(Originally written for 2021, updated for OW2 June beta.)
This is gonna be kinda ranty, its also gonna be really long (idk, probably).
I’ve sorta been dwelling on this for a while now. Hopfully this won’t get buried under Genji post number 3897.
Anyways
How Symmetra Was Designed to Fail.
Symmetra, despite having a strong playerbase and a huge out of game impact, is a failure of a character. Through reworks, balance changes, and other attributes Symmetra was not only pushed into failure, but she was designed for it. The way that the devs have treated this character with little thought towards her playerbase is outright disrespectful and unacceptable.
Part I, The History of Symmetra
Symmetra was one of the earliest characters added to overwatch, some of her concept art is among the oldest with other chatacters such as tracer and widowmaker. Symmetra was announced alongside 11 other characters on the 24th of May, 2014. Her kit started with her turrets, an applyable shield, and her iconic teleporter. In the early stages of the game Symmetra was among the strongest characters, with a 50 health shield on a basic ability there was little reason not to pick her, especially because of her synergy with flankers (one that a newer character would exploit… Brig).
Symmetra was soon nerfed into a near unplayable state, with a mere 5M beam (Lower than Brig flail), 200 health, and a measly 25 health shield, Symmetra was picked exclusively for 1st point defense on 2cp maps. Players quickly realized how terrible the character was and anyone who tried playing her, regardless of the map, was flamed and harassed.
Quickly the devs realized the character needed help and announced a rework. On the 13th of December, 2016 Symmetra received her first rework, now referred to as “Sym 2.0”. Her abilities were updated overall, range was added to her primary fire, her turret count on start was raised to 6 from 3, and her applyable shield was replaced with a throwable barrier. Along with this symmetra received a new ultimate, shield generator, it replaced her old applyable shield and was used along with her other ultimate, teleporter.
On release the rework was met with overall praise, the changes kept the soul of the character while offering overall improvements. It kept the original playerbase and almost no one disliked the changes. Although she did seem underpower, the rework was mostly seen as a success.
Over the next two years symmetra recived zero balance changes, and very few bug fixes. Symmetra players often asked for bug fixes since many of her abilities were sparratic and didn’t work as intended.
On the 26th of June, 2018 Symmetra received her second rework, now referred to as “Sym 3.0”. On release the rework was met with mixed reactions, mostly negative from the symmetra playerbase. Many disabled players criticized the rework since it basically removed their ability to play her, other players didn’t like the removal of the photon barrier, or shield generator. On release symmetra 3.0 was much weaker than 2.0, her winrate on release was as low as 45%.
Over the next few months symmetra received small buffs, slowly improving her. On the 13th of August, 2019 Symmetra received her fourth rework, it was not deemed substantial enough to warrant a new name. Her teleporter is now infinite instead of on a set duration. This was met with mixed reactions again, however they were mostly negative. Most players didn’t see the point in an infinite teleporter especially since it had a longer cooldown. Along with that, the change was accompanied with the removal of using TP in spawn, which was a small nerf but on that certainly didn’t help the state of the character.
On the 15th of October, 2019 Symmetra received multiple substantial nerfs in response to her rising pickrate. Players criticized these changes since they were made only 9 days after buffs, and they were made during a meta that sym should’ve literally been the best in, Double Barrier.
Over the course of Symmetra’s history her Pickarte has always remained low. During 1.0 it usually sat around 0.9%, during 2.0 it would sit near 1.2%, and now in 3.0 its usually around 0.7-0.8%.
Part II, Neglect of Playerbase.
Symmetra players often criticize the devs for their lack of balance changes during all of her iterations. Symmetra 1.0 AND 2.0 received ZERO balance changes throughout their entire exitance. The devs unwillingness to test buffs for the characters has slowly killed of the playerbase.
During 2.0 symmetra was one of the most discussed characters of the forums, I’m sure all of us veteran forum users remember how much she was talked about. Despite this, no buffs were tested.
Because of the lack of changes many players lost hope for the character and dropped her, leaving to play other characters.
