Where do I even start with this thread…
Brigitte is probably the most problematic hero in this game’s history only being rivaled by Mercy and Symmetra. Brig is considered the hero by most who killed overwatch and by a small margin of people who says she saved Overwatch. Which Brigitte was indeed made to try to save overwatch and get rid of dive as the permanent meta. While Brig did get rid of dive, she created a whole new meta named Goats and basically countered every single hero in the game that isn’t named Pharah and Junkrat.
Now that we’ve gone offer the reasons people hate Brigitte, let’s get into her balance issues and what not.
Brigitte is a character that is misunderstood by lower ranked players and disrespected by higher ranked players.
Lower ranks consider Brig too weak while higher ranks consider her OP and too strong for the skill requirements.
In lower ranks, the reason Brigitte is considered too weak is because of spam damage. Based on what I’ve seen is that the Brig players in these ranks poorly position themselves and take too many aggressive engagements and make her look weaker against these things than she actually is. Brig is not this hero who can’t tank all the damage and always frontline as she is a support hero not a tank.
What higher ranked players do is basically try to tell everyone that the character is incredibly easy and has an extremely low skill floor and ceiling but still gets insane value. What they don’t realize is that Brigitte isn’t actually a low skill floor hero and in order to get good value with her consistently, you need to have the basic fundamentals of overwatch already done. Once you already has these than Brig looks easier than a hero like Genji, Lucio and D.va who all require alot of apm and mechanics. Brig also requires some of these but behind the safety of a shield and self healing. Brig isn’t easy she is just an easier version of those characters.
What lower ranked players tend to do is play Brig like a tank and try to smash all her abilities at the enemy and pray it gets value. Brig has to constantly switch hero positions depending on the enemy team comp and her teammates. For these reasons this is why I actually consider Brig to have a higher skill floor than heroes like Ana and Zenyatta who can play back and dump out their value. While ofc they have higher skill ceilings, Brig has a higher floor since Ana and Zen just sitting in the back is more value than trying to play Brig.
For tips on Brig’s matchups and playstyles go here The Ultimate Brigitte Guide or go watch Holyshiftkid Brig’s guide on YouTube.
Brig’s balance Problem
Another issue with Brig is that she is still quite tanky and can do everything at once. She has a stun, a knockback, aoe healing and ranged healing on top of a great ultimate that grants armour. Brig’s peeling on top of her brawling makes her a top pick almost all the time at higher ranks. I mean the hero does 70HPS when she has packs on someone with inspire up.
What can we do about the hero? We can either nerf her, powershift her or rework her. The issue with nerfing her is the it just makes her worst in lower ranks due to everyone’s incompetence while still having her very strong in higher ranks unless the meta is awful for her like the Hog and double sniper meta because she can do so much. This overall makes her boring. If we power shift her we just have the same issue since she can do everything still. If we rework we have to be careful. We could make her an easy low skill floor and ceiling support who is great in lower ranks and falls off in higher ranks but we’ve already seen that and that is Moira. Godforbid we get another low skill aoe healer like Moira.
We would need to rework her to where she does 1 or 2 things not like current Brig where she is a brawler, backline peeler and flanker pocketer. If we do allow her to have all of this then we need to make her not the best at all of it and more like Ana.
Idk but we need to find a solution to the hero. Less oppressive in higher ranks but better in lower ranks without turning her into Moira. I think the solution to the hero is make her lose a job. The job I would personally make her lose is flanker pocketer because she should of never been that. For that we could just nerf her pack range to 15 meters and lower the HPS to 45 or 50 which also maker her peel less oppressive.
So that’s the Brigitte issue and my overall balance changes would be
Repair pack range reduced to 15 meters and hps reduced to 45 or 50. Then reduced inspire range to a 15 meter radius. (MAYBE AN ARMOUR AND HEALTH ADJUSTMENT FOR 100/100) Even then I skeptical on that
Let me know what you think.
