the sym and mercy reworks did not fail, despite what some people might think. even though these characters are still problematic (at least in my opinion) they are still leagues above the original versions of them selves.
if you are worried about how a main of yours is getting reworked, just think about this way. you would complain even if they weren’t reworked, its all about looking on the bright side guys 
ive been fine with every rework so far in all honesty…more importantly i get why they did em…and i get why they would consider them here as well…so i cant really complain…
Most reworks seem to have been successful. The best one was the Torb rework imo.
Honestly I would say they did fail. Mercy’s rework was more about the people who hated playing against her than helping the hero themself. Especially after they remove the multi rez function of Valkrie.
Sym’s better on attack sure but she’s also much worse on defense. She became medicore.
Hanzo is perhaps the best rework, mostly because he’s been allowed to remain OP for over a year now. But if they ever decide to nerf something about him he will be garbage again.
Simply put most reworks are about making the people who hate the hero happy, not balancing the game. Recent reworks have all been about shifting the meta and making OWL look good and fresh.
Add to that OW 2 is asking a lot of the balance team. You have the game being converted into 5v5 and the entire rework of balance that requires.
Then you have the PVE game mode changes and what they do to hero’s. Oh and 5 or so new hero’s released all at once.
Yeah if your at all confident this will go off without a hitch I have some questions about your choice in drugs. Blizzard has been unable to release a single hero without them being brokenly OP or just plain broken. Now they are trying 5.
Edit: OH and in the case of some reworks like say Symetra she was basically made into an entirely new hero. Her primary weapon was changed, her alt fire was changed. All of her abilities were altered to the point only her turrets remained remotely the same. Her ult was swapped out for something new.
Sym was effectively a new hero wearing the skin of Symetra. If you main a hero you have good reason to worry about a rework. What comes out might as well be a new hero in some cases.
Every time there’s a rework there is also huge and prolonged growing pains, often taking years to fix. Most people don’t want to go through that on their favourite heroes.
Maybe not from a statistical perspective but if a hero is reworked and you no longer like them, it’s failed for you.
Very true. I felt that way about Sym. She wasn’t my main hero or anything but I enjoyed her from time to time and viewed her as a nice counter to fast hero’s like Genji or tracer.
Then Sym 3.0 came around. She was no long really good at anything and more medicore at every thing. Her entire ability and weapon list changed. She was a body double at best. A new hero as much as if Phara stopped flying and decided to use a flamethrower.
Success balance-wise is poor comfort if said balance comes at the cost of losing the things you liked about a particular hero. That said, I’d generally agree the reworks have ultimately worked out, albeit, many such as Mercy were a mess for a good year or so.
Sym though…I don’t see how anyone can defend it. Not only did it turn her into a completely different hero (far beyond the extent of any other rework), she’s still niche as ever only now with the bulk of her power tied up in an ability that’s entirely reliant on teammates.
Forums warriors think the Mercy and Sym reworks “failed” because they just want the original versions back. They literally do not care if the character is stronger, more popular, better balanced, etc, all that matters is their sweet “reset ultimates” and “hero moments”.
Though the Mercy rework was a failure initially tho, just not for the reasons the Mercy cultists think it did.
Great reworks:
Torbjorn
Hanzo
(Previously) Bad reworks:
Sym
Mercy
No “horrible” reworks atm. Sym and Mercy have some flaws in their new shoes and took way too long to become balanced but some decent changes too. The latter broke the game for a few months.
Torb and Hanzo play so much better than they did before and are decently balanced straight off the bat. I applaud Blizzard for those.
IMO Sombra and Bastion are the only heroes in the entire game that are either completely useless or incredibly OP and unfun to play against. Absolutely no middle ground, mostly the former. The only way to make them more than bottom tier is a complete top-bottom rework.
Torbjorn benefited heavily from this and Sym works well enough to get some value out of in most situations.
I also feel Pharah needs a rework as she hard counters too many heroes. Needs to take some notes from Echo. Probably much less flight but more frequent firepower as compensation.
