Penny Arcade - Comic - Muse

Dog

Penny Arcade - Comic - Muse

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

GeorgeV

Placenta?

Urethra!

YoungFrey

Nissan Sentra?
Neon Tetra?

Skull2185

I thought everyone liked the Symmetra revamp?

Zilla360

Muse - Origin of Symmetra.

Skull2185

Oh wow, I just read the details of the Symmetra rework. She sounds pretty rad now... Haven't played Overwatch in a while, might have to load it up tonight.

Quid

I’m a fan of old Symmetra but the new changes are excellent. The sentries are much more useful, the teleported makes games much more variable, and her ult feels much more like everyone else’s ults.

She was also shifted from support to damage (which dps and defense were combined in to) which makes a lot more sense.

dennis

"Protect ya"
"Elektra"
...

And I'm spent.

Skull2185

Quid wrote: »

I’m a fan of old Symmetra but the new changes are excellent. The sentries are much more useful, the teleported makes games much more variable, and her ult feels much more like everyone else’s ults.

She was also shifted from support to damage (which dps and defense were combined in to) which makes a lot more sense.

Obligatory Symmetra Support post:

Monkey Ball Warrior

most of my objection to messing with Sym comes down to a "If it isn't broke don't fix it" feeling. Maybe her range was slightly larger than it needed to be, but otherwise she was nearly exactly what I wanted her to be. I have no idea if this new Sym will be able to match this, much less exceed it.

But then again I have much more significant reservations with fundamentally redefining the core roles of the game. Piling defense and offense into the same group, as though there was no actual distinction, seems insane. Pharah and Junkrat are not the same hero, and if you try to use them interchangeably you are going to fail. Making support == healing is less crazy, but also super boring. I felt like the 4-role system was one of the things that made Overwatch unique, and they've thrown it out without any obvious need to. </rant>

I don't play much these days, so I am content to shake my head and say "oh well".

Overkillengine

Monkey Ball Warrior wrote: »

But then again I have much more significant reservations with fundamentally redefining the core roles of the game. Piling defense and offense into the same group, as though there was no actual distinction, seems insane. Pharah and Junkrat are not the same hero, and if you try to use them interchangeably you are going to fail. Making support == healing is less crazy, but also super boring. I felt like the 4-role system was one of the things that made Overwatch unique, and they've thrown it out without any obvious need to. </rant>

I think a portion of the impetus behind that change was the portion of the player base that took the attack/defense labels a little too literally, and would for lack of a better term, sperg out if you attempted to use for example, Junkrat to attack Anubis point A.

Reasonable people know 'rat is friggen awesome for breaking up clusters of defenders.

Quid

The defender/offense labels were kind of pointless, especially now that people have gotten really good at the game. Defenders on attack and attackers on defense are commonplace.

Sure Junkrat isn’t anything like Pharah. But he’s also nothing like Torb and Pharah’s nothing like Reaper.

lionheartssj

Tycho's wordsmithing is going to get the better of him.

LieutenantDan

7:18 AM or PM

Skull2185

I wonder what Gabe's issue with the rework is. Played some last night, and Symmetra is kinda crazy now. The way her weapon works now is nuts (in a good way).

Phoenix-D

Skull2185 wrote: »

I wonder what Gabe's issue with the rework is. Played some last night, and Symmetra is kinda crazy now. The way her weapon works now is nuts (in a good way).

The primary fire actually sucks compared to before. The effective DPS is down and it takes longer to charge with less ammo. The alt fire no longer pierces shields.

Skull2185

Yeah, but shooting shields and barriers doesn't consume ammo, and makes the beam do more damage. Pretty awesome IMO

Quid

The alt fire also charges way faster and travels faster so you can actually hit people a lot more often with it.

H3Knuckles

@Monkey Ball Warrior Many would argue that Symmetra was broken and needed something to fix it. At low skill levels, players that didn't respect her could get wrecked, but she wasn't hard to kill at all and saw very little use as you went up the ranks because she was too niche to be worth practicing regularly. The whole point of the rework was to try and give her broader utility and to acknowledge that her skills where much more focused on area denial and advancing into combat, rather than supporting her team in the sense of keeping them alive (whether by healing, shields, or armor).

Blizzard keeps wanting to explore the idea of a support role that includes more than just healing, but the reality is that's pretty difficult to work in general, and they seem to struggle with it based on HotS and OW. I'd like the variety, but at some point you've got to pick between chasing the early vision and having the most polished experience they can deliver, and Blizzard always chooses polish.

I am with you on a couple points, though I can see the other side's arguments for these as well:

• I'll miss old Symm. I support the rework, but she was fun in her niche. I'm still not sure how I feel about the changes to primary and alt fire. In combination, they seem like a bit of a sidegrade to me, but I trust their judgment that it was needed for her new overall design. I just really liked having a character with a strong attack that didn't require aiming skills. The launched barrier had fantastic utility, and I'll miss the spawn point teleporter ult. The turret changes are fantastic, the new teleporter is very fun, and the barrier ult is way more interesting than the shield generator.
• I'm not wild about the decision to merge Offense & Defense into 'damage' either. It lends itself to people assuming that Tanks & Support shouldn't have strong attack capabilities, which is a design philosophy I don't like. Offense had mobility, and Defense had area denial, that's what set them apart from the other two roles, and it's why Symm never really fit support after the first redesign where she went from placing shields on individual characters to having the generator ultimate. But the lines were always blurred, like McCree didn't really fit offense under the old paradigm, and more and more players were finding old-Hanzo & Widow better at Attack (because it gave them more control over the ranges they fought at) which seemed counter-intuitive. Besides, very few of the characters within any of the old roles were all that interchangeable to begin with, as Quid pointed out.

shadowysea07

Give the artist a pat on the back for panel 1. That is some nice art for the guitar.