Overwatch 2 Players Are Terrified Of Brigitte Buffs in Season 4
Overwatch 2 Season 4 is bringing an abundance of content changes, including a plethora of events and a new support hero. But there are also balance changes coming to the growing roster of heroes — and one change in particular has been worrying the Overwatch community.
Brigitte is getting some buffs in Season 4, including some impactful improvements to her Rally ability. The changes were made after seeing Brigitte fall off a little after recent nerfs and ability changes. But it may be too big of an improvement.
Here are the changes from the patch notes:
Rally
- Brigitte now gains 100 restorable armor health pool for the duration of Rally
- Brigitte no longer gradually builds temporary health — nearby allies still do
- Rally now upgrades her Barrier Shield, making it bigger and have more health
- Barrier health increased from 300 to 750 during ultimate
- During Rally, Shield Bash now impacts multiple enemies by briefly stunning them
- Bonus movement speed reduced from 30 to 15%
Repair Pack
- Range reduced from 30 to 25 meters
Said developers: “Rally lost some of its power with the change from granting allies additional armor to temporary health, and overall took a relatively long time to build up its defensive benefits.”
The rework will keep her ultimate defensive but ensure there’s a more immediate impact. It sounds reasonable enough. But a lot of competitive Overwatch players are skeptical.
Will Overwatch 2 Season 4 See the Return of GOATS?
Brigitte basically dominated in the first Overwatch, creating a highly defensive and powerful meta called GOATS that was impossible to counter. Opposing teams could only stand a chance if they also played GOATS, which included Brigitte, Reinhardt, Zarya, and Lucio, along with a DPS and sometimes a few altercations.
But Brigitte was always a constant part of GOATS. This led to developers nerfing the OP support until she became a niche pick. It looks like developers want Brigitte to be impactful in the current meta once again by giving her a bigger and stronger shield, more armor, and — most surprisingly — the return of her Shield Bash’s stun.
A lot of Overwatch 2 players on Reddit rejoiced after hearing about the return of Brigitte’s ability to stun. A few were also excited about the gigantic shield, which many found to be almost hilarious. Fans of the support said that they were excited to see her become dominant in Overwatch 2, with some admitting they missed her after the nerfs.
“It will make people actually group up around her when she initiates Rally, so they might finally discover that the ult will heal them. A thing that has never happened a single time before in history. Source: I'm a struggling Brig player,” said one fan on Reddit.
But some top level players were not as excited. A player in the top 500, Flats, said that Brigitte has become almost as tanky as Reinhardt despite being a support. Another top player, KarQ, said that this was a “gigabuff” that would bring back the metas from pre-pandemic.
“Remember Overwatch 1, how Brig killed the game? Oh, she’s back, baby. Probably going to be the most dominant support in the game. And it’s not even close,” KarQ said with a sigh.
Brigitte having an ultimate that essentially turns her into Reinhardt has the Overwatch 2 community definitely worked up in both directions. While it’s no secret that supports need to be worked on in Overwatch 2, this Brigitte buff may be taking this concept a bit too far for some top players.
