Smash your foes and protect your friends with our Brigitte guide

Brigitte is Overwatch’s newest character, an awesome support Paladin who lives to crush her foes and protect her allies. Her kit is a little easier to play than someone like Moira, but in the right hands, Brigitte can absolutely smash her way into a winning game.

Brigitte’s Goal

Brigitte’s goal is to either protect the front line as they charge into battle or hang back with the back line. Her skills all revolve around protecting or buffing her allies and displacing her enemies. Staying back with your Hanzo or Soldier 76 can really keep them out of the ever watchful eyes of Genji. Then again, pushing forward with your tanks will help them stay alive and take the objective.

Kit Breakdown

Brigitte’s primary fire is Rocket Flail. It works about like you think it would. Holding in the attack button or hitting it over and over again will see Brigitte swing her flail in an arc in front of her. This will deal damage to all enemies it strikes. For being a melee weapon, it has a surprisingly large range.

Before we talk about her secondary fire, let’s talk about her passive: Inspire. Whenever Brigitte hits an enemy with her flail, she will radiate a healing aura. This will slowly but steadily raise the health of all allies around her.

Rocket Flail and Inspire are used together. Sure, you want to deal damage whenever you can, but it’s all about the healing. The more you attack, the better you heal your allies. Even if you’re watching the backline, you need to keep attacking enemies in order to get your healing numbers up. The Inspire radius is fairly wide, so you can heal all sorts of people as long as you’re attacking. Just make sure you’re weaving a hit in between you ability uses.

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Now, Brigitte’s secondary fire is her Barrier Shield. When holding in the secondary fire button, Brigitte will ready her shield, a smaller version of her Uncle (not really, but they’re close family friends) Reinhardt’s shield. This shield is from head to toe on Brigitte and blocks up to 600 damage.

Brigitte’s first ability is only usable when Barrier Shield is currently out: Shield Bash. When activated, our hero will quickly dash forward. If she hits an enemy, it’ll do a small amount of damage, knock them back, and stun them.

You can use Shield Bash to stun your enemies out of their abilities or push them back. Defending your allies with Barrier Shield and then weaving Shield Bash in is how you protect with Brigitte. Unlike Reinhardt, Brigitte is not a wall. Instead, she is a defensive force for a brief time. Her shield should be used to absorb a small amount of damage for an ability and to prep Shield Bash for attack.

Brigitte’s second ability is Whip Shot. For Whip Shot, Brigitte will fling her flail forward up to 20 meters in front of her. If Whip Shot hits an enemy, it will deal damage and knock them back very far. This can very easily be used to knock enemies off of edges or just keep them away from your allies. Whip Shot will also proc her Inspire passive.

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Brigitte’s third ability is Repair Pack. When used, Brigitte targets an ally and throws a med kit their way. This is a significant heal but has an even more powerful special effect. If Brigitte heals someone over their maximum health, the target will gain armor.

Repair Pack is really simple to use. While Inspire is your ‘all the time’ healing, Repair Pack is for emergencies. When you need to keep someone alive, toss them a pack to keep the game rolling. If nobody is in need of health at the moment, you can place a pack on a priority ally to give them a little armor buffer.

Finally, Brigitte’s ultimate is Rally. When cast, Brigitte will gain a speed boost aura around her. All allies within will slowly gain armor and move far faster than normal. Like many healing ults, this is fairly simple. However, this is not a “oh god this is an emergency” button like Lucio or Zenyatta. Instead, Inspire requires a bit more forethought. When you need to push the advantage, it’s time to Rally.

When to pick Brigitte: teammates and match-ups

Brigitte does well when she has someone to protect. The key is to realize how complex protection can be. Sure, you can always shield the Mercys and the Widowmakers of the world, but you can also guard Reinhardt or D.Va. It’s important to place yourself in a position to keep you allies healthy, even if they are beefy to begin with.

Brigitte is an awesome secondary healer for almost any composition. However, she does best in extremes. If you have an overly enthusiastic Reinhardt, Brigitte is a great paring. Not only can she follow up with Rein, she can keep him alive through his overzealous nature.

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Brigitte is also perfect for protecting characters like her own father, Torbjorn. On defense, Brigitte is able to stay back with those types of heroes and hold the line while the more hardcore damage dealers roll into the crashing enemy wave. If you don’t know who to heal with in your comp, I’m not sure you can go wrong with Brigitte.

Similarly, Brigitte’s weaknesses are not necessarily in the death camp. Unlike other healers, Brigitte is tanky and can defend herself just fine. Her problem comes when she can’t heal enough to keep her allies alive.

For example, Brigitte won’t necessarily be able to save a Roadhog victim, unless she gets a very accurate Repair Pack or Whip Shot. Any heroes that are very mobile like Tracer aren’t great to pair with her either. Brigitte also can’t really do much against bursty characters like Widowmaker.

But the problem with finding bad match-ups for Brigitte is that she has tons of tools to deal with those problems. With Roadhog and snipers, she can block the hook/shot with her shield. She can also place armor on Tracer to keep her rolling even when Brigitte is far, far away.

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How to win with Brigitte

There are few problems that Brigitte can’t solve. Her throughput isn’t nearly as high as dedicated, squishy healers like Mercy or Moira, but she’s able to deal with so many other issues.

Winning with Brigitte is like winning with any support. Your goal is to keep your allies alive long enough to help them make the big plays. There is lots for you to do in terms of keeping them alive. Keep your enemies away from your allies with Whip Shot. Heal them with Repair Packs. Boost your allies with Rally.

Brigitte has many tools to deal with incoming enemies or far away allies. She is a non-support player’s support than can also do incredible things in the hands of a talented player.

Tips and tricks

• Whip Shot has a much longer range than you think. Don’t hesitate to throw it out at a distant enemy.
• Repair Packs are awesome in an emergency, but you should still cast it on cooldown to keep your allies’ armor rolling.
• You have lots of abilities, but you need to be sure that you’re using a flail ability often enough to keep the Inspire buff out. Keep an eye on the pulsating gold ring under your feet.