Symmetra

"The True Enemy of Humanity is Disorder."
Real Name	Satya Vaswani
Age	28
Occupation	Architect
Affiliation	Vishkar Corporation
Role	Support
Health	100
Shield	100
Abilities	Photon Projector Sentry Turret Photon Shield Teleporter See This Hero On OverPwn

Abilities[edit | edit source]

Ability	Icon	Description
Photon Projector		Symmetra’s weapon emits a short-range beam that homes in on a nearby enemy, dealing continuous damage that increases the longer it is connected. The projector can also release a slow-moving charged energy ball that deals high damage.
Sentry Turret		Symmetra sets up a small turret that automatically fires speed-reducing blasts at the nearest enemy within range. Several turrets can be built on the battlefield at once.
Photon Shield		Symmetra surrounds an ally with a hard-light shield that absorbs damage and persists as long as that ally remains alive.
Teleporter (Ultimate ability)		Symmetra places a teleporter exit pad at her current location, and connects it to a teleporter entry pad at her team’s starting point. Allies can travel through the entry pad to the exit pad instantly, enabling them to return to the fight swiftly after being defeated.

Ability Breakdown[edit | edit source]

Ability	Ammo	Fire Rate	Damage	Health	Reload/Cooldown
Photon Projector	100	5 rps	30 - 120 dps	-
Photon Projector (Alt fire)	100 (up to 20 per shot)	-	25 - 125	-
Sentry Turret	3 (6 max)	-	25 dps	1	10s
Photon Shield	-	-	-	+25 shield	1s
Teleporter	6 uses	-	-	200	-

Strategy[edit | edit source]

Symmetra is a unique Support who keeps her allies alive through unconventional means. She can increase the maximum Health of her team through the use of Photon Shield, deter enemies from traveling through chokepoints with her Sentry Turrets, and can dramatically shorten the distance between the respawn room and the frontline with her Teleporter. Despite appearances, she is also one of the most damaging of the supports, with a weapon that can deal devastating damage at both short and long range. Despite this, her complete inability to heal her allies, along with her relative fragility, makes it challenging for her to serve as the only Support on a team.

Weapons & Abilities[edit | edit source]

• Photon Projector: Symmetra's primary weapon. The primary fire creates a beam that tethers to the first hostile target in range, dealing increasing damage for as long as the beam remains active. The beam will fall off if the tethered target moves out of Symmetra's vision. The secondary fire shoots out a slow moving projectile that bypasses barriers and passes through enemies, dealing damage. The size and damage of this projectile increase the longer the secondary fire button is held down. Both of these firing modes ignore Genji's Deflect.
  • The primary fire requires time to build up to its highest potential damage. At its maximum damage, it is one of the most devastating weapons in the entire game. If you have the opportunity to safely use it on a durable target like Reinhardt or Roadhog, do so.
  • Because the primary fire's tether automatically remains locked on as long as Symmetra keeps the tethered target in view, it is a good way of damaging agile, close range targets like Tracer. When attacking this way, act evasively, moving around your target to confuse them.
  • At maximum charge, the secondary fire deals a high amount of damage, and can hit multiple targets. Charge up the secondary fire and shoot it down choke points and corridors to discourage enemy movement.

• Sentry Turret: When activated, Symmetra enters a targeting mode, which she can use to place a Sentry Turret on a solid surface. Sentry Turrets have 1 Health and automatically fire on the first enemy that enters their range, dealing continual damage and slowing them. Sentry Turret works on a charge-based system, where Symmetra gains a new charge (up to a maximum of 3) every few seconds. Symmetra can have a maximum of 6 Sentry Turrets up at once. Placing a new Sentry Turret in excess of 6 will destroy the oldest Turret that was placed.
  • Sentry Turrets are incredibly fragile, and can easily be destroyed by splash damage from rockets or grenades. Place them strategically in places that your enemy is unlikely to fire on, but which will still discourage them from traveling through an area.
  • Symmetra sees a small icon in her view for each of the Turrets she has placed. She is alerted when a Sentry Turret is attacking a target (with the icon changing to an orange "alert" sign), as well as when it is destroyed. If you are worried about an enemy trying to flank behind you, place a single Sentry Turret on the major side routes so that you will be alerted if they either pass by it or destroy it.
  • A single Sentry Turret will rarely deter people from traveling through an area. You will usually need to place at least 2-3 in an area to slow them down or stop them entirely.
  • Look for clever positions to place your Sentry Turrets, such as behind bushes or underneath overhangs. This can confuse your enemies as to where it is, letting your Sentry Turret survive for longer.

