by Hypocritical_Midget

If you prefer to learning things in a video format over text, here’s a link to Everything Below In Under 15 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBiCUCUWEt8 Time stamps are also embedded throughout the scroll bar so you can skip to which bit(s) are important to you!

ORISA FUSION DRIVER

Orisa is armed with an automatic projectile cannon delivering sustained damage dealing 11 per projectile. She has a reduced movement speed of 30% while shooting, with a projectile speed of 90 m/s (Same as Zenyatta’s Orbs as reference) with an ammo capacity of 150, a rate of fire of 720 RPM, coupled with the longest reload in the game of 2.55 seconds.

ORISA FUSION DRIVER USAGE

Target Priority

• Squishy backline healers shouldn’t be your first target priority. Your weapon is simply too inconsistent and slow to aim with, alongside their quite small hitboxes and potential mobility (Such as Lucio Wallride) that make it more difficult to hit your shots.
• With that being said, halting a Lucio or Genji ontop of you to land easy headshots can certainly be a focus, forcing out Dash, Deflect, or Amp respectively
• Instead, your weapon should be used primarily to poke down shields and tanks (The classic example being of Orisa Vs Reinhardt) where you attempt to break shield and expend resources before the Reinhardt gets in close range
• You can also poke down snipers from afar to effectively deny their sightlines; You could mess up their shot, get them low enough to force them to reposition or receive healing resources that could have otherwise bene used on the frontline, which could all in all help your sniper win the duel

Mirroring Movement

• Due to Orisa’s static nature (Especially whilst shooting) you can often feel overwhelmed against dive tanks such as Wrecking Ball or Winston
• I’ll get into the latter of those two later, but considering Wrecking Ball first: You want to mirror his movement and move in the opposite direction that he is pathing before he slams. A Great Example would be on Kings Row 1st Point Defense, where the wrecking ball grapples onto the statue, and swings towards you. In this situation, you should mirror his movement, and move to the closest corner (which is by the Hotel) to deny damage from his Piledriver, and potentially to prevent you from having to use fortify as he boops you in the air
• You could also reload in this time to increase your movement speed, whilst being ready to follow up after his slam. I don’t recommend this if you are relying solely on the audio queue before Ball slams.

Complex Movement Retreats

‘Orisa is one of the most complex heroes to [know how to] retreat with’ – Justin ‘Jayne’ Conroy, 2018.

• The above statement is based upon numerous factors that change how fast you retreat as Orisa, which I’ll list now.

1. You move 5.5 m/s forwards, but 5m/s backwards
2. Your head hitbox is one of the biggest in the game, influencing whether you should put your head down, turn around, and move as fast as you can
3. Orisa’s Fortify, being an inherently defensive cooldown, can influence whether any neglecting factor that may cause her to take more damage during a retreat actually matters
4. Orisa’s 30% movement penalty whilst shooting; Do you do a fighting retreat, or a full retreat?

Normally, in an ideal situation, you would want to move backwards, whilst shooting, without having to use fortify. However, I’d advise against doing this when on a map that’s not very spread out (Lijang Control Center) and if you’re against a team that has a Lucio, and you don’t have a Lucio yourself.

ORISA HALT!

This makes Orisa fire a graviton charge pulling enemies towards it’s center. It has the same pull speed (The speed at which once the halt is activated, you will be pulled to the centre) and projectile speed are the same, at 20 m/s (If experimental changes go through, the projectile speed will be 30 m/s). The area of effect is a 7 meter radius (4 meters on Experimental, meaning an 81% decrease in VOLUME). The snare time/duration is 0.65 seconds, alongside a cooldown of 8 seconds.

ORISA HALT! USAGE

(Due to Experimental Changes Being a Fundamental Overhaul, I have decided to add at the end of each usage an ‘EXP’ to know whether each usage will remain as viable as it is now after the patch.)

