Any Overwatch player can tell you that Symmetra is a very situational hero. She shines on certain maps, but picking her on others can get you yelled at by your team. Blizzard had issues with the treatment of their pseudo-support. Apparently they’ve been working on a large patch to fix her, which is a feat after the large Sombra patch fans just got. They’ve released a 12 minute developer update with Jeff Kaplan that outlines all their Symmetra changes coming up, including her new second ultimate, Photon Barrier.
Photon Barrier works similarly to the teleporter in that it’s a built object that the Symmetra player is encouraged to hide. It’s a shield generator that is destructible to the enemy, and puts a powerful shield on effected allies. The player can switch between the teleporter and the Photon Barrier when their ultimate is charged. The generator ignores line of sight, so anyone within the radius is effected, whether they’re in the same room or not. It’s much more powerful that Symmetra’s normal shields, so the enemy must go hunting for the generator in the wild to regain the upper hand.
Sentry turrets are changing as well. Originally, when you first place turrets, you can only place 3, before having to wait for a cooldown before placing more, up to 6. After the fix, Symmetra can place 6 turrets from the beginning, and the cooldown for placing more is changing from 12 seconds to 10. These turret changes allow Symmetra to more carefully control the battlefield.
For the most part, her weapon works the same, except for a slight change to the range of Symmetra’s beam. It’s not exactly long range, but it’s still a bit more distance to worry about when you’re facing down a Symmetra.
The changes are coming soon to the Overwatch PTR, and game director Jeff Kaplan urges hard-core Symmetra players along with newbies to give feedback to help fix Symmetra.