by Hypocritical_Midget

If you prefer to learn things in a video format over text, here’s a link to basically EVERYTHING BELOW in UNDER 15 MINUTES: https://youtu.be/51CFDdAOgSo Time stamps are also embedded throughout the scroll bar so you can skip to which bits suit you :)

BRIGITTE ROCKET FLAIL

This is Brigitte’s primary weapon dealing 35 damage in a 6 meter radius. It takes 0.2 seconds to cast the initial swing, with the rate of fire being one swing every 0.6 seconds.

BRIGITTE ROCKET FLAIL USAGE + TECH

• Regarding the tech, it is very similar to Reinhardt’s rocket hammer (Consider it a smaller version of it if you will)
• You can cleave multiple enemies by turning your camera in the direction that your flail is being swung at to hit both (or more) targets.
• Keep in mind on console that this can be quite difficult to pull off due to the shorter cast time in comparison to Reinhardt’s hammer, and the aim assist which can slow down the movement of your camera. In order to remedy this, I recommend increasing sensitivity on the X axis without jeopardising accuracy from your whipshot
• You can perform a ‘double hit’ by allowing the very end of Brig’s first swing animation hit the target, THEN allow the start of Brig’s second swing animation to hit.
• The purpose of this is to double the damage in half the time when attacking a fast moving target. However, this does NOT increase the DPS you deal as there is a bigger gap between the start of the second swing, and the end of the first swing compared to just swinging normally. Pulling this off in-game is very much easier said than done, and applies moreso with Reinhardt than Brigitte due to longer cast time.
• Generally speaking, you want to be swinging by default as you may accidentally prock inspire from a genji dashing away from you for example. HOWEVER, unless you are in line of sight against a oneshot hitscan, DO NOT do this.
• Brig’s Rocket Flail is the easiest way to activate her inspire. To do this, walk up to their Reinhardt (preferably close to a corner E.G. Kings Row 1st Point Defense, the corner adjacent to the statue) then swing at their Reinhardt/Main Tank, then immediately perform a 180, then shield bash away.
• The reason why you want to play around a corner (like the one mentioned prior) Is so that you are out of line of sight from the opposing sniper (If they have one).
• It may be very tempting to shield bash their Reinhardt and whipshot him away in order to get ult charge and to buy some space for your Reinhardt, but if there is a character armed with a stun, such as the opposing Brig or McCree, they may stun you whilst you are down without your shield, hence you will then die.
• You can also animation cancel your smack (Similar to Reinhardt’s hammer) with any of your abilities. This can be useful to draw attention/bait a Widowmaker shot by immediately cancelling your rocket flail with your shield. Note that you CANNOT do this when using your whipshot, which is actually when Brig is her most vulnerable.
• Other than that, feel free to do lé smacking during the brawl

BRIGITTE WHIPSHOT

This makes Brig throw her flail a distance of 20 meters, dealing 70 damage, and with a cast time of 0.2 seconds. When Brig does this, her movement speed is at half of her normal speed, and has a cooldown of 4 seconds

BRIGITTE WHIPSHOT USAGE

There are three main uses to Brig’s Whipshot – A useful acronym to remember is ‘I.D.K.’ Which stands for: INSPIRE, DAMAGE, KNOCKBACK (tbh idk…)

