Overwatch support Symmetra is about to go through a “dramatic” redesign this summer that will reclassify her as a defense hero, according to lead software engineer Tim Ford. This will be Symmetra’s second rework since the game’s release.
Despite Symmetra’s current classification as a support hero, she doesn’t do any healing like other supports do. Though she does support her team in other ways, such as with her Teleporter and Shield Generator, Overwatch players tend to struggle to find a use for Symmetra. This disjoint is best illustrated by the fact that she is the only hero who hasn’t seen any action in the Overwatch League.
Ford aims to change this with Symmetra’s rework.
“We are discussing the change right now, and although we can’t tell you the details of each change, we would still like to let you know it will be a fairly dramatic change,” Ford said in an interview with Inven Global. “One thing we can tell you is that Symmetra will turn from a support hero to a defense hero after the remake. Our aim is to make the usage of Symmetra even more flexible from it.”
Blizzard hasn’t shared any exact details about the rework, though Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan shared a screenshot on the Overwatch forum that hinted at some of the adjustments. It is a little too early to speculate about her overhaul, since we likely won’t see the changes until this summer, but the screenshot teases that Symmetra’s Teleport ultimate could become a normal cooldown ability.
The picture shows that Symmetra Teleported 31 players, which is an impressive feat, especially when combined with six percent uptime. It seems that Kaplan is teasing the shift from a Teleport ult to a normal Teleport ability, though he has said nothing is final.
The defense hero classification as a whole has received some criticism from some Overwatch players. Some players have said “having defense heroes is useless,” since often the roles within a team are divided into two tanks, two DPS and two supports. Ford addressed why the particular role is kept in-game during the interview with Inven Global.
“The reason we divided the roles into four when the game was first released was so that we could help players understand how to use that hero intuitively. We have already seen the situation with the role re-designation, but it will need a fairly long time and much communication for that to be actualized in-game.”
Time will tell how Symmetra’s reclassification as a defense hero will affect her viability in both regular play and high-level competition.