Overwatch’s 27th hero, Brigitte, is finally here! Unfortunately for competitive players, she won’t be playable on the ladder until the next season. Regardless, Brigitte is the first off-tank healer in the game, and her addition could potentially lead to some interesting changes in the meta. At the moment, some people consider her to be an “anti-dive” hero, especially because of how some of her abilities have the potential to shut down certain heroes.

With that said, let’s take a quick look at her kit first.

• Rocket Flail – Short range melee attack that deals 35 damage per hit. It can hit multiple targets at once.
• Barrier Shield – Mini Reinhardt shield with 600 HP. Holding it up allows her to use Shield Bash.
  • Shield Bash – Short range forward dash that stuns the first target it hits for 1 second and deals 50 damage.
• Whip Shot – Brigitte’s shift ability. Extends her flail forward and knocks back the first target it hits. Deals 70 damage.
• Repair Pack – Homing projectile (similar to Zenyatta’s Orb of Harmony) that instantly heals up to 150 HP. Any healing that goes over the target’s maximum HP is converted into temporary armor (up to 75) that lasts for around five seconds.
• Inspire – Brigitte’s passive that heals nearby allies for 16 HP/s for five seconds. This ability is only activated after dealing damage with Rocket Flail or Whip Shot.
• Rally – Provides nearby allies with 30 armor per second, up to a maximum of 150. It also slightly boosts Brigitte’s movement speed.

STENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS

Just by looking at her kit, you can already tell that she’s definitely not a main healer. Aside from Repair Pack, which has a cooldown of six seconds, her only reliable source of healing (which also affects herself) requires her to constantly be in combat. This means that her team will most likely have to play around her if they want to use Brigitte to her max potential.

Some people consider her to be a counter to dive heroes, and she does counter some of them to some extent. At the moment, she can combo her abilities to deal enough damage to kill a Tracer before she can recall or blink away. This is mostly possible because of her Shield Bash ability, which is essentially a more effective McCree Flashbang.

Aside from that, Whip Shot alone can also be used to knock people away from you or your team. A good example of how this is applied against dive is when it’s used against a Winston. Hitting him with a Whip Shot while he’s using his jump pack will stop him right on his tracks and have him falling to the ground.

TEAM COMPS

Her abilities put her in a weird spot where she could be treated as either an off-tank or an off-healer. In my opinion, she works well as an off-healer in a deathball comp with at least one main healer, such as Moira. A deathball, for the most part, will let her stay beside her team for the majority of the game. This means that she’ll be able to cover most of her teammates with her Inspire aura and Rally (whenever it’s up).

The problem with her is that her healing is too inconsistent to work alongside other secondary healers like Lucio and Zen. Ideally, you’d probably want a main healer to go with her. I assume that one can be successful with something like a Lucio/Brigitte comp, though that would require a very coordinated team to pull off.

Her effectiveness really drops against long-range enemies, and high burst and splash damage works well against her armor and small shield. She also can’t do much against people perched up on high ground, and there’s no shortage of that in most maps.

CONCLUSION

Seeing as how Brigitte won’t be playable in competitive games until the next season, it’s hard to tell if she’ll really shake up the meta. At the moment, she seems to be a bit of a niche pick, and it might even stay that way once people learn to play around her distance limitations. Only time will tell how she'll really fit in with the rest of the roster, and we'll most likely have to wait a couple of months to see if she'll start making waves in both the competitive ladder and the Overwatch League.

What do you think? Is Brigitte gonna be a staple pick in the coming months or will she be lost in the shuffle? Let us know in the comments below!

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