It’s officially Brigitte’s birthday today. That’s right, five years ago on this very day, Brigitte was added to the Support role roster in Overwatch, and boy, did she manage to make an impact. Brig’s been through some intense ups and downs and received a level of hate that competes with Mei, as well as some much-deserved love in some of the greatest team comps of all time. However, Brig’s time in Overwatch 2 hasn’t exactly been smooth, and for that reason, the only gift this wholesome Swedish mechanic deserves is a balanced Hero rework.
Seriously, Blizzard, Brigitte players all over the globe are begging you; please, make her fun to play again. There’s so much to love about Brigitte as a character. She’s cheery and upbeat, she’s Reinhardt’s ex-squire, a mechanic who threw aside her safety to train and develop a way for herself to aid Rein on the battlefield, and she loves cats. How can you not have a soft spot for Brig?
Unfortunately, in Overwatch 2 Season 3, it’s challenging to establish the same sort of love for Brigitte as a playable hero. Once upon a time, she was the bane of everyone’s existence, and an absolute must-pick for the GOATS team format, enabling the three-tank, three-support composition with her passive AOE healing, thanks to her Whip Shot and Shield Bash.
The community rallied together to hate on Brigitte in the months following her release because, for quite fair reasons, she was rather overpowered in many circumstances. Thankfully, this was many months before my Overwatch adventures began, so I never really had to experience her in her most powerful form. Don’t get me wrong, though. Hell, I’ve had my ass handed to me by a number of teams running that pesky Brig/Lucio combo in a GOATS setup. I’ve even lost an embarrassing number of one-on-one combats to Brigitte over the years I’ve spent in the game, especially when Rally is popped.
Brig, for the most part in Overwatch, was always a viable pick for the team in several scenarios and map selections, even when she was at her most balanced as a Hero. Unfortunately, in Overwatch 2, this has not been the case. Brigitte has been in such rough shape since the launch of Overwatch 2 that she’s been commonly referred to as the worst hero in the game. How can a character that was such an infuriating beast in the first game fall so flat? Poor Brig has been nerfed into the ground, and it’s finally time for her to receive the balance changes she desperately deserves.
Thankfully, the Overwatch team is taking a page from Brig’s book and heading into the workshop to arrange some significant tweaks to her kit. Most significantly, her Ultimate ability, Rally, will be completely replaced with something new. This is an excellent development because, in Overwatch 2, Rally tends to struggle compared to other Support ultimates and is often compared to Lucio as a ‘worse version of Sound Barrier’.
This was a significant point to be made by the community, as Lucio’s Sound Barrier is much more reliable in negating some huge enemy ults. Also, Lucio generally provides more utility to his team thanks to Speed Boost, now that Brigitte’s stun has been removed. This only adds to the sting of Brig’s wounds and trying to play her can sometimes feel like an uphill battle in her current state. With the potential of other supports such as Lucio, Kiriko, or Ana, swapping to one of them often seems like the only answer.
Now, I’ll wholeheartedly admit that despite being one of the less-convenient picks in the current state of Overwatch 2, Brigitte still has a lot of potential. There have been many times I’ve come across the stray Brig main in recent times, and they’ve entirely beaten the life out of me with that flail. For a skilled Brig player, she can still be quite viable, sure. But what about casual players? Or people who are looking to pick up Brig for the first time?
This is where she comes across as quite stale and frustrating. Without being able to stun, she’s vulnerable to dive heroes such as Hammond, Doomfist, Tracer, and Genji, and her healing output, though good in enclosed areas, can be a major problem if your team strays too far from one another. We already know Brig has a rework on the way, but please, Blizzard! We need this ASAP before Brigitte collects more dust on the Hero Roster.
It’s been five years since she was introduced to Overwatch. The least she deserves is some attention toward either buffing her abilities somehow or pushing up the timeframe of the major rework that’s been in the works for a while now. With Overwatch 2’s Season 4 just around the corner, there’s hope for us all. This is the perfect time to implement slight changes and tweaks to her kit, if not the complete rework, so my fingers are crossed for Support players worldwide.
One concept that many fans are pushing for is a relatively simple tweak to Brigitte’s kit: adding the stun back to her Shield Bash. On one hand, this change seems unlikely, as Overwatch 2 aimed to remove CC abilities that stun from DPS and Supports, instead moving them onto the much beefier Tank characters to help them make space and initiate plays.
However, on the other hand, Doomfist and Orisa are currently the only characters in the game with stun abilities that aren’t their ultimates, so there may be room for Brigitte to have her stun back, too. This would also help negate some of Brig’s vulnerability to dive Heroes and give her much more utility in shutting down enemy abilities and ultimates to turn team fights. While it may seem like a far stretch, revisiting her old kit could be the answer to determining a balanced build for Overwatch 2.
Brigitte mains, it’s been some dark days in recent times, but Rally together; it won’t last much longer (hopefully). And to Brigitte herself, happy birthday / fifth Overwatch anniversary. Never have I seen a character go through a journey like this and become so well-loved and highly hated at every rank in the game.
Well done, Brig, you have a history unlike any other. In my mind, you’ve even exceeded the love-hate relationship between Overwatch players and Mei, which is an achievement in itself. On behalf of Support mains everywhere, we’re excited about this rework and genuinely hope that the rebirth of her ability kit helps her become a viable Hero choice in the game and gives her the potential to enable her team to the level the other Supports are capable of.
