There are some scenarios I keep running into where my team regularly fails, and I'm wondering what your suggestions are, and if you run into similar hurdles.

• Attacking point A on Anubis, the first chokepoint is typically saturated with Bastions & Torb turrets, so much firepower that it makes Reinhardt's shield evaporate. How do y'all push through this? Without alternate routes around that entrance, it seems very easy to defend and very hard to attack.
  
  
• Attacking at the beginning of Dorado has a similar but not quite the same issue. Even one turret is really hard to deal with here when they're on the rooftops.

Any suggestions for these? Any trouble spots on maps you have difficulty with?

There are plenty of choke points on maps, even on payload, where if your team gets wiped you are going to have a hard time breaking through.

With two big offenders Hanamura and Anubis, I usually choose Winston and jump into the back to take the teams focus away from the choke point long enough for my team to break through, his ult is good for causing chaos.

I don't enjoy the first half of attacking Hollywood. It's all reduced to pretty much a single choke point.

@williamflattener: On Anubis if you take the tunnel on the left when attacking you can get around and flank a Bastion that's stationed on the ledge. You can also take them down with Genji, Pharah or Widow from a distance.

Genji is generally a great way of dealing with Bastion via flanking, and Pharas is great if the turret is occupied with someone else since they usually take only about 4 rocket hits.

@imsh_pl: I will try that! It's tough because you have to somehow sprint through the worst killbox of all time, however briefly. And I get paranoid with Pharah when there's a roof over my head. But if turrets are aiming at the door, I could see it working....

@williamflattener: If the choke point is completely locked down by bastions/torbs/Junkrats and your team can't get the job done with a simple reindheart shield push, try using Reaper/tracer/genji to get through the choke point unharmed and flank hoping to if not get rid of the threat, at least cause enough of a distraction that the rest of you team is able to push up.

First time I've heard of issues with point A on Anubis, that's usually pretty quick to go whether I'm on offense or defense. Pretty hard to hold I think.

Dorado though damn, probably the easiest map to defend on. First point isn't half bad and the last point is a nightmare. Non-existant run for defenders and horrible line of sight for attackers.

I don't think I struggle noticeably more on any given map, it definitely always comes down to who the better team was. But I will say that the game is pretty biased for offense, and the heavy-handed ways they try to balance it out so defense will have a better shot make the game a little funky in spots. It basically amounts to the last point on every attack/defend map being a chaotic clusterfuck where I rarely feel entirely in control. So I guess I'd say I struggle a bit more around clutch-time at the end on both offense and defense (aside from king of the hill maps that don't share these mechanics).

The Garden of Lijiang tower. It is a fairly open map except for the control point, which is inside a pretty small room. That means if one team captures the point early, it is really hard to get it back because they are under cover but everyone else isn't...

Anybody else think Symmetra is basically terrible on all of the payload maps? At least on control point maps, the point itself often has something of an enclosed space where her short-range turrets can be useful, but on the payload maps, most of the action is focused around an alleyway for the payload that's really open and tends to not have a lot of corners to put turrets around. At best you can spam a bunch of turrets in an enclosed side area that an enemy might try to duck into to flank, but that's a lot of effort to maybe get 1 or 2 kills. Also with her turret cooldown it takes Symmetra forever to set up all 6 turrets in one area as the payload moves, whereas Torbjorn can have a new level 2 turret within about 5 seconds at any time.

I know this is may be for a different thread, but I think Symmetra needs buffs because she's useless on like one entire mode of the game (other than the teleporter ult still being useful). Also, if you're gonna put her in the support tab, maybe her shield she gives to people should actually slowly heal people when out of combat or something, because right now she is not a support the way Mercy/Lucio/Zenyatta are. She's just a weird short range Torbjorn but she has a teleporter.

Point B on Volskaya has consistently been one of the more challenging points to capture on attack for me. That point just has a lot of good high ground and concealed positions for defenders making it really tough to penetrate in there and take out all of the attackers. I also think it being more condensed into a smaller area than the second point on Hanamura or Anubis makes it more challenging than either of those.

@hermes: That's the circular one with entrances on opposite sides, right? The outside one? I see a ton of people use Junkrat and toss grenades in blindly through the windows when that point is occupied.

Can I join your team? lol. Although, I'm on console doing mostly pub games, so anything that requires teamwork is noticeably more challenging.

