HOW TO FIX BRIGITTE - from a Brigitte main

General Discussion
1

blah blah overpowered blah blah angry

As someone who’s played with, and against Brigitte in almost every match since the start of this season (I also play her a lot however I’m mainly a Symmetra main, but Brigitte is still my best girl and I love her to pieces and she IS one of my most played and always will be. ) here is what I THINK would gently shove Brigitte to where she needs to be.

I will preface this by saying these are mostly nerfs, mainly because I feel like people would get very very angry and toxic with me if I suggested buffs to my Swedish support girlfriend, and they would sit there and cry bias at me even though I’m literally telling you how to fix her with MULTIPLE NERFS

First of all I’d like to say making her knock down AND get knocked down stunning abilities with shield bash was a HUGE step in the right direction. You can’t just shield bash the charging Rein without risk now. This was a really good choice.
Now…

  1. Brigitte needs her damage per swing of her Rocket Flail reduced from 35 to 30

this is quite a simple nerf. It enables for her to still kill a full-hp Tracer with her bash-flail-whip shot combo (50-70-30 for a total of 150) however OVER-ALL she does less damage, it’s not enough to make her useless, but it’s still a damage nerf that would not get rid of her main use, which is being a flanker counter (and dive shh).

  1. Brigitte needs her Repair Pack cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to either 4 or 5 seconds.

This is only a small buff, to mean that she can have some balance between anything that is taken from her, but also to mean that Brigitte can output more healing when she is not in the front of a fight with her Inspire up. This solidifies her position as A HEALER/tank hybrid, rather than a TANK/healer hybrid (if you understand what I’m trying to say).

  1. Brigitte should only be able to hit 2 people at a time.

This is another nerf to further reduce the amount of damage she can do collectively. Alternatively I feel like it might even be possible to have something like Moira’s coalescence where it does less damage the more enemies it goes through (I think its Moira’s ult I’m thinking of, please correct me if I am wrong about this! thank you :smile: )

  1. Brigitte’s Shield Bash cooldown is reduced from 7 seconds back to 6 seconds but when Brigitte uses her Shield Bash and she hits/stuns an enemy, her Barrier Shield should take anywhere from 50 to 150 damage, and can not be used when the shield is under 50 health.

This would incentivise Brigitte to use her Shield Bash in more necessary situations, such as not to Shield Bash when your shield health is already low, or to use her Shield Bash as what it really is - her only escape mechanism. This would make it more risky to utilise the Shield Bash, and it would also mean that Brigitte would need to pay more attention to her whereabouts and her health. This would also help in the ways of reducing the amount of Brigitte’s who act like flankers, and stress a point on Brigitte actually letting her Barrier Shield recharge, on top of making a point/suggestion of staying in the mid-lines, making it so she can use her stun to help fellow support/squishies in the back line but also stun anyone who tries to pass the front line.

  1. Brigitte’s ultimate Rally duration should be decreased from 10 seconds to 8 seconds, but the area of effect is increased to 8 metres, and gives allies 150 armour.

Rally is not a life-saving ultimate, and is not intended to be, and should not be. However it should be able to genuinely help save at least one ally from their death (not instantly like Nanoboost, of course). Rally is not a very strong ultimate, aside from increasing Brigitte’s movement speed by 30% (which doesn’t really do much when you’re on your own). When it comes to support ultimates half the time I would rather have a Mercy Valkyrie ( and that’s saying something :roll_eyes: )

"But, but Brigitte with an additional 150 armour?? D:<<<"

  1. Brigitte’s ultimate, Rally, should still only give Brigitte 100 armour.

This is to somewhat incentivise using the ultimate as a TEAM, rather than alone. Not only would the ultimate be more useful to the team than it would to her, it would also mean that while Brigitte, yes, does have more health than if she didn’t use her ultimate, she would be easier to kill compared to her team within the Rally.

  1. Brigitte’s passive, Inspire, still heals her allies for 16 per second, but only heals Brigitte for 12

Brigitte is in a strong place because of her ability to win 1v1’s against most of the roster when at close range. This puts her Inspire on the same wavelength as Lucio’s Crossfade, but slightly less (Crossfade heals allies for 16.25, self for 12.5).

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Now some things that I think could be used as a nerf to Brigitte but also a buff to another character ~

Reaper should do MORE DAMAGE to armour with his primary fire.

I do not play Reaper on a regular basis, nor do I know more than like 2 Reaper mains total, I only play him when the enemy is triple tanking or something, but since Reaper is meant to be a TANK BUSTER, it’s only fair that he be able to bust down the tank/support hybrid. Currently, if Reaper does not land his head shots, he can be beaten by Brigitte in a 1v1 scenario, especially if she has just rallied or something like that. Not only would this change ensure that Reaper continues to be a faithful counter against tanks, it also makes him a counter to Brigitte’s ultimate, Rally.

Sombra’s ultimate EMP should cancel Brigitte’s ultimate, Rally, and remove any armour it provided.

When it comes to Sombra, I feel she should be able to completely DENY Brigitte’s Rally, it should cancel it completely and it should remove all benefits from it, just like Lucio’s Sound Barrier. This means that not only would Sombra become more viable, and add another layer of potential counter play, but this also gives Brigitte’s ultimate another counter.

