The main problem I see with Orisa is that when she IS picked, her win rate is one of the higher ones. Her win rate in the higher divisions go from 53-56%, putting her in the top ten in many categories. Now this has to be considered WITH the pick rate however, which she’s very low in almost every rank, being in the bottom half with a 1-2% pick rate. However, when you look at that, you notice that she’s not in the bottom 5 most of the time. She’s reasonably in the 2/3rds area of sort.
Which actually makes a lot of sense given the character right now, being one of the only defensive positional specialists like she is.
The problem I see is several fold:
-
Buffing her in the wrong way will definitely increase her win rate, and you have to be weary of the recent Armor nerfs. Yes, it hurt Orisa’s damage, but the opposite side is that she also was one of the ones who was able to get the most out of that armor nerf, being second only to Moira in DPS gained by the armor nerf. She’s very good against other tanks right now in general, and you’ve got to be real careful about how you buffer her.
-
Sadly, Orisa’s timing with coming into the game has everything to do with it. OWL. Let’s be clear: OWL does not want Orisa to succeed. I know that sounds harsh, but they are looking for viewership, they are looking for flashy plays and speed. Everything that Orisa is not. Which sucks: over time Orisa could provide a real boon to strategy to mix things up, helping variety in the long term of the sport. But right now they are building up its base, and she’s not useful for that element. She just isn’t. It’s why I think Tjorb got reworked the way he did, same with Sym.
-
I disagree with the crappy ultimate portion. Orisa’s ult can completely turn a fight when used at the right time: but it’s SO situational.
-
The weirdest problem with Orisa is the fact what defines her: her shield. Her shield takes a lot of focus to take down. It needs full coordination, and if doesn’t have it, then she’s going to help dominate a match. The issue though is that once you get past that, she’s relatively weak. Touching the shield in any way right now is really going to make her too over powered, or or not powered enough.
Here’s the thing, I do think Orisa needs a buff, but it can’t be a run of the mill buff to her damage or speed or something along that line. The design of her hero has her weakness as speed/mobility, and unless you rework her entirely you really can’t offset that in traditional ways without causing massive balance shifts. She needs something that increases her utility, reasons to choose her over other tanks and allow for something completely different.
What I see as options:
- I’ve been on the record saying that extending Fortify as a ranged element to provide anti-CC to people around you would have really been a smart way to deal with the CC problems we were seeing. It would have naturally provide some synergies/anti-synergies for Orisa, and I still think that’s the case. The range does need to be small: too big and it’s too oppressive, and it’s weakness does need to be grouping up which can be taken advantage by heroes like Junkrat.
But honestly, there’s another option that I think may be better…
- This is going to be the one that’s a suggestion that…I know Blizzard is not going to do. It goes against most philosophies they have on the game. But I also wonder if they are willing to consider changing that philosophy in order to allow some more strategy in the game and help out OWL. It would actually help the idea of more skilled play in that version.
The idea being: allow Halt to be a shiftable ability. What I mean by that is, similar to Moira’s biotic orb: allow one version of shift to be moving enemy teammates…and the other shiftable version is one to move your teammates. Change with a button press on which one you want to do.
The thing is, that second one (teammate movement) is dangerous cause it can lead to absolute 100% trolling with Orisa, which is why Blizzard usually doesn’t allow for abilities that really mess with your own team like that (the only person who can somewhat due that right now is Mei, and you can still get around her ice walls…sometimes. But she also got the devil handle because of it). Sadly, you know people will do that with the ability, and that’s the problem part. Even if the Orisa means well to use it and gets someone killed, it could end up really screwing with trolls in the game. That’s why I’m hesitant to even think of it as a possibility…but the thing is, with Orisa’s set of functionality and what she looks like in the game, it’s one of the only things I can think of that doesn’t rework the character immensely.
Giving Orisa the ability to pull people or push people could really help her UTILITY. Letting her save someone from damage by pulling them at the last second out of damage, or better yet, let them get to a place they couldn’t before with coordination of their own jump and the pulling of her HALT. That second part is the key: Allowing her to set up a flanker while she maintains the “push of an assault” will allowed flanking to work a little better, and it keeps the core of the character in tact without effecting that balance AS much.
I think it could lead to interesting combos in certain ways, but you’d have to be careful of the rules. Like I would only have it work on characters in the game: aka a DVA mech without dva in it is not an option, and a bastion turret is not an option either. But just think, firing your halt orb followed by a Rein charge? That would be mega interesting as the enemy team could react, but it could lead to some really upper level skill play.
I don’t think it’ll happen, and there’s probably a scenario that I missed that would make this overpowered.