Jokes aside.

Briggs, mechanically, is one of the worst realized and implemented heroes in the game in my books.

She is not difficult. At all. A lobotomized monkey could play her.

Is there room for improvement? Of course there is. No matter how simple something is, someone can do it “better”.

But the actual skill investment in her is smaller compared to many other heroes.

The “problem” with Briggs- is she has an absurdly low skill floor, relating to her kit having no real appreciable windows of failures.

Her only real skill shot is her rocket flail, and it’s a generous one.

She has a substantial sum of hp, armor, and a shield- making her one of the most positionally forgiving supports overall.

Her cleave may be “melee”, but it’s still generous in range, and frequency. And let’s be frank: overwatch has the contextual obligation of objectives- which ensure that players WILL have to get within a finite range of each other to contest each other, plus terrain is designed intentionally to encourage such interactions on a fairly regular basis outside of specific exceptions.

Getting into melee range isn’t hard.

The actual aim needed when in threat range of her is so minimal it might as well not be a thing.

Her attack rate and damage also ensure that a single miss is relatively trivial- compared to similar mechanics which have slower, harder single hits (which mean a bigger “miss” when missed).

Her primary form of healing is AoE, and extends to 20 meters. Again- reducing any difficulty for positioning, as it’ll reach most areas in LoS of places.

If that’s not enough she has one of the single largest burst heals in the game.

Which also requires no aiming. Once activated, it auto homes to her target. Though shields. Terrain. Etc. did Genji climb a wall, double jump and dash away? Repair pack to the rescue.

It also over heals for up to 75 of its 150 potential, becoming temporary armor. To say this is forgiving would be an understatement.

Shield bash also has a more than genrous hit box, and even with its nerfs a relatively short cool down. If you’re in range, you’re going to get stunned. The stun lasts for 1 second- which is the longest genuine “stun” in the game- allowing Briggs to freely stack up to about 110 damage on you within a window you can’t react during. If she manages to be in melee range for a second and change before utilizing the stun, this will mean death for the majority of the roster.

Her ultimate- same story.

AoE buff. No timing, positioning, or aim required. It can be used pre or mid fight to great success, allowing either a massive buff before hand, or incredible sustain during (and in a winning fight- often both). The extended duration of the buff after the ult ends, which may finally disperse after the ult due to the recent nerf changing it from lasting forever- still has up to a 30 second window- drastically reducing any time pressure that many other powerful defensive ults get subjected to.

The opportunities to “miss” or “fail” with the various aspects of her kit are laughably small.

Well designed?

No.

Difficult? Definitely not.

There is a reason Briggs is one of only 3 heroes at the lowest skill ranks to have a 50% or higher win rate- with the other two relying heavily on autonomous facets of their kit to get value.

It’s not because she’s difficult.

Briggs needs a rework. I’ve stated this from the beginning with her- insisting that without one, the devs would simply be forced to nerf her “numbers” to dial her in until she’s reached an anemic state.

Of little surprise to me- this is exactly what they’ve been doing with her.

No hero deserves this. Let alone Briggs.

I LIKE Briggs. I like her character. I like her purpose. I like the idea of her abilities and mechanics.

They were however poorly executed I feel.

It’s always a nightmare when you have an extremely effective character that has obscene reliability and simplicity. Even if others CAN perform marginally better- if that marginal superiority is multiple times harder to capitalize on? Rarely will the risk be worth the reward in the face of sheer reliability.