Symmetra lock on beam is an iconic ability, pls dont remove it, we can balance this!

General Discussion
326

Maybe, but that’s like putting a small band aid on a deep wound.

You think those players are gonna improve at aiming if they just play nothing but Symmetra because of her lock on since they can’t aim? It’s better to just lock in one of the easier aim heroes like Soldier and go from there.

You can’t go and make her weapon much more powerful and then leave in the lock on, they’ve decided to make her weapon more powerful and in exchange for that it now requires aim and on top of that the way her weapon is now kinda relies people to come to her, but the changes they’re making to her seem to allow her to be more aggressive, I think they also changed the weapon because of that.

327

Tell that to Ubisoft and their “iconic” watch dogs hat.

328

The funny part with this argument (which I see arise ever since they announced their plans) is that literally no Symmetra player ever asked her to have a buff in stage 3 damage.

We do asked for a better stage 1-2 damage, but everyone agreed that 120 DPS was more than enough damage for her job.

IMO, her damage scaling up to 195 is a bad idea, and will just make good tracking players be extremely oppressive with her, while her current fanbase (ie, the people who “don’t aim”) will barely be able to keep the thing charged past stage 2.

3 Likes
329

So, I actually prefer keeping the auto-lock weapon as is and same for her right click. There are plenty of things that showcase your skill on a symmetra that is not aiming, things like movement, dodging attacks, positioning, well placed traps and good timing.

Changing Sym’s gun that much is overkill.

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330

Maybe that has more to do with the direction the devs wanna take her in and not so much the opinions of Symmetra players, it’s also not just about her primary, at the time of the release of these details her secondary fired of faster charging, faster travelling balls that explode on contact.

And then the rest of her kit changes seem to suggest that they wanna allow Symmetra to play more aggressively.

Maybe 195 dps is too much and should probably be lower, but the damage on that should still be good since good tracking should be rewarded, I mean her new weapon kinda sounds like Zarya’s, except that instead of relying on the enemy shooting your bubbles you rely on tracking your target long enough.

331

And that, IMO, is a bad philosophy. If you want to adjust any character, you need to listen for their playerbase. It’s a bad idea to alienate their current fans (no matter how small) in the hopes of getting new fans with the New Improved Thing™.

Definitely.

I have said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: Any of the proposed changes to Symmetra, individually, are not bad on their own. Some of them are very exciting and interesting. The biggest issue is that they are changing all her kit at once, and most of them are not a straight buff, they are lateral changes (ie, around the same power, but with different design and purpose).

For a long time I believe that Symmetra kit is not in a bad place, power-wise. Her reputation amongst the player base hurts her a lot more than her kit on itself. It’s not like she can’t benefit from a little QoL changes here and there, but the fact that there is a good amount of Symmetra players in the high tiers of competitive (compared to her pickrate), despite lots of players actually throwing matches and tilting themselves to death on the sight of a Symmetra in their team, is a sign that once you learn how to use her kit, she is powerful enough to hold her own.

Blizzard being extremely cautious with her kit, to the point that most of her changes don’t really sound like a “buff” when you compare pros and cons with her current kit is also another sign of that. I think the devs are trying to change her so drastically that the playerbase will “forget” their hatred of Symmetra and start her from a clean tab. And I honestly doubt that will happen, unless she is Valkyrie 1.0 levels of broken.

The main issue with that number is all conditions that come attached to it. What we know from Geoff:

  • She will need 2 seconds of hitting before the weapon level up.
  • The damage is increased to 65/130/195. Ie, its a linear progression instead of a exponential progression like she have currently (30/60/120).
  • Symmetra will have a “thick beam” (ie, it will be easier to track with it)
  • It will recover ammo if it damages a barrier, while still simultaneously charging her beam
  • We do not know:
    • The rate of decay of the new beam (will it remain at 1 second or also enlarged to 2 seconds?)
    • The actual range of the new beam (can be anything between current 7 meters to Zarya’s 16 meters)
    • The ammo amount/consumption of the new beam (maybe the devs over/underestimate the shield ammo recover)

Adding this all together, we can see that they are trying to cater to the playerbase that is not that good at aiming, but probably are not seeing far enough in the future to visualize that people who can track well with heroes like Zarya, Moira, Sombra or Tracer will have extremely good hit % with a thick beam. But that leaves them into a even worse conundrum than just balancing the autoaim with the ramp-up damage: If they balance the gun around the people who can aim (eg, reducing thickness or damage), it will make her useless for the playerbase that can’t aim. And if they balance around the average hit% of the general playerbase, her damage will be extremely powerful in the hands of players that can track.