1) INSPIRE

• Due to the much longer range compared to her regular rocket flail, you can hit enemies much further away from you to activate your inspire. Hitting these on a consistent basis will separate the Good Brig’s from the Great Brig’s as you will be ahead 15-20% in the ult economy against the opposing Brig
• However, as alluded to prior, using your whipshot is when you are most vulnerable as you have no frontal protection (Unless you are behind some artificial or natural cover). To make matters worse, Brig’s will naturally play more aggressive to be able to find these flails as they may be out of range, hence increasing the probability that you will be focused down, or be oneshot by a sniper.
• To add ONTOP of this, the decreased movement speed makes it even easier for snipers to hit these shots.
• In case you feel worried or threatened to play out of cover to hit the whipshot (Which you should be) you can either do the rocket flail tip mentioned prior, or wait for the opposing DPS or tanks to turn the corner
• The easiest way to land whipshot consistently is to use it when the opposing tanks have used their cooldowns.
• For Example: When Roadhog uses his hook, when Wrecking ball uses piledriver (Specifically, at the apex of his animation), when Reinhardt uses firestrike, when D.v.a. uses her defense matrix, when Zarya uses her personal bubble, and when Sigma drops his shield
• These cooldowns (after they’ve been used, or in D.v.a’s case, when she’s using Matrix) either makes the tanks more vulnerable to damage, or makes it easier to hit and land cooldowns (based on the positioning that they will be left in, which is the case with D.v.a.
• D.v.a.’s tend to play more aggressively (and therefore past shields) when they are using matrix (Since they want to absorb damage) which is the perfect time for you to land a whipshot. However, if you are in a close and safe enough position, you can bash then whipshot based on the fact that Matrix is such a powerful ability, hence cancelling it with a stun will allow a bit more damage to go through

1. DAMAGE

• This can be done to perform your combo of Shield bash + Smack + Whipshot
• However, I would recommend leaving out the shieldbash as you can still easily perform the smack + whipshot for enemies at half HP, and save a cooldown. The small animation cancel of Smack + Whipshot as well also applies (Similar to Reinhardt’s Hammer + Firestrike cancel)

1. KNOCKBACK

• The knockback from whipshot is a maximum of 10 meters (If the enemy don’t press W/Apply a force opposite to that of the whipshot
• The knockback is mainly used for peeling your backline, environmental kills, or to knockback ultimates when you think they’re going to be used
• A small but important tip to INCREASE knockback is to perform a Shield Bash + Whipshot RATHER THAN Shield Bash + SMACK + Whipshot
• This is because players are sometimes greedy, and want to get the extra damage in. This leaves a bigger frame fo the opposing player to press W on their keyboard when they are being knockbacked as the stun duration is lessened when trying to fit in the smack (Hence they regain control of their keyboard/controller faster when attempting to fit the smack in)

BRIGITTE REPAIR PACK

This makes Brigitte throw a ranged healing pack which heals for 110 over 2 seconds, with up to 50 armour over maximum health. You have 3 charges of this ability, with a 6 second cool down per charge. The maximum range to which you can apply this ability is also 30 meters; Any added armour lasts for 5 seconds. It also has a projectile speed of 45 m/s (For comparison, Firestrike is 25 m/s)

BRIGITTE REPAIR PACK TECH

1. You can animation cancel the short 0.25 second recovery period after repair pack by immediately using rally, which could save a Reinhardt under severe pressure
2. If multiple repair packs are used on the same target, the healing duration is increased by two seconds per repair pack; They do not stack ontop of eachother

BRIGITTE REPAIR PACK USAGE

This is by far Brig’s most complex piece of kit. Choosing whether to heal your DPS or Tanks, and choosing when to Overheal your teammates or not is situational.

Starting with the latter (I will mention the former when going through Brig’s backline synergies) a lot of Brig’s like to carelessly overheal. Here’s a list of Pros and Cons of overhealing:

Pros:

• If you know that the teammate who has overheal is guaranteed to take damage, it adds extra survability and could save their life. This is most well-seen when pocketing a Genji using blade, or a Doomfist choosing to hard engage. Saving a repair pack or two could make you receive some serious value with the added sustain, which i simply done with a little bit of communication (Believe it or not…)
• You will receive your repair pack sooner than if you used it late. This is useful for when you need the added healing later in the teamfight, hence overhealing a target could buy them taking an extra swing, or an extra shot
• You force the enemy team to potentially invest more resources into the target that has overheal; It could waste a concussion mine, helix rockets, zen discord etc.