Symmetra was also known for having a large population of disables players. Symmetra 3.0 basically told all these players to frick off, as apparently Overwatch wasn’t a game where they belonged if they wanted to play a DPS hero.
The devs were also basically silent for most of her existence, they talked about her very little, occasionally they’d mention that they were testing buffs, but we literally never got to see them on the PTR.
Part III, Hero Favoritism.
It’s pretty clear which characters are the favorites, and which characters aren’t so popular with the devs. Ana, McCree, Reinhardt, ETC… all of these heroes have been S tier for multiple years while other heroes haven’t even seen the light of day for their entire existence. Surprisingly however, Symmetra is very popular with the skin department (specifically SKIN’s), as she has some of the best cosmetics in the game, Dragon, Oasis, and Magician just to name a few.
Symmetra has never been meta, the closest she’s gotten was double shield when she was tied for third highest pickrate with three other characters. Whats especially frustrating is that when sym SHOULD be good, she’s not, or she’s nerfed. The fact that symmetra was nerfed multiple times during double barrier makes it clear that the character isn’t meant to be good.
Symmetra was systemically put into this place. Devs often try to make popular characters better, but symmetra isn’t popular. Why isn’t she popular? Well its because she’s bad… why is she bad? Because the devs didn’t buff her.
Sym was put into a position where she wasn’t going to be favored by the playerbase. It’s not an issue of “she’s just not fun”, its an issue of “She was useless for 3 years, who would want to play a character like that?”
Part IV, Character Traits.
It’s sad to say, but people don’t want to play a character with a mental disorder. I say this as an autistic person. People simply dislike characters with undesirable traits, disabilities, disorders, ETC, they discourage close minded individuals from playing the characters.
I want to make this clear however,
Symmetra being autistic is a great thing. It fits her character and the representation is appreciated.
(even if the Autistic person who likes machines trope is super overused)
The point isn’t that making her autistic was a negative thing for her popularity, the point is that it hurt her reputation as sad as that is to say.
What else doesn’t help is Symmetra’s position as a darkskin Asian woman, who are often seen as undesirable or unattractive (which is just untrue, I mean literally look as sym). While this isn’t as damaging in present day, it still hurts her chances to be a popular character. Players have unconscious bias and that it certainly isn’t in favor of characters like her.
EDIT: I want to clarify that this is not something that devalues symmetra as a character, but it does further attribute to her overall problems with finding a playerbase. When you create a character who’s stacked with minority attributes you NEED to maintain and showcase them in a positive way (IE: Not letting them rot for 5 years).
Being a racial minority only puts character at further risk of being scrutinized. I’ll put it this way, I’ve seen VERY few, if any, posts making fun of Wattson for being autistic… but I’ve seen too many about Symmetra. Overwatch having a POC female autistic representative is REALLY good, because it’s something we almost never see… but it does hurt her. Trying to deny that these traits don’t have an effect on their popularity is just ignorant.
Part V, Toxicity.
Y’know how people call Overwatch a toxic game, and how it often leads to people quitting it… yeah imagine all that toxicity direct at you, and times 10.
Being a bad character means you are likely to harassed, bullied, and treated poorly overall. Symmetra often faces some of the worst toxicity of any character. Even today, I still get called a brainless player who can’t aim, despite the fact that its nearly been THREE years since auto lock beam.
Many well known symmetra players even noted toxicity as one of their reasons for quitting overwatch. Luminum in particular said that the toxicity that she experienced was always much worse when playing sym, and was one of the main reasons she stopped playing Overwatch.
Part VI, Thesis
The poor treatment of Symmetra, her balance, her playerbase, and everything surrounding her has resulted in a flat out failure of a character. The toxicity, and harassment players have to face when playing the Hero often drives them away, or leads them to quitting the game entirely. Hero favoritism has also hurt symmetras state as even in meta’s where she should excel, she fails due to a weakened state.
Part VII, What Now?
For now Symmetra players just have to wait for yet another rework when Overwatch 2 comes out. We can continue asking for buffs and changes but its unlikely that we’ll see much anytime soon.
