Check Out Overwatch's New Hero: Orisa, In Action

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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Check Out Overwatch's New Hero: Orisa, In Action

Overwatch's newest hero, Orisa is now live on the game's Public Test Realm.

Blizzard revealed that the next hero to join the ranks of its online shooter Overwatch would be a tank hero named Orisa [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169695-Overwatch-New-24th-Hero-Orisa-Tank#&gid=gallery_7006&pid=1]. The developer went ahead and put her up on the game's Public Test Realm right away, and we got to play around with her a bit and check out what she brings to the table.

First up, here are her three main abilities, Fortify, Halt!, and Protective Barrier, and her ultimate: Superchager.

[gallery=7014]

Many of Orisa's abilities drawn inspiration from existing Overwatch heroes. Protective Barrier functions very similar to Reinhart's shield, only it is a static item and Orisa can still attack and perform other actions while it is up. It also has considerably less health - only 900 compared to Reinhart's 2000.

Halt! is like a mini-Zayra ultimate, sucking in enemies near its detonation location for a split second, while Supercharger is like a Mercy damage boost on steroids, applying the same 50% damage increase to all friendlies within range.

Fortify is her only truly original ability, giving her a damage reduction buff and making her unstoppable - no Lucio boops, Roadhog hooks, or Zayra Graviton Surges will affect you!

Her main gun is a minigun, and just like the Team Fortress 2's heavy, Orisa will slow down while firing. The bullets shot from her gun are also projectiles with a travel time, and not hit-scan like Bastion's minigun.

Finally, here are some images of all of her epic and legendary skins:

[gallery=7015]

Whether or not she will join the ever elusive "meta" remains to be seen. On the surface, she seems like a suitable substitute for Reinhart - she has less defensive potential but is backed up with more offensive utility. Tanks (with the exception of Winston) are already in a pretty strong place in Overwatch so she has a lot of competition.

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animeprime

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Feb 18, 2013
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I understand how this can be useful for a team mechanically but I'm really not liking the lack of originality. I don't mind a little overlap with other classes. IE, Reinhart and Symetra both use barriers but all their other abilities and playstyle are unique. As you said in the article she only has one original ability. (Which is pretty sweet don't get me wrong.)A Jack-of-all-trades character sounds nice but would ultimately be kind of boring to me.

I'm also interested to see how exactly they'll bring Efi into the game or if they'll even make a model. Can't have a kid running around a warzone after all.
 

Wrex Brogan

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Jan 28, 2016
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Couldn't have been a support hero? Feels like there's too many tanks as-is in the game. Though with the shield and the damage boost maybe you could play her like a heavy support...

I dunno. I just don't want to fight three of her and a Mercy, lord am I sick of the current meta.
 

Lightspeaker

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Dec 31, 2011
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Wrex Brogan said:
Couldn't have been a support hero?...


I dunno. I just don't want to fight three of her and a Mercy, lord am I sick of the current meta.
I know I'm pointing out the obvious here but...

Overwatch's hero release schedule:
- Game launch: 6 Offense (DPS), 6 Defence (DPS), 5 Tanks, 4 Support
- Next hero: Ana, Support. (6/6/5/5)
- Next hero: Sombra, Offense. (7/6/5/5)

It was pretty much inevitable that the next hero release was going to be a tank assuming they could actually design something to fulfill a purpose. Ana basically had to be the first hero release to bring Support up from the rather sparse 4 the class started with. After that it was going to be either a DPS or a Tank and I honestly think they've had a certain amount of difficulty designing a tank that fills the role in a different way from the existing ones (lets be honest, they're still having absolute murder designing anything as straight up useful as Reinhardt as a team core without just copying him outright). They probably decided to go with the DPS because it was basically easier to design something a bit different in that area to give them more time to think on a new tank.

But after that it was pretty much always going to be a tank. Tank players haven't had a new toy since the game launched and in comparison DPS has had a new hero and Support has had a new hero and a total rework of an existing one to make her much more viable. The biggest positive change tanks have had, meanwhile, is the changes to DVa (defence matrix and the removal of self-damage on self destruct) to make her more useful (or to be more precise: useful at all in any way), but her core skillset didn't change in the same way as Symmetra's did.

Your complaints about the meta is nothing at all to do with the number of tanks in game and everything to do with the current state of balance. The general consensus is that the problem lies, in fact, not with the strengths of tanks but the strengths of supports. Ana is the biggest and most crucial one here. Because her healing output is so high but also relies on being able to hit by putting three tanks in front of her its almost possible to miss them and, generally speaking, the tanks won't die in the time she's healing one of the others. This wouldn't be a problem if the rest of her kit is weak but its not. Her ultimate is amazing and her sleep dart is incredibly useful. But Blizzard hasn't done enough to deal with it. Its improved a bit since Ana got the biotic grenade nerf but not enough.