unviable. static comps are basically dead with all the tank powershifts and nerfs, and because of these changes, teams are forced to move around much more. old sym not only wouldn’t be able to keep up, but would face much more down time than she did previously because of the powercreep in the ranged and hypermobile heroes.
when you further factor in 2-2-2, there’s even less reason to pick old sym because OW cornered themselves in balance in that supports pretty much need a spammable heal method to be viable, because THAT’S how important support healing is from the lack of other sources of team sustain, esp when talking about during combat.
if anyone doesn’t believe me on the down time, see the following in the old sym GM gameplay below:
- spent solid 40s being forced to spam orbs far outside of their effective range because they had to wait for the team to push irrespective of old barrier because otherwise it would’ve been suicide
- in that 40s of forced down time he only managed to land like 3 orbs (see ult charge) out of all the ones he fired in that time span.
- legit throughout that attack on point A he could only ever start flanking or pushing up if he gets escorted by the team to where he wanted to go (whether to the enemy or to flank route entrance) irrespective of old barrier
- and you can clearly see throughout that gameplay that in no way does the barrier let sym disengage.
and obvs when you consider how much faster paced the game has become from tank nerfs and powercreep, the above gets much worse.
“waiting for enemies to come to you” simply isn’t an efficient notion to build a hero kit around in OW. you simply get more actions and opportunities for value if a hero has agency to “go to and away from enemies” at will. and that’s the reason why most heroes in the game that don’t suffer from sym’s viability issues i.e. those heroes actually have sufficient tools to facilitate their own uptime at will. like this is the same reason why even snipers (supposedly low mobility heroes) reposition often to maintain being 1 corner away from los rather than stubbornly and knowingly waiting in 1 spot however many corners away from los on the enemy.