@bisonhero said:

My friend, you must open your eyes to the gloriousness of Symmetra. She is honestly my #1 go-to defender, payload or otherwise. I regularly get 20-ish Eliminations (I know, I know, that's not the point, but it matters here) and can help the whole team defend better. Here is how I use her, if you find this useful:

• Her turrets don't do a lot of damage, but can "seal the deal" if positioned near a firefight. Remember not to group them close together. And my pro-est of pro tips: Plant them on the ceiling whenever possible. It sounds dumb, but this completely threw a few attack groups for a loop on Nepal and Dorado.
  
  
• Also, consider placing them near health kits, so that they'll intercept the wounded on their way to heal. (Can you hear my maniacal laughter yet?)
  
  
• The teleporter is so crucial, especially early-ish in a payload sequence, for getting your scrappier teammates back into the fray--it means the whole "overwalk" scenario doesn't happen, and you're constantly applying pressure at full team strength.
  
  
• Also, if you see a big red rectangle, alt fire into it. Her charged up orb says a polite "No Thank You" to Reinhardt's shield and passes right through.
  
  
• Also, her main fire is remarkable for getting rid of overextending tanks trying to push without their teammates. If you don't lose the connection. It's risky but I have just 1v1 killed more Reinhardts than I can shake an energy beam at.

I'm sure the meta will wise up to her soon, so get in on it while you can. :D Just my 2 cents!

My winrate on Ilios is horrible. On the map with the big hole on the point I'm never sure where to position myself and as a king of the hill map it naturally gets hectic.

WHY HAVEN'T I THOUGHT OF THIS? MUST LOOK FOR GOOD APPLICATIONS NOW

@williamflattener: All good points. I instinctively place her turrets high up on walls or on ceilings when possible, because that part of her character is functionally identical to Combat Girl from Super Monday Night Combat, and I played a fair amount of Combat Girl. And yeah, I always laugh at people that triple stack or quadruple stack turrets around one corner they really like, because that's bound to get hit by a Pharah or Junkrat. But yeah, maybe I just need even more experience with each map to know which side rooms I should try to trap up with a bunch of spread out turrets.

Still, I don't like that she's such a soft support. She's the only character who I think needs an actual mechanics change. Either her shield buff should heal that ally whenever they're out of combat (say, super slowly, slower than Lucio heal), or her turrets should shoot a short range healing beam at allies if there aren't enemies nearby to shoot (again, the healing could be slower than Lucio's aura). Just something. Her shield of an extra 25 regenerating shield feels so meaningless and doesn't really qualify her as a support, and the teleporter is super rad if your team dies one at a time, but if you ever get wiped then you'd much rather have Mercy ult. It seems completely silly that the team composition stops saying "no support" when someone picks Symmetra, when Overwatch is a game about having sustained healing while teammates are on the objective.

Hanamura point A for attackers is the worst. Unless I'm missing something, isn't there pretty much only that one gate to get through to the point?

@bisonhero: I can lock down the side entrance to point A on Hanamura with 2 turrets and myself pretty effectively. With 1-2 turrets backing me up it feels like Symmetra can murder anyone in a few seconds. Spread the others around to tag people / notice someone's flanking, or spam them in the point room high up on the walls. It's also super fun to run up to lone Reinhardts because they always try to focus on someone else or flip between me and others enough that I can drop them anyway.

Kinda squishy but nobody ever seems to take the offensive-on-defense Symmetra seriously enough to focus me when there's other people to shoot at. The main fire on her gun is super short range but can wreck people if you stop being afraid of getting in their face. Alternatively, if we're getting steamrolled, I can at least be annoying with constant turrets.

Of course if they're smart enough to get a Winston to just run around shooting constantly, then a lot of my power drops. Still, I can get a reliable 15-20 eliminations when defending if the other team doesn't hard counter me specifically.

I do think it should say "no healer", or something, if you pick her though (unless it does and I'm blind), because she's basically pure fire support. People who switch off Lucio/Mercy/Zen when I'm Symmetra make me sad. My shield can help but it won't heal your butts!

On King's Row, that little nook inside the fountain before you get to point A. The attacking Genji went to take a breather in there after taking a couple hits and just sorta poofed. I accomplished this with one, but now I'm thinking more would be better given the proximity to point A.

More mobile characters like Genji / Junkrat / Pharah could reach that perch on the upper left of the main gate. It's a little exposed but it can make all the difference for flanking or firing into where red team is clustering.