Overwatch Orisa Buff Incoming!

For about the last month or so, everybody involved in Overwatch was gnashing their teeth over the Roadhog problem -- developers and players alike. Moving him away from one-shotting hooked opponents turned what used to be one of the most important off-tanks in the game into worse than a non-factor: thanks to his giant pool of health points, he was basically ult-charging fodder for the enemy team. But while Roadhog's taken up most of the press time, he isn't the only tank suffering. Orisa, too, has fallen by the wayside -- and isn't lucky enough to have the whole playerbase mourning her absence.

The developers, though, have her on their minds.

As was highlighted by Battle.net user Trolltorb, she's having a bit of trouble finding relevance on the battlefield. Between her lack of damage output and Fortify not doing enough especially in the face of one-punching Doomfists, the Omnic centaur-like protector is finding fewer and fewer opportunities in the game.

Luckily, that will get changed in the near future. Unlikely, it won't be a major overhaul. Said Jeff Kaplan:

We don't think she needs a mega buff. We are experimenting with some minor improvements though. Apologies for no details -- we're trying a few things right now and not all of them are going to stick. Overall, we feel like she's not far off but not quite in the ideal spot yet.

Orisa might be relatively new as playable Overwatch heroes go, but she was designed with Doomfist explicitly on the mind -- himself nearly part of the original launch cast, but unlucky enough to be cut before implementation. A lot of this can be seen in just her kit: a miniature Graviton Surge to keep him kited, a Fortify to resist getting knocked around by his powerful glove, and a deployed stationary shield to cut off shotgun knuckles fire and narrow down entry options. Once implemented and rebalanced, though, she's slipped further away towards shield-tanking -- a position that Reinhardt usually does better. 

That is, a position that a fixed Reinhardt does better.

As Kaplan was careful not to overpromise on specific mixes or approaches to her, we'll have to wait until their experiments end up on the Public Test Realm to know how Overwatch plans to retune the Omnic hero.

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