It is no secret that this rework has not changed the community’s perception of Symmetra, and there is good reason for that. For the most part, she is largely useless. Not because her kit is bad necessarily, but because the strongest aspect of her kit being the Teleporter makes her usefulness heavily reliant on your team using it.
She’s in a very interesting spot now. Her turrets are still easily dealt with by anyone familiar with Symmetra, effectively cutting her DPS in half even if you find yourself with her level 3 beam. Her barrier, when placed well, can be extremely powerful and deny a lot of space while forcing the enemy team to overextend past it to reach the objective. That being said, it’s existence as an ult and both of her defensive tools (TP and turrets) being easily destroyed makes Symmetra herself laughably easy to kill by the majority of the roster.
Meanwhile, actual DPS heroes have kits that help them secure kills and don’t rely heavily on their teammates like Symmetra does. Doomfist can pop into and out of the fight, quickly annihilating his target and escaping thanks to his passive ability to generate shields (is it even elaborated on as to why he is capable of this but Sym is not?).
The fact that she now does more damage does not justify her slot in the damage category, as Sym is still very much a support in many ways. Everything about her kit now suggests supporting her team. Her turrets damage and slow, making it easier for her to hit orbs, but it’s more likely that your snipers or tanks will take better advantage of this. TPs use as I said earlier revolves around your team using it. Sym using it by her lonesome with the intention of flanking can easily lead to her feeding. Since that’s the case, your team using it is almost required to actually get value out of her. Her barrier is also completely reliant on your team. Many people complain about people being able to simply walk through it, but that isn’t the ults fault. It is your team for not utilizing the pressure it can provide while exerting their own pressure on the battlefield. People walk through it when your team lets them.
So with this information, what can be done to put Symmetra in a more independent spot that justifies her as a valuable asset?
For starters, many suggest giving her personal shields similar to Doomfist when she charges her beam on a barrier. However, I dislike how this is a carbon copy of Doomfists passive. What would benefit her much more is a personal barrier generated by the same effect. Considering her lack of true mobility (do not say TP is a mobility skill, as it isn’t reactive like all other mobility skills) and defenses, she needs something that sets her apart from other DPS, and re-implementing her personal barrier would be useful in this. When Sym charges on a barrier, she generates a frontal barrier, roughly the size of Brigitte’s and rounded that increases in strength the longer she charges on an enemy barrier. The barrier will cap at 300-600 health depending on how strong this could be and dissipating after a few seconds of not attacking a barrier (but can be refreshed/healed by targeting a barrier again). Not only does it help her not die to a breeze when in the thick of a fight, but can also protect her from being shut down by CCs she’s lost the ability to block (Flash, Sleep, etc).
A major benefit to gaining a frontal shield isn’t simply the protective value, it will also give her shield health real use. In combat, her shield health is useless as it takes a full 3 seconds of not being hit to begin recharging. If she’s already taken damage, her personal barrier could exist long enough to have her shields begin recharging naturally. I’ve always considered Sym to have the nature of an off-tank, as her weapon was always capable of creating space similar to a tank. With the loss of bendy beam and the piercing orb, a frontal barrier would allow her to actually play in the front lines as a DPS instead of being a backline spam support.
I can only thing of one buff to her turrets that would help greatly, and that is removal of the cast time. By this I mean the time it takes between pressing the key and having them appear in her hand. When timed properly, you can block high noon and hook, with the latter being much more difficult than the former. This tactic can also help you survive engagements against an enemy Sym that got the first orb on you, throwing turrets at her next orbs can save your life. However, the cast time makes this unreliable despite being something that raises her skill ceiling.
Next, her orbs. The loss of the ability to pierce has hurt Sym far too much. It feels terrible to play Sym vs Bastion or barrier comps now, where she previously was very strong. With the current travel speed of the orbs, having them pierce players would be too much. However, adding back the property of piercing barriers would help Sym tremendously. She cannot pressure Rein or Orisa the way she could previously, and she cannot actively attack their barrier unless those two tanks in particular are already being overwhelmed or are at a disadvantage, making Sym significantly weaker against them while supposedly “countering” them. I’d even say have the impact damage be halved to 60 if they do penetrate a barrier, in order to make them not so oppressive.
QoL adjustments need to be made to her Teleporter. This ability has potential to be overpowered as it already is, but it is rare for your team to actually use it. People have suggested making its activation instant, but I feel that would make it way too strong when you have teammates that actually use it, as it would nullify the purpose of destroying it since your whole team could immediately blink 20m onto the point. Slightly faster activation and a slight increase to the interaction radius could go a long way in making it more user friendly and reliable for Sym herself. What it needs most, however, are Bug fixes. This ability is very buggy and not user friendly in the least. The bugs will get you killed 9/10 times. There is no reason I should have to attempt the placement 5 times because there is a railing. There is no reason it should destroy itself. There is no reason I should die at one TP but Mercy can Rez you at the other TP. There is no reason you get the sound cue and animation of teleporting but fail to teleport. One of the major complaints from DF players regarding TP blocking his punch was that it is a flat object on the ground. If it no longer stops that punch being a flat object on the ground why can the payload run it over and destroy it immediately despite most payloads being raised off of the ground or floating? It’s nice that it doesn’t destroy itself as much as when it was first on the PTR, but it still happens too frequently. It is also inconsistent in its placement. Sometimes it will spawn at your feet and other times it will spawn a short distance in front of you. This matters especially when grav’d. What good is the ability to TP out of Grav if you successfully put it down and live long enough just to spam interact and be just far enough away to not be able to use it? An increase interaction radius could help mitigate this, or it could just be consistent in placement.
Lastly, her ult. Photon Barrier needs desperate QoL fixes. First of all, it’s default selection should be vertical, as the majority of the time, that is how it’s placed. There’s also no reason that you should be incapable of placing it when standing too close to a wall, and more importantly theres no reason it should shift to the side at the last second when walking too close to a wall or object. It’s a bit rare for this to actually affect using the ult, but it happens, and it can cost you the point because your barrier is nowhere near the point. There is also an occasional bug where pressing Q twice does not make the shield vertical, forcing you to misplace it. This can also be handled by swapping the default placement, but it is still a bug that shouldn’t exist.
TL;DR:
Give Sym a personal barrier for a few seconds when attacking a shield.
Give her orbs the ability to pierce barriers again and impact a hero for 60 after it’s pierced a barrier.
Make turrets spawn instantly in her hands when the key is pressed.
Bug fix the TP, quicker activation, larger interact radius, make it not destroy itself.
Make the placement of her ult vertical by default and fix the placement bugs associated with it.
