Players of Overwatch are currently throwing fits as they debate heatedly over how to counter Bastion. So far the only answer appears to be another Bastion. However, while the community is still simmering over the recent changes to everyone’s most loved Omnic, Blizzard have given us the best cure, a new hero. Orisa is the 24th hero and the sixth tank to be added to the growing list of playable characters.
The build up to Orisa started last week with a series of tweets on the official