The Bi-weekly Gamer: New Overwatch hero looks to shake up competitive scene

Columns March 15, 2017

With games like Overwatch, Hearthstone, and League of Legends, introducing new elements that can flip the way people play the game on its head is essential. After much speculation about who the game’s new hero would be, enter Orisa, Overwatch’s newest tank class hero with a ton of potential to shake up how the current competitive scene looks in the pro leagues (sorry, Terry Crews fans—Doomfist will, sadly, have to wait a little).

The Bi-weekly Gamer is a column about competitive gaming that appears in every issue of Nexus.

Game developer Blizzard updated the Overwatch website with a page dedicated to Orisa, outlining her backstory and skills. Based on the clips showing off what she can do, Orisa won’t be like the game’s other tank heroes. Her skills are focused on disrupting her enemies and supporting her allies in battle.

Blizzard tried two new, noticeable things with Orisa. The first is her skill called Halt! With this, Orisa launches an orb that the player can then reactivate to pull all nearby enemies into the centre, similar to tank hero Zarya’s ultimate ability.

Orisa’s other noticeable ability is her skill called Fortify. Fortify not only reduces the damage that Orisa takes, but also makes her immune to any crowd control effects (stuns, freezes, knockdowns, etc.).

Currently, the most commonly used team composition is three tank heroes, an offensive hero, and two support heroes. With the introduction of Orisa and her ultimate ability, which buffs the damage of allies in her line of sight, we might see teams switch out a tank hero for another offensive, damage-focused hero to take full advantage of Orisa’s ultimate.

Overall, I think that Orisa will be a great addition to the lineup of heroes in Overwatch and will, hopefully, bring some variety to the competitive Overwatch scene, which can use every bit of help it can get to flourish into something on par with League of Legends.