• Photon Shield: When activated, Symmetra provides a semi-permanent shield to her target, increasing their maximum Health by a flat amount. This bonus health can be healed, and regenerates like a normal shield. This ability autotargets the ally closest to the center of Symmetra's crosshairs. The shield will last until the affected ally dies, or if Symmetra is swapped for a different hero.
  • Photon Shield has no cost and a miniscule cooldown time. Aim to have Photon Shield on all of your allies as much as possible.
  • Swing your crosshairs over your allies occasionally. You will see the autotargeting indicator if they do not have Photon Shield on them currently.
  • Photon Shield is more effective on characters with low base Health than characters with high base Health. Zenyatta with Photon Shield can survive a single Widowmakerbodyshot, which otherwise would kill him if he didn't have the bonus Health. A character like Roadhog, however, will gain a comparatively miniscule amount of survivability.

• Teleporter (Ultimate): Symmetra's Ultimate ability. When activated, Symmetra enters a targeting mode, which she can use to put down a Teleporter on a solid, horizontal surface. A second Teleporter will appear in her team's respawn room that allies can pass through to instantly reach the first Teleporter. The first Teleporter has a Health pool, and will be destroyed if damaged sufficiently. The Teleporter can only teleport a maximum number of allies before shutting down. Symmetra does not gain Ultimate charge while she has an active Teleporter.
  • A deceptively powerful Ultimate. While it has no in-combat application, a well-placed Teleporter allows Symmetra's respawning allies to instantly rejoin the fight, saving valuable time that would otherwise be spent walking back from the respawn room.
  • Teleporters are almost always a priority target for mobile flankers like Genji and Tracer, who will attempt to destroy it if they suspect you have one up. You must balance placing your Teleporter in a safe, hard-to-find location with placing it in an area that will let your allies get back to the objective quickly. Look for elevated locations that are out of the line of fire, or isolated rooms without Health Packs.

General Strategy[edit | edit source]

• Symmetra wins games through clever thinking and good preparation rather than brute force. Since she lacks any sort of healing capabilities, you must focus on keeping your allies as safe as possible from flankers and on minimizing the number of routes that enemies can take safely. This allows your allies to retreat to cover safely without having to worry about being picked off by a sneaky McCree or Reaper.

• Symmetra is generally best played on Defense, as it's more difficult to make good use of Sentry Turrets and her Teleporter when on Attack. The added Health of Photon Shield and the quick movement from Teleporter can still benefit an Attack team enough to warrant taking her along, however.

• Knowing where to best place Sentry Turrets takes a lot of practice with different configurations. Keep in mind that the "best" configuration of Turrets depends a lot on both your team and the enemy team and changes from game to game. For example: if you have another hero like Torbjorn covering one chokepoint, you can afford to invest more of your Turrets in protecting a different chokepoint.

• Sentry Turrets have a decent vertical firing range, and can be placed while jumping. If you're up against Pharah, look for protected, vertical areas where you can place Sentry Turrets that will hit a flying Pharah, as they greatly reduce her mobility.

• The Photon Projector can be deadly when used intelligently. When up against fragile targets like Tracer or Genji, charge up the secondary fire on Photon Projector, lure them around a corner, and fire it directly at them when they round it. Follow up with the primary fire to net yourself a quick kill.

• Since Symmetra has a maximum of 3 Sentry Turret charges, she normally can't set up all 6 Sentry Turrets before a round begins. A single Lúcio using the speed boost ofCrossfade can help her get to the frontlines much faster and set up more turrets before the round begins. Two Lúcios can let her set up all 6 if they alternate Amp It Up on the way there.

• Because of how powerful Teleporter is for a team on Defense, prioritize your own safety as much as possible until you can get your first Teleporter down. Aim to shoot your Photon Projector's secondary fire down bottlenecks in order to gain Ultimate charge, and avoid sticking your neck out too far (as this opens you up to being killed by heroes likeWidowmaker or Hanzo).

Story[edit | edit source]

"The True Enemy of Humanity is Disorder."

Symmetra literally bends reality. By manipulating hard-light constructs, she crafts the world as she wishes it to be, in hopes of engineering a perfect society.

Following the Omnic Crisis, the Vishkar Corporation of southern India began the laborious process of creating new, self-sustaining cities to house the nation's displaced population. One such city, Utopaea, was created using radical hard-light technology that enabled its architechs to shape the city's streets, utilities, and living spaces in the blink of an eye.

After she was identified as one of the few capable of becoming a light-bending architech, young Satya Vaswani was plucked from extreme poverty and placed in the care of Vishkar's Architech Academy, never to return home. Isolated and lonely in her new life, Satya immersed herself in her education and training. She quickly grasped the applications of the technology and was one of the top students in her class. Satya approached hard-light manipulation differently than her peers, with their more procedural, mechanical constructions, instead weaving her constructs in the motions of the traditional dance of her homeland.

Though she was one of Utopaea's top architechs, the Vishkar Corporation saw far greater potential in Satya's abilities. Giving her the moniker "Symmetra," Vishkar sent her on clandestine missions around the world to uphold its corporate interests and expand its influence into other countries.

Symmetra believes her actions serve the greater good in society. But there are times when she wonders whether the control and order she desires are truly best for humanity.^[1]