Edit November 13th 2018
The suggested nerf to Brigitte is going through to PTR.
Original Post
Before you say “But Brigitte is great with Reinhardt!”; yes, she is. Because she destroys the other Reinhardt.
Brigitte’s interaction with Reinhardt is just… sad. He’s ridiculously countered by her, and if it’s not changed it’s going to cause Overwatch to really suck.
Let me explain why.
First of all, Reinhardt really can’t kill Brigitte. He just… can’t do it. She outranges him by one meter for some reason, but even if she didn’t, by the time Reinhardt is able to kill her (while she has rally armor) she could (accounting for Armor, but assuming all his health IS armor, so it’d actually be a bit higher in reality):
Do over 300 damage to him with her flail
Whip shot twice (130 additional damage)
Shield bash twice (90 additional damage + 2 seconds of stun meaning 100 more damage with her primary)
That’s 620 damage, plus the extra damage not mitigated by His armor I didn’t bother calculating, and it’s important to remember she can just stay out of his range the entire time as well because her melee is longer than his for some reason.
“Okay, but then don’t engage her as Reinhardt!”
But there’s nothing you can do to stop her from engaging you.
You can’t punish her for getting close to you with your hammer like you can every other hero in the game because she’ll just stun you or whip shot if things get even a little hairy, since she can easily tank for longer than it takes for her cooldowns to come back she can always do this, no matter when you engage.
But you also can’t block her. All of her attacks, including her incredibly long stun, go through your shield.
And that stun is the problem. It has a longer range, lower cooldown, longer duration and (I think) a bigger hitbox than McCree’s flashbang. It also can’t be blocked, and she’s protected from fire while she uses it.
Yes. McCree’s flashbang can go over Reinhardt’s shield. But to do it, McCree has to expose himself to him, since the flashbang is the same range as Rein’s hammer. This carries immense risk for McCree as Rein can three shot him, and his team will hurt him too. Brigitte can take about 5 (7+ if she has rally armor), for comparison.
No risks exist for Brigitte. She can do it while covered from his teammates damage (due to her shield), she can start it from a range where he can’t even hit her if he tried, and even afterward if he’s still alive, she can readily defeat or knock him away, or even just wait until she can do it again in the same fight, since he probably can’t kill her before she can.
Her stun is also so ridiculously long it creates an entirely new problem: there is no way to block Earthshatter as reinhardt if there is a brigitte on the enemy team. Her stun is significantly longer (almost half a second) than it takes for a rein to cast earthshatter. Meaning with even nearly non existent coordination, an enemy can take advantage of Brigitte stunning you and hit you with shatter before you can raise your shield.
This is the one of the main reasons Rein is a good hero. He’s the only good hero for blocking earthshatter. Orisa’s barrier can be walked past, and Winston’s can be destroyed relatively easily, making them not great for it. Zarya is the only hero that is semi reliable for blocking earthshatter, and generally she can only do it for herself or maybe a teammate, unless she’s close enough to rein to catch the whole thing for her team (which is unlikely). Anyone who plays Reinhardt knows how integral to his playstyle mindgaming the enemy Reinhardt into using shatter, or using it yourself at the right time is. Brigitte completely demolishes this dynamic.
Now, you could say “But you could just have a brigitte on your team, and do the same thing to them!”
But that’s not the problem. The problem is that Rein can’t do anything about enemy shatter and that feels awful. And it’s so powerful, you’re probably going to have to play it yourself, so both Reinhardts are going to be feeling absolutely terrible.
Brigitte is going to turn Reinhardt into a hero that feels awful to play as, and that’s massively problematic imo. And it’s not going to just be earthshatters either. Shieldbash/hook is a strong combo too, as well as D.Va bomb and bash. But any damage will be bad enough. Just having Reinhardt be helpless and without a barrier for 1 second every 5 seconds is incredibly unfun for the Rein.
You can already see this in QP. Just play Reinhardt into a Brigitte. Just try to have fun, I guarantee you won’t. It’s impossible to have fun getting stunned over and over and over again and having absolutely no counterplay to it.
Please, I love Rein, he’s one of my favourite characters. It’s just impossible to have fun as him anymore. Just make it so that shield bash is blocked by other shields. That’s all you need to do. It even makes sense, both thematically and logically!
I’m not asking for this from a balance perspective, but a fun perspective. I don’t really think Brigitte is OP but the way she counters main tanks, especially Rein, is just awful for a class that is already so forgotten and abused half the time. I don’t want to have to play only offtanks or dps into a brigitte just to be able to play the game at all.