Yeah I heard about that and I hoped it was a mistake. How consistently can you get the 180 dps going? And even so, is it safe?
If she’s ENTIRELY reliant of having a zarya bubble or an orisa shield, how is she supposed to even be utilized?
Like great, the TP is nice and all, but…
Thinking about it, here’s the main reason WHY Symmetra needs more than 200 health now. Because before the rework, with her auto-lock, Symmetra’s 200 health was kindof OK in most cases, because she could jump around like a rabbit and be really hard to hit, while still autolocking her damage. Now however, when you have to aim so precisely, playing symmetra you cannot jump around if you hope to land any damage at all. Because you’re unable to jump around to make yourself a more difficult target to hit, means you get hit that much more, and with only 200 health, you’re basically just a DVA without her mech.
This sentence right here with the smiley just set me off; if that was your intention, super effective cause that worked.
How in the world are we going to live long enough with 200 hp and NO SHIELD or escape skill!? You guys basically made a weak Zarya with 3 sentries, a weird Reaper teleport, and a wall you can only use every minute!! Why is this Hero even called Symmetra anymore?
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I never quite understood why Symmetra does not have a charge meter like Zarya. It’s a nice QoL change for her because you can see how fast it is charging and how slow she loses her charge.
Since they made her beam weaker, I won’t be surprise if they increase her shield pool by 25-50 points more to compensate.
Because Zarya gun damage is multiplied by her charge level, while Symmetra gun have specific tiers it can reach. So, while Zarya can have 30 charge and will deal 130% damage, or 40 charge and deal 140% damage, Symmetra gun will always be at one of those stages. She don’t ramp up linearly like Zarya.
While the beam itself and the sound serves to indicate charge, in her gun itself there are some lights in the gun itself that tells you which level it is.
After Jeff made that initial Dev update saying Sym only need minor buffs, I thought we were in good hands. But now it is VERY clear to me that the Devs do NOT understand how Symmetra works.
Symmetra’s Weapon
Sym is a MELEE hero, part DPS, part Support-Utility and part Tank-Utility.
Her Secondary fire should always be unreliable.
Her Secondary Fire should PIERCE Barriers and Enemies and should be her primary way to deal with Barrier comps, whereas her Primary should be her Primary way to deal with Dive Comps (by Dive comps I mean just Flankers and also Flanker-based comps).
By switching the roles of the Primary and Secondary fire, you have thrown her Weapon OFF-BALANCE.
She no longer counters Dive Comps with Primary and No longer Counters Barrier comps with Secondary Fire. She kinda counters Barrier comps with Primary now but you’ve made her more NICHE by removing the Auto-Lock of her Primary, which prevents her from countering Dives.
Symmetra’s Personal Barrier
Symmetra should have a Barrier in regular play to help her survive.
Photon Barrier was awesome for this. You could block all kinds of stuff that you cannot block with the new Barrier like lethal damage and potentially lethal Hooks and Stuns and other CC, and you could it ALL THE F’ING TIME!
You didn’t have to wait for a Ult, you just spammed the Photons out of that Barrier.
Symmetra’s Ultimates
She was also the only hero to create Secondary Points of Contention via her Ultimates (Teleporter and Shield Gen). These Ultimates not only gave her extra survivability but also created unique gameplay and unique stragies through creating secondary objectives for the enemy to go after.
The ONLY Change that was Necessary and NEEDED
… was the Turrets.
Flying Turrets is what Symmetra needed because Turrets were the only skill that was difficult to get value out of on Attack. It was Sym’s only Defensive Skill that was clumsy and often risky AF.
So Flying Turrets… GREAT JOB ON THAT GUYS! - This is the ONLY change Symmetra needed.
Everything else… no… completely unnecessary and changes the entire Hero.
