Hi, I’m Fritz (f_ritz_ is my tag on psn). I’ve got over 50 hours on Brigitte in competitive and I hit Diamond this season with a 65% winrate. A lot of people have misconceptions about Brigitte’s role in the game and in team comps so here’s my guide to the optimal Brigitte playstyles.
- Support
- Brigitte IS a healer and a rather good one. Whip Shot is only on a 4 second cooldown so you NEED to be activating Inspire whenever possible. Hitting beefy targets like DVa, Wrecking Ball, Zarya and Roadhog is the best way to do this since they’re easy to hit consistently and 9/10 times they don’t even really notice it. Getting kills isn’t Support Brigitte’s job. Staying alive, activating Inspire and Providing Repair Packs to keep your main healer alive is the goal. Getting 13-15k heals is the goal on Support Brigitte and Rally should be coming up quite frequently.
- Tank
- Brigitte DOES have a tank playstyle and due to her hybrid nature she can fill the off or even main tank role in off-meta compositions. Yes, I’ve won games with 3 DPS, 2 supports and Brigitte as the main tank. The trick to this playstyle is disruption. Your job is to create as much space as possible and be aggressive without putting yourself at suicidal levels of risk. A good example of this is Shield Bashing the enemy Reinhardt and booping him away. This activates Inspire, creates space for the team and poses little to no risk to you. Tank Brigitte is meant to bully the enemy tanks into up space. Playing around your shield and drawing enemy fire is the goal. Tank Brigitte plays aggressively with Rally and uses it to give her the sustain to fight the enemy tanks head on for her team. Challenge their Rein to a swing duel, bully the 90 charge Zarya into a corner. Distraction is the key because it allows your team to dismantle the enemies.
- Backline Defender
- Brigitte is fantastic at scaring away ANYONE who overextends and punishing them for it. Backline Defender Brigitte is focused on being as oppressive as possible to anyone who’s biting off more than they can chew. This playstyle sometimes means dying to keep a Reaper from killing your main tank or a Genji from killing your Mercy. Find the most threatening hero on the enemy team and FOCUS them. Ideally, you’ll be able to force a swap or shut them down completely. Keep your sensitivity on high and have lightning fast repair pack responses. Backline Defender Brigitte is the only playstyle of Brigitte that is focused on getting kills all the others are focused on CC and Inspire activation.
Now that I’ve explained the general playstyles here are some multipurpose tips.
- Pay attention to enemy ults and hold shield bash to deal with them. You can cancel death blossom, blizzard, coalescence etc. and the stun combo is enough to kill or scare away blading genjis, visoring soldiers etc. PLEASE DON’T SPAM SHIELD BASH. You’ll end screwing yourself because you don’t have it when you need it
- YOU ARE NOT A DPS. Brigitte is all about feeling like a DPS not about running into the enemy team and trying to 1v6. You are not a DPS and your damage is very low after you’ve wasted your cooldowns. Never invest so heavily in an engagement that you can’t get back out.
- Your SHIELD is key to winning duels. A lot of times stalling for help to arrive or your passive to kick in with the shield is how you win duels. Aside from melee range heroes, your shield should stall you a pretty good amount and sometimes picking an enemy carry hero to distract for 10-15 seconds wins the teamfight.
- Don’t hold onto Rally for more than 30 seconds. If the enemies are staggering really bad, just group up and give everyone the 100 armor. It’s more efficient to use it and just start on a new one.
- Sometimes as Brigitte playing passively is the way to win. Focus on surviving more than being aggressive. Against your “counters” (Junkrat, Pharah, Hanzo, etc) you have to avoid them and NOT overextend because they’ll punish you every time if you play into their hands (which is what your hero does to most of the cast)
Good luck climbing. Brigitte can carry by filling the roles of tank/healer simultaneously and she can cover for bad teammates by doing their job for them (which is why she has different playstyles)
TL; DR Brigitte is a Tank and a Support, she isn’t a DPS. The hero is way more about mind games and gamesense than people give her credit for. Punish mistakes, win games.