Cons:

• Building off the last point, overhealing pre-emptively could jeopardise one of your teammates, and could be the difference between them surviving or dying. This is seen most true during the Goats meta, where repair pack was seen as an extra life (I know it was more healing and instantaneous back then, but the principle of life and death still applies)
• You feed the enemy team ult charge
• You don’t gain any ult charge (Compared to just waiting for your teammates to take damage to then receive the excess ult charge)

Essentially, you don’t want to be wasting your repair packs just because you have three. This is especially true when you can’t easily activate inspire (Since you may be on a long range map such as Junkertown) or you’re running Brig Zen with limited healing.

One last thing to mention before moving on: DO NOT use repair pack on targets that you know are blatantly feeding. This isn’t even for the ult charge since repair pack is no longer instantaneous; AND the projectile speed is too slow before repair pack can get any value. We’ve all been there where you waste repair pack before it can actually get any use. The lines are slightly more blurred if a target is critical and you are just about to open L.O.S. – In this case, it depends how many enemies are focusing down the single target, how ‘critical’ they are (IE Are they 50 HP or 1?) how close they are to safety, and whether they have any cooldowns remaining.

BRIGITTE BARRIER SHIELD

This is a 200 Healthpoint barrier that decreases movement speed by 30%, regenerates at 100 shield per second after being down for 2 seconds, and is left on a cooldown of 3 seconds after being broken.

BRIGITTE BARRIER SHIELD USAGE

1) Learn How to Shield Dance

• As Brigitte’s shield is paper thin, learning how to make the most of it in 1v1 duels is key
• In conjunction with your inspire, and your 50 armour, you want your armour to be made the most of against opponents that have weapons which are pellet based. E.G. Reaper, Sombra, Tracer, D.v.a, Doomfist, Roadhog (Practically Orisa, her fusion cannons do 11 damage, hence they are reduced to 6) whilst letting your inspire heal up some of the damage to help keep you in the armour zone
• In fact, back in the Goats meta, the opposing Brig’s tried to find duels against eachother to exploit one another for poor positioning (by performing the stun combo whilst flailing). The zenyatta would discord and harmony the friendly and enemy Brigitte’s respectively to allow the friendly Brig to take the duel that they believe favours them, with a simple callout.
• Another added tip would be to stun any cooldowns that deal added damage such as Dva’s micro missiles, or defensive cooldowns such as Roadhog’s breather. You also want to try and stun late (if possible) up against characters that have escape cooldowns in order to not shock them into escaping too early. 3 Prime examples would be Sombra (Stunning before she can translocate), Reaper (Stunning before he wraithes) and Tracer (Stunning before recall)

2) Place your shield square on against explosive projectiles

• Your shield isn’t big enough to cover splash damage from projectiles
• Despite your shield only being 200 HP, I highly recommend you try and hit the projectile explosion radius (or the projectiles themselves) square on, by turning your camera in such a way so that your shield blocks the explosive damage from sed projectiles
• In very niche scenarios however, you may want to purposely take damage to make your shield more efficient, or to allow the other support to gain ult charge if that’s what your win condition is (EG Taking damage so that Ana can heal it up, as Nanoblade may be your win condition). Keep in mind, adding stress to Ana’s job of healing is most likely not needed…

3) Just because you CAN take more-than-the-average-amount-of-poke doesn’t mean you SHOULD

• You can absorb a bit of damage with your shield, and you can stretch the shield resource from your main tanks, however, with the shield being so brittle, and that shield bash is your movement escape (Which relies on the shield itself) by breaking your shield, you are immediately putting yourself in danger
• This is a general playstyle tip, in which the equivalent of doing this is holding your shield up as Reinhardt whilst standing still/trying to hold the same amount of ground you have

4) Minimise Shield movement penalty

• This is a minor tip, but when covering distances covered by hitscan characters, you can shield during the first shot, then put your shield down (As hitscan characters such as widowmaker or Ashe have either a slight recovery period after each shot, or a charge up time) then put your shield up when you think they will shoot.
• You can also ‘shield jump’ although your shield is so brittle that you will hardly be able to notice the difference in amount of poke you are taking, and only works against consistent damage such as Orisa’s fusion cannons

