When Orisa puts up a barrier, it counters enemy Widow and reduces her value, but Widow has options. She can move to a new position to get a better angle on her targets, or she can help break the barrier. When Pharah focuses enemy Brig, it counters Brig as she has no means to fight back, but Brig has options. She has a barrier to protect herself as she uses her situational awareness to back toward the nearest door and then shield bash her way inside, while calling upon her long-range DPS to assist if necessary.
When Brig ults and her allies accumulate armor, the damage output from Widow’s gun is reduced by a negligible 5 points. The damage output from Pharah’s rockets, Junkrat’s bombs, Hanzo’s arrows, Ashe’s rifle and McCree’s gun are all reduced by a mere 5 points. The damage output from the rapidfire hitscan characters that I play—namely my main Tracer—are reduced by 50%. And here’s what makes this situation wholly unique: there are no options to counterplay this.
This is because armor is not a traditional counter. It’s a hardcoded reduction of my hero’s viability, governed by lines of code and not by enemy skill or strategy. In all of Overwatch, there is no other ability like this that is programmed to reduce a performance statistic of one specific hero subclass for an undetermined amount of time.
Imagine if there were an ult that reduced the healing of only heroes that healed with a beam. Imagine if Mei’s blizzard only froze characters that have projectile attacks. Imagine if RIP-tire only killed animal characters. These are the equivalent of what Brig’s ult does to a very select group of heroes.
I don’t mind switching if I’m struggling against the enemy comp. But in all other scenarios where a hero is countered, that hero’s team has a variety of practical options it can explore to determine if the switch is appropriate. Against enemy Brig however, my only choices are: switch, or hope that I get carried by the 5 teammates whose damage isn’t cheated by Brig’s armor. That’s it. And as crude as it sounds, armor is cheating by definition, as it denies some but not all players the fair and equal right to perform like the rest of their teammates and opponents.
I fell in love with Overwatch instantly and have bought 7 copies over the years. Having ADHD, I immediately identified with Tracer and her inability to sit still along with her inclination to get distracted before missions, whether it’s by the Blizzard World rides, the desire to visit Emily or the urge to murder a chippy. Unfortunately, Tracer was the only DPS with which I struggled to hit even 5K damage per 10 minutes. So I bought a new account, new keyboard, wireless mouse and a new monitor, I optimized my settings and began my journey to learn my favorite character.
200 hours of playtime later, I had doubled my performance stats and finally gained the confidence to bring Tracer into comp, and then Brig was released. I’ve adapted as much as possible. I’ve learned to kill Brig far more than she kills me. It’s not that hard in fact, but none of that matters; there’s nothing I can do to change the reality that by pressing Q, she automatically halves my value.
So admittedly I’m biased. This is something I’m very passionate about, but I’ve never supported the DeleteBrig movement and I never will. Instead, I’d like to propose a solution that I believe is fair to everyone…
Change Brig’s Rally from 30 armor/second to traditional healing at 45 HP/second, and increase the overheal cap from 100 armor to 125 HP. This provides decreased effectiveness against rapidfire and shotgun hitscans and increased effectiveness against big burst heroes, with the intent of now providing equal protection against all enemies and the same overall protection as the current form of Rally. For the 10 seconds that the ult is active, the healing generated would still negate an enemy Tracer’s damage the majority of the time.
Additionally, replace the Repair Pack overheal armor with overheal HP equal to 125% of the existing overheal armor value.
Finally, the armor stat at the end of the match would now be removed, with Brig players instead getting a significantly larger healing stat to help them better gauge their performance compared to the other supports.
I’m not asking for Brig to be removed. I’m not even requesting a nerf. I’m just proposing a change, intended to have minimal impact on overall balance, for the purpose of adding fair play and equal treatment to an aspect of the game where fair play and equal treatment aren’t currently present. Sorry for all the text and to anyone who read through to the end, thanks for giving me some of your time.