The State of Symmetra in Competitive Play - A hidden gem, an underlying problem or fine as she is?

Even after multiple reworks, Symmetra is a hero which has seen little to playtime in professional Overwatch. At no point in the game's history has she been part of an established metagame, usually only being used by top 8 countries against less established teams in World Cups. If Symmetra is used, it is often a first push strategy or a sign of disrespect.

In Overwatch League Stage 4 Week 2 2019, Symmetra has a pick rate of less than 0.1%, making her the second least played hero, just in front of Ashe. If she's been chosen at all, it's been for a point A attack on an assault map (such as Hanamura or Volskaya Industries). Using her teleporter, you can rush the point and avoid poke damage during travel time, catching the enemy off guard and potentially allowing you to capture the point in a single team fight. This has worked occasionally, as shown by the Chengdu Hunters using Elsa on Symmetra to completely steamroll the Paris Eternal. However, we've also seen it fail miserably, shut down in less than 30 seconds and forcing a swap. Once you lose a push with Symmetra, you switch.

At close range, she can melt through shields with a level 3 primary fire. This gives her the most consistent close-range shield damage in the game, without having to sacrifice movement, like Bastion has to. Furthermore, she regains ammunition by shooting shields with her laser. Once Symmetra is in range, the remarkable damage output will force the enemy to disengage or operate at a greater distance; either outcome removes them from the objective. Unfortunately, if you're close enough to hit them with your primary fire, you're certainly close enough to be eliminated. It's no secret that Symmetra is one of the most vulnerable heroes in the game. With only 200HP, none of which is armour, a single Roadhog hook will cause her demise. Also, she has no reliable escape; the cast time for teleporter is too long to be used in a reactionary manner against an enemy rushing/diving you.

With regards to her secondary fire, while it does serve as a strong spam tool, its slow movement speed makes it unwieldly against moving targets. Additionally, it has a longer wind-up time than other projectiles. Consequently, the secondary fire is ineffective against shields and targets further than approximately 20 metres and, due to how long it takes to make contact with an enemy, has extremely low damage per second.

Because of these factors, Hanzo and Pharah are seen as the more viable options for projectile damage heroes. They have superior mobility, escape options and burst damage. Another benefit of using these heroes over Symmetra is that you can play them throughout an entire round; they are less predictable and harder to deal with the second time around compared to Symmetra.

In the current "pulled pork meta", pick potential is the most important aspect of a DPS hero's damage kit. This is why Hanzo, Widowmaker and Mei have such high pick rates (27.9%, 21.0% and 70.3% respectively for stage 4 week 2).

I've spoken of Symmetra on attack already but how is she on defence? Despite originally being designed as a defence hero, you will not see Symmetra in Overwatch League on defence because all it takes to deconstruct the strategy is a simple swap to dive heroes (Winston, D.Va, Genji, Sombra etc). She is too frail and her brawling ability isn't strong enough to deal with a rush-down composition running at her. The only composition that she could be somewhat strong in on defence is a Bastion, Symmetra, Orisa stronghold, where you use the teleporter to rotate around the objective. Although, if this is ran, it's essentially a 5v6 fight since Symmetra has such little damage pressure at long range. Even then, the strategy is easily countered by cyber dive (Sombra and Genji).

However, is this really an issue? I don't believe it is.

In a game with 31 unique heroes and counting, it's impossible to make all heroes viable at the top level of play. That's okay. The best that can be done is to make each hero feel impactful and fun to play for the majority of the player base; this is a goal that has been achieved with Symmetra. In ranked play, you can still charge forward with her primary fire and teleporter to dismantle uncoordinated teams.

While you may not see the likes of Saebyeolbe, Libero or Sinatraa utilising the hero in a playoff match, you can still be excited when she's occasionally ran on a point A attack and use her to great results in your own matches.

Not every character can be exceptional and that's perfectly fine.

Sources:

https://www.omnicmeta.com/owl/meta/

Image:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiPxvuX1fHjAhUBJhoKHRY4CwIQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcgamer.com%2Foverwatchs-symmetra-rework-is-finally-playable-on-the-ptr%2F&psig=AOvVaw10yQhD0Hq9x2mwcUBpE8c-&ust=1565298415898666

Special thanks to Coach Saint of Inked.GG for his help

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