List of Symmetra nerfs made directly or indirectly due to team TP since OW2 beta
^(Hey girls and gays, I was bored and needed to feel something even it was just indignation so I decided to make this list. It includes every negative change made to Symmetra either directly excuse by her use of team TP in pro-play by the devs, or made soon after she became a topic due to pro-play team TP usage.)
^(This is mostly so people have a sense of how much Symmetra has been nerfed for a gimmick that 99% of the playerbase has no way of actually using. I am going to put the relevant changes that stayed mostly.)
June 2022 (Overwatch 2 beta)
Photon Projector (Secondary Fire)
- Max damage reduced from 120 to 90 (45 impact, 45 explosion)
- Ammo cost increased from 7 to 10
Sentry Turret
- Movement speed reduction on targets reduced from 20% per turret to 15% per turret
^(Those changes happened directly after the "Illegal team TP" fiasco, that put Symmetra in the pro-play spotlight. Some of the changes I omitted were reverted, but the most damning ones (orb damage reduction, sentry slow nerf).)
^(Also not shown is that they changed how stacking slows worked, which was effectively a targeted Symmetra nerf since almost no other hero really has multiple slowing sources.)
July 2023 - February 2024
Base shield health reduced from 125 to 100 (total 200 HP).
Photon Projector
- Secondary Fire maximum impact damage increased from 45 to 50.
- Secondary Fire maximum explosion damage increased from 45 to 50.
Sentry Turret
- Damage per second reduced from 40 to 25.
- Turrets now reveal enemy heroes to allies while dealing damage and for 1 additional second afterwards.
^(Those changes happened due to, allegedly, Symmetra being ''too map dependent''. Of course, those nerfs also happened right after the Midseason Madness of the OWL where Symmetra's use as a team TP slave started taking root.)
^(The only positive change out of this entire set of changes, the partial revert to 100 dmg orbs, was effectively reverted after S9's changes. Basically every change made to Symmetra between July 2023 and Feb 2024 was effectively a nerf.)
March 2024 (Post S9 changes -> Mauga Meta)
General updates
- Global projectile size modifier for travel time projectiles with a speed greater than 50 meters per second reduced from 0.1 to 0.075 meters.
Photon Projector
- Primary fire damage per second increased from 60 to 65, scaling with each stage. The new maximum damage per second is 195. Reverted a week after.
- Primary fire charge rate increased 25%. Stealth Reverted later at an unknown date
Sentry Turret
- Health increased from 30 to 50. Practically reverted a week after.
- Damage per second increased from 25 to 30.
^(A month after the S9 changes, Symmetra saw buffs that should have happened alongside S9, but all of them were reverted due to her pro usage in Mauga meta. Her only slight buff was a partial revert from a previous nerf.)
^(This means that Symmetra was the only hero who was net nerfed by S9, specially when the set of nerfs made to fix her TTK (even if they barely did) were reverted due to pro-play.)
>^("The hero design team acknowledges community feedback regarding Symmetra's current power level and is actively discussing ways to improve her, specifically focusing on enhancing her frontline presence through survivability or beam damage.) ***^(Her recent buffs were partially reverted due to concerns about her strength in compositions with an overtuned Mauga)***^(, which may have been an overreactive decision.")
^(So they reverted those buffs, admitted this was an overreaction and did nothing until the next ''phase'' of her OW2 history.)
Feb 2025 - August 2025
^(Perks. Nothing much to say, really. How much of a nerf the removal of Adv TP perk was is debatable, but that changes happened during this time and still arent made to her perks.)
^(While many other heroes get consistent tweaking and baseline-ing of their perks, Symmetra's feel both mediocre yet mandatory. And extremely stagnated.)
Jan 2026 - Sept 2026
Photon Projector Secondary fire
- Base projectile size reduced from 0.5 to 0.4 meters. (Jan)
Teleporter
- Base shield health reduced from 250 to 200. (Jan)
- Placement range reduced from 30 to 25 meters. (Sept)
- Teleport reuse cooldown increased from 1 to 1.25 seconds. (Sept)
^(And now. Symmetra's usage in pro-play is probably at its highest on pro teams. Those are straight up raw nerfs, they arent even trying to pretend anymore.)
^(The Jan 2026 nerfs were in direct nerfing due to 2026 OWCS.)
^(The Sept 2026 nerfs were admitting that all of those are about team TP and nothing else.)
So where does that leave Symmetra now?
Photon Projector (Primary)? Weaker.
Photon Projector (Secondary)? Weaker.
Sentry Turrets? Weaker.
Personal Teleporter? Weaker.
Photon Barrier? Situational.
The proposal
As an OW1 beta Sym player, my proposal is simple.
Make Teleporter personal and deployable use only, and make it instantC. Then revert all the nerfs made to Symmetra that I have mentioned through the post.
This means:
Photon Projector (Primary)
- Primary fire damage per second increased from 60 to 65, scaling with each stage. The new maximum damage per second is 195.
- Primary fire charge rate increased 25%.
Photon Projector (Secondary Fire)
- Max damage increased from 90 to 120 (60 impact, 60 explosion)
- Projectile radius increased from 0.4 to 0.5 meters
Sentry Turrets
- Damage per second increased from 30 to 40
- Health increased from 40 to 50.
- Movement speed reduction on targets increased from 15% per turret to 20% per turret
- Slow effect from separate Sentries stack only with themselves.
Teleporter
- Removed allies' ability to use the Interact button to use Teleporter.
- Placement range increased from 25 to 30 meters.
- Teleport reuse cooldown reduced from 1.25 to 1 second.
- Base shield health increased from 200 to 250.
- Cast time reduced to 0.2 seconds.
- Deployment time reduced to 0.2 seconds.