Sym is definitely less hated than she used to be. There were basically three things people didn’t like about Sym 1.0 and 2.0: Temporary Health (shields), Turrets, and a lock-on weapon. Two of those things are gone with 3.0.
And no, it’s far more than streamers that have issues with Symmetra. She’s always going to be hated to some degree as long as her turrets are so essential to her kit. Look at the overwhelmingly well-received Torbjorn rework to see an example of it done right.
They could do something like strip the damage from her turrets, keep the slow, increase the recharge rate and number of active turrets (while capping the max slow effect), and then pump power into her beam and give her Zarya range for starters.
I don’t know that I fully agree with this, I see far more people asking for Sym to be buffed then I see complaining about her (I do agree she needs a buff tho)
Sombra on the otherhand, while she is viable higher up, a lot of people want her nerfed into the ground despite being trash on ladder, I feel like if the community was holding back heroes, Sombra wouldn’t be viable in OWL
My bet is they don’t have a Sym Streamer who brings them a lot of revenue the same way there are other streamer who main different heroes (who are viable and get to be powerful)
I would like to see what happens if they get rid of her sentry damage entirely and have sentries generate charge and ammo for her weapon and buff the weapon itself. More range, faster orbs, no more auto aim damage.
Then she would be less annoying for low levels to play against and have more power at higher ranks, solving both problems at the same time. It would please genji mains no doubt, but her beam is still a decent weapon against them.
Counterargument: The chorus of old Symmetra mains who openly advocate for the return of 1.0 and/or 2.0 and ruthlessly drag 3.0 in public is holding her back.
Remove her stupid turrets and give her a more interesting ability.
Turrets dont belong in this game and are a crutch for bad players to lean on but also gatekeep the hero from being good above metal ranks as higher ranks will rain fire on Blizzard if turrets become meta.
I. REALLY WANT that 16 meter buff on her Primary Fire. It might need a little toning down to like, 15, but overall provides Sym the ability to charge up her beam at safer distances, and not have to get up in the enemies face to damage them.
Overall though, when it comes to making Primary Fire more consistent; I’d increase it’s range, and increase its’ level 1 damage, maybe even level 2. In return, we could reduce her max damage a little. Sym’s primary fire right now is essentially feast or famine with it’s low beam width, inconsistent damage and slow “setup”.
When it comes to Secondary Orbs, a potential approach could be to increase it’s movement speed, and allow Symmetra to indefinitely hold the orb, so she has more control over when it’s fired so it’s not as predictable.
I’m at a loss for Turrets and Teleporter though… A buff TP could get might be lowering it’s casting time, so it deploys in 1-1.5 second from 2 so it’s not so slow. I still can’t think of anything for turrets though. That seems like one of her trickier parts of her kit.
except orbs aren’t even spam. they’re just bad period.
like what kind of spam weapon fire has a sniper-tier low fire rate?
and what kind of aimed weapon fire (indicated by low fire rate) has one of the slowest projectile speeds in the game making it physically infeasible to aim in most ranges (they’re that slow making it really easy to retroactively dodge a fired shot)?
like legit, devs can easily renumber orbs around being a faster projectile while still keeping a low-ish firerate and on the bursty side of things, and immediately it’d help sym a TON while making it not spam (actually aimable) and any benefit from such a change will legit be skill based.
I think they’re moreso support mains that casually played old sym and want a new support so bad that they’re willing to sacrifice an existing hero for one. like a lot of old sym mains kinda left and a lot of old sym players were support mains.
disclaimer: I’m a support main that mained old sym and I much prefer 3.0 over old sym so I’m like an outlier guess…
I mean, I get nostalgia, but back in the 1.0 days Sym mains were straight reported off the planet, and 2.0 was basically spamming shields at choke instead of spamming orbs, from what I remember. I don’t miss that as all, and I default to 3.0 on dps because I like being aggressive.
They are slow, massive hitbox orbs. At anything past close range it is shooting in the general direction of people. I would call that spam, just like junkrat.
Sure the devs can make changes to the orbs, tho if they move faster they need less dmg and/or a smaller hitbox, but as of now its still spam.
and as spam they’re bad because their dps is 120/(1s charge up + 0.25s wind down) = 96dps of which is lower than a body shotting mercy pistol (100dps). esp when you further factor in the inconsistency of sym orbs proven above.
meanwhile junkrat, pharah etc. actual spammy weapon fires achieve way higher dps due to higher firerate.
they don’t need to touch the damage on orbs. as shown above, they have less dps than a body shotting mercy pistol. sure they can be smaller for being able to move faster, but it needs to be actually aimable considering the sniper-tier charge time on them.
because it makes literally 0 sense to have a low rate of fire weapon fire while also making it physically, inherently and highly inconsistent.
teleporter is the problem, to be honest.
its such an insanely strong ability in coordinated settings, that you simply have to keep the whole rest of her kit subpar.
imagine a hero who is a good DPS like ashe or mccree, but also hast this teleporter.
that hero would be completely busted at high ranks and professional.
but since the whole power of the teleporter comes from team coordination, and the rest of her kit is meh, of course she is weak in uncoordinated play. thats just a logical consequence.
so either they have to get rid/nerf teleporter and buff her kit, or she will forever be weak.
turrets arent a problem on their own, her weapons arent either, and her ult definitely not as well. if teleporter wasnt a thing, all of those other things could be buffed, and teleporter replaced with something that doesnt let her full team skip chokes with a low cooldown and readily available at the start of any match.
Which wouldn’t be so bad if they reasonably buffed the consistency of her kit. Buffing the range on her primary Fire by like 2 meters and reducing the ramp up time from 1.33 to 1.25 seconds and increasing the projectile speed on her Secondary Fire by like 15% would go a long way without making her overpowered.
