Symmetra Rework Opinions from a Symmetra Main

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:

  • Sym 2.0 with new turrets and only three of them
  • 100% Faster secondary fire charge with old secondary fire (sped up 75%)
  • 2.0 primary fire that now also charges ammo off barriers and locks on.

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:

  • Revert secondary fire and maintain 2x charge speed but not 3x current projectile speed (do 1.5-2.0x instead for the projectile speed).
  • Give Symmetra a passive that grants her 5 barrier for every tick of her primary weapon fire (“Perfect Order”).
  • Revert range/damage/lock-on of primary fire but not its other properties, while slightly altering the damage to 40/80/120 dps so it’s more consistent on the base end.

And then you can keep the rest of the kit the same, while still having a powerful sym that stays true to herself.

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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.

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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.

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But we can still make noise. And that’s important.

#SaveSymmetra

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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.

You miss the point. Unless the result is a complete unplayable disaster, you’re not going to get a revert. The new Symmetra is not a complete unplayable disaster. Feel free to keep making noise, just don’t be surprised when nothing comes of it. “Noise” is easy to ignore.

This seriously needs to happen, Sym is now easily the most fragile close range hero.

Tbh what would be a really awesome idea is if they gave her a passive shield aura for herself and allies, and tied it to her charge level i.e.

  • level 1 = 25 shields, 25 meter range
  • level 2 = 50 shields, 50 m
  • level 3 = 75 shields, 75 m

Basically a walking shield gen that works like a reverse zarya.

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There is no “Defense” category on the PTR. She’s just a damage hero now.

That still doesn’t address the fact that there are plenty of other DPS heroes who are allowed to be capable without two pockets, but Symmetra for some reason needs to be overly reliant on her team just like when she was F-tier. She has to have some advantage over the DPS she’s competing against in certain situations, and historically, heroes that require too much synergy (Bastion, Sombra) don’t get picked over those who can do the same job without help (Soldier76, Tracer).

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This is what makes me turned off completely from playing the new Sym. The old barrier allowed for complex decisions from the player and required very careful cooldown management, choices about prioritization and usage, and could save a whole team from an ultimate. Every time I make Pharah kill herself or block a D.va ult with a perfectly timed barrier it feels so good, because I countered their ultimate with an ability. Countering an ultimate with another ultimate is an even exchange and in a way, the enemy got the advantage on you because they forced out your ultimate. If you counter an ability that effectively has a minute+ cool down with yours that has an 8 second one, that’s a massive win.

People saying the new barrier ult will be so great against ults don’t realize she already had something better.

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Would it be interesting, if Symmetra will be able to repair friendly shields?

If you need her to be that short range and that damage reliant make her more survivable

I know that. But remember everyone trying to shut us down when Geoff told us about the changes, saying “you haven’t even tried it on PTR, wait before complaining?”

I also told them all that the time before the changes hit PTR is the best time to complain about this kind of stuff, and got ignored.

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See, I guess I can more empathize with the Mercy crowd now. Though it was better for Mercy in the long run to be given the rez on a cooldown, this situation will not result in a similar benefit for sym.

Gotta wait for 4.0.

The PTR is such a waste, we already see the flaws with Symm’s current kit but she’s still gonna go live as is. It’s Mercy all over again. Why waste time with the PTR? A lot more character issues could probably be noticed and fixed quicker if we just skipped past the PTR phase or at least just made the testing phase a few days long (since bugs are usually discovered right away). No need to make it weeks long when no significant changes are ever really made.

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If you’re playing sym after the ptr for damage and not for utility you’re playing her wrong.

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If you were playing Sym before the PTR for damage and not for utility, you was playing her wrong as well.

But it’s not like people experimenting with Symmetra on PTR have some real experience with her previous kit and are trying to see which of her previous flaws were covered (pretty much only the short range turrets), and not trying her for the first time right now, right?

I like this idea actually, though I think the range should stay modest. like a bit bigger than Lucio’s aura. However, it still doesn’t solve the issue of Sym needing help to get there. She has no gap closing abilities or abilities that would help her reach tier 3 :confused: