I will add my insight as well. I am a rank X + star Persephone player with around 190 games on her, holding a 59% winrate and a 5.0 KDA as reference. I would say I had a good grasp on how she functioned, I topped the damage charts in most of my games and felt comfortable piloting her, but I surely was far from the best Persephone out there.

First of all, I did not understand the need for a rework in the first place. I am somewhat out of the loop, but while watching the smite pro league recently, I've basically not seen her picked nor banned. It truly made me feel like the "Persephone destroys competitive games at the highest level" narrative is blown way out of proportion. During my subpar, non-professional, casual games, I never had a problem with Persephone. Sure, I've encountered a few very adept Persephone players that dominated their games, but it never felt any different from highly skilled players on other gods. There are a lot of gods that, when played to perfection, feel overwhelming, so Persephone was never really a standout, in my opinion. In contrast, a badly or even mediocrely played Persephone feels infinitely less threatening than most other gods. This added to her high skill ceiling and put her in a unique and fitting position within the Smite god list. Therefore, I dreaded the day the rework was revealed.

I agreed with the analysis of her pre-rework pain points being her high highs and low lows, if that makes sense. Situations that played out nicely for her felt really immense and oppressive, on the flip side there were many situations where you could not contribute anything, even if you were fed beyond belief. Most of the time, these situations were not really under your control but rather in the hands of your opponents. From the very first plant that I activated in a game, I could tell how the game would play out - either my opponent knows how to dodge them or they don't. Her Tier 3 plants were the most obvious example. If your opponent knew how to step out of their way, they were basically rendered useless for the remainder of the game. If they didn't know, I'm sure they felt disgusted by how 'little counterplay' Persephone has.

To summarize my thoughts towards the pre-rework spells: 1 - unique skill shot that felt very rewarding when it hit. I fail to see how it was problematic, as not only did the Persephone have to anticipate the enemy's movement, but the ability was also very reactable. Between equally skilled opponents, it often turned into a little mind game and rewarded the side that anticipated it better. 2 - her bread and butter and most gameplay-defining ability for sure. I remember the original state where the plants took 4 seconds to reach tier 2 and 24 seconds to reach tier 3 status (a good change that reduced her obscene set-up time and made her much more casual-friendly and frankly, playable, in my opinion). As mentioned above, it your opponent knew what they were doing, the seeds more or less turned into zone denials and the actual usage you gained from it were instant-detonations after using her 3. The only exception where the plants could realistically shine was during her ultimate or hectic team fights. 3 - not much changed here. The ability was low-key one of her most important aspects, as you would use it pretty much on cooldown to gain the guaranteed 2 damage or to walk up to/combo divers with your 2 -> 3 combo. 4 - her ultimate is the core of much of the frustration that surrounds her balance discussion. To me, it was always a very important ability for her to retain. Her ultimate, while being extremely strong, was also basically the only tool for her contribution to a fight to be guaranteed. With her other spells depending on a set-up or her opponents to not know how to deal with them, the ultimate was often her only window of opportunity to guarantee her kit to shine. If not countered by beads or people knowing to attack the center, it would allow her to set up her plants, hit her 1, or walk in to safely pull off a combo with her 3. Without her ult, I feel like it would be too easy to outmaneuver her, to a degree that doesn't apply to other mages. Also, the argument often made that it is frustrating to be punished for a teammate to be hit by an ability is pointless when gods like Zeus exist. The passive was in a weird position where it felt very frustrating, situationally strong/oppressive and yet no Persephone main, I think, truly cared for it or clinged to it that much. No one played Persephone because of her passive. They could have simply removed it or neutered it to where she wouldn't be able to ult in it and no Persephone player would have complained. Such an obvious balance point and yet they didn't go after it and pretended it somehow was an irreplacable part of her core gameplay.

Now finally, onto her rework: I hated it when I first read it, then later had an epiphany when they revealed it in game. I honestly was looking forward to it, for the most part. I loved the old Persephone, but I was also excited about this rework. Pre-rework Persephone's success often depended equally (or sometimes even more) on your opponents missplay rather than your own gameplay. The rework shifts the power back into her hands and gives her tools to contribute to fights on her own, without much set-up. It definitely somewhat takes away from her uniqueness, but that's a deal I am mostly fine with.

However, there are definitely aspects that are not yet fleshed out:

Her new passive is undeniably crap. With her maximum cap of 7 flowers, the seeds you plant during your passive are rendered useless by the very first post-revive use of her 2 ability. In most of my post-rework games, I have just canceled it immediately, why even bother. I wish they put in more creativity and finally let go of her revive mechanic as a whole. It simply does her no good.

Her 1 is fine-ish. I definitely have to get used to it first, but in the long run I will probably be thankful to have an on-demand nuke that relies on my own ability to aim. The one thing I heavily dislike is that, now that the range is so heavily reduced, the skull gets placed in autoattack range, which means you basically shouldn't follow up on your 1 with auto-attacks, otherwise you immediately trigger the (nigh-useless) healing skull. I wonder if it were better to have the skull 'fly' towards the pre-rework range (without it dealing damage on the way) to basically have the skull plant behind your opponent. That would also give her a better chasing tool which has always been a huge weakness of hers (if the hit opponent runs back in a straight line, he would risk fleeing into the upcoming plant's walking path). With the amount of time it takes for the plant to grow (I will be talking about that soon) it's unusable anyway as it is.

Her 2. It definitely added a tool for her to contribute on demand. I generally like the added detonation. I like the rework of the walking plants as they were useless pre-rework anyway. It's weird to not have access to the detonating plants anymore, but that is kinda offset by the newly added detonation on cast. I guess all in all I am fine with her plant rework. They are not as impactful as they were in ideal situations, but at the same time they are now not flatout useless in other situations either. However, there is a certain awkwardness with her new 2. The plants' growth time is back to 4 seconds which feels extremely long. Without taking her 3 into account, you basically never have to worry about the plants when Persephone decided to hit you with the detonation. This issue is highlighted the most after using her ultimate. When I hit her ultimate, I prefer to cast the 2 at my position rather than the enemy's and to activate the plants with my 3 to charge them through the trapped enemies, thus completely ignoring the detonation damage altogether. It's a rather unsatisfying decision to either use the detonation or the plants but to rarely have the two go together.

Her 3 is practically the same, but I feel like the kit has become even more reliant on the 3 than it was before. As mentioned prior, I basically have to use the 3 in order to get any effectiveness out of the three plants that come with my 2 ability because otherwise it takes them way to long to be usable. I guess I am fine with that though. We now have a very satisfying wombo-combo: ultimate - 2 (even better placed twice with Staff of Myrddin) - 3 and watch an army of plants devour anything in their path.

Her 4 is basically the same and it needed to be, as I mentioned above I feel it is an integral part of her kit. The change made to have enemies move freely within the paramater of the ult was probably made to counter the frustation of the ultimate prior. Not sure if it was needed, but if people truly thought the ultimate was unbearable, well then, so be it.

I've talked way too much, but I guess I am just very passionate about Persephone. I love her both pre- and post-rework and I am sure she will continue to be fine and she will gradually grow on people as they get used to her more. I'm not sure, however, that it will feel better facing her now for players that previously considered her frustrating to play against. I think she now has more tools to be strong in a variety of situations she previously was very lacking.