Conclusion
NO more Primary Lock-On Beam, NO more Piercing Orbs, NO more Flying Barriers, NO more TP/SHield gen Ult and Secondary Objectives…
NO more Symmetra…
What you have here is not Symmetra but Sanjay or some other hard-light architect, who really needs to be made into Hero 28.
The fact that this was even considered as a legit rework and was given the art and sound treatment, completely BAFFLES me and turns my face red as I face palm again and again after watching this dung-faced rework of a Hero whose DEPTH we fell in LOVE with.
Look I enjoy what Sanjay is bringing to OW. I enjoy the Team Reapersitioning he offers (in practice) and I enjoy the mechanics of his Great Barrier (in theory). But let’s not pretend that this is Symmetra.
Further Reading
Open the thread to see more in-depth.
On Symmetra’s Identity and How to Preserve it when working on a Rework!
On the Power of the Flying Photon Barrier and Why it needs to STAY!
Symmetra Buffs that would have made her AWESOME but not OP!
Why I am Angry at this Rework!
Why Sanjay is not Symmetra!
What We Want!
Aha… ahahaha…ahahahahahaha!!!
Oh… these forums just kill me sometimes 
Never change OW forums… never change…
I still think her primary fire is going to be a problem because it has the same issues her old primary had but now it’s worse. Her old primary fire could gain charge off of barriers as well, so how is making the charge longer on her primary fire gonna help her out? Adding 2.5m range to her primary fire doesn’t really make much of a difference especially now that it no longer locks on. The problem is still staying alive in order to make use of your fully charged primary fire.
Compared to other close range DPS she’s at a huge disadvantage. Reaper already does a lot of damage up close and he doesn’t need a 4 second charge to achieve max damage. Mei disables her opponents by slowing and freezing them which sets them up for the kill. They both also have 250hp (which I think symm needs) to make up for the fact that they fight up close. But the biggest advantage they have is that they have an escape during the fight, reaper can use wraith form to escape and Mei can use cryofreeze and her ice walls to get out. Symm has none of that since her photon barrier was removed. Her TP is slow to set up (it’s the equivalent of using shadow step during a fight, not a good idea and will get u killed more than likely). If symm is gonna keep the primary fire as is, I’d say she needs at least 250hp (maybe 50hp or 50 more shields). Or a passive that lets her shield health regenerate when she damages barriers.
Remember this is a team game, not a game of 1v1s. She’s a defense hero. Played alongside a main tank and with Support players she’ll have enough sustain and range to VERY quickly drive off flankers and easily enough DPS to burn down enemy shields from behind a Rein Shield. She makes Brigitte useless in a 1v1 anyway as she gains charge from and obliterates her shield to cook her alive at full charge and full ammo when her shield is down. It’s one of the only things going forward that is equipped to deal with her outside of mirror comp. The good part of this is that Tracer at least is well equipped to delete Symmetra in the backlines before she can get her down. So the rock-paper-scissors is complete:
Zero-skill (Brig) beats skill (Tracer)
Some-skill (Sym) beats Zero-skill (brig)
skill (Tracer) beats Some-skill (Sym)
It’s like the unholy trinity or something.
God no. In-combat health regen is already one of the stupidest mechanics in the game currently. The fact that Brigitte has that (no matter how small) is one of the reasons she is broke as all hell.
oh believe me, her ult is crazy op. I’ve used it numerous times to shield my team off from ulting soldiers, mccrees, etc. I think i even got a pharah to kill herself with her ult, idk
As for the health, considering the fact that it only lasts around 10-15 seconds, it’s not too weak imo, especially because it’s never been destroyed.
I’m well aware this is a team it’s always been a team game. If symm’s kit would have worked really well with her team (or vice versa, but u know teams don’t work well together in solo queue) she wouldn’t have needed 2 reworks. Her primary fire was one of her main issues at least in higher tiers or with players that have a clue what they’re doing.
