Symmetra's long-awaited rework went live on the Overwatch PTR earlier this week, but in the days since, an exploit has been discovered that lets the newly redesigned hero pump out massive damage. Her reworked kit is meant to deal more damage than before, but the exploit lets her rip through enemy heroes in a fraction of a second.
Here's how it works: Symmetra's beam is intended to be held down, dealing damage over time at a set interval. But by rapidly activating the beam, you can trigger its initial damage faster than it would tick by holding it down. The exploit requires the use of a rapid-keypress macro, which is a bannable offense, but that hasn't stopped some players from testing just how much damage the new Symmetra could potentially pump out if this goes unfixed.
"We created a macro which fired the primary fire as fast as possible while still registering a damage tick (once every 21 milliseconds)," said Redditor dexausmelmac, who used a custom game to test how extreme the exploit could get. "The results show that the beam deals chunks of 49 Damage every 4 Frames, equating to 735 DPS."
Here's a gif showing the test in action:
As you can see in the clip, the exploit pumps out nearly 1,000 damage in 76 frames, or just over a second. If this were employed in an actual match, Symmetra would be able to chew through even the game's beefiest tanks in less than a second. Light a candle for poor Reinhardt.
Blizzard, please think of the tanks. Patch this exploit before it gets to the live servers.
