoped Widow or shielding Rein.
Actually I don’t mind this that much but it’s still a straight nerf.

I think that’s all for now. Can’t wait for her next nerf.

10 Likes
2

we gotta love all those unneeded nerfs right?

the defense spawn timer is one of the biggest nerfs to me.
as soon as you leave you have to place turrets fast for them to be off cooldown in time.

its terrible.

6 Likes
3

are we just gonna ignore the fact that shes near op tho

3 Likes
4

Only her lvl3 primary.

5

how much of the game are you not at level 3

6

Only when I respawn or when falling back or when just keeping mid distance from the battle.
And when enemy team allows me to build up power and not focusing me.
Other than that I think her lvl1 stage shouldn’t be nerfed.

7

exactly why she’s getting nerfed

1 Like
9

what?

10

Lvl3 is only op because of the bugfix and barriers.

11

It is hard to balance a character that is borderline broken when the community as a whole pretends she is worthless. If they nerf her, you get “what is Blizzard thinking nerfing the worst character in the game” where on their end they are trying to figure out how to redistribute her power to make her at least usable at the highest level. They want it via the teleport. I doubt they expected people to finally pick her for double barrier because nobody picked her in similar circumstances. Such as Goats.

12

just because of the bugfix

you dont need a shield or even a tank to charge to level 3
its not hard

13

Yeah you just have to track, and not die because of the beam lenght

14

Cool story, doesn’t change the fact that she and a multitude of other heroes are broken right now.

15

Wont be changed for awhile, unless they start wave balancing.
The fact that they threw 2-2-2 and left buffs and nerfs because of goats :weary:

16

I’m skeptical that this was a nerf. Can you provide specific numbers?

17

No but it was confirmed by one of the developers.