N.B. This tip wasn’t important enough to have it’s own mini subheading but different enough to be worth mentioning. If you jump whilst Reinhardt’s shatter is travelling across the ground, you will be stunned. This is actually somewhat counter-intuitive to many, however, shatter has a vertical height of two meters, hence what I assume happens is that shatter travels underneath your shield (Whilst you are jumping), to then hit your feet via this small vertical height. Shatter’s hitbox is also weird with Brigitte’s shield hitbox to where I can’t give you any definitive tips since I haven’t done enough testing on enough maps. A nice change from Blizzard’s POV would be to slightly increase Brig’s shield’s hitbox so that these things don’t happen accidentally.

BRIGITTE SHIELD BASH

This is where Brigitte charges forward with her shield up, dealing 5 damage to anyone hit by it, and stunning the opposing character with a 0.75 second stun. Area of effect is also a 60 Degree Angle front cone radius, and after using her bash, the cooldown will be on 7 seconds.

BRIGITTE SHIELD BASH USAGE

1) Mobility

• With the majority of the time, you will be using shield bash for mobility instead of stunning or for damaging enemies
• A simple tip for mobility is to jump at the end of shield bash to conserve a bit of momentum, and project you a few extra meters. This is similar to jumping at the end of Moira fade
• You can also perform a ‘Shield Bash Jump’ where you jump, then shield bash towards a slanted object, which will propel you vertically. Great examples of this are on Junkertown 1st Point Defense, or Route 66 Second Point Defense (By the Highground ontop of the room with the Pool Table).
• These are mainly used to either escape danger, or to contest opposing DPS which you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do so

2) Damage

• Whilst the shield bash isn’t very high in damage itself, it allows follow up to be done
• However, I highly recommend you know your damage breakpoints. For example, performing the ‘Flail, Bash, Flail, Whipshot’ Combo will only deal 145 Damage, which is 5 off from killing a tracer
• You also need 4 Flails before you can pull off the normal 110 Combo of Bash, Flail, Whipshot to kill any 200HP Squishy

3) Stun

• This is the most game-changing usage of her stun with the highest carry potential
• You have the ability to stun 3 Things: A Counter Stun Against MOVEMENT, a Stun against ULTIMATES, and a stun against COOLDOWNS
• I’ve already mentioned the latter so I won’t go through it again. A simple bit of ult tracking can help you prepare and save your bash for ultimates such as Reaper’s Death Blossom, which is very easy to stun as you don’t have to put yourself in extreme danger, nor is it an extremely high amount of burst to the point where it’s down to reaction speed
• If trying to stun ultimates such as Whole Hog and Coalescence which are a bit harder as you have to put yourself in a more exposed position. Potential fixes would be to ask for a Zarya bubble, or to play an off-angle hence they won’t expect you coming from any other direction that isn’t head on
• You can also counter stun Doomfist Punch and Reinhardt Pin and Brigitte Shield Bash, which put you both at a neutral position on the ground
• I advise doing this against Doomfist Punch more than anything else as he will be in your backline, whereas a Reinhardt making a calculated pin (Based off of the angle and distance tips which are in my Rein guide) will actually put you in a more vulnerable position, as his teammates will be able to back him up. (Key word being ‘Calculated’ which isn’t a thing in Gold and Platinum…)

BRIGITTE INSPIRE

This is an area of effect heal that deals 21.6 healing to allies for 6 seconds in a 20 meter radius. The self heal from inspire is also halved to yourself, dealing a sahde under 11 healing per second. There is also a one second cooldown before it can be triggered again.

BRIGITTE INSPIRE TECH

I won’t be going over ‘Usage’ as it’s a passive ability, similar to how I did so with Reinhardt’s passive.