Overall reworks are certainly needed for Sombra and Bastion, lets just hope they end up like Torb and Hanzo and not like Mercy or Sym, being useless or broken for months.
I’m cautiously optimistic.
They kinda did tho:
I think mercy, hanzo, torb, and junk reworks were great
Sym was iffy but they didnt ruin her
I would say the Sym rework was not a success since she is still niche and has a clunky infinite TP and the rest of her kit has a slow wind up process.
I guess it could be a semi success since she is used slightly more often.
Yep very true and it felt awful going through all the Mercy changes.
They both failed lmao
Mercy was needlessly reworked into a moth abomination where her cooldown Ress had to be nerfed for years to not be downright broken.
Sym became a gimmick hero that depends on whatever or not her team takes the TP - otherwise she is just bootleg Reaper.
Literally THE only rework so far that wasnt catastrophic was Torbjorn, and many still think that the loss of Armor Pack was a dealbreaker.
She isnt even THAT good on attack, she is just good on a couple of maps like Hanamura. Ironically, 2.0 was also strong in a couple of offense maps, while being a powerhouse on defense maps.
If they are getting unnecessary nerfs sure I would complain, but if they are just staying the same I think id prefer that over an unnecessary rework.
Not… really. At least before OG Dive became such a dominant meta that pushed out anyone that wasnt part of it, Sym had a very healthy 2% to 2.5% pickrate at all ranks.
Then they reworked her and once the rework calmed down, her pickrate tanked to 0.3% for a whole year until double barrier 2, where she went up to the ‘‘she is meta and everywhere! thats unnacceptable!’’ pickrate of… 2.5%.
And right now it hasnt gone over 2% in months if not years.
The rework hasnt really been a success at all, much less after the infinite TP nerf.
Nah Mercy was awful before her rework and barely saw any play high up, the main use was to literally hide and then full team-res on maps like 2CP which was way more broken at the time, that just wasn’t a healthy state for a hero
They only stuffed up with making her new form too OP
Sym has been in her strongest state since her rework, while she lost some of uniqueness she never saw play in high level games before her rework
I strongly disagree, yeah Hanzo was trash before Storm Arrow but Storm Arrow is such a nuisance to Tanks and he’s usually the main culprit of tank melting, for the general playerbase this is easily the worst ability in-game
I strongly disagree with your statement here, that’s just not even true, each three heroes you mentioned have had way more success in the post-rework state than beforehand, balance has been a strong reason for the reworks and I highly doubt it was “because people hated the hero”, the only one that was remotely true was with Scatter arrow because it could OHKO 400 HP targets but otherwise Hanzo was just useless and that’s the theme of all three, they were useless in high level play outside of very specific niches
OWL usage is literally not a valid argument.
It has never been, and never will. Sacrificing a hero’s viability so the 0.1% of the playerbase can meme with extremely coordinated team TPs while the people who play the hero in the other 99.9% of the playerbase have to beg their teams to take TP and play around them is a design failure, simple as that.
Sym is at her strongest for the 0.1%, and yet all that strength barely translates to viability the 99.9% of the playerbase due to how gimmicky team TP is and how little agency Sym has over it.
Mercy 2.0 became the single most powerful hero in the game after her release and had to be constantly nerfed for like, over 6 months? (honestly i dont remember but im dead sure every patch had a new Mercy nerf). No hero that dominates that long and has to be nerfed that much could be considered successful imo. She may be fine now but considering all that it took to reach that point… Also balance wise she may be fine but gameplay wise is diferent, on a personal level current rez still feels clunky
Sym 2.0 was niche, but she was fun, Sym 3.0 is equally as niche but not the same hero she was. Like, again, correct me if im wrong but stat wise isnt she performing on a similar level that 2.0 did? And look at OWL, regardless of feelings about it, if even the best players in the game only find her usefull as a taxi… i dont think it was a great success
Hanzo was ok, the bad part, aside from storm arrow power, is that storm arrow is another aim ability that took away some of the uniqueness of scatter.
Torb is good, the only one probably. I´ll never forgive the armor packs tho