[jwplayer 91I9RIGm]Brigitte has long been one of Overwatch’s most controversial heroes with her armor-based abilities being a major issue for players at many levels, but one new idea could help keep her in check while maintaining her armor.
Repair pack is a powerful ability that, in the live version of the game, can give an ally 50 armor while also healing 110 HP over two seconds. On the Experimental Card, however, the armor is completely taken out of the equation, making it exclusively a heal-based ability.
The community’s reaction to these changes has been mixed, but despite buffs to her shield health to compensate, they still result in a net nerf to her kit.
How can Brigitte’s armor be balanced?
Reddit user mahads75 has an idea that could bring armor back to Brigitte’s kit while still removing the over-heal aspect.
“What if armor just replaced health?” they asked on the Competitive Overwatch subreddit. “For example, Tracer would not be able to be 200 hp and would instead be 100 base health and 50 armor and would go away after the same amount of time as it is right now.”
The benefit to this is that armor has some damage-mitigation benefits over standard health. By converting regular health into armor, it won’t be nearly as oppressive as on the live server while not feeling as weak as it does on the Experimental Card.
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Mahads75 continued with their explanation: “if a hero has lost health and the armor pack would instead heal up the health like regular and any armor left extra would then replace health… For example, if Gengi has lost 175 HP and received an armor pack he would be healed to 200 HP and then get 25 of his HP replaced with armor.”
Additionally, for characters with shield health, they would have their regenerative shield HP converted to armor for a brief period of time.
The suggestion has been widely praised by others who called it a “creative” idea that would make Brigitte into a more robust healer, allowing her to maintain a presence on the battlefield while not being too overpowered.
If the developers at Blizzard are looking for inspiration on how to better balance this hero, this concept seems like a great place to start.