1. Brigitte’s Inspire does not heal behind enemy barriers, or surfaces that block Line of Sight
2. It only applies one effect only to allies, meaning that once the inspire is applied, they will receive the healing even if they are beyond the 20 meter range.
3. The Inspire will not stack with itself if procked twice in it’s 6 second duration. The duration will instead reset
4. Lastly (Most important for last) if you activate inspire, but a teammate is EITHER out of Line of Sight OR Out of range (Even if it’s 20.1 meters), THEN they move into Line of Sight OR Into Range, they will NOT receive any healing. This can be especially frustrating after hitting a solid flail, but if none of your team have LoS to you, or they’re too far away, the healing will not go through no matter what.

N.B. Inspire is key to building rally; Try not to miss your whipshot ;)

BRIGITTE RALLY

This makes Brig provide 15 armour every 0.5 seconds to teammates in a 8.5 meter radius, and up to 100 armour on yourself and allies. You gain a 30% speed buff, with the duration of rally being 10 seconds, alongside the armour lasting 20 seconds after rally has been used.

BRIG RALLY USAGE

1) Rally is a ‘Tempo’ Ultimate

• A ‘Tempo’ Ultimate essentially means that you can speed up or slow down the pace of a fight (IE The ‘tempo’ of a fight) but you will most likely not switch the outcome of the fight directly with a single click of a button, unlike transcendence or sound barrier
• Other examples of ‘Tempo Ultimates’ are Coalescence and Valkyrie.
• Knowing this information, you can use rally in a 5v6 to slow down the pace of the teamfight, and wait for it to be a 6v6, or wait for extra resources to come in from your teammates to pull off your win condition (E.G. Nanoblade or Grav)
• This also means that you shouldn’t be using rally if you are ult tracking the enemy team’s win condition. For instance, if the enemy team have Grav Dragon as their win condition, I highly doubt rally will do anything to change that outcome.
• HOWEVER, you may want to use rally to force a plethora of ultimates from the enemy team; People in low diamond and below will typically use their ultimates in response to an enemy ultimate being used, without tracking the state of a teamfight. Knowing this, you can use rally, and force 3-5 ultimates from the enemy team, and then win the next fight just based off of ult economy

2) Rally in the mid-fight

• Rally can also be very powerful and is most optimal in the mid-fight; Especially if you are unaware about who is going to win the teamfight.
• You do not want to use rally way before or after the teamfight (or too late in the midfight) as you will be missing on about 6.5-7 seconds of rally (It takes 3.5 seconds for you to get the full 100 armour, 3 seconds to get 90 armour)
• Not to even mention, that some of this armour can decay in the next teamfight if you use it too early

3) Timing Rally in Dive, Poke, and Brawl

Knowing specifically the most optimal time to use rally depends on your team composition…

In Dive: Try and use rally 3 seconds before the teamfight occurs

• This essentially means to try and use rally 3 seconds before you all split up, and your DPS go on off angles, or your Tanks use their movement abilities
• This is because of the short 8.5 meter radius, in which it is highly likely that your DPS and Tanks will not be in this range whilst the teamfight occurs.
• You ideally don’t want to rally as soon as the teamfight occurs because by that point, your team will have already been split up, and it may be unlikely that your DPS receive 0 value from rally. Dive is also about quick, burst-damage engagements, hence the 3 extra seconds at the END of rally (that you wouldn’t have otherwise by using it 3 seconds before the teamfight occurs) would be of little value

In Brawl: Try and use rally as late as possible in the midfight

• Let’s say hypothetically you’re on Volskaya 2nd Point Attack; You’re running Brawl, the enemy team are running Poke/Double Shield
• If you rally as soon as you get to the first choke, then you try and make up the distance so you try and get in the face of double shield, the added armour will be chipped away, feed the enemy team ult charge, give your other support NO ult charge (As the armour given is ADDED)
• Therefore, you ideally want to rally either as soon as your tanks reach the stage of getting in front of the enemy team’s face, OR midway throughout the brawl process (To give you added armour for a prolonged fight, especially on 2CP Maps where we all know how ridiculous spawns are…)
• Any poke damage you or your tanks take whilst trying to get in close range can be healed from your inspire, or give your other support ult charge

In Poke: Use Rally When You’re getting Jumped/When the teamfight begins, or slightly early if you’re running a Doomfist/Genji DPS duo, in which they need they need the added sustain

