Her New Shield Ability Has Several Uses
Symmetra can no longer provide her teammates with shields whenever she wants (that ability has been moved to her ultimate, which I'll get to in a bit). Instead, she can summon a new, moving shield that works much like Reinhardt's. She can't hold onto it, though. It moves at a steady pace (about as quickly as Symmetra can walk) and is indestructible. This means you can force Bastion to move off his camping spot by running behind it and threatening his perch, or walk right up to Torbjörn's turrets if they're placed poorly enough.
It also blocks a number of other abilities. With the right reflexes, she can block Roadhog hooks, Reaper surprise attacks, and D.Va ultimates. She can also use them to protect her turrets in places where they might otherwise be vulnerable to long-range attacks, like in the first point on the King's Row map.
As Kotaku points out, the shield also has a number or other, er, less conventional uses. We'll see how many of these uses make into the build that goes live for everyone, but it's likely the uses I've pointed out here will survive any tweaks, giving her a nice defensive option against attacks she was normally helpless against.
Her New Ultimate Is A Powerful Option
Symmetra now has the option of two ultimates: her old teleporter ultimate (which is now sturdier and recovers health) and a new shield generator, which gives everyone within its reach 75 bonus shields. To use the new ultimate, you press the ultimate button once to bring up the placement hologram for the teleporter, then press it again to switch to the shield generator. The range of the generator is enormous, the limit of which you can see here. The Orb icon indicates where the shield generator is.
It's pretty tiny in that picture. Move any farther away, and you'll use your bonus shields after a second or two. And you don't have to see it to be affected by it. Like the teleporter, it doesn't have a limited duration. And unlike the teleporter, it doesn't have a limited number of uses, which means that if you hide it right, you can give your teammates a nice buff for the entire match. 75 shields is nothing to scoff at, either: this puts many heroes outside of Roadhog or Widow's instant-kill range, and can make it incredibly difficult for teams to stop the offensive momentum of a team that's placed the generator on the payload. At this point, I always used the generator over the teleporter, but after the new sheen wears off, I think I might still be hesitant to use the teleporter.
She's A More Well-Rounded Character (But Still Has Her Weaknesses)
Even before the new update, I always thought of Symmetra as a Defense hero, not a Support. She couldn't heal teammates, and was generally not the type of character that needed to be anywhere near her teammates to be useful (Just shield them up once per life and forget about them). After the update, I fell even more confident in the assertion she should be moved to Defense. Her powers are a lot more diverse, but they're all very defense-focused, and while teaming up behind her shields is an option, she can do a lot on her own now.
She's also not as situational a pick as she used to be. I used to never pick her on Attack (or do it when wasn't in a mood to care about what my teammates thought of me), or on Control maps. Now, I feel like she can be more useful on the offensive. If your team can't make headway on offense in a payload map, she can help break through that chokepoint with her shields and ultimate. She won't turn the tide on her own in these cases (since her teammates will have to follow her lead and push when the shield deploys), but she's no longer useless. As a frequent Symmetra player, that's great; I don't have to switch off her when I don't want to anymore.
We'll see how Blizzard address some of her glitchy aspects and whether these changes will be toned down afterward, but overall, Symmetra is a lot more fun to play now. I definitely enjoy her more, and don't miss her old shield-giving ability in the least. I'm still finding new uses for her shield ability, and her offensive capabilities make her a decent pick on Attack. I expect more people to pick her up after the update, even after the initial excitement dies down. For now, though, I'll have to put with having to implement my patented first-pick maneuver* in every Quick Play match. Considering she used to be among the game's least popular characters, I'm okay with that.
from www.GameInformer.com - The Feed http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2016/11/26/5-things-we-love-about-overwatchs-new-and-improved-symmetra.aspx
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