Each and every new hero that Blizzard churns out for Overwatch is always met with fanfare and overwhelming support, and Hero 27 is no different. With all the teasers as of late, it should be not surprise that Hero 27, Brigitte Lindholm, has been confirmed and is currently on the Public Test Realm (PTR). Following in her father’s footsteps, Brigitte Lindholm specializes in give her teammates armor while providing healing. From first glance she gives off very Paladin-esque vibes and it’s fairly similar to how she was designed. That being said, here are 16 bite sized morsels to think about when playing with or against Brigitte.

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1. Brigitte’s Rocket Flail and Whip Shot activate her passive Inspire. Her passive heals Brigitte and her allies for 80 health over five seconds, 16 per second, in a 20 meter radius. When applied multiple times, the heal over time does not stack, but it does refresh the heal over time effect.

2. While her passive does generate ultimate charge, it is unknown at this time how much charge it gives. That said, this is massive if Inspire is applied to multiple targets at once, this could be the breaking point to have her snowball out of control for example on Assault maps.

3. Brigitte’s Ultimate ability, Rally, grants a small movement bonus to herself and grants 45 armor per second for ten seconds, up to 150 armor.

4. What is interesting is that during test we discovered that her ultimate is uninterruptible. Sleep Dart, Flash Bang, Hack and EMP do not phase Brigitte as she is using Rally.

5. While this could be a bug, Winston’s Barrier and Reinhardt’s Shield does not block Rally’s effect, but Mei’s Ice Wall does.

6. Her passive is best used in compositions that feature multiple tanks that all want to stay clumped together in a “death ball.” Think Reinhardt, Zarya, and Roadhog. Something that is slow moving and wants to stay close together.

7. Her burst healing is a great answer to Discord Orb. While Zenyatta can swap targets at will, the five second cooldown on Repair Pack helps to divert dive targets and allows your team to have a better window to react to incoming pressure.

8. Ana’s Biotic Grenade disables targeting for Repair Pack. That said, an offensive Biotic Grenade not only does well against Brigitte, but also lends itself to punish the composition she wants to run with; Tanks and Deathball.

9. Brigitte is another ability based hero. What I mean by that is that her base kit is what makes her great. For example, look at Ana or even Roadhog. Their ultimate abilities are a great plus, but their base abilities carry most of the potential.

10. The best time to ultimate would be right before combat, due to the slow pulse of armor every second. Seeing how it takes roughly three seconds to hit max armor, using Rally before you engage into a teamfight is optimal. However, you can use Rally reactivity with less punishment than using Lucio’s Sound Barrier reactivity. You can kite out a Sound Barrier, but Rally still gives you residual value.

11. Brigitte is also quite good against Winston and Reinhardt. She excels fending for herself and peeling for her backline, but having her on the front line will help with her overall sustain healing throughput. She's going to need something to hit to trigger her passive. Although her Whip Shot does trigger Inspire, I think she is going to need more than just that.

12. She also synergizes well with Tanks, Deathball, and more passive pressure based compositions. I believe her lack of mobility doesn’t lend her self to high tempo dive like Genji and Tracer based compositions.

13. Sombra is problematic for Brigitte, but it does not disable her passive. Similar to Doomfist, when Brigitte is hacked, a majority of her kit is disabled making her a solid dive target. Her saving grace is that her passive, Inspire, allows her to continue with marginal healing.

14. Charge vs. Charge, Brigitte wins. Oddly enough when faced against Reinhardt’s Charge ability, Brigitte stuns her much larger opponent with her ability, Shield Bash.

15. From internal testing, it does not look like Whip Shot takes vertical orientation into question. For example, if a player is above you, they will only move laterally and not vertically.

16. Shield Bash does have similar properties to Moria’s Fade, meaning that she use the movement to propel her vertically. Keep your eyes out for tech that continues to come out on specific boost spots.

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLG’s of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.