With the removal of 2CP in OW2, I wonder if symmetra will even be viable anymore.
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its not played on ladder, but if the gold/plat symm players cry hard enough for a buff (and Blizzard listens) itll be played at higher elo’s making main tank even less fun because mei will be played along the symm.
This mentality be like “We dont need Sombra changes because OWL pros did some amazing plays with her”
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Symmetra really is fine, both on the ladder and in high tier play. It is quite admirable what the pros can do with her, albeit it took them a long time to come to it. This sort of gameplay was posited by the likes of Seagull right as 3.0 rework was implemented, but it took a long time for it to manifest itself.
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It is not the Sym but the Mei. Mei ruins everything she touches.
ok then balance every hero to that draconian standard.
won’t be fun because it’s unreasonable to expect randomly chosen teams to work like a well oiled machine and even when they are coordinated there’s still plenty of room for variability/error? exactly. and exactly the reason why sym isn’t balanced right.
like go ahead and nerf the flankers’ mobility and burst to sym’s standard whereby they need team pockets to get uptime and let’s see how well they do and how fun they are.
or lets nerf ranged heroes’ effective range and burst to sym’s standard whereby they need team pockets to get uptime, and lets see how well they do and how fun they are.
aside from the various amount of counterability to tp (even team tps) in general to the point whereby pros need to rely a lot on a very specific comp and very specific maps with a strategy specifically built around enabling it, pretty sure there’s more than enough room to net buff her.
esp considering the path to do that is so obvious to anyone that has a clue about sym’s kit:
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I’m sorry. Why? Cuz some professional video game players can make it work? I don’t care about them in the slightest. Sym should be fun and powerful for everyone.
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Theyre keeping KOTH so yes
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Seagul (spelling?)
Did say the only thing she needs is a secondary Velocity buff. I am inclined to agree.
Is it really “draconian” to expect your team to try to work together? It’s not like we’re playing a single player game here.
No one is saying your team should work like a well oiled machine. Going to the other end of the extreme and saying it’s perfectly fine for your team to make zero effort to work together would be equally as unreasonable. You don’t need a “well oiled machine” to make Sym work, but she will definitely excel if your team is playing that well together on rare occasion. Still worth playing her even with just average teamwork.
Unless you want heroes to be generic there are going to be some heroes that require more team coordination/grouping up than others. Not every hero is designed to excel when their team is spread out, some heroes are designed to excel when their team groups up. It sounds like you want a more self sufficient Symmetra, which would likely look like a very different hero kit-wise.
Maybe a buff wouldn’t break her, but until the devs signal that and prove it you’re making your own assertions.
She is fun & powerful for everyone just like Sombra herself. There’s both otp Sym & Sombra’s in 4400 SR on ladder
Just have to be actually invested in time played on those heroes
it’s draconian to expect your team to pocket you into effective range and stay there to get uptime due to the very fact that her own tools to get such uptime have been trashed so hard.
sym objectively right now has
- low effective range (yes even when including her
orbs) - low burst
- low mobility (she’s the only one with 2s delay for mobility + one of the longest effective down time on the mobility ability; no team is staying in 1 area long enough for infinite duration to matter esp post shield nerf and esp moving into OW2 with 1 less tank, mobility creep and tanks being made more brawly i.e. in enemy face more)
- and no way in hell the sustain that compensates all those lows.
This is completely contrary to the very large majority of the hero cast inclusive of other “utility dps” and even supports.
Plenty of heroes have mobility compensating low range, or longer range to compensate low mobility so that they can independently get into their effective range often enough.
Plenty of heroes have burst compensating their low sustain or more sustain to compensate being sustain damage so that they can independently live long enough in effective range to get reasonable value.
So yes. It IS a draconian standard you are talking about for sym.
Yes it IS like the previous analogies mentioned:
- you’re acting like plenty of heroes aren’t very self sufficient already
- you’re also acting like the vast majority of self sufficient heroes don’t also have niches
like e.g. do tell me how lucio’s niche isn’t grouped up comps. also tell me how he’s not able to get independently get uptime by utilising speed boost + wall right boosts too catch allies into his aura instead of having them slow down for lucio to apply aura on them. or likewise with moira.
or tell me how widow’s niche isn’t long sightline maps with highground. and tell me how she’s not capable of getting into and staying in sniper spots on her own.
etc.
The fact of the matter is, the standard of how much you can expect from your team reasonably isn’t high. And the fact of the matter is, sym rn is being balanced to a much worse/stricter standard than the vast majority of the cast, and that’s why she isn’t balanced right.
pretty sure actual midrange orbs + tp being better for self mobility as the base core requirements isn’t “very different hero kit-wise”.
very well grounded, empirically supported assertions. anyone remember how sym was underperforming for a long time before they decided to nerf her core uptime tool tp with infinite tp nerf and then followed by nerfs on almost all of the rest of her kit?
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I disagree both with the idea that you need a “constant team pocket” to make Sym work in most scenarios and also that her kit has been trashed. Does she do better if your team is coordinated? Definitely. But do you need a “constant team pocket” to play her? No. Sym is probably more viable now than ever before.