Halt To Buy Time

• With the slowing, CC nature of Halt, you can halt behind the enemy team (Specifically against brawl comps on spread out maps such as Junkertown, or even a map where you can kite effectively such as Hollywood 1st Defense) to keep the distance
• The extra time gained by doing this may be enough to let your junkrat load in an extra clip, your Ashe to get dynamite off cooldown, your Hanzo to get storm arrow off cooldown, or for your team to get the few extra points of ult charge
• EXP: This will still be a viable way of using halt (especially against all the other uses) since the enemy team will only be gaining an extra 3 meters compared to the live patch

Pulling Enemies Out Of Cover

• (In a vacuum, without combining any other uses of halt as these aren’t mutually exclusive to eachother) This is most useful against squishy targets who are trying to escape a lost fight with no cooldowns (Typically a Genji) to land the remaining few shots either by you, or your teammates
• EXP: When shifting the goal post (IE Instead of pulling enemies out of cover, you could do it just before they move into cover) this is still viable, especially considering the added projectile speed. The window at which you need to land the halt before your enemies get into cover/move away from the halt however is greatly decreased.

Synergise/Combo With Teammates

• This is one of the most obvious yet under utilised uses of Orisa’s halt (Mainly because it requires synced up cooldowns, and a decent level of coordination)
• You can pretty much combo with anything, but the most common are: Pull Flux, Pull Accretion, Pull Blade, Pull dynamite, Pull Firestrike, Pull Dash
• EXP: According to Seagull on SVB’s Great DPS Debate, he claimed that the intention behind this change was to prevent Orisa’s from halting above shields. Whilst OWL Team’s may be skilled enough to still pull off the combo, in your general ranked match, you may need to do these combos from some form of elevation to be able to do them consistently. With this being said, AoE/Cleave Damage such as Pull Firestrike or Pull Dynamite should still work as you only have to pull behind the shield (Not above it) or the AoE radius is large enough to land the damage regardless of the halt range

Environmental Halts/High or Low Halts

• This is most likely the first thing that will come to mind when talking about how to use Orisa’s halt
• You don’t want to halt to high, as this will give the enemy who’s halted enough air time to get back onto land
• You don’t want to halt too low, as this could cause them to be clipped by the edge of a surface (For example, the small bit of elevation around Ilios’ Well) or the halt wouldn’t have L.O.S.
• Instead aim in between to get the best of both worlds
• Speaking more broadly excluding the context of trying to get an environmental kill: You want to halt the enemy vertically (Above their hitbox) if they have a big hitbox to predict shots easily, or if you need to synergies with teammates. You want to halt laterally or into the ground for easy headshots.
• EXP: This pretty much eliminates any environmental use for halt unless the enemy is very close to the edge of the map

Halting Defensively/Against Dive

• As mentioned prior with mirroring Ball’s movement, you can also halt him to chain CC him with a Bash, Flash or Hook, or to prevent an escape
• Against Winston, you want to walk into his bubble, and halt him into the ground if he has jumped into an area where cover is scarce (For Example, if you’re playing on Point on Kings Row Defense, and their Winston jumps onto point, whilst bubbling, with the closest point of cover being the telephone box, you want to walk into the bubble, and halt him before he gets to the outer edge of his bubble)
• If their Winston plays a bit smarter, and manages to place his bubble in such a way where he can shield dance on the edge, you want to vertically halt him on the closest wall possible, as this provides some fall time to increase the time that he takes to get to the closest piece of cover. If the bubble blocks the halt, he’ll most likely be in the bubble, in which you can shoot him there.
• Essentially, you want to punish a Winston who jumps without any consideration of cover, with the ideal situation being to halt him into the ground, closest to you

Bap’s Amp Matrix

• Whilst relatively niche, this can be useful for Double Shield Brig Bap Mirrors, where often at times, the Orisa will halt, then the Baptiste will use his amp matrix.
• In a situation like this, you ideally want to halt second (instead of first) and matrix first in order to force out the opposing Sigma’s Kinetic Grasp (Which will eat most of the damage from the matrix and thus get no value from the halt), then after Grasp is forced, you halt afterwards as there shouldn’t be any form of damage mitigation
• EXP: Should still work, as long as the enemy team are grouped up enough after Sigma has used his grasp

3 Important Callouts

• To maximise the possibility that your halt will get value, here are three key simple parts to make a short but effective callout

1. Communicate COOLDOWN. E.G. ‘Pull in 2!’
2. Communicate LOCATION E.G. ‘Pulling by Statue/Choke!’
3. Communicate TARGET E.G. ‘Pulling Genji!’

