Overwatch's Symmetra is getting a choice of two ultimates
UPDATE: We take a look at her new photon barrier in action (it's brilliant).
UPDATE: Chris has been playing around with Symmetra's new build on the PTR today and has come away really impressed with her new photon barrier. If you use it correctly, you can effectively block a whole range of enemy abilities.
Strangely enough, that includes other photon barriers. Weird.
ORIGINAL STORY: Overwatch hero Symmetra is getting recalibrated and will have a choice of two ultimate powers, making her the first character in the game to offer such an option.
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Game director Jeff Kaplan noted that Symmetra was an "overly situational" character whose teleportation ability was really only that effective in scenarios like the first checkpoint in King's Road. The rest of the time she was a bit underutilised. So Blizzard has decided to put a little pep in her step by offering her an all new ultimate: a shield generator.
This new power has Symmetra planting said generator which grants a significant protective shield to all teammates in the immediate vicinity. Better yet, it ignores line of sight. So the opposing team will have to seek and destroy the shield generator or they're in for a much harder fight.
Players can still opt for Symmetra's old teleporter ultimate and they'll always have a choice of which ultimate to deploy when their meter is full.
Furthermore, the teleporter will have more HP than it did in the past, with a stronger shield. As such, the opposing team will have to make a more concerted effort to destroy Symmetra's erected unit.
Since Symmetra now has a shield generator, she doesn't need her regular shield anymore, so that ability is being replaced with a new power called Photon Barrier, which is a projected barrier that moves along a trajectory.
She'll also be able to deploy six turrets at once, whereas before she could only plant these in sets of three.
There's a minor change to her photon beam primary fire in that it has a little more range now.
All in all, Symmetra sounds like she'll be a lot more dangerous. Symmetra 2.0 will be coming "very soon" to the public test region, Kaplan stated in the video above. He further noted that the Oasis map teased at BlizzCon will follow "very soon" after the Symmetra update with the goal being to release it in early 2017.
Head over to our pals at Metabomb for a more detailed roundup of the new Symmetra changes.