Yeah… that’s because it didn’t work well with teams in either rework, and was kinda too strong with her initial 75 hp perma-shields. She provided so little utility to her team and was quite trivial to deal with as long as you weren’t playing in potato rank that she required this kind of rework. Now with skill being actually rewarded with her in the form of high DPS for good tracking, she’s a viable shield shredder and can also deal with Genji players as well if not better than before at higher levels. Her low-level cheese value may have dropped, but she’s certainly more applicable to higher level play.
I feel like you’re missing my point. Yes she does more damage, but old symm does a lot of damage once her beam charged up as well. The damage has never been the problem, she does good damage. The problem was getting the beam fully charged (which is now gonna take longer). The other problem was the range (which isn’t significantly improved) and the fact that symm is too squishy to be up close, especially with an uncharged beam and no more photon barrier. Other than being able to destroy barriers she still has the same problems with her primary fire.
I suppose the core issue with Sym is still unresolved then, which should be expected because that’s also what happened with the 2.0 .
Changing the hero to intentionally fit a meta use was never a good idea, especially now seeing that it won’t be useful in of itself.
The thing that makes DPS good is that they can do their job on their own, which she absolutely CANNOT do. Unless her turrets have significantly more health, or she gets temporary shields when she does damage with her primary fire, this rework will leave her exactly where she was.
Which is super unfortunate, because I don’t think Support Sym couldn’t be saved.
Also, I think it is in fact you who is the one who is missing the point. That’s EXACTLY what the projected barrier did on a smaller scale. The projected barrier was much more efficient, and you could nuke Pharahs, Reinhardts, etc. with it - a very skillful defensive counterplay. Now, with that being made an ultimate, the kit is dramatically worse. She has no way to truly protect herself. And it was very useful that the photon barrier would move. The ult can be walked through to circumvent it, making it awful on modes except for assault (sometimes) and control (sometimes).
For instance people are really underestimating the ramifications of being able to shoot your turrets forward.
Certainly this would’ve been a nice change to the base support sym kit, alongside the 2-second charge duration and slightly faster m2 balls. But there were so many alternatives that could’ve been tried. Even TP as an ability could’ve been tried, with a more powerful but temporary shield gen as an ult.
I’m sorry about this, it’s likely that she’ll be unusable except in comps totally structured around her (such as Bastion). So, obviously a Zarya for the projected barrier, a Orisa for the mobile base-of-operations from which she can safely melt other shields, and baguette for the perma-extra-health. You can play the hanzo for the second dps and the mercy for the rez and the good heals and have somewhat of an efficient lineup. But like, that’s not winning a single OWL game. Maybe even playing her in dive is a better idea than playing her in a ball comp, who knows?
But the problem with playing her in dive is that the initial damage certainly isn’t high enough.
Give this a thought:
So now the integrity of these attacks has been maintained. 120 DPS isn’t exactly low, but now she can now do the job very efficiently while maintaining the lockon. Obviously to remove her support status the ults have to go, but that doesn’t mean the protective barrier does - it added so much nuance that is now totally absent except for the bad wraith form that she can grant to her team.
Now if you want her to be more consistent, increase the base damage per tick so she charges symmetrically (40/80/120). Cool. And also maintain charge for 2 seconds instead of one. That’s 2.5 seconds to kill a 200 hp hero at no charge initially, and 1 3/4 seconds to kill one when fully charged. Equivalent to before, but slightly improved on the initial end.
For her to be comparable to brawlers, she needs a way to gain shields. If her shield generator is done away with, it could be advisable for her to gain barrier for every tick she deals. Maybe 5 per tick, capping at 100, so she can get up to 300 hp. Decaying at the same speed as DF.
Now she’d have a powerful anti-deathball secondary fire that charges in 1 second and deals a crap ton of damage, while moving at an acceptable speed. And a primary fire that’s good in close quarters, eats barriers, and gives her defense. You can even have her glow all light blue like Zarya to indicate that she’s protected.