While it would be nice to see Symmetra being played in the OWL, that is not the proper path to place her there. Especially because, unlike Moth Mercy, this don’t enable diverse gameplay, for the fact that she will be in a DPS slot. Ie, the slot with the most options available. That will just be switching 70% Tracer to 70% Symmetra, and that is just as unhealthy.

4 Likes
332

Isn’t that the point of a defense hero? That you set traps for the enemy to fall into?

Sym is supposed to be powerful close quarters, and these changes are turning that on it head

2 Likes
335

says the D.Va with aoe football field sized ult. How about d.va’s ult only splash’s 10 feet. fairs fair make D.va use some skill.

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336

You mean graphically?

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337

Ya if this goes thru I uninstall OW. Also your right the loudest voices for the changes are hypocrites who don’t want to play against her not ppl that play her and find her too weak. If we are nerfing auto aim can we nerf huge splash dmg too that takes no skill either. No D.va nuke, No Pharah rockets, no junk rat tire, Mccree ult requires no aim… so thats gotta go by the same logic. How about that Rein melee swing that kills stuff thru walls. All that needs to go…cause it requires no aim git gud.

1 Like
338

I agree here cause they did the same to Roadhog with his hook around corners. It’s not the beam goes around corners its the latency and tics that make it feel like it goes thru walls or around corners like roadhogs hook used too. So fairs fair near that aspect of the gun but not the basic mechanic.

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339

Is soldier gonna have less life and shorter aim too?

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340

100% agree.

Devs have clearly sided with the part of the community that think no aim = no skill, so lets remove literally every ability that requires no aim, and replace every hero’s weapon with either McCree Peacekeeper (for DPS), Orisa’s Fusion Driver (for tanks) or Ana’s Biotic Rifle (for Supports).

With these extremely healthy and diverse changes we will finally live in a purely skill based utopia.

2 Likes
341

its the low life and dodging aspect really but you need the auto-lock to compensate for your required mobility or your dead with less life then everyone else.

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342

its harsh I guess but you cant balance your game with a very small minority in mind

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Iconically triggering.

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Um yes you very much can if those changes directly center on that very small portion.

Or are we just balancing everything now based on the largest section of the communtiy, even if it doesn’t affect them?

Moira is currently the most popular hero rn generally, shall we only ever ask the opinions of Moira players from now on and ignore everyone else?

345

hmmm… is is really about disabled people or just about symmetra having an autoaim weapon??
i do agree overwatch gives many playstyles and even people with disabilities may be able to find something right for them. but please don’t tell me symmetra is only played by such people. there is junkrat, mercy, moira or now newly added brigitte who also require little to none aim so even if symm turns out too hard for them i am pretty sure they will find a new substitution.

autoaim weapon itself has always been controversial, even if weak it is still really annoying to people and while it could be acceptable for characters in support category having autoaim pure dps hero would only enable even more toxicity (mind that we would speak ~30%accuracy dps vs 100% accuracy hero fights) or she would have to have really low dps as a tradeoff meaning she still wouldn’t be played and her being more played is the whole point of her rework.
with how support characters are understood after these two years there is no place for none-healing hero in support category. and other categories are not good for characters with weapon as hers.

and honestly it more feel like it’s not about disable people but about all of you able people being afraid of having to aim.

346

i say it again and again this post was not about disabeld people its just another point on a long list why we should keep autolock on

4 Likes
347

Look. If you’re not willing to give it a chance np just uninstall and go. You don’t have to play this game if it makes you unhappy.

Keep your passive aggressive attitude to yourself.

1 Like