Throughout the history of competitive Overwatch, the meta has shifted countless times. With a consistent mixture of aggression and reservation, the lifespan of the competitive scene has included a wide variety of team compositions and dominant heroes. However, when it comes to the game’s most prominent sanctioned competition, The Overwatch League, as well as the entire competitive scene as a whole, one hero in particular has been frankly invisible.

No matter what changes she may undergo, and what drastic turns the meta may take, Symmetra is far and away the most stagnant and underwhelming character in all of Overwatch. Whereas heroes like D.Va, Winston, Widowmaker, and Mercy all held a steadfast presence throughout the entirety of the 2018 season, Symmetra was practically nonexistent. It felt like the game’s roster of heroes had been cut short by one all year long.

When it came to total play time, the top four heroes in the game, D.Va, Zenyatta, Mercy, and Winston, all racked up at least over 300 hours each during the course of the OWL season. D.Va, the game’s most prominent hero, was featured in over 423 hours of OWL gameplay this season. For reference, Symmetra finished the year with a whopping total of 2 minutes and 6 seconds played, altogether; or just .007% of the time that D.Va spent on the OWL stage.

And it’s not like Symmetra really even had a shot. Her disappointing kit and relatively useless playstyle severely hindered her chances of making an appearance on the OWL stage this season at all. Even with a series of changes, buffs, and a dramatic rework, she just wasn’t able to climb the mountain and make a significant presence, let alone any presence at all in the league this year.

And although Symmetra isn’t necessarily bad, she just isn’t as good as everyone else. The 27 other heroes on the roster outclass her in essentially every other facet of the game. And frankly, she’s not alone. With Torbjorn joining her as the only other hero to post less than one total hour played across the league, it’s obvious that Overwatch is promoting a very tight meta. Only a few heroes at the very top of the roster get the chance to dominate competitive play while many others are simply forgotten.

This season, Symmetra often ran into the common problem that plenty of characters across competitive games will face during their lifespan: “Everyone else does what you do, but better”.

As is often the case in esports, many other characters have come into the forefront of the meta for their respective games, leaving their counterparts starved for play-time in the process. In close comparison to Vi from League of Legends, Nova from Heroes of the Storm, or Blood Death Knights from World of Warcraft, Symmetra has fallen to the wayside. Whether it comes in the form of a flashy new character, or a lengthy series of battering nerfs, the decay of a specific character arrives in many forms. And for Symmetra, it came in the form of an underwhelming design and a failure to impress when it mattered most.

However, on June 1, right during the middle of the OWL’s fourth and final stage, a looming rework for Symmetra sparked new hope for the hero, as perhaps a new set of abilities and an overhauled style of gameplay would bring her into the light, even if just a little. However, instead of a renewed sense of excitement for the hero, the rework proved to be the final nail in her coffin, as a character no one was playing to begin with was shut down for the remainder of the league’s inaugural season.

Instead of opting to let the rework run wild on the competitive stage during the OWL playoffs and finals, game director Aaron Keller announced that the new version of Symmetra would not be available for play during the postseason. Before she even had the chance to get off the ground, the hero was silenced; only to be shelved indefinitely until she was believed to be in a solid enough state.

And now, with the Overwatch World Cup in full swing, Symmetra is still nowhere in sight. Even after undergoing a massive rework, her total time played only jumped from 2 minutes and 6 seconds during the OWL season to just 10 minutes and 1 second during the World Cup. And with the competitive Overwatch season coming to a head at BlizzCon in less than a few weeks time, Symmetra is showing no signs of gaining any traction in the coming days. Despite a massive overhaul, she’s still practically useless when compared to the other heroes of the game.

To rephrase the point in a more literal sense, not a single player on the competitive level has found a use for her on a consistent basis. Throughout the history of competitive Overwatch, she’s racked up just six hours and eighteen minutes of total gameplay. For reference, Wrecking Ball, who’s only been available on the competitive stage for a little under three months, has already surpassed her.

If the character is going to have any presence at all as the competitive season winds down, she needs to start popping up a bit more often than she is right now. However, at this rate, it’s obvious that Symmetra has fallen to the wayside and will most likely have zero impact at all on the remainder of the competitive Overwatch season, especially at the highest level of play.

Let it be known, though, that for Symmetra, the 2018 season is a lost cause. There is no hope whatsoever for the hero to make a significant and consistent series of appearances throughout the remainder of the year. However, it would behoove Blizzard to take a long and hard look at Symmetra, as she clearly has proven over the course of the past year that she is by miles the most underwhelming and disappointing character on the entire roster. With heroes like Brigitte and Hammond lapping past Symmetra during the year, it became obvious that flashy and fancy triumphed over boring and outdated. Even with a rework that seemingly brought her up to speed, Symmetra was still proven to be nothing more than a waste of time.

If Blizzard is serious about character balance, then the goals for 2019 should start with Symmetra. With almost, if not zero redeeming qualities, she needs to be seriously looked at, as she has been forgotten by professional players for far too long. The process of Symmetra’s transformation starts and ends on the competitive level, and if she’s going to make an impact in the coming season, then perhaps it’s best to leave the nightmare of 2018 in the past.

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