And the turrets are powerful and can be placed at a distance. Now, in my original suggestions for sym 3.0 I discussed compressing photon barrier into the turrets. And I still think that’s a good idea now, seeing as they could very efficiently share an animation. 8 second recharge on the turrets/barrier. Gotta choose between protecting yourself efficiently or doing the extra damage (turrets can deal 5/4* more damage, and have 50 hp, to compensate for her 33% less damage at the higher end).
Now, a mobile TP on E. Great. And then for the ult? Who knows! Maybe a 15-second shield gen that gives everyone 100 shields.
Same abilities, more fluid kit, better outcome, same damage from her, an increase in usefulness in team fights, and greater utility across the board.
Now, even with the new ult this can work by removing the photon barrier. It’s ok now because her new barrier generation on attack would make her able to survive in the CQC circumstances that she would be involved in.
So, as to the new 3.0, here’s what I say:
And then you can keep the rest of the kit the same, while still having a powerful sym that stays true to herself.
To those who make gigantic posts that come down to “Revert all the changes, then just make these few minor tweaks:” I’d propose giving up. They’re not going to rever Symmetra any more than they reverted Mercy. If you want any of your suggestions to carry weight, look to improving the current design. Like it or not, that’s what you have to work with.
For my own 2 cents, I’d personally make her weapon charge degrade slower. I’m fine with Symmetra’s primary weapon having a slow ramp-up mechanic, but it just doesn’t work with the timing as it is right now, I don’t think. With her charge level timers doubled and her barrier removed, I just don’t find it realistic, unless you derp charge off of people’s barriers.
I’d recommend significantly lengthening her decay timers, say up to 5 seconds before she drops down a level, as opposed to 2. It lets Symmetra build up and maintain charge in combat without constantly dropping down to nothing.
If improving her design: just make her ult shield last, until destroyed.
I don’t get this argument. Yes, it takes twice as long to lose charge, but it also takes twice as long to gain charge. If you’re not very accurate, you’re not getting much charge to lose anyway.
This is especially a problem with her lack of survivability. She could be landing the laser with robotic accuracy and still die before it his max power.
But we can still make noise. And that’s important.
#SaveSymmetra
Certainly, but it’s also important to realise that that can and almost always does backfire. I’ve been through this cycle many times before with many other games, and the simple fact of the matter is that developers WILL grow to ignore loud noise over time. When the same argument is made with no variation over and over again, it stops being a exercise of “hear their suggestions” and more so an exercise of “spot the revert noise.”
The idea that "the squeaky wheels get the grease does not work in public relations. When dealing with people, those who make the most noise are typically in the minority and feel compelled to make the most noise to make up for this. Sure, that’s not always the case - sometimes players really do come together to make their displeasure known, but that’s rare and requires exceptional circumstances. The kerfuffle around Battlefront didn’t just happen because players were unhappy. It blew up because it was Star Wars that players were unhappy with.
I can tell you from experience in dealing with developers in the past: The more you try to stonewall them and insist on your vision of balance, the more they’re going to stonewall you back and simply not listen. The Overwatch forums are a SIGNIFICANT echo chamber which gives people the illusion that whatever their personal opinion is represents a silent majority, but for the most part this isn’t the case. If you want to affect change, you need to work WITH the developers and strike a compromise.
To put it bluntly - asking for a revert of changes which have had art assets made for them will not work. Not outside of extraordinary circumstances, which I simply don’t see here. The new Symmetra is fine. Could be better, could be worse, but she’s certainly not in such a dire state as to burn the development time put into her without a damn good reason, and “It sucks, change it back.” just isn’t a good enough reason.
Noise almost never gets things done on its own.
They made art assets for the Beam and Ball and Turrets. Those art assets can all stay.
The Great Barrier art assets can go to Sanjay, another Hard-light architect.
The voice line - yehi param vastavikta hai - is really cool and could be added as a Legendary Voice Line.