A small acronym could be ‘TLC’ (The Reality TV Network) To help you remember this.

ORISA FORTIFY

This makes Orisa reduce damage taken by 40% for 4 seconds on a 10 second cooldown. She is also immune to CC (Crowd Control) and stuns, also allowing her to escape from Graviton Surge and Gravitic Flux.

N.B. Allies behind Orisa when in Fortify are not protected from Earthshatter.

ORISA FORTIFY USAGE

Fortifying In Between Shields

• Due to how brittle your shield is alongside the lengthy cooldown of it, Orisa’s will commonly fortify immediately after the shield goes down to provide some time
• Whilst this isn’t inherently a bad idea, as you’ll see with shield timing in the protective barrier section, you want to fortify when the enemy team engages, and not when you take a bit of irrelevant spam, or if you’re not under any direct threat immediately

Saving Defensive Utility

• Similar with Ana’s Sleep Dart in my Ana guide, there isn’t anything conceptually difficult about the ability; You just want to make sure you don’t waste it
• After you use fortify, there is a 10 second queue in which their Zarya can Grav, their Sigma can flux, their Reinhardt can shatter etc. Especially if the health pool nerf goes through to live
• If you are fortifying, you want to kite as a team to wait for cooldowns to be back online, then you can re-engage.

ORISA PROTECTIVE BARRIER

Orisa deploys a stationary barrier at 25 m/s, with 600 Health, a duration of 20 seconds, and a cooldown of 10 seconds. The projectile ignores Defense Matrix, Deflect, and Grasp, and can be deployed without interrupting Fusion Driver’s reload.

ORISA PROTECTIVE BARRIER USAGE

There are three main pillars with Orisa’s shield: A.T.P. (Just like the content creator ATP Overwatch lol)

A (Angling)

• This is the most minor out of the three pillars, but still something to bear in mind nonetheless
• This goes hand in hand with Shield placement, especially with aggressive shields, but you ideally don’t want a gap on a side of your shield that gives the enemy team a line of sight to your team
• Using the Kings Row Example; You can quite easily angle the shield in such a way where there will be a small gap from Theatre, all the way to the back end of the point. To remedy this, just simply move to the right as this will close this gap between the shield, and the first corner (The first corner adjacent to the statue)

T (Timing)

• This is the most important of the three pillars at higher tiers of play (With even high grandmaster players in Double Shield Scrim Mirrors getting this seemingly minor error wrong
• You want to time your shield where your team is ready to commit, or there team is ready to commit to the engagement. By shielding any earlier (5 Seconds before the team fight) it is possible that your shield will take poke damage before the enemy team actually commits, and what ends up happening is the enemy team has more shielding to cover more angles and block more damage (Contributing to ult charge, positioning, and whether you need to kite or not)
• This tip isn’t mutually exclusive to double shield mirrors (Brawl Vs Poke etc.) but rather the error is more apparent in these mirrors
• An Example would be on Havana 1st Point Defense (Where you hold by the first corner from afar), where Orisa’s would commonly place shield before the enemy team turn around the corner, and the enemy team could already break the shield before they engage due to the flank right side, helping them win the shield war. Note that if the enemy team can’t break the shield before they engage (IE In this example, if the flank to the right didn’t exist, or was blocked off) the above wouldn’t apply as it would technically count as a pre-shield (The exception to all of this)
• Spilo (otherwise known as StormCrow Productions) is where I recently got this from; About 2 weeks ago, he made a post explaining this with lmages as examples, from bad shield timing, to good shield timing (Alongside a 55 Minute video analysing a 4.5K Havana Double Shield Scrim) Here is the post, although I reckon some of you who follow me already follow Spilo!

