Mate, Symmetra needs a buff or a real rework. Why? Let’s look at the details (I’ll be using her first support rework as a reference here):
Photon Projector:
(Support)
Primary Fire:
- Damage per second: 30/60/120
- Range: 7m
- Ammo: 100
Secondary Fire:
- Damage: 120
- Projectile Speed: 25m/s
- Pierces Barriers
- Charge time: 1.75 seconds
- Headshot: N/A
(Damage)
Primary Fire:
- Damage per second: 60/120/180
- Range: 11m
- Ammo: 100
Secondary Fire:
- Damage: 90
- Projectile Speed: 50m/s
- Charge Time: 1.2 seconds
- Headshot: N/A
So, the biggest difference we need to look at is the roles, as the first is a Support kit and the latter is a Damage kit. Current Symmetra has a primary fire generally more effective than her support version in terms of range and potential damage, but I’ll go more in depth there in a little bit. The biggest concern here is her secondary fire. While significantly faster than they’ve ever been, the trade off was for a pretty significant dock in total damage. Even so, they’re effectively an improvement over the support version, as they’re more likely to hit an enemy, and charge faster. However, looking at the nature of her projectiles, they’ve got a slow charge time compared to other Damage heroes and, unlike other projectile heroes bar Pharah, she is the only one who can’t headshot. But Pharaoh’s rockets travel faster, have a larger splash radius, and deal significantly more damage on a direct hit, justifying her inability to land a critical hit. Symmetra’s orbs, however, deal rather little damage whilst needing to charge her projectiles first, making them rather ineffective in a mid to close range encounter, with slightly more use at longer ranges. But without a large splash area, Symmetra needs to land direct hits to get any meaningful damage out of them, which as any projectile hero player is aware, isn’t an easy thing to do with immediate projectiles. Symmetra needs to first charge the orb, and then track the enemy and, unlike Hazno, can’t I definitely hold her orbs.
Ability 1: Sentry Turret
(Support)
- Ammo: 6
- Damage: 30 per second
- Slow: 10%
- Health: 1
- Cooldown: 6 seconds per turret
(Damage)
- Ammo: 3
- Damage: 30 per second
- Slow: 15%
- Health: 30 Shields, 10 Health
- Cooldown: 8 seconds per turret
The major problem here is the damage. While significantly more sturdy than her old turrets, Symmetra is severely limited to her total damage output with her turrets, due to their longer overall cooldown, less total turrets on the field, and a weaker overall slowing effect. 6 turrets locked to an enemy before did a total of 180 damage per second, the same as her current max charge primary fire, though this was balanced out by their severe lack of any staying power. Now, at a max, Symmetra’s turrets deal only 90 damage per second, which is less than the max charge of her support kit’s beam, or the middle level of her current beam. And considering they’re also limited by a travel and deploy time, which has been sped up, in fairness, still hinders Symmetra’s damage potential after a fight has broke out, a problem only shared with Torbjorn, but he has his Rivet Gun to compensate, as well as an on hand survivability tool in Overload.
Ability 2: Teleporter/Photon Barrier
(Support)
- Barrier health: 1,000
- Cooldown: 10 seconds
- Maximum range: Until collision with a wall
(Damage)
- Teleporter health: 250 Health, 50 Shields
- Delpoy range: 30m
- Maximum range: 45m
- Cooldown: 12 seconds
- Lifetime: 9 seconds
Symmetra’s engage tools, the Photon Barrier and the Teleporter. Both of which are still in her kit, but have had their positions and usage switched. Photon Barrier acted as protection for Symmetra’s team, blocking key damage and ultimates like D.Va’s Self Destruct and Earthshatter. Unlike other barriers, the Photon Barrier moved at 6m/s, just fast enough to allow Symmetra to walk foward with it without it out running her, or her out running it, allowing her to safely engage or flank, if her team could afford her doing so.
