It gets worse when you remember the context we had at the time of the rework.
The first time the devs ever addressed Symmetra after her first rework was more than a year after it, on this dev update. I took the liberty to place the video directly on the part that matters:
Which is “We don’t believe she need major buffs”.
We as a community were all over talking about minor buffs and improvements for her. We already had a massive megathread running, and there is a lot of good suggestions there. But the fact that we had reassurance from a dev video saying she don’t need major buffs, hit us with relief that any change to her would not be too extreme.
Then, a few months later, we got Patch 1.22, which gave us two minor buffs to both Mei and Reaper that focused on their already existent playstyle, and really improved the viability of those heroes.
Then we got hit by this post, heavily implying that her TP would take the Rez treatment and become a standard ability. It’s ok, the changes would still be minor, it would be a new ability, maybe lose the barrier for that, but it had potential. Most of the community was fine with that, and we waited for new stuff on the rework.
The gut punch was given at this thread, where Geoff started spilling the beans about her new turrets. It was good, and while there were some doubts about the reduction in stash size, the overall response was either positive or a “let’s wait for the PTR” reaction, both by Sym and non-Sym players.
Then he talked about the changes in her gun. And that’s where the doubts started. You see, for most Sym mains, her gun (beam and orb) was probably the most balanced part of her kit, and he basically trashed it down, and created two firing modes that behave in completely different manners from before. Then, a little later he told us about the reshaping of Photon Barrier and removal of Shield Generator. And that’s where hell broke loose.
The devs in the span of three months basically jumped from “she don’t need major buffs” to “we will change every single ability she have into something else”, and a lot of Symmetra players didn’t took that well.
Some never gave Sym3 a chance to prove her value, switching to other heroes.
Some quit as soon as the patch hit live.
Some adapted, but miss Sym2.
Some adapted and actually enjoy Sym3 more.
And a few started playing her more often, but have no previous experience to talk about the rework impacts.
And honestly, this rework divided the Symmetra community in half. And that has not been good for a niche community like ours. Mercy mains could survive having a split mains community because she was the most popular hero in the game, by a long margin. Communities like /r/SymmetraMains is a shadow from what it was six months ago (it was the most active “mains” community on reddit).
Myself, I stand that both versions are different heroes, and should be coexist in the game. I do not want a revert because I also enjoy playing Sym3 (just not enough to main her), and I don’t want the people who main her right now to feel the same way I did when Sym2 got deleted. Blizzard still have all of her old code, so they just need to make the art assets of the new hero (I know this isn’t easy or cheap or fast), and slap it on them.
Give Echo Sym2 kit. That’s my only fight on behalf of Symmetra players nowadays.