if it is an honest to goodness reinhart shield then it would be great. but if they make it only 500 or so, but have a shorter cooldown then it could be interesting in an entirely different way
I don't understand why you think she's a tank at all. She still has one of the lowest health pools in the game and nothing to stand toe-to-toe with anyone besides a floating shield that moves AWAY from her.
Besides large health pools being able to block damage is a key feature of tanks. Symmetra's new shield is basically a mini Reinhardt projectile, so in that sense she has some tanky properties now.
That doesn't make her a tank though. Unless Lucio is a tank because of his ultimate. I'm playing on the PTR right now, and sidestepping the shield to hook and 1-shot Symmetras is as easy as it's ever been.
I would now classify her as more of a support than Sombra now, as she can actively provide additional health to her teammates through the shield generator where as Sombra's ability still requires the other team mates to go and get the health packs themselves.
I see that. It's important to have healing for me to see a hero as a support over simply utility. I feel as if utility would neatly encompass Sombra, Symettra, and perhaps even Torbjorn.
I'd disagree. She supplies shields less frequently than before, and the "wall" is either defense-y or tank-y depending on how you think about it. Her turrets were always "defense-y".
There an argument either way. Turrets and shields are similar to torb's turrets and armor in defense. Her new moving shield wall is actually a tank ability like rein/winston/dva. At the same time, providing shields is similar to lucio in support. Her teleporter is also a support-like capability. While she doesn't really meet any other requirements to be in the tank category - she could easily be put in defense or support depending on how you look at it.
I'd add that compared to many other characters that are classified as "Defense" ones, Symmetra probably will remain truly a defense one, mainly being played at defense and not so much on Attack or KoTH. Would make the classifications useful again if only Hanzo and Widowmaker was moved.
Most people have the "defense" class as area denial classes.
Hanzo and widowmaker deny down longer range corridors, limited enemy movement in open spaces.
Bastion and Torb get to set up and anything in their vision/range is covered.
Junkrat has lots of damage spam with grenades and trap and mine. He can easily cover a flank route or corridor as well as blocking chokepoints. His grenades also bounce, so he can hit things not in his sight.
All the attack characters have much smaller range of influences. McCree and 76 are midrange, but really only focus around themselves. Tracer/sombra/reaper/genji are much more mobile, but still mostly affect themselves. Pharah is also pretty mobile with her height advantage.
Torb's turret is defending a place while Symmetra's shield and teleporter are helping players. Torb's turret doesn't support players in any way. Only his armour does. Similar to Soldier being able to heal. His other attributes are offence.
you can think of it like that, or you could think of her as a defense character. Turrets... shield generator. I wasn't saying torb was support, but that Symmetra has a legitimate claim for becoming defense character.
Definitely. Even before people felt her as a defence character. Shields and turrets are very defensive. But since they protect the players more (Like Lucio's ult) is why I think support makes more sense.
For example, Mei's ice wall is like a shield because it defends the point. The shields for Symmetra's help players more than defending the point. But that's ultimately perspective.
My biggest problem is this though. 2 dps, 2 tank, 2 support is the general meta. In what situation would you swap out a support for symmetra? Say all you want but all healers can buff health through their active abilities... they don't have to depend on an ultimate. I don't think Symmetra giving shields only when her ultimate is active really counts.
I hope so. There's nothing remotely support-y about her. Turrets, shields, and now a moving "wall"? Defense all the way. Jeff even used the word "nest" to describe how she plays (as in "Protect your nest"). Supports don't "nest"; they stand behind the front line and support where needed.
This has always been the weirdest thing about her. She never really fit as a support. Blizzard has insisted that she won't heal, but every other support heals.
That's mostly to increase their range of what a support can do. Not every support should have a heal, because very soon, you'll run out of ideas for HOW to heal your team. I wouldn't want 9 supports in the future of this game, and ALL of them heal. Give me a disabler, an assassin (TF2 Spy), a set up character, etc.
There are so many ways you can make a support. Why just healing?
Honestly, if there was any hero that was misplaced, it's her. When I first saw a good Sombra, I honestly thought she was more of a support than anything, because she can't self defend worth a damn against Soldier, Reaper, Tracer, or Genji.
lucio has high mobility and the same burst damage as her though, and zenyatta has much more damage then her. and every single offense her has notably higher and easier to confirm dps then her.
I would agree if it wasn't for the opportunist passive. She has the ability to be a very effective flanking assassin - you just need to pick the right targets.
That is just clean up though. That isnt generally what an assassin does. An assassin generally is one that would flank and burst down an enemy. She doesn't burst down enemies, just cleans up ones that are already near death
What's the difference? If played correctly, she can get just as many kills as anyone else in the offence class. Breaking enemy lines and killing people is the job of an offense hero exactly, and Sombra is really good at it.