P (Placement)

• This is the most common but obvious and fixable mistake Orisa’s make that is most impactful
• In lower ranks, Orisa’s will often place their shield quite far ahead of them, making it practically useless. This is most common against Reinhardt’s who are rapidly closing distance. In order to mitigate this, you can use halt to reduce the distance the Reinhardt covers whilst placing your shield to a place where they can’t just walk past it (For Example, on Hollywood 1st Defense, you typically retreat to Café from 1st corner. Don’t throw your shield whilst kiting, but retreat to Café, then shield)
• It is also common for Orisa’s to shield in such a way that if favours how the enemy team want to play. For example, against Reinhardt Ball (A Tank duo lacking range but high levels of CQC) Orisa’s will often not utilise their range. This is most common when the teamfight has devolved into a brawl (Particularly when fighting over point control in 2CP) where you still want to apply objective pressure without getting in the face of the enemy team. For example (Whilst this map isn’t in play) on Horizon Lunar Colony, you can shield at the back left in the corner to prevent a wrecking ball from piledriving from highground, or to give yourself some extra time before their Reinhardt circumvents your shield

Pre-Shielding

• This is done by shooting a shield into the air, effectively cutting down the cooldown of your shield to about 4 to 5 seconds. This will shorten the window in which you time your shield for the engagement from 10 seconds, to about 4/5.
• Pre-Shielding is also done by shielding 10 seconds before the fight occurs (without shooting it in the air) as by the time the engagement occurs, your shield cooldown will be off

ORISA SUPERCHARGER

Orisa deploys a device (With 200 Health) increasing damage to all allies within her L.O.S. by 50%, up to a 25 meter range, lasting 15 seconds, with a 1 second cast time.

ORISA SUPERCHARGER USAGE

Supercharger + Shield/Corners

• The most basic and already well-known tip for Orisa’s Bongo is to drop it around a corner. This is simply so the beam has L.O.S. to you, but not to the enemy team (Hence they can’t destroy it). I still, for some reason, still quite a lot of Orisa’s not take the extra second or two to place it around a corner, which would be much more beneficial in the long run
• You can minimise your downtime by casting the supercharger just as you reach a corner to make the most of your 1 second cast time (Similar to how as Rein, you want to start the firestrike animation before you peek a corner, to just release it when you turn the corner, so you don’t stand out in the open for 0.65 seconds)
• You can also shield then immediately supercharger. This will utilise your fresh shield and cooldowns, with the goal to play as fast as possible. Since you want to play fast in this case by blasting your cooldowns, this will mostly be for 5v6 scenarios in order to swing the fight, and punish any over-aggression (Similar to why Reinhardt’s are forced to make a play with their shatter in a 5v6 in the next 10 seconds because you can’t win the battle of attrition)

Supercharger + Shield In The Backline?

• Whilst watching a Jayne VOD from 2 years ago, he suggested that he sometimes likes to place the supercharger from afar, then just shield the supercharger because you ‘don’t really need a shield in a supercharger [fight]’ Keep in mind, that this was 2 years ago, with fewer interactions in the game, alongside Sigma and double shield being introduced. (An Orisa + Sigma with both shields + Supercharger will outperform an Orisa + Sigma with 1 Shield + Supercharger).
• Hence I suggest this if you’re playing very split as a team, as your shield will most likely be only helping yourself, and not your team.

Bongo When Committing

• Similar with Orisa’s shield, you want to use supercharger when the enemy team commit, similar to how you often wait at choke when the enemy Baptiste uses Amplification Matrix Early (However, it’s much more punishing with Orisa due to how inaccessible Matrix can often be, alongside how fast Matrix charges)
• To spot a team committing (Most obvious on 2CP) they have pushed through a choke, or have turned around a corner (For example, on Volskaya 2nd Point Defense, or Hanamura 1st Point Defense, where the enemy team pass through the main choke)

ORISA TECH

1. The effect of supercharger lingers for 1 second when line of sight is broken, or if a player exits the 25 meter range; Similar with Mercy’s beam when corner peeking for safety whilst still keeping the effect of the beam
2. Halt will cancel your reload. This means that if you accidentally reload, you can halt afterwards to cancel it and keep shooting. However, if you reload at 0 ammo, the reload duration can be effectively doubled by halting at the very end of your reload
3. Melee cancels your reload. This is useful for accidentally reloading without having to use halt, or if your halt is on cooldown

