As we probably already know (and have had hammered into our skulls many times by now), among the various reasons given, a hot topic as to why a lot of the Pros asked for nerfs to Brigitte was due to her being “unfun to play against”, with some players describing her as being “oppressive” and “disheartening” to face in a match.
I’ve noticed a lot of these changes to Brig are mostly pushed by a side that plays against her, and as such, a lot of the discussion seems to lean towards that particular group. I would like to hear the other side’s views on this matter, and those who main her as a hero?
So to my fellow Brigitte mains, do you feel that these PTR nerfs were fair for the hero? Do you think that she needed nerfs at all? How about playing her? Do you still find her fun to play, rewarding, engaging, or impactful? If not, what types of changes would you believe would have been better? Maybe you feel that she didn’t need changes at all? Let’s get the discussion going and post your thoughts below.
Also, I will like to stress that we keep discussion in this thread classy and respectful. This is not the place to call each other insults, attack each other or use derogatory slurs. Let’s keep this constructive and civil. Many thanks!
~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance. xavvypls
I think it is more no hero should make another hero not playable just by existing. Nothing to do with not fun to play against. Fun should never be a factor in balance. This community would get along so much better if they would forget about fun when talking about balance. Dont find a hero fun? Dont play the hero and find one that is fun, it really is that simple.
They adjusted her damage based on the fact that she is a tank/support hybrid. They (maybe) adjusted her healing and didn’t do anything to the armor. So of the abilities they buffed or didn’t touch fell under tank or support.
Nerfs never feel fair to players because ignorance is bliss. People never find things fair when you have something and it is subtracted from. Balance is suppose to benefit the game, not individual players.
The nerfs I am fine with. But if they are going to go down the road of making her a tank/support hybrid I want them to commit to that. Increase her healing more, by lowering cd on repair pack. I think this would let her get a bit more healing in.
Yes because her playstyle still the same and nerfs didn’t change her job.
Not even close, Brigitte last nerfs because shield bash have little counter for main tanks and the combo damage make her able to do too much burst damage to squishy (as support) than intended and make him easy for her teammate to pick off.
She actually more fun to play, slightly more better when you can actually body block another brig’s shield bash with your own shield vs getting hit and potentially getting k.o’d
You are fine to think that way, I am going to have to humbly disagree with you there a bit. While I agree that the game shouldn’t be balanced based on “fun”, I believe it’s fair to say that there is a double standard at play there, when a Top 500 player literally uses that same excuse, along with subjective statements like “she’s disheartening to play against” or using the “oppressive” arguments as a reason to nerf the hero. Not saying that these are the only arguments used, but when subjective claims are thrown in on what they describe as a “reason they should nerf ____” it kind of cheapens the overall purpose of what balancing a hero should be based on, in my opinion.
Perhaps. From looking at the dev notes, the reason why they nerfed her is due to reducing her stun combo potential and non-healing functionality.
Dev Notes:Reduces Shield Bash’s damage reduces her total stun combo damage potential while still allowing Whip Shot and her basic melee attacks to retain their full strength. Brigitte is a hybrid tank/healer, and lately we’ve been reducing her effectiveness by reducing the power of her non-healing functionality, but we want to make sure she is still a viable pick so we’re increasing the uptime of her Inspire passive to help increase her overall healing output.
Allow me to ask you then. Do you feel that every nerf in this game was a fair one? And that anyone who doesn’t like all of them, are only doing so out of ignorance? Perhaps for some people that would hold true, but for me personally, I don’t think that every nerf that has come out was 100% beneficial to the game (Bastion, & Sombra nerfs in the past come to mind). But I’m also looking it from the perspective of how a game with some heroes that are niche, should also be taken into account when we consider the game and the goal of Overwatch as a whole. The goal from what I understand was to always strive to allow for a cast of characters that anyone can relate to and have fun playing, or feel useful to their team. While I do acknowledge that there are some heroes that are very balanced, and are viable as well, I can’t personally say such for all heroes. But that’s just my 2 cents on it.
I agree. I’m curious to see how this will turn out once it goes live.
~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance. xavvypls
I feel that the dev team is nerfing with the position of making the game better. And I am not saying people who dislike them are ignorance. I am saying that never have knowing about something means you will never miss it. So for example: Players are mad about nerfs to brig shield bash because they had it at launch. Where if she would have launched without a form of cc brig players wouldn’t be as upset if they would have added it in with just 5 damage. That is all I am really saying.
Because we dont have all the data on buffs and nerfs we dont know the overall impact to the game. So with sombra and bastion there may have been data that was available to dev team that suggested a larger problem was coming down the line if they didn’t nerf. Bastion iron clad started to show that problem with the protect the president strat that popped up.
Heroes are niche because we demand that heroes be unique. If we, as players, didn’t demand this then all heroes could be generalist and no hero would have a niche. Blizzard has always had lofty goals for inclusion in there games, but they have suffered the same problems when it comes to class base games across their IPs. I mean for example when I last played WoW (Lich king era) there was no point in having a warrior because Paladins just did everything better. Death knights were niche in what content you needed them to tank. But over all the go to tank was the paladin. Now if all tanks played like paladins then all tanks would have been viable, but we as players want them to be unique to their own class. Just a side effect of game design.
I am typing a lot so I am not sure if I am making any kinds of sense lol, but I hope I did a good enough job on trying to explain what I mean.
Not a Brig main, but I play most of the tanks and supports. Brig’s place now in the meta is pretty much the same. In terms of how she feels to play, it’s worse, but still Brig.
She could have been turned into a high-risk high reward, make her more engaging by increasing her drawbacks, make her more punishable, instead it would seem they’re going on the opposite direction.
brigs main skill for me and have allways been whipshot because it triggers inspire early before you can get to them, great for last hitting someone running away, pushing people. great tool all around.
i would say the shield bash change around shields is going to be a bit more challenging, but somethings have actually gotten more interesting because of it, brig vs brig is now mind games. block and get hit by normal swings, or swing and get bashed and then swung on.
but it’s a pretty drawn out fight, but that makes it a little bit more intense.
if you’ve ever played chivalry medieval warfare. it’s kind of like that.
but overall her kill potential is going to drop pretty hard, but it’s ok, because protecting people doesn’t mean she needs to kill anything, and it disincentivizes her from running right into the enemy team without back up.
![:slight_smile:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")