When I played supp Sym on in the experimental card I was like “nah that’s not it” and I started to be curious how my symmetra concept I posted one year ago would feel like.
There are already some people who tried to make her a support on the workshop so I wanted to do it as well.
I’ve never used the workshop before so the main work was copy-and-paste and adjust a few variables. It still took a lot of time.
I decided to take TTraw’s rework concept (VSFTD) and TheWorkshopr’s photon shields (Ct4y4) and start from there.
TTraw also made a few concepts which I like a lot. You can check them out here.
The workshop code is at the bottom of this post.
And FYI:
This post was made like 2 or 3 months ago and saved since then. I wanted to get trust level 3 before posting it. So anything OW2 related wasn’t public back then.
General:
- Shield HP reduced from 125 to 100
- Moved to support category
Reasons
100/100 is the ultimate symmetrical number. The change to 100/125 made Symmetra asymmetrical. They had to do it because Symmetra is bad as a DPS but as a support she doesn’t need those 25 shields anymore. Or make it 125/125 at least. Idc.
Known issues
- You can’t change hormal hp and shield hp indivudally resulting in a 87,5/112,5 split.
- I obviously can’t change her class ingame.
Primary Fire: Photon Projector
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Damage changed from 60/120/180 to 70/90/110
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Range increased from 12 to 14 meters
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Charge time reduced from 1.33 to 1 second
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Ammo increased from 70 to 100
Reasons
When it comes to her beam I like to compare it to Moira’s beam. She deals 50 damage at 20 meters range, with no reload, self heal and it’s easy to aim. Taking all of this into count I think 70/90/110 is reasonable considering she should still be able to deal decent damage for an off support.
Two more meters allow her to play more safely.
The last two changes are just reverts from the nerfs she got with the 3.0 rework.
Known Issues
- It is possible to change the damage of each tier but this would take a lot of time and skills I don’t have so her damage is roughly 37/73/110. It would also cause some bugs (more about this below).
- Range is still 12 meters.
- Charge time is still 1.33 seconds.
- Something I noticed really late is you can not change the damage of each ability individually. You can only change a hero’s overall damage. This caused some problems like orbs dealing less or turrets dealing more damage because beam, orbs and turrets each use a different damage modifier. I was not able to fix this entirely but it happens less often now.
Secondary Fire: Photon Projector
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Speed reduced rom 25 to 15 m/s
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No longer has AoE
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Can pierce through barriers and enemies again
Reasons
Yes I’m basically reverting her orbs to 2.0 orbs because these were very unique and useful in certain situations. But they were way too slow. That’s why I reduced the speed to 15 m/s and not 10 m/s like it used to be. They also keep the current charge time which is 1 second faster compared to 2.0 orbs. And they only consume 10 ammo instead of 20. So despite being a revert they are improved in many ways.
It’s also possible to keep the speed the same and reduce the damage to 70 or 80 instead.
Known Issues
- It’s not possible to make them pierce so they still explode.
E: Photon Shields
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Give 75 temporary shields to an ally
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After 1 second they start to decay at 25/s (they decay all at once unlike Lucio or Sigma shields)
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Each time shields decay, the ally is healed for 80% of the decayed amount (the max healing is 20/s → 60 over 3 seconds)
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Cooldown is 4 seconds
Reasons
This is her active support ability. It’s instant. It’s burst sustain. It actually supports. It doesn’t need any prepation to work. And it’s not AoE.
The biggest value are the instant 75 shields but on top of that it has the potential to give a small amount of healing after a while. This is necessary for her to become a support again.
Symmetra doesn’t have to be a main healer or focus around healing but she has to heal so she can bring people up to max health after a fight for example.
I don’t know if this ability is strong or weak. Additional HP sounds always strong on low hp flankers but the healing afterwards might still be too low. However, there are multiple ways to buff this ability if it doesn’t perform good enough.
Known Issues
- It seems like they always heal at 20/s if there are any shields left.
- They heal 20 at the end even when no shields are left.
- They don’t give ult charge.
- You can shield dead people.
Shift: Hard Light
- This is her construction mode. She can chose between Sentry Turret, Teleporter and Shield Generator
- Has 6 charges. Cooldown is 8 seconds
Reasons
This solves a few problems at the same time:
- It allows Sym to unite most of her abilities she had during 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 and therefore keep her identity as a builder support.
- Despite not creating any new abilities and only recycling old ones she can be a support even with low healing because her kit is stacked with support utility to compensate.
- It allows her to switch her setup depending on what is needed at the moment.
Known Issues
- You don’t press shift to switch between constructions. Primary → Teleporter, Secondary → Turret, Crouch → Shield Generator.
- Apparently a small delay is needed to make this whole ability work so it feels a bit clunky.
Shift: Sentry Turret
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Can deploy a max of 6 turrets instead of 3
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Damage reduced from 40 to 20
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Turrets prioritize enemies that got damaged by Photon Projector (like Torb turret)
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Travel speed increased from 15 to 30 m/s
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Health reduced from 30 to 1
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Costs 1 charge of Hard Light
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(MAYBE) Uses her old deploying animation again. Range increased to 20 meters. Self slow removed. Only if construction mode doesn’t work/feels weird with throwable turrets.
Reasons
These changes try to make her turrets stronger in high elo but weaker in low elo:
- The HP only matters in low elo where players struggle to destroy them. Removing the HP will only affect low elo then.
