'Overwatch' Symmetra Needs These Buffs, Blizzard, Please

Pretty much every hero in Overwatch , Blizzard’s highly successful shooter, has been tweaked a little bit. Bastion used to gain a shield when he went into turret mode , until developers realized how ridiculous that was and nerfed the squeaking robot to the bottom of the tier list. Torbjorn, everyone’s favorite little angry Swede, was doing to much damage to idiots on consoles who couldn’t dodge, so Blizzard broke his tiny little ankles with the nerf bat.

When a hero is deemed too powerful or too weak, Blizzard is very quick to turn around and fix the problem. That is, except for one hero, Symmetra. It doesn't matter which forum or tier list you look on, Symmetra is always at the bottom. She’s a support who has no healing, has very little health and no mobility moves. If you get caught by a Roadhog hook or a Reinhardt charge, consider yourself a goner.

Jeff Kaplan, Overwatch’s game director, told Business Insider they would finally be buffing Symmetra in November. Kaplan says that she is too “situational” and his team will take a long look at fixing her. What exactly needs to be changed with Symmetra in order for her to be a viable hero in any meta?

For starters, she needs some health . Right now, Symmetra is the squishiest hero in Overwatch, with 100 base health and a 100 armor shield. Torbjorn is beefier than her and he’s 75 percent beard. Her main attack, Photon Projector, can only be used within five meters of an enemy. When you have low health, just getting close enough to Reaper or McCree could be a death sentence. She needs at least 50 more health in order for players to use her competently.

Symmetra’s turrets need a major overhaul . Right now, she starts with three turrets stacked and then gains a new charge every 10 seconds. That means setting up her turrets in the middle of a firefight just isn’t an option. You need to be extremely strategic in your placement and if they go down, you are essentially useless. Even a good Symmetra player who puts her turrets in amazing locations can lose them all in two seconds to a Winston. The cooldown needs to be lowered and the cap increased. Four turrets, which can be placed every eight seconds would balance out some of her weaknesses.

Watching the Overwatch Pro League, the first officially endorsed esports league for the game, showed me what amazing stunts a rehearsed Overwatch squad can do. Symmetra wasn’t anywhere in those games, even though maps she excels on, like Route 66, were extremely popular. Give Symmetra a purpose. Defending teams should be spamming her big orbs and turrets, jumping onto squishy carries with her tether. Right now she can’t do any of that.

TL;DR: Symmetra needs more health, shorter turret cooldowns and a reason to play her over anyone else.