Overwatch devs reveal reworks for Symmetra, Mei, more ‘on the cards’

Overwatch’s developers seem keen on reworking more than just Moira ahead of the sequel’s release in the near-future. According to lead hero designer Geoff Goodman, Symmetra, Mei, Brigitte, and Roadhog are all up for potential reworks.

In Overwatch, there’s some interesting hybrid characters between certain classes. Take Brigitte ⁠— the armored support who can also put shields up for her team ⁠— or Roadhog ⁠— the tank whose only stopping ability is his beefy body and incredible healing.

These hybrid heroes have proven to be a nuisance for players, especially in certain metas. If they can fulfil more than one role, especially in a role-lock scenario, they can become incredibly busted. That’s not to mention the tricky nature of trying to balance them to fulfil those roles equally as well.

Ahead of Overwatch 2’s release though, Blizzard are looking at potentially reworking some of the game’s heroes. Whether they’ll only be changed for the story mode as part of the upgrade system, or will apply across all modes remains to be seen though.

Lead hero designer Geoff Goodman singled out a few heroes on their radar though.

Symmetra was the one right at the top of the list, with the developers saying they’ve attempted to rework her into a support in the past and failed, but would be keen to try again.

“We tried Symmetra as a Support hero where her turrets healed instead of dealt damage. This was sort of fun but was kind of frustrating as a Symmetra player because Overwatch moves so fast,” Goodman explained during a Reddit AMA.

“We started trying to tune the turrets to have super high range, or being able to have a ton of them out. It ended up just feeling like a mismatch, but honestly I’d be up for another crack at it at some point.”

How would Goodman change things up if he was to ship changes for Overwatch 2? He’d change the turret’s identity yet again, and give Symmetra a new “primary way” of healing.

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“Maybe if she had some other primary way to heal and the turrets were just a way to provide auxiliary healing it might have gone better.”

Another topic that comes up a lot in discussion is turning Mei into a tank. It’s an idea that’s been popularized in the community for years. The Chinese scientist is loathed by a lot of players for her annoying abilities, but reworking her into a tank by just forcing her to do less damage isn’t as simple as it sounds.

“Mei as a tank comes up quite a bit, it’s something we can maybe try. She would have to get nearly reworked though, for example her secondary fire is far too much damage and long range to go on a Tank, but it’s a possibility,” he said.

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Those aren’t the only two heroes Blizzard have their eyes on though. Roadhog as a DPS ⁠— something they teased earlier this year as part of an experimental card ⁠— and Brigitte as a tank are also potential candidates.

The reworks for now are just strictly ideas, though. While they are looking into them behind closed doors, there’s nothing they could share with players just yet.

However, keep your eyes peeled, because nothing is off the table yet and your main could be getting a huge change.

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