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Alright! Thank you for reading what I think would be some very good ways to make Brigitte not only more counterable without making her unviable, but also bring some life into characters like Reaper and Sombra. If you have any constructive comments feel free to post them! I’ll do my best to reply to everyone, and don’t forget to have a good day :heart:

:point_right: Here’s my Symmetra thread of a similar nature - HOW TO FIX SYMMETRA - from a Symmetra main

17 Likes
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Facepalm. One of the most cancer abilities of her kit, buffed?
Oh hell BIG NO.
This hero doesn’t need any nerfs.
It needs a HUGE REWORK(even bigger than Sym). She should have never been released and she doesn’t belong in OW.
The only thing devs should keep is her name.

At least, her E should be a projectile, not a dumb autotarget ability.

12 Likes
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She’s a healer. She needs to be able to heal.

12 Likes
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I don’t think.you understand why people hate Brigitte.

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honestly this isn’t too bad of a rework ish thing brig is op asf but i think one of her main problems is how she’s propelled like 4 or something meters, maybe if she should bashed standing still for a more skill ish bash or something :confused:

1 Like
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She moves 6 metres within her shield bash, which is why I didn’t mention it, because her max range with her Flail is 6 metres, meaning she can bash to 6 metres ahead of her, meaning if she can hit you, she can shield bash you. :smile:

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Honestly if i had to nerf brigitte?

I would reduce her shield regen, or increase the time that it takes the shield to recharge

And only let her bring it back after it is destroyed when its at full hp

Bad brigittes who keep losing their shield will just die

3 Likes
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The thing is Blizz don’t want to touch her shield and are not going to because she’s SUPPOSED to be tanky

that’s why I concentrated more on lessening her overall damage as well as make it more risky for her to actually use her shield bash :smile:

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She would still be tanky

I just want to.apply the rein mindset of “never let your shield break” harder on her

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Ahh I like that. I feel like a good way to do that would definitely make her shield regen at a slower pace :smile:

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Whatchu mean. Brig is barely a support. You want to nerf the only ability that allows her to be passed off as a support character?

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Don’t know if you know, but the extra armor given BY Repair Pack lasts 5 seconds (1 second less than the ability cooldown).

Lowering Repair Pack’s cooldown to something like 4 seconds makes her;
A.) Heal more.
B.) Allows for more counterplay, instead of seeing a Genji catch another support in their FoV, then proceeding to have a 5 second window where he can do nothing.

1 Like
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I think adding a risk/con to the shield bash (since Blizzard seems intent on keeping the shield itself as strong as it is) is the best thing that could be done to Brigitte right now. Either damage to the shield on impact, as suggested by OP, or some kind of casting time (similar to Mei’s icicle or Rein’s firestrike) to make it a more skillful and situational stun rather than an instant auto-stun on anything within 6 meters would be cool.

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im sure you mean the ball, that spreads its damage over the enemies until its empty.

otherwise, i like your ideas. but i think she should maybe have slightly slower ult charge with 150 armor.

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I think these are great suggestions to give Brigitte more counterplay and to increase the difference between bad and good Brigitte players. I do see an issue with the direction the buff to her ult takes her however, due to how powerful it can be to armor an entire team before pushes. Instead, I would suggest making Rally give Brigitte 150 armor (or more) but keep it at 100 for allies, making Brigitte more of a tank during her ult to 1) compensate to nerfs to her damage which will matter a lot during those kinds of plays and 2) incentivize teammates to gather around Brigitte because of her own strength, instead of just the boon she grants.

1 Like
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If I were able to nerf Brigitte, I would just :

  1. Decrease health of her shield down to 400
  2. Her Shield Bash shouldn’t stun, maybe it should boop enemies
  3. Remove Boop from Flail Whip
  4. Decrease her overall damage
  5. Her armor pack shouldn’t insta-heal nor give armor(so rename it to healing pack? :slight_smile: ). It could be like Zen’s healing orbs.
  6. Her Rally shouldn’t make her move faster.
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It’s actually gigantic, given that none of your other suggestions are significantly reducing her survivability. Repair Pack is the primary reason why her shield is so excessively powerful: It’s the one ability she can use without ever engaging in a fight at all. The amount of value she gets out of simply surviving (which she’s one of the best characters in the game at doing) scales directly with the power of Repair Pack. Brigitte is already known for the backward risk-to-reward factors on her abilities, and buffing Repair Pack just amplifies that.

If you were suggesting “Reduce cooldown from 6 to 4, duration from 5 to 3, healing amount from 150 to 100, and max overheal from 75 to 50,” it would be a fairly neutral change. Just flat out increasing her healing and armor output by 50% is a massive buff that is entirely unnecessary. She’s not struggling in that department; her averages for healing/armor output are already above Mercy’s level.

2 Likes
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I actually love your ideas and your reasoning behind them, the only thing I’m inclined to disagree with is the healing, id say tweak it to heal a little less for it to be deserving of a shorter cooldown.

I feel like shes about as much support right now as daddy 76 is and her real role would be area denial. I wish they focused a little more on the heals side of things since I’m guessing thats her intended primary role.

Shes a shakey character because no one seems to get that she peaks early in higher ranks but dominates the lower ones. Her sweet spot for me is in Platinum because people have sort of learned to deal with her effectively without her controlling the match. Its kind of tricky to nerf some of these aspects without it killing her in pro play.

I salute you wholeheartedly for your boldness and bravery! Your the kind of Brig main I can get behind!

1 Like
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An idea for adding a window of potential counterplay to shield bash, especially as a main tank.

Either:

  • Reduce the stun duration for those stunned by Brigitte if she penetrated the enemy shield barrier in doing so

or…

  • There isn’t a stun imposed on whoever she shield bashes into through an enemy shield barrier, but she will still damage and effectively do some type of mini boop instead instead.
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Which one is it? A tank or a healer? I’d rather she be converted to full healer, get rid of the tank portion. Would make her balanced