2.0 definitely had faults, no sugar coating there, but when you took the time to learn her you knew exactly how Symmetra could fit into a team and why she was a valid pick.
She was the support that protected the healers. She was the support for the supports who needed to assist their team with damage and who just got tired of playing mommy. Her ults were a boon to her team and a beautiful taunt and forced secondary objective for the enemy to be preoccupied with. She made Genji squirm and before Dva got missiles she ate her up - popular heroes who come in every match. She could shield and protect herself and her team on the spot. There’s several reasons why choosing 2.0 was valid even with her weaknesses.
Now with 3.0, there’s nothing Symmetra could do that warrants her place that other heroes can do better and more efficiently. Choosing her feels like saying “I know there’s better heroes for the job but I just love Symmetra sorry” now. It really sucks.
Eh, I would play her over Reaper if I did not love Reaper. Better TP, better ultimate, more DPS, more range, more utility. The only aspect he has over her is immediate burst damage which is nice because I love shooting at heads.
They killed her fantasy she was the light bending architect shield and barrier support now shes just another generic dps with worse versions of other hero abilities
Yes she was, her tp was practically mass rez and her sg gave her team 75 extra hp permanently unless its destroyed. That and her dmg, she was pretty good.
No truer words have ever been said.
Sym is terrible at everything does.
She is the only hero where every SINGLE ability has cast times.
And all her abilities are on 10s cool downs.
With low health, no mobility and one of her weapons being short range.
In a high speed fast paced game.
Seriously,
HOW MUCH VODKA WAS DRANK THAT NIGHT WHEN THEY MADE SYM 3.0?!
Russia must have been dry for a Month after the Symmetera 3.0 fail creation party.
This applies to 2.0 more tbh. 3.0 on the current patch is weaker but at least with 3.0 there’s the 0.01% chance that you need tele for cheese. With 2.0 there was basically never a time where you would want a Sym over another character assuming equivalent skill, and this includes the other chronic f tiers.
To counter entrenched Bastion strats. No, she can’t outdamage a pocketed Bastion, but from personal experience, when Bastion get hit behind the shield, they always assume they are under risk, and swap form to move out. That is usually enough that allow your team to move in and start the fight. Also, her barrier was sturdy enough that in certain maps would allow safe approach while saving up the barriers and defensive abilities of your teammates.
To counter Genji. Hands down, Symmetra was the best Genji counter in the game. His shurikens are terrible to get rid of her turrets, Shield Gen makes him require an extra slash to off targets with Deagonblade, and Sym’s beam would make him think twice before jumping into the backline and risk dying.
To break chokepoints. So, if your team is stuck at Hanamura gates for a full minute, without being able to pass through Orisa/Rein stalwart defense? Get Sym and just throw some orbs that way. Once people get hit by the orb once or twice, they stop thinking the zone behind the shield is safe, and move out, creating space for your team to approach.
Alternatively, you just farm your ultimate ASAP, then place shield gen in a stupid place just outside the chokepoint, to force the enemy to overextend trying to break it. This worked more times than it should had.
Best support for 5 DPS quick play strats. No, I’m not being sarcastic. Shield Gen was basically a global range ultimate that highly improved the survivability of squishies. It have diminishing returns the more sturdy your team is, so a team of 5 DPS playing QP would heavily benefit from +75 regenerating health. AoE healers like Lúcio would require them to play grouped up (and 5 DPS strats do not group up), while single target healers would have half their team outside LoS most of the time and could only pocket one person a time. After Brigitte’s release, they shared that spot for the brief moment before Sym was reworked.
Last, but not least, when my hand was hurting badly, and I wanted to play without making major wrist movements. Symmetra was the only hero in the game that didn’t relied on precise aim even sporadically, and don’t need to make sudden movements at all to be played. I’m not suffering to the point of being considered legally disabled, but I have my episodes where my hand simply can’t make fine movements, and being able to still play while not exerting major pressure in my ligaments was a boon.
I hope five reasons is enough for you. After a good sleep I might remember more.
Nibelung said it perfectly. Not to mention, you really think 3.0 has the upper hand in tp strats? No. First of all, 3.0 tp is USELESS when nobody has their interact bound or outright ignore it. 2.0 at least allowed Symmetra to get to the point 6 times if nobody bothered to help themselves. 2.0 also used tp as a point saver and a surprise sneak cap - good luck trying to have that kind of power with 3.0, which can’t even use tp out of grav.
2.0 had valid reasons for choosing her even with her being a victim of power creep - 3.0 is just a Frankenstein copy cat mashup that requires far too much effort for too little reward, literally the only reason for choosing 3.0 is because you like Symmetra.
I personally never felt her fantasy was fully achieved until 3.0. I never really saw her as a support character. It didn’t really fit her personality nor did it make sense that her teleporter was an ultimate ability. Shield gen was super random and didn’t make sense for her character imo. I always thought she could have been more interactive if her teleporter was used more often and dynamically and was overjoyed with her 3.0 design. Her photon barrier being infinite completely fits the character and is such a cool voice line and animation.
That’s just my take though. Totally get why people loved her 2.0 design and fantasy.
Go through her comic we see someone that would rather weaken than kill and protect over harm we see her cradle a child to protect her from burning rubble thats the Sym i fell for not another DPS bouncing around with her TP. 2.0 needed alot of tweaks she didnt need to be removed from the game.
I feel like that’s still her though. Personality-wise I don’t think the changes in her kit altered her in that regard. Her kit is still very utility-based.
Sym 2.0 was the most unique hero in the game nobody can deny that she was (at the time) the only non tank with a barrier the only hero with a non ability attack that could pierce shields, only one with two ultimates.
so much of her unique flavor was sacrificed and for what? her pickrate and winrate went down the community toxicity still hasn’t budged, a good amount of people had a hero they loved to play taken away from them because they lack the physical ability to track, a large amount of the people that used to love and play Sym cant play her not for lack of ability to aim but because they just cant stand that she was totally redesigned.
She doesn’t feel like Sym to me anymore she feels like Frankensym a mishmash of other heroes and her core issues are still there infact they were made worse 2.0 had one instant value ability her barrier 3.0 has none everything is long windup with underwhelming payoff.
Would you just stop, Beam lost its lock, Orbs lost their pierce, are you actually serious with that tp tripe? just because it has the same skin doesn’t mean its the same ability they function nowhere near the same, turrets are the one good thing about her but they even messed that up because the turrets do most of her work they put even more emphasis on them instead of on her.
Sym 2.0 could be balanced very easily they just either couldn’t be bothered or (and this is the one im going with) nobody on the dev team actually plays Sym so they have no connection to her had no idea how she felt to play and have no issue deleting her and replacing her with something else because it was easier.
A good thing.
It’s still the only weapon that charges up and gains ammo from barriers.
Yeah? And they gained damage and speed.
Who else has an ability that teleports a team 25 meters?
Well. They always were her main point.
2.0 had 0 damage without them.
Are you sure about that?
How. How could you balance her?
Tell me. You who are a sym main. How do you balance sym 2.0 so that she works just as good on any map, both attack and defense, and at any rank on all 3 systems.