While everyone is grinding out Heroes of the Storm trying to get that Onii Genji Skin, Overwatch got a huge update full of new content and changes. New modes, a new character and on November 30th a new season of competitive play. This also included a lot of character changes which many have been asking for, such as Nano Boost no longer increasing movement speed. However, you know who wasn’t mentioned at all on these notes? Symmetra. We have known since late September that Symmetra changes are coming. Let’s take a look at everything we’ve heard before today:

- In late September Jeff Kaplan the director of Overwatch and Vice President of Blizzard Entertainment said in an interview with Business Insider that changes to Symmetra are ‘definitely on our list, but I don’t think we’ll see a change go live until probably some time November.’

- Then on October 5th they release a Developer Update video where Jeff mentions what the development team is working on. This included Symmetra changes which may be ‘a little more dramatic’.

- November 5th at Blizzcon in an interview with Eurogamer, Tim Ford the lead gameplay programmer said that they couldn’t give any Symmetra patch details but that the changes will come ‘Probably this year.’ Judging this fans concluded that Symmetra was getting a lot more than just a few balance changes, a complete overhaul was what many expected.

But now, finally they released a developer update giving us all the answers we needed. I had actually been working on this article the last week, working on possible ideas and speculations for what the changes could be. Looking at the actual changes a lot of fans had guessed right and some had guessed very wrong. So let’s get into the changes.

Symmetra is going to become the first ever hero to have the option of two ultimate's. Those who have played Heroes of the Storm will have noticed most characters within it do have two ultimates, including Zarya who is originally an Overwatch character. Does this mean we will be getting more ultimate’s overall? We don’t know, but it is unlikely that it will happen to everyone, as most characters can be seen as pretty balanced how they are right now. These two ultimate’s will work just like normal ults, the only difference is when fully charged the option will be there for you to ult and put the teleporter down and create a teleport or you can press the ultimate ability again to toggle it to a new 'Shield Generator.' It puts a shield on all of her teammates in a large radius, ignoring line of sight, similar to the shields she put on heroes previously, except much larger.

The teleporter was given slightly more health, in which some of is shield health so it will actually regenerate. This means the enemy team has to try harder to destroy your ultimate and making it more of a nuisance for the opposition, as well as more reliable for your team.

The original shields have been replaced by a brand new ability known as ‘Photon Barrier.’ Similar to Reinhardt's shield or Winston's Barrier, this barrier is projected on a track of movement, and moves forward in a set direction. Sort of like Reinhardt without Reinhardt.

Her turrets also received changes, previously she could always have 6 turrets out on the map but she could only carry 3, place them, and then have a cooldown time before setting up the other 3. Now she can instantly place 6 right from the get go. The cooldown on turrets is now 10 seconds as opposed to the previous 12 seconds. This means she can be more mobile and set up further back or in better places quicker and easier.

The beam lock on distance of her primary weapon has been slightly increased to have a bit more range on it, but Jeff Kaplan did say not to worry and that it’s very minor, she is still a short range hero.

So Symmetra players and non Symmetra players, does this excite you? And do you think these changes are the correct way about changing the character? Before Jeff’s announcement today there were many suggestions and things people wanted, did yours make the cut? Well, however you feel, she will be coming to PTR soon and we can all find out and experiment for ourselves. See you on the battlefield.