I don’t hate Brigitte, I think the recent nerf to Shield bash is good and I, in no way, want Brigitte deleted.
All I propose is Brig’s shield health is lowered from 600 to 400.
Brig’s shield is currently as tank-y as Winston’s and she has the shortest delay between pressing the button and actually activating the shield of any character in the game. (Go spam the button in game with both Rein and Brig if you don’t believe me. There’s a noticeable difference.) Shield bash also provides her with Offensive capabilities while defended. This combined with her 200HP and 50 armour that frequently regenerates at 16HPS makes her the toughest support in the game by far.
But is this too tough?
Brigitte’s effective health is quite high for any character. For comparison:
Zayra: 600 (400+200)
D.Va: 750 (600+150)
Brigitte: 850 (250+600)
Winston: 1100 (500+600)
Orisa: 1300: (400+900)
Wrecking Ball: 1300 (600+700)
Reinhardt: 2500 (500+2000)
(Symmetra places here at 5200 if you want to be really technical)
The difference between Brigitte and these Tanks is she is her own healer, allowing her to regenerate her armour by sitting behind her shield after merely tickling the enemy. This makes her nigh-on impossible to even dent in a 1v1 so long as she has her shield to cover herself and let Inspire heal her back up.
The solution then appears to be to break her shield at which point Inspire cannot effectively mitigate incoming damage and her most dangerous tool, Shield bash, is no longer an option. She will still likely win but it will not be mindlessly easy for her. However, a 600 health shield is stronger than it first appears. To give one example, it takes Junkrat all 5 charges on Frag Launcher to break it. Now Junkrat has to reload while Brigitte is free to assault him.
This is why I feel Brigitte’s shield health should be lowered.
Questions:
Why the Shield? Why not Inspire or Shield bash?
Shield bash is now a 7 second cooldown meaning she can no longer throw it out as flippantly as she once could. Inspire isn’t as strong as people make it out to be. To clarify: Inspire triggers everytime Brigitte hits a target with her Rocket Mace or Whip Shot. Inspire DOES NOT stack. Reactivating Inspire simply restarts the 5 second duration. It heals for 16HPS or 80HP over the full duration. The shield can be thrown out instantly if Brigitte is in trouble and has the same health as Roadhog and, between you and me, Roadhog’s 600 health isn’t the easiest to chew through.
But won’t this make Brigitte incredibly vulnerable to flankers?
Brigitte is, no doubt, going to be more vulnerable with this change. However, she will still be the 1v1 queen of the game she will just require more skill. Her shield at 400 health is still a fairly large amount to chew through and Shield Bash and Inspire aren’t going anywhere. This also makes Brigitte players more reliant on Whip shot to get her assailants away from her, giving her a chance to restore her shield, retreat to her team or follow up on that 70 damage. This has the added benefit of forcing the attacker to use their movement cooldown to make up for lost ground if they don’t want her to get away, leaving them unable to escape from Brigitte’s onslaught.
For both sides, it boils down to risk vs. reward.
Why 400? Why not 300 or 500?
400 is an early guestimate at a fair number for both Brigitte and her assailant. 300, while still a large number, lets burst damage annihilate Brigitte’s shield very quickly (The most common burst damage, 120, would eliminate more than a third of it’s health). 500 doesn’t circumvent the issue as it’s still a rather high shield health and, going back to the Junkrat example, wouldn’t actually reduce the amount of grenades needed.
I’d be happy to answer any other questions and update this post with them.
Opinions?