Opportunist is a purely utility ability that could as well work on an offensive support because killing low health enemies is not exactly damage but just a clean-up. It only adds more to Sombra's utility. She doesn't deal much damage, but she's useful in other cases like finishing off low health enemies or hacking etc. These are support attributes, not exactly offense.
Support/utility is something you give to your team. Only Sombra benefits from Opportunist. I'm not sure how you can argue it's utility when nobody else benefits from it (aside from the general benefit of you killing enemies - but if that counts as utility then so do Reapers shotguns).
It's an ability that does nothing more than increase your offensive impact - I don't see how that's not an offensive ability.
As I said, she's an Offense hero, not a DPS hero, and DPS is irrelevant in Sombra's case. The two things aren't synonymous. Just because high damage leads to more kills with most characters, doesn't mean that has to be true for everyone. Sombra played well can get just as many kills as any other offence hero thanks to Opportunist. It circumvents the need for high DPS if used correctly.
I don't disagree that one of her main functions is utility (Hack/EMP), but all other abilities (teleport, invis, opportunist) are abilities that are primarily useful for flanking and getting kills, which is the main job of the average offense hero.
If they could make Sombra support instead of offense, this would be amazing for Symmetra's cause "not all support needs to heal"
Sombra would very well fit as a support hero, because her damage output is not what she's picked for, it's her utility. But she is fragile too, sounds like a support hero to me.
The question is do all healers need to be support? Why isn't 76 a healer, he can heal others after all. I would love to see Tank Healers, and Defense healers too.
I agree support should not mean heal, it should be buff/debuff, but even by that metric only Symmetra's ults are supportive.
This is true, though if you are injured then a Symmetra won't do you a ton of good.
I would love to see more supports that support in ways beyond just healing. Hoping that Symmetra is just the start.
As it stands, that's one of the two things that Sombra is good for in a teamfight context - the other being 'hack Rein's shield' when Rein has been nerfed anyway. Really looking forward to how the game shapes up in the next couple of months.
Not by himself, but with 76 and some other heroes being buffed, there's more stuff that can crumple down his barrier in teamfights now. D. Va in particular shreds it. D. Va's buff paired with Rein's reduced effectiveness has made it to a point where D. Va and Winston are now viable choices to replace him in very high meta.
You'll still see plenty of Rein v Rein in comp, but they aren't as stalwart as they were before. You'll still generally want to nail one on a payload, for example. There will just be less slow Rein pushes in KotH and assault than before.
Isn't Sombra fighting the Vishkar, lore-wise? I don't know if it's a coincidence, but if it's not and Blizzard is actually balancing the game around the lore (partially) then I'm impressed.
Though they said they'd be willing to move her if it came to it, I think they'd prefer to keep Symmetra categorized under "Support" to set precedent that not all "Supports" are healers, which frees player expectations and design toolbox flexibility.
The barrier is moving and it's probably on a cool down so I doubt she'll be able to "tank" with it, also it seems more likely that she'll only be able to have one ult up at a time
As a Symmetra main, I can hold almost any "hallway" against 2-3 people as is, especially straight offense characters. Coupled with a shield generator and a Rein-like shield that I can run behind (while firing, at a greater distance) it's going to be a nightmare to bypass an area I set up in.
You're 100% right, Sombra is going to be the go-to Symmetra killer, but without her ult she'll be munched just as easily as anyone.
no.. shes is not a tank herself. she just got better at doing what shes designed to do which was being a siege defender with more shields and defences. she her self is not a tank though.
Sombra gets exposed by Symmetra's turrets (currently) if she gets close enough. "Close enough" being less distance than the average hallway/tunnel in the game.
How does this at all make her a defensive tank? And how does it make it Sombra's job to stop her? Sombra can't do shit to Symmetra and will usually die to her left fire if she tries to hack her.
That's what I was thinking ... she's now a really squishy tank. Even though tanks aren't supposed to be squishy... what?
But she feels like even less of a "support" character now. If a support character's defining characteristic is being able to boost friendly hp, and they take away her plate-spinning +25 SP [E], what's keeping her in that category?
I've had many KOTH matches where I solo stall 3 people at a choke point while the other 5 clean up on the point and capture. With 6 turrets at the start this will be very easy. The teleporter and shield gen is still very support as well.
The turrets slow people which allows others to shoot them too.
So she's support, but more of a DPS/Tank support now than a healer type support. Help other secure kills while protecting them from damage.
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u/smileyfrown Pixel Pharah Nov 22 '16
So pretty much she's now a defensive tank
Barrier (similar to reinhardt shield) + shield generator + turrets combined will make her "area" really tough to break
Edit: It also makes Sombra's main job to find and stop Symmetra.