ORISA POSITIONING + ROTATIONS

Rotating Against Brawl

• In a scrim between Contenders Trials Team Incipience and Team Pointbreak in 2018 (Team Incipience coached by John Galt, who’s now an OWL Coach!) Team Incipience had effectively rotated from Café to the opposing highground against Goats, who were pathing all the way through security on the outskirts of 1st Point.
• Whilst this may be difficult to do in solo queue, you can pre-plan before the doors open, to rotate from Café to the opposing highground if you are playing an extremely bunker esc. comp

Rotating Against Dive

• This is slightly more applicable as when you play Orisa against dive, you typically have this clear cut win condition: To poke down the tanks so they can’t effectively stage a dive onto a singular target without being at reduced HP, or being forced to use cooldowns to posture around the frontline
• Here’s an example from Jayne Coaching a Mid-Master Dive Team
• As you can see, Dive Tank have staged by coast, the Pharah is a bit behind them, alongside a McCree playing the opposite side of the dive tanks (a little bit behind obviously, not quite by the healthpack). On the map are 3 places where you can rotate to as Orisa – To the McCree (Left Side, but on their half of the map) to the Pharah (IE Directly ahead of you) or directly to your left, on the same side that the McCree is on, but on your half of the map
• You want to ideally rotate to the latter option above ^ as you are able to poke down the opposing tank to prevent them from executing a dive (and if they do, they are forced to use cooldowns, in which you can punish with halt, good shield management and cornering) whilst they can’t posture around you and bleed you from resources.
• By rotating straight ahead, you are playing into the hands of the enemy team, as they set up a crossfire, without having to commit cooldowns to engage, alongside decent cover and sightlines to posture from.

Aggressive Shielding

• Whilst not common, when the enemy team have committed cooldowns that can prevent you from being aggressive, or are placed in such a fashion that you can bypass them (Such as a Bad Orisa shield), you can shield past the enemy team, and call for your teammates to commit past the corner
• You can also shield on soft flanks (In the Havana double shield mirror example mentioned prior, you can shield aggressively to the room to your right)

ORISA FRONTLINE TANK SYNERGY

Orisa D.Va: This duo is quite versatile, providing point pressure and high ground contest simultaneously. Diva can also peel if needed, and whilst not common, Pull bomb can be performed. However, this is simply an outdated combo due to Sigma Orisa, even if these experimental changes go through. Also note that her fusion cannons can apply enough poke damage to prevent a Winston from diving (Winston can’t dive onto a target if he’s on 300-400HP, otherwise he’ll just get punished too easily)

Orisa Reinhardt: High amount of cover, and in combination with a Bap, you can pull off the Halt plus firestrike plus Matrix combo. However, shatter is simply too weak and inconsistent, alongside having no poke damage, and the inability to swing or cover ground on wide maps.

Orisa Hog: This duo is the most outdated in the game, as Sigma just has more defensive utility than Hog. However, Pull Hook can still be performed, with Whole Hog being a great answer to Nano blade. The damage is highly present, however, if Hog isn’t hitting hooks, he may as well be picking Sigma.

Orisa Winston: Whilst Jump Pack Halt is some synergy, there are much more efficient combos, alongside Winston’s inability to dive the backline without feeding due to Orisa’s static nature. Soft flanks and soft engages are by far your Winston’s best bet, but Sigma may be better in poke.

Orisa Ball: This tank duo has the highest amount of individual sustainability in the game, alongside synergy such as Pull Slam or Pull Mines. The crowd control from either character can also deny a dive from the Winston, however, friendly supports may be left unattended.

Orisa Zarya: This is quite a weak duo as both characters have different play styles, with Orisa being defensive, and Zarya being aggressive, hence it may be hard for Zarya to gain and retain energy. However, due to Orisa’s point presence, Zarya can take off angles to anyone contesting you, on top of how powerful both your ultimates are.

Orisa Sigma: Best for last. At the highest level, Orisa Sigma is played with the cooldown management of dive, the corner and positioning of brawl with the versatility and ranged damage of poke. Use your barrier at engagement, and don’t be afraid to be aggressive with your shield.