Part VIII, Symmetra: Revisited.
I wrote this original post a year ago, it was something I sat on for months before posting. I debated with myself if this was something I was really willing to admit to, that my favorite champion, symmetra, was a design disaster.
And y’know what? It’s true.
It’s entirely and FULLY true. Everything, EVERY SINGLE THING that I said in this post has held up entirely. Every opinion I had, every statement I made, not a single thing has changed.
I had a lot of hope for Symmetra to be reworked again for Overwatch 2, and she should’ve been. If we look at the other heroes who were reworked, Doomfist, Orisa, Bastion, and Sombra, there’s a clear trend. These heroes are unpopular, annoying to play against, and don’t fit into the playstyle of overwatch two.
Symmetra is…
Unpopular 
(would be the least popular hero if it weren’t for bastion, Sombra, and Mei being actually unplayable.)
Annoying to play against
Doesn’t fit the playstyle of Overwatch 2
And yet… We got nothing.
Years, we’ve spent YEARS waiting for this hero to see some ACTUAL and MEANINGFUL changes that push her back to her original playstyle, and we’ve gotten nothing. If anything the devs have only doubled down into making her a dps!
It’s frustrating, and it just hurts. There’s a reason I stopped playing Overwatch and that reason is that I don’t feel like the devs care about some of their heroes. Atleast bastion and Sombra got overhauls which made them MASSIVELY more popular in Overwatch 2, Symmetra is only further losing her playerbase.
Let me make something clear, the symmetra playerbase is NOT a dps playerbase. We never have been, we’re never going to be.
There’s a reason there are so many sym 1 tricks, it’s because most of us WANT to play other roles, especially support. Symmetra really didn’t gain a playerbase upon her rework, she only lost players as time went on. The constant pandering to DPS players for this champion is not why people liked her. If someone wants to play a hero who focuses on enabling allies they’re not going to play DPS. It’s the same reason that no one plays Mei and Sombra, very few people who queue DPS WANT to be playing a supportive character.
Symmetra, at her core, is a utility support. Sure, she may not heal, but she provided some of the most powerful and most consistent buffs to allies we’ve ever seen. She’s only a hop and a skip away from a FULL support champion in her 2.0 iteration. There’s VERY little that prevents her from being a healer, and if turrets are what stop her from being a support… FREAKING GET RID OF THEM. Turrets have ALWAYS been the least interesting part of symmetra’s kit, I would bet that for every 1 symmetra player that would prefer to keep turrets over LITERALLY any other ability, there are 20 who would take the new ability.
People didn’t like symmetra 2.0 because she did damage, people liked her because you could save your allies, make clutch defensive plays with your photon barrier, and create UNQIUE an interesting win conditions… something that overwatch seems to lack as a whole right now.
Look, if you’re going to take anything away from this post, take this.
The devs DO NOT care about this character.
Symmetra went two FULL itterations without a single buff or positive bug fix. Only now, on their THIRD FREAKING TRY, where she has the least popularity, smallest playerbase, and clearly, most upset base, are they trying to buff and bugfix her. And they even do that wrong!
Teleporter STILL can’t be used in spawn. Instead of fixing the bug they removed an entire mechanic. Turrets still break randomly. Symmetra’s wall still sticks to surfaces when you turn around. You still don’t have an option to have a default wall rotation, and people can STILL go into games while still being LITERALLY UNABLE to use symmetra’s abilities.
Even when they do try to buff her they STILL don’t listen to the playerbase. People, since the DAWN of this “symmetra” have been saying that we don’t like teleporter. The ability removes impact from a hero who already struggles to find it, and it’s caused all kinds of balance fiasco’s. The ability is boring, and it fundamentally does not work in Overwatch 2. Instead of reworking it, or getting rid of it, they made it’s issues worse. Symmetra now has a 16 freaking second cooldown on an ability that people DON’T want. If you have to bend over this far to balance it… GET RID OF IT.
I just can’t help but to be angry.
We’ve put up with this crap for YEARS now.