Hi guys, I am Semih and this week, I am going to write about Symmetra since I mentioned her two weeks ago. The reason why writing about Symmetra took so long is that Overwatch just released Public Test Region (PTR) notes and according to those notes, there will be a lot changes coming up in next few weeks for Symmetra due to her “occasional” play in matches and being the least played hero in the game currently. So let’s talk about Symmetra’s current position in the game.
Symmetra, for me, is one of the most underestimated and strong heroes in the game. She is one of the support heroes and the only support hero who does not give heal. Although she does not heal, she gives you a shield which lasts forever if you do not die. However, the amount of shield she provides is not tremendous. So let’s talk about her abilities.
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Symmetra has five skills named, Photon Projector, Energy Ball, Sentry Turret, Photon Shield and her ultimate ability; Teleporter.
Photon Projector is a short-range beam which deals increasing hit by time. Meaning that the damage of the skill increases to consecutive levels after some amount of time. It hits the enemy in the range of five meters. Although it is pretty weak towards long range damage dealers since they will try to shoot you from far away, it is so useful if you can get close enough and the best part of it, you do not have to aim. Once the beam connects to the enemy, you can basically jump around the enemy like a retarded seal, clap your hands in the air, double backflip, drink a cup of tea and enjoy your beam damaging the enemy and you can have serious fun with them. Because once the beam connects the enemy and you start jumping around and running, trust me on this, enemy will get really confused and scared. At the same time s/he will try to find and aim you to hit and so on. While these stuff happening to your opponent, you will get the elimination with pleasure.
Energy Ball is your right click skill. Uncharged version of it -which happens if you do not press and hold the right click- deals 25 damage while the charged version will deal 125 damage – which happens if you press and hold right click for two seconds. Although this is pretty high damage, it is easy to run away from an energy ball since the speed of it is pretty low and manageable to escape from it. The good part of it is that it can pass through shields like Reinhardt’s or Winston’s. And since Winston has really small area to move in the shield and Reinhardt’s speed decreases significantly when he holds his shield, it is really easy to hit them. And if you use it in the small entrances, because it can hit multiple targets at the same time, you can deal multiples of 125 damage with the same energy ball.
Sentry Turret is basically devil’s eye for your enemies. You can place six of them in total and they basically can be placed anywhere on the map; walls, windows, plants, cars, doors, ceilings and even on the payload. What they do is basically the same thing that your photon projector does but the less damage scale version of it, and they decrease enemy’s speed significantly. There are two ways to place your turrets. First one, all-in-the-same-place. Basically, Symmetra takes one of the main rooms that probably all enemy team will want to pass by to attack behind, places all these little creatures that just delivered from the hell. Imagine if you are her opponent, six of them, in the same room… With the main weapon, total of 7 light-beams damaging you. Would you go to that room ever again? No. Well, unless you have a great plan to destroy all of them before they barbeque you. So, this is the first way. And the second way it a bit more harmless but more irritating for the opponent. For the second way, what you basically do is that you place all of your turrets to different places which is no so obvious for your enemy to realize and destroy them before they even attack, but the places which is less obvious and might hit your enemy from the back. So, with this tactic, you can get lots of eliminations and at the same time because not all your turrets have the chance to get destroyed all at the same time, the cooldown can easily pass and you can place your new devil’s eye after one of the others get destroyed.
Photon Shield is basically 25 shields that you provide to your teammates and it lasts until they die but when they respawn you can shield them again, so it is pretty useful. I know, it does not make so much difference for tank heroes since they have around 400 to 600 health, however it can be a lifesaver for heroes with squishy health such as Tracer with 150 health. Also, trust me on this, I have survived in some situations with 10 health with help of those 25 shields.
Teleporter is considered as one of the strongest ultimate skills in the game by so many players. It is a portal with six charges and it can teleport the whole team to the place you place it immediately. For so many games, if the Symmetra is really an experienced player, clever usage of Teleporter can change the direction of the game in couple of seconds. However, if enemy team finds it, they might want to destroy it for couple of obvious reasons. So, be a nice player and place your teleporter where your teammates can use your portal safely.
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, Symmetra, for me, is really an underestimated character with so many features if you use them carefully but in occasional places. She has really low health, she is pretty squishy, although turrets are pretty strong they are so fragile and destroyable quickly, and for some of the heroes 25 shields does not make so much of a difference. Because of all these facts, she really needs an upgrade and in the PTR notes, there are new voice lines for Symmetra where she says “10 charges remaining”, “7 charges remaining”, “Shields reinforced”, “I will augment your shields”, “Shields boosted”. So, first two is probably referring to her teleporter which might be upgraded in the next couple of weeks but I feel like increasing the charges of Teleporter would not make so much difference because as soon as Teleporter is online, opponent team will try to destroy it. And if they find it, increasing the charges would not make any difference. My own suggestion for this is that it can be either turret style teleporters where she can basically put multiples of Teleporters which would be for a single usage and they would disappear after someone uses them. Which I think would be the best solution but other than that, it might be indestructible Teleporter by the opponent team but this would not be fair as much as the first suggestion of mine but at the same time it could increase the importance of Symmetra throughout the game.
Last three of the voice lines are based on her shields, which is seen the weakest skill by most of the players. But think about it, what those lines mean by saying that shields are reinforced or boosted or augmented. Would it be like Torbjörn’s turret where she can upgrade your shield by reusing the skill on her teammates? But if it is the situation, I feel like it should be as a percentage of the total health of the teammate heroes. For example, Reinhardt has 500 health, the only way that shield would make sense for him if he gets at least 50 to 75 shields, maybe more; but giving the same amount of shields to Tracer would make her impossible to kill since she is really mobile and hard to aim. So if that would be as percentages for all heroes like 20% for example, then each character could get the amount of extra health that they need. These are my personal opinions, hope you liked them.
Next week, I will be looking at another support character, Zenyatta.
