Serious question. And also, is there a possibility that the Symmetra and Torbjörn reworks will hopefully reduce the amount of hate that these heroes get?
Because if you combined them into a single hero, you’d essentially get the TF2 Engi, who is actually good. Those two aren’t.
To be fair, Symm feels one or two good abilities away from being a good hero. But Torb just feels like a cheap Engi knockoff.
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Poor hero design combined with human beings looking for the easiest target to put fault on. Heaven forbid most people from accepting their own failures.
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I guess they generally have a bad image because of all the troll-picks.
A lot of Symmetra and Torbjorn’s value comes from their turrets, which, in all fairness, aren’t terrible. Torbjorn’s turret supplies steady, auto-aim DPS, and Symmetra’s turret can make some entryways completely inaccessible. The problem is that these turrets can be easily countered, especially in higher ranks. Once they’re down, what are they left with?
Torb’s kit without his turret is kind of subpar. His turret is the source of most of his team value, and it’s easily destroyed anyway, because it stays completely still. (unless you have some next-level positioning strategies).
Symmetra can fare a little better without her turrets, what with her auto-aim microwave gun and teleporter/shield gen. I think the problem with her is that she takes a bit long to set up her nest, plus the fact that people just tend to see her as a no-skill hero due to auto-aim.
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Honestly Torb isn’t as bad as people say he is. He’s a little weak but he doesn’t need a major rework.
His gun is super powerful, but he gets melted too fast in the midfight.
Reduce his head hitbox. Please.
That might not be all he needs but it would be such a major step in the right direction.
I think the big thing is that the heroes can be good, but they can also be heavily team reliant and a lot of people (especially in solo queue) aren’t willing to compose around them. A lot of it is probably perception, but unless you’re clever with them, they can be inflexible picks.
I’d wager the biggest thing though, is the perception of Torb/Sym one tricks who refuse to switch no matter what.
Sym and Torb are unfun to play against and generally unfun to play with.
Having a torb or sym on the enemy team is like suddenly having a list of chores to do before you can push the point: Find the turrent, destroy the turrent, find the sym turrents, and find the godforsaken teleporter. Not even remotely fun gameplay.
Having one of those heroes on your team, on the other hand, means you need to build around them for them to work at any competitive level. Shield tanks for Torb turrents, having to work to get sym close to the other team for her to use her M1 at all, protecting the shield gen, ect.
But the most annoying part for most people is that players who main Sym or Torb just refuse to ever switch. Want to play dive? “Lol sorry kiddo, I want to play Torb, deal with it”. Enemy has a Pharah? “Lol sorry kiddo, I want to play Sym, deal with it”.
It doesn’t justify any hate messages or threats these people get. But that’s where its coming from.
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Cannot agree more:O Most of the time when you finally finish dealing with the turrets the game is over. DEFEAT. 
Because their different,
they play differently
they require different skills
people dont like different stuff
Yeah, imo it’s because both sym and torb work best against uncoordinated teams. In a perfect world where you’re playing with a team who switches to counter them and gives both the appropriate focus, it’s a breeze to deal with either.
But this isn’t a perfect world, its Overwatch 
I think the Sym analysis is spot on.
She isn’t TERRIBLE on defense, but she only gets one shot practically speaking. After a push, if she’d dead, her defenses are dead, and she won’t get another 10-20 seconds to establish her position… And then she’s arguably more worthless than a turretless Torb with decent aim.
I also think this fits with her current narrative as a “win more” character. If you win with Sym, you just won harder. She turns a win into a steamroll. But if your team is losing, she most likely isn’t going to help at all.
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How is it that people manage to be GM Symm and torb players?
Situational uses. Use Torb/Sym while you have advantage. Swap off when you lose it.
Still counts as “winning time” as those characters.
A variety of reasons:
Builders aren’t necessarily fun to play against for many players from get go so that starts them off in a less than fully popular position. Fighting against buildings is basically like fighting against bots. It’s less rewarding than a human and it’s a real pain if you are losing already. I can trick a player to get an advantage and turn things around but, I can’t trick an aimbot.
Builders also do not appeal to a sizeable segment of players. (Players will put up with more annoyance from a hero if they play it themselves and get enjoyment from doing so)
Builders tend to have a portion of their characters effectiveness locked into their buildings. If they cannot effectively put their buildings into play they cannot effectively play the hero which can make them situational more easily than many other heros. Thus, when you are losing things can go bad for you quickly as a builder.
Symmetra’s primary weapon results are dependent upon other peoples failures rather than the Symmetra’s player’s success. People don’t take being reminded of failure well.
Torb’s gun can at times feel cheesy to fight against it can do solid damage at any range and it can one shot you up close.
Sym and Torb’s efforts aren’t as clear as other heros and are discounted. The shield generator and the armor can massively impact how fights go but, players don’t necessarily notice. When we see a Sym or Torb POTG it’s rarely looked at a skillful play and it’s frequently mocked.
Sym and Torb can be harder to play around/harder to play around while doing what you normally like to do because they aren’t regular dps/support/tanks. They also can be unpredictable. You’ll hit some Syms that are always closing in to get kills with the primary and others that are actually staying at range spamming barriers and secondary fire at the enemy. Some Sym’s are heavily focused on keeping turrets up and how they position them and others treat it more like an after thought.
(Builders also will cause the other team to either work better as a team or to fall apart. If it’s the latter the match is a roll and it’s not fun unless you get your kicks from just winning. If it’s the former, you will generally lose if your team doesn’t produce a similar level of coordination (not everyone likes coordinated play that much).)
Developer statements have made it so that the positive stats for Sym and Torb are ignored as people assume that any success is because the players swapped off the hero every time they started losing.
The visuals and story for both characters do not have as much appeal as for other characters for many people.
I am not saying that nobody likes x or y so much as that in general certain sizeable groups of people do not.
People underrate the characters at most skill levels and assume levels of teamwork that don’t exist.
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