Overwatch’s newest support hero, Brigitte, went live on regular servers yesterday. However, there’s already concern that she is overpowered, and is seriously hurting fellow support Ana’s effectiveness.
For further details on Brigitte, check out Overwatch patch notes v1.21.
Health hurling, shield popping Brigitte can shut down the likes of Winston and Tracer in a heartbeat, which has weakened Overwatch’s prevalent – and a bit tiresome – dive comps. Dive comps are defined by mobile characters able to pounce on key enemy heroes – typically their supports – before they can react.
Though this change to the meta is probably positive there’s still some concern Brigitte may be overpowered. Overwatch lead designer, Geoff Goodman, revealed Blizzard have a “watch list” for the latest hero, to ensure that isn’t the case.
“This list is mostly a ‘this might be OP’ list,” Goodman writes on the Overwatch forums. “But there are other things we really want to keep an eye on, such as making sure her Inspire passive feel useful and powerful, and making sure her ultimate is worth using in combat instead of only outside of combat for the lingering armor.”
Here’s what’s on the watch list for Brigitte:
- “Is there too much max health gain potential now? Is Torb/Brigitte/Sym going to be some crazy thing where you stack Tracer up with so much health she becomes nearly unkillable for example?
- Is her ultimate too strong? The fact that half of it can linger indefinitely, and how powerful armor can be in the game, it might just be too strong overall.
- Her stun burst combo. Even though she has fairly low DPS across the game as a whole, she can put out quite a bit of damage if you shield bash, melee[then], whip shot, and it is fairly safe since they can’t really act until they are flying away from you.”
Brigitte’s addition has also hurt Ana, who has been struggling in the game’s prominent dive meta. Ana has also become considerably less effective since the addition of Moira. Supports such as Moira and Brigitte can simply keep up with their teammates better, taking tanks on head-to-head. Ana, as a sniper, needs to stay at the back of the comp, leaving her open to the dive comp.
So, have Blizzard got plans to buff Ana? Currently, there is nothing set in stone, but the team don’t feel she requires big adjustments to get her to a balanced place.
“We’ve talked about a number of things we could do for Ana but don’t have any firm plans just yet,” Goodman explains on the Overwatch forums. “I don’t think she is super far off, and she does bring a number of tools that no other healer has access to. Currently she is more a victim of the dive meta than anything else, as she doesn’t fit well in that environment.”
However, there are some who feel the addition of Brigitte hasn’t done enough to shake up Overwatch’s current dive meta. One fan commented on the Overwatch forums, saying that changing Overwatch’s meta is almost impossible due to maps being designed for higher ground.
“We’ve actually gotten a lot of mixed feedback on her from all levels of play, as far as how powerful she is,” Goodman responded. “The level design stuff is something we’ve been looking at a lot recently as well, as we agree there are some maps that certainly lend themselves to dive. We don’t have a specific goal to kill dive all together, but we agree it would be nice to see more diversity in the meta in general.”
Brigitte is currently live on regular Overwatch servers, but will not be available in competitive play until season 10.