No I’m not… I specifically said some heroes are designed to excel with teams that aren’t tightly grouped up (meaning to some degree they’re self sufficient, examples being Tracer/Soldier/Mercy/Widow)
When did I say anything like that? What I said was that some heroes require more grouping up than others to excel, like Lucio which you mention next
Lucio & Moiras niche is with grouped up comps. I’ve never claimed otherwise. Here’s what I said
You’re comparing apples & oranges… a counter point would be that you wouldn’t want to pick Widow if you don’t have good sightlines and/or are being counter picked. No hero is a do everything hero
She’s never been “balanced right” by those standards, she’s always been particularly niche, it’s why she’s had multiple major changes to her kit since launch. As I said, you want a more self sufficient Sym which would likely look like a significantly different hero kit-wise considering her previous self sufficient iterations haven’t worked well, something different needs to be done. Alas, her balance is always going to be determined by what highly coordinated teams can do with her, like every hero is. If she was given significant buffs she could become a must pick for coordinated teams. It’s the same reason Sombra & Brig don’t see any buffs. They’re extremely strong the more coordinated your team is. Issue is most of ladder isn’t or doesn’t want to be coordinated so they don’t seem as good as they actually are. I don’t really see a solution without reworking the hero somehow
That wouldn’t be too different, but it’s yet to be determined if that would be balanced. We already had something like this before and she wasn’t balanced then either. Prior to TP becoming infinite she wasn’t as much of a team enabler and was pretty harshly countered/outclassed by most of the roster. At the very least, Infinite TP gave her a much greater ability to enable her team.
While you may not like it, her TP changes were not straight nerfs. In truth her TP changes are probably the biggest reason she’s seeing play right now. Prior to her TP changes she didn’t enable her team nearly as much to change positions and control a larger area of space. Seeing her in action with both teams playing her was pretty awesome if you ask me.
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Yeah cuz sym is very ez.
then you’re objectively delusional.
she objectively has been nerfed yet you’re arguing “she’s more viable now than before”.
she objectively has very poor tools to get uptime of which she objectively needs the team to fill the gap for her to get uptime, that or the enemies being bad, of which is already an objectively poorer standing compared to other heroes.
and I’m pointing out how the vast majority of heroes are vastly more self sufficient than sym is being balance to
i.e. to spell it out for you, I’m pointing out how the degree of self sufficiency that most other heroes are being balanced to (even the supports and “utility dps”) are a lot higher than sym.
right here 
lucio is a counter example as he has mobility to catch people in his aura range. moira was a counter example before the nerfs for similar reasons. bap’s a counter example as he has range to compensate his lower mobility to heal, dps, lamp, etc., and there’s more counterexamples.
all of them have the niche of grouped up comps, but no way is that niche narrow/strict, no way are they so dependent for respective jobs uptime like sym is for hers. no way do they perform as bad as sym outside of dedicated grouped up comps, and are much more generic and applicable overall because they can get uptime for their respective jobs themselves more.
and this is just talking about the niche of grouped up comps. not even going into other niches yet.
the point remains, the vast majority of heroes are being balanced to a higher standard of self sufficiency, regardless of what their niche is e.g. even if they are designed to be grouped up.
nice work at strawmanning and going off on a tangent when then point being made is how widow, as an example, is capable of getting into her effective ranges and angles for uptime on her own.
that’s disingenuous as they’ve never actually provided anything reasonable to her in her previous iterations
- her iterations before 3.0 literally didn’t have any tools to get uptime herself. at best one could argue her old shield was half a solution.
- her iterations post 3.0 had the self sufficiency tools in design, but literally never had decent numbers and they even went backwards with the design direction with infinite tp nerf.
like no 
they haven’t managed to do it before if they’re blatantly self sabotaging themselves, that or they’re just incompetent.
seriously, wtf are you on about? please elaborate.
infinite tp is objectively a nerf.
it’s a massive nerf on effective down time as easily demonstrated by the following text art diagram:
it’s a huge nerf on flexibility as not only does it take waaaay longer to move tp to another spot or re-purpose it, the amount of options per cast is lower because you need to be more binary about whether you’re going to use it again or not.
i.e. in the top timeline in the diagram above, tp is still technically in the “ability down time” portion (except for the last 2s) which you can still have a choice to re-engage or whatever use case. that’s not the case for current infiniite tp timeline as once it’s down (i.e. destroyed), you’re stuck where you are until you get tp back (or if the team decides to pocket you out of there).
and all this flexibility, cast frequency and lower effective downtime lost for what? so the team can more easily track where tp is because it’s not going anywhere, despite HUD indicators and how it’s literally a bright blue opaque oval on their screen. and the use cases are at best the very same ones prior to the nerf.
you wanna know how much tp uptime/duration was needed for this pro TP play:
it was pretty much 10s of tp being up. you wanna know what else was 10s? old 3.0 tp duration.
and that’s on the long side of team tp strats. pretty much all the tp strats OWL has used don’t require tp being up for long. most of them are just for a quick rotation, and that’s it.
It objectively was a nerf.
Please wake up from your delusions.