• This essentially has the same tips from the ‘Brawl Rally Usage’ although I see many Brigs use rally a bit pre-emptively, which means that the last few seconds of rally; You’re receiving close to no value

BRIGITTE POSITIONING

• This is a very situational area of Brigitte, and depends on the map, and the team comp you’re running
• If your other support can sustain for themselves, and your tanks feel comfortable in the brawl (IE Your support is a Moira or Lucio, and your tanks are well coordinated doing the Bubble + Rein Swing combo etc.) then you can play a bit more aggressively, hiding around corners, and occasionally whipshotting away the opposing Reinhardt to provide a bit more space for your Rein.
• However, if your other support is prone to dive, you should either hang out in the back, or be within LoS (Line of Sight) and range to apply your Repair Packs either pre-emptively, or as soon as they’re being dove.
• You can also play off-angles (EG Kings Row Hotel 1st Point Defense) to deter any DPS from flanking in the first place, or take on the duel (in conjunction with shield dancing) and force any cooldowns in the meantime. Or you can also potentially stun ultimates as mentioned prior.
• (I’m only suggesting this due to Slayergramps; a T500 Reformed Tracer Main) You can full on flank with rally, and assassinate a backline support, or draw attention off the frontline with a whipshot. Keep in mind, Slayergramps did this in his low GM games BEFORE the Brig rework, but I still believe that this is somewhat viable if you have one or two other teammates flanking. I will urge this however: DO NOT DO THIS in a SKRIM or 6v6 COORDINATED or PUGs.

BRIGITTE BACKLINE SYNERGY

BRIG MOIRA: This is the best backline to go against anti-dive comps as both Brig and Moira are self-sufficient. Because of Moira having a lack of ranged healing, but extreme amount of healing in close range, you’d be using your armour packs on DPS over tanks, hence this requires a decent amount of awareness. There is also no defensive ultimate, so you’d ideally want to pressure the opposing Zarya or Reinhardt

BRIG BAP: Brig’s inspire in combination with Bap’s regenerative burst, a mercy beam is practically applied to everyone who receives both abilities. Similar with Brig Moira, you ideally want to be using your repair pack on DPS. This backline is also optimised for double shield poke comps that are vulnerable to dive, and if you are going against a Bap Zen double shield comp, you want to try and close the distance, and land those whipshots, as Bap Zen has a higher amount of poke compared to Bap Brig.

BRIG MERCY: This is optimised for dive comps, as mercy heals the DPS, whilst you heal the tanks. You also do not need to worry about peeling for your other support, although keep in mind that brig mercy is one of the worst backlines for brawl comps as you have no defensive ultimate, and no speed boost to kite from danger.

BRIG ANA: This is probably the strongest duo that Brig has. You want to be using repair pack on DPS over tanks, but you may want to play more passive in case your Ana gets dove upon. You can run dive, poke, or brawl with this backline, although keep in mind you cannot kite nor have a defensive ultimate.

BRIG LÚCIO: This is optimised for brawl comps, with self-sufficient DPS as you will be healing your tanks the majority of the time. Damage dealers such as Sombra, Mei, Reaper and Doomfist pair well as they have some form of regaining health or escaping danger. However, do not run Brig Lucio on long range poke maps as neither character has a large amount of ranged damage.

BRIG ZEN: This is the duo with the least amount of healing, however it is potentially the most volatile. This backline will test your Brig awareness, positioning, and game sense as you have to peel for your Zen (IE Stay in LoS and Range) whilst not wasting your repair packs, whilst also not being tunnel visioned on a single aspect of gameplay, whilst also landing your abilities… You should be using them on your tanks, and tell your DPS to try and stay in your inspire range or rely on health packs more often. To help you do this multi tasking, I recommend you get your Zen to do Ult tracking, and make a callout such as ‘Help Your Zen’ (Try not to say ‘Help Me’ because nobody knows who ‘Me’ is) to relay the stress of you constantly having to look around 24/7.