I don’t think it’s really just powercreep leaving sym in the dust. Here’s Geoff’s comments about the sym3.0 rework regarding her primary:
back then, sym charge time went from 1s per level (old <=2.0 sym) to 2s per level and beam was 10m length i.e. they totally expected sym to somehow reasonably stay alive in reaching 10m of the enemy, then stay alive for >4s when she had little to no sustain in a game where average ttk is like 1~2s.
obviously it’s a bit different now, but emphasis on bit. i.e. instead of 10m it’s 12m and instead of 4s to charge it’s like ~2.6s. and now her mobility is pretty much like old 2.0 most of the time making her play very much like old sym too (i.e. not able to do much else aside from wait for w+m1 a lot of the time)… the very thing that the rework was supposed to move away from (esp with barrier nerfs to tanks)…
powercreep is part of it, but there’s a clear double standard going on with sym’s balance vs others from the beginning.