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I’m talking design wise. I understand she was nerfed in the past. You can lose the insults bud
I understand this, but we’ve already had Sym with a higher uptime when her TP wasn’t infinite and she was even less viable then. She’s more likely to see a rework than significant straight buffs.
I don’t disagree with you. What I disagree with is your terminology of “requires a team pocket”
I’ve never disagreed with this… I suggested it when I mentioned Brig/Sombra/Sym together. I can only repeat myself so many times… some heroes require more teamwork/coordination than others
You’re projecting something that isn’t there. What I said is a fact. There will always be heroes that require more team coordination/grouping than others to excel (unless of course as I mentioned before, you want heroes to be more generic)
Some heroes are more strict than others, that’s the way it goes when heroes are unique. I don’t think there will ever be a time where every hero is equally viable, it’s just not possible to have perfect balance with so many variables unless you make heroes more generic.
No disagreement on this fact. What we disagree on is that it’s a problem. I enjoy Sym as she is now. I didn’t feel nearly as effective with her prior iterations
You’re comparing apples and oranges. Sym is capable of getting into her effective range on her own too… use TP.
If nothing in the past has worked then going back to it won’t either. She needs major changes to be more self sufficient that don’t break her with coordinated teams, aka a significantly different kit.
Saying it’s objectively a nerf ignores that it now has an infinite duration
The only delusional one is you, calling others delusional while not knowing the right words to use and being seemingly incapable of keeping your comments appropriate. It is not objectively a nerf when the duration was buffed among several other things
It’s really interesting how divided the Sym community (myself included) are on Sym. Some want her to be more of a support, which her infinite TP is directed towards. Others want her to be a more self sufficient DPS, which means nerfing how much she enables her team.
9/10 balance problems come from how the game modes are designed.
the meta-win condition is always “occupy to win”, whether thats a key choke to win teamfight into cleanup then freecap or push payload, etc.
that means not much “spread” in these comps. ever since goats and then 222 we’ve had these deathball comps of varying “spread”. even loosly spread, they’re still very all-in with these many-to-one cd dumps that invest everything for a burst/pick and snowball/sustain to convert.
to me that means not map utilization. u need to reward taking flanks, winning side fights, changing duel breakpoints, etc. they need to reward temp/hold on more than 5% of the map at any one simultaneous time.
all these owl matches use like 5% of the map and the team is “coordinated” which basically means clumped moba/cd scripts and fewer bamboozles or side duels.
sym ofc scales super well when the world is pocketing and blanketing her. try running her solo in open comps like 141, and you’ll see how m2 is ur main tool, and only a fool sym who never left the owl scrim room will ever try and m1. it’s 100% clap the second u try and m1 laser, and most of ur tps are for solo/duo tempo control in off-main areas of the fight.
Curious, do you see this as an issue?
What’s the other option? Deathmatch? That 141 example you gave where you can only M2 sounds like a team I don’t want to be a part of
Sounds like heaven. I’m not playing a team game so me and my team are all playing off on our own by ourselves. I would play Call of Duty or Fortnite if I wanted that. It’s interesting how divided people are on wanting OW to be more FPS-y where you can do your own thing or more MOBA-y with teamwork. Personally, I prefer teamwork. I’d be playing another game if I didn’t.
“I’ve taken your opinion under consideration.”
There is a spectrum of coordinated, scripted cd utilization that’s basically mapped out per meta per minmax. that’s wut u see in owl and that is wut you will get letting them give u beta feedback for months as these guys fight to keep their tank jobs.
team elim / arenas is prob ur other end of the spectrum, since it’s basically just pick potential. TDM (like 4v4) is a little less extreme then elim, and u get a little more of this kind of scrapiness in OPEN comp when you don’t stack the power crept tank/healer roles. when ur dealing with 3+ dps angles, many of which can 1shot or 2clap, geometry and map utilization goes upside down.
this is why i’ve always said 141 and 132 are just harder/better/faster but less ttk strong then boring 222. u will have mercy mains crying when they’re clapped by 2 snipers and unable to heal sloths who are so used to sitting around shields with sustained healing, unable to win their local micro.
the problem is ppl use “teamwork” as a catch-all for being micro unaware.
u can have non-aim teamwork and non-aim solo agency via cds etc.
the problem again, is that “teamwork” seems to think “grouping up”.
grouping up is what kills the creativity.
my hopes for ow2 is that it’s a lot more micro-centric. less of these team-reliant, all-in macro/econ. that’s unfun for most ladder play and just not the kind of agency that holds up over time (over time it’s about duos not 5 stacks as ur bros will leave for other games).
The sweetspot is probably using stuff like 4v4 tdm as your ttk baseline, and extending that to 5v5 with some kind of composition balance and map objectives. I think about ow2 as being 5v5 tdm-ish, but with different/further respawns, a little bit more reset instead of constant frag cycling, but much more micro driven. And a lot of that micro should involve geometry and living off the land in degen group sizes (2 of u holding one area, 2 another, 1 in brawl zone etc.).
the goal being to make more of the gorgeous map utilized at any given time, and properly differentiate/express your ability with a hero, instead of performing a designated script for the sake of “teamwork”.