Overwatch Lead Developer Geoff Goodman Updates Progress on Symmetra Rework
Overwatch lead developer Geoff Goodman has revealed more details of the upcoming Symmetra rework.
With the Hanzo overhaul recently completed, Symmetra is the next hero in line for a major rework.
While Symmetra was always intended to play a niche, specialized role in the game, Blizzard has revealed that it’s not happy with her current place, which sees her extremely limited in viability and rarely an optimal pick.
In a series of forum posts, Geoff Goodman recently outlined many of the changes to Symmetra that the development team is currently working on.
Symmetra is set to become a Defense rather than a Support hero. Her signature turrets will become projectiles, deploying on whatever surface they hit, enabling her to move them around more effectively.
Her weapon is being upgraded, her teleporter moving to a primary ability rather than being the ultimate while the photon barrier is becoming her ultimate, although both abilities are being significantly adapted for their new roles.
Goodman has now offered another update on the progress of Symmetra’s rework:
“I don’t really have visuals to show you sadly, but we’re very much in progress working on her still. There have been a few changes to her as we’ve been play testing her since I last posted.
Firstly, her turrets are still projectiles, but they are now able to be destroyed while in the air. This makes it harder to throw them directly at people in a fight to force them to turn around to kill it. Now you have to be a little more sneaky where you throw them or just pre-place them.
Secondly, her teleporter ability now requires a button input to trigger, but the teleporter works both directions. This means you can do new tricks like tossing it into an enemy Zarya ult from far away and pull your team out to safety. We’ve also seen interesting strats where a Symm can baby-sit a friendly Ana/Zen and place a TP if they get jumped on, giving a mobility out to heroes that don’t typically have that option. There is a small cooldown before you can take the teleporter once you’ve used it, so you can’t just spam back and forth instantly.
Those are the biggest changes since last post, but there have been many small numbers tweaks to get her in shape. Hopefully we’ll have something reasonably soon for you guys to see/play!”
Blizzard hasn’t yet given a time-line for when players can expect to see the new Symmetra, either on the PTR or the live game. The lack of visuals suggests at least that the release isn’t imminent.
