WAIT, hear me out first… before you start writing how much you hate Brigitte, attacking me personally to defend her, I want you to read the whole thing. I’ll make it short for ya too… (not really hehe)
I’m going to say that, I’ve not read any of the 7 daily threads complaining about Brigitte and her stun, this is 100% original content and my own thoughts about Brigitte from experience.
As a flex player who plays tanks support and sometimes DPS in Diamond rank, And most importantly one who played Everyone favorite character Brigitte. I have some interesting and spicy suggestions for the developers and the community.
We all know that’s Brigitte is overpowered because of her stun, and how easy it’s to land and how frequent it happens. But some might argue that the stun is her only tool to stop Dive characters (Tracer, Genji, D.va and poor Winston). They claim that all the previous efforts to stop Dive ended in failure, especially what happened to Sombra and how she ended up as one of the worst characters in the game. Brigitte’s “shield bash” ability has proven to be a good counter against Dive, but that resulted in a small side effect … and that’s Brigitte countering almost every character in the game, mostly tanks, which is why I’m here complai… I mean proposing other solutions he he.
What I want is for “shield bash” to be CHANGED in a way that keeps Brigitte strong against Dive, but leaves some breathing room for other characters that’s she’s not meant to counter. Allow me to present you with my solutions:
1- Remove the stun from Shield Bash, and add a Crippling effect instead.
This is my favorite so far, ahem … Removing the stun from Brigitte’s shield bash and minimizing her oppressive capability so other heroes won’t lose control, and giving her a crippling that prevents enemies hit by shield bash from using any movement abilities. This change ,in my humble opinion, is the best solution to the hate campaign against Brigitte, and will make playing as and against Brigitte more interesting and less frustrating.
You: “but the stun is doing great on shutting Dive, why change it?”
Me: “true, her stuns is absolutely successful on shutting down Dive characters, but it’s also great on shutting down every else.”
This change will keep Brigitte the most capable character to fight against Dive, because Dive comp power is in mobility , and taking away the mobility from Tracer, Genji, Winston and D,va means a death sentence to them. It also gives other characters like Reinhardt, Roadhog, Orisa, Zen, basically the rest of the rooster, more room to do their jobs. Reinhardt can still protect his team, Roadhog can still heal himself, Orisa can save her Fortify for other CC, and Zen can fight back.
You: “supposed that Blizzard is considering this new change of yours, how are you going to balance it?”
Me: “we’re changing it from an CC ability to an anti-mobility ability, while keeping the damage and the range the same. You still can kill Tracer, but now you have to work for it a little bit more. This will raise the skill ceiling of Brigitte, and making her a true anti-Dive hero instead of anti-everythingexceptforPharah hero.”
The new change won’t effect her being a strong pick against Dive, but it will make more fair for the rest of the heroes who lacks the mobility to escape. The new Crippling effect will have the same 1s duration on the target meaning the time it takes to kill Tracer is the same, and she can’t use her Blink or Recall. But the difference is Tracer can still shot and jump around, think of her as a hacked Tracer, no abilities, no mobility, but she can fight back.
In my opinion I think we had enough CC before Brigitte came out, and taking the stun away from her is the optimal option.
2- Increase Shield Bash’s cooldown, and make it unable to pass through Barriers.
This one is a bit controversial, but it’s better than leaving it the way it’s. The previous nerfs on Brigitte’s shield bash were all just few numbers tweaks. Increasing the cooldown, reducing the cone of it, make it hard to make high jumps with using the map geometry. To be honest I think the developers are just avoiding touching the core problem of it, and that’s there’s no true counter play against shield bash. Once Brigitte’s coming your way prepare yourself to be stun to oblivion, while it’s sometimes the fault of the other player for bad positioning or “getting in her effective range”, some characters are forced to face her weather it’s fighting for the objective or the payload, some characters have to face her in her effective range. Reinhardt, Roadhog, Reaper, Doomfist, Zarya, Orisa and more. They have no other choice but to fight her. And in my opinion the only way to make this a fair fight is by holding the front line against her, don’t let her bypass the tanks in the front.
You: “But Reinhardt is going to be the only one benefiting from this, you’re just biased!”
Me: “Yes I’m bia… I’m kidding. If we’re keeping the stun of Brigitte the way it’s and not changing its effect, then making it unable to pass through shields is the only option left. Not biased, I swear on it…”
Think of it as a Mccree’s Flash Bang, no one is complaining about it for a reason, and that reason is you can counter play against it. You can shield from it, you can deflect it, or you can get out of its short range. Holding Brigitte at the front of your team and not allowing her to stun anyone behind a shield will give some “counter play” to characters like Reinhardt and Orisa more presence and power over Brigitte. Meaning if she wants to stun the Mercy behind that Orisa’s shield, she would have to walk past it to stun Mercy. She would have to risk losing her personal shield and to be right in the middle of the enemy formation to pull the stun off, neat isn’t it?
You: “what about Winston? This mean he can monkey dance around his shield and not get stun. Isn’t she meant to counter him?”
Me: “That’s right, and that’s way I think this solution isn’t a 100% win for everyone. But we need to ask ourselves, does Winston deserves to be whipped by a Swedish teenager?”
I think that’s the only draw back for this solution, her not being able to stun Winston behind his shield. But I must say that while playing a Brigitte this since her release, I’ve killed some Winstons without using my shield bash. And this will fall to the “stop making the lives of main tanks a living hell” solutions too, and I think it’s a fair trade.
Anyways that’s everything I wanted to say about Brigitte and her beloved stun, I want to say one last thing before finishing this thread. This is only my personal opinions, and I’ve posted here to see the reaction of you guys about my suggestions. And I’m open for any discussions, other opinions or the you supporting these ideas. I just hope that the developers actually read this, They don’t have to implement everything I said, just read it for the sake of our lord and savior Torbjorn…
Cheerz!