Her Teleporter serves to fill the same role in her current kit, but does a worse job of it. While the Teleporter, once built, allows instantaneous travel between two points, making flanking a lot easier than it was in her older kits, but she lacks any meaningful upfront damage to be a reliable flanker. The only way she can get any significant burst damage is by investing her entire kit into a push, putting her on a near 40 second cooldown before she can attempt it again. Her Photon Barrier served her to the same extent, but on a significantly lower cooldown with much greater success, as the protection from her barrier allowed her to almost freely charge her primary fire, giving her the equivalent of a continuous Pharah rocket without needing to aim to get the damage off, making her a force to be reckoned with, especially as she would usually have been paired with 2 supports as she filled a more defence role rather than support. Once Symmetra committed to a push, it was hard to stop her, unless there was a burst hero like Junkrat or Pharah, thanks to her ability to instantly protect herself. Current Symmetra lacks that capability all together, making pushing up with her primary fire incredibly difficult, if not impossible, unless she’s able to safely charge it prior to engagement.
Ultimate: Photon Barrier/Shield Generator & Teleporter
(Support)
Shield Generator:
- Range: 50m
- Health provided: 75 Shields
- Health: 400 Shields, 100 Health
- Duration: Infinite or until destroyed
Teleporter:
- Range: Global
- Health: 400 Shields, 100 Health
- Ammo: 6
- Duration: Infinite or until destroyed/used up
Photon Barrier:
- Range: Global
- Health: 4,000 Shields
- Duration: 11 seconds or until destroyed
The old version of Symmetra’s Teleporter was vastly superior to its use today. While the concept was identical, allowing instantaneous movement between two points, the old Teleporter could act as a poor man’s rez, Symmetra building it after her team was wiped, for her team to come back through, essentially moving the spawn point wherever Symmetra wanted it. Combined with her uniqueness of being the only hero in Overwatch’s history to ever have 2 ultimates, Symmetra had incredible flexibility, depending on what the situation called for. Her Disco Ball, as it was often called, provided permanent recoverable shields to all allies within its massive 50m AOE, giving them extra tankiness in a fight, but also giving all her teammates the ability to self heal, effectively, as so long as they remained in range, their shields acted as Symmetra or Zenyatta’s natural shields, recovering naturally after avoiding damage for 3 seconds.
Her new Photon Barrier has significant effects on battles as well, generating a global barrier almost instantaneously, allowing Symmetra to get value even if she’s nowhere near the fight, a trait every other hero lacks, making it useful to support a push even if Symmetra herself is absent. It’s ability to split map objectives seemingly in half, as well as being able to block healing, and significant damage from large ultimates like D.Va’s self destruct provides a lot of utility Damage heroes never really have access to. But that’s also its biggest weakness: It has no offensive pressure whatsoever, leaving Symmetra as the only damage hero in OW2 to have a non-damaging ultimate. And while Widowmaker also has a non-damaging ultimate, it itself has offensive pressure as it reveals enemies and their health bars through walls, regardless of their position on the map, allowing for co-ordination against isolated enemies, and giving her and her allies the ability to see weakened enemies, an attribute only shared with Mercy’s Valkyrie. Photon Barrier as it is a purely defensive and utility tool taking the place of an ultimate of a Damage hero, removing Symmetra’s ability to turn a fight, unless blocking something like Self Destruct.
So, to sum up: Symmetra’s current kit, at best, is on par with her Support kits, sometimes even being outperformed by it. Her Support kit has safe engagement, protection and damage to back her engagements, while currently she is purely reliant on waiting for cooldowns and deploy times before she can get anything done. Her kit has severe downtime, thanks to her long cooldowns, and her ultimate has no offensive pressure, which is a massive hindrance to have in a Damage hero’s kit. She still has her age-old problems of having no up-front damage to speak of, but her older kits made up for that by giving her a way to easily set herself up, which is lacking in her current iteration. And it needs addressing if Blizzard intends on keeping her in the damage role. Otherwise, she needs a rework back into a support hero, but with extra attention to ensure that she has ways to support her kit through providing some form of healing. Yellow hard-light, a new concept introduced through her Maramat short story with Zenyatta, proves that hard-light has the capability to provide restoration; Blizzard can use that to springboard ideas of healing abilities into her kit, so long as they’re willing to part with her older abilities to make room for new ones. As a hard-light architect, Symmetra has the ability to create anything she can imagine from literally nothing. It’s time Blizzard started to work with that and take the concept forward.