- Target priorizitation will matter in high elo the most because these players know who to focus. So there is a bit more skill needed to get the most value out of them.
- The increased speed will make them more effective on attack since she can’t teleport them anymore.
- Additionaly, the slow effect per turret remains the same allowing for stronger utility.
Known Issues
- It’s not possible to change the AI
- Deployment is still 3
- Health is still 30
Shift: Teleporter
- Works like 2.0 teleporter
- Can be placed up to 20 meters away
- Charges reduced from 6 to 1
- Costs 3 charges of Hard Light
Reasons
The main reason for this is that 3.0 TP should not stay in the game. Here is why.
Reasons why TP is bad
- Teleporter is overpowered and it can never be balanced. It has no counter play and is unstoppable in teams with high communication.
- Symmetra’s kit is balanced around her teleporter resulting in a DPS hero with horrible DPS abilities. They can’t buff the rest of her kit because she would be too strong in teams with high communication. This means current Sym is not only the best she’s ever been. Current Sym is also the best she‘s ever going to be as a DPS.
- On top of that she has no self agency over her own value because she needs her team to use the teleporter. Even if one player decides to not use the teleporter she’s underperforming and she can’t do anything about that. Playing Symmetra well is not skill. It’s pure luck. She suffers from the Sombra syndrome.
- Therefore, reverting TP back to spawn TP is a logical step because every other choice like making TP for Sym only is another step in deleting her identity. And at this point it’s better to rework her into a support again because spawn TP on a DPS doesn’t make sense.
Making TP work similar like rez gives her a really strong utility while not being nearly as much as problematic because of the delay.
Known Issues
- TP still works the same. It might be possible to spawn a teleportation area after placing TP (if something like this even exists idk) but this would take too much time. And the bots wouldn’t use it anyway. They don’t even use the real 3.0 TP (how realistic).
- While TP is active you can’t enter the construction mode without destroying it.
- It also gets destroyed if you use photon shields as both is on her E.
- You can place a TP with less than 3 charges resulting in negative charges. TTraw used a hero switch to prevent you from doing this but for some reason it didn’t work for me.
- If you try to place it in an invalid position you still loose charges.
Shift: Shield Generator
- Additional Shield HP reduced from 75 to 50
- Health reduced from 50/350 to 50/250
- Range reduced from 50 to 25 meters
- It shows the range now
- Can be placed up to 20 meters away
- Costs 3 charges of Hard Light
Reasons
SG was like the strongest utility of Sym 2.0 so it’s not suprising it should return. I had a few versions in mind:
- 75 shields but 15 meters
- 50 shields but 25 meters
- 25 shields but 40-50 meters
I wasn’t a fan of the first one because 75 shields is a lot but the low range would make it really hard to be useful. So it’s a very inconsistent but potentially OP ability and I didn’t want that.
The last one is too low. 25 shields is almost forgettable and the high range would encourage the player in leaving the fight and hiding it. Therefore it would be a lot more time consuming for the enemy to destroy it. So I went with the middle route. 50 shields are still noticeable and the range allows semi hiding but nothing insane. I think it’s a good balance.
Apart from this it might be better to change the shield amount from a number to a %-value. Additional HP came always with the problem that it’s OP on flankers but borderline useless on tanks. So everyone gets shields depending on their max HP.
Let’s say the value is 20%.
150 → 180 (+30)
600 → 720 (+120)
I don’t know how this acts in the game. We never had something like this before but it could be a lot more healthier.
And yes. I know there won’t be additional shields in OW2 anymore but this isn’t a problem. Just change all of this into overhealth.
Edit: After playing the beta I don’t know if permanent overhealth will ever be a thing in OW2. That’s a problem because temporary overhealth can not be healed. So SG would only give 50 HP once and be basically useless afterwads. That being said there are still possible ways to make it work:
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SG gives 50 overhealth once after being deployed. After that Symmetra can interact with SG to trigger a shield pulse which refreshes damaged overhealth back to 50. Cooldown could be 5 seconds. Effectively, this gives her and her team more burst sustain. This also makes her more active to play.
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After taking no damage for 3 seconds overhealth gets refreshed automatically. Could be mixed with the first one.
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SG no longer increases health and gives 20% damage resistence instead.
Known Issues
- SG is indestructable.
- It doesn’t really give shields. It just increases the current HP by X.
- There is weird interaction with Symmetra because her HP was already changed somwhere else resulting in 281 HP (even though it says 282).
- There is a bug that prevents you from getting the buff. If this happens you need to leave the aura for 5 seconds. Then you can get it again. This has something to do with the lingering effect ig.
- SG does not move when placed on moving objects like the payload.
- The placement isn’t very accurate when placing on high ground.
Ultimate: Photon Barrier
- Ult cost reduced by 10%
Reasons
Apart from the overwhelming visuals there is nothing wrong with the ultimate.
Additionaly I recorded some gameplay to see this Sym is action. Keep in mind this is against bots and I’m not playing optimal on purpose. The bots have a really weird behaviour which makes it hard play like in a real game.
The TP is unchanged but I still pretend like it works correctly. It might look a bit weird but use your imagination. I also place new SGs despite the old ones still being up to make it more realistic. The placement is a bit off sometimes but you should be able to guess where it was supposed to be placed. In a real game Sym would constantly reposition TP and SG because they were either destroyed, used or the point moved away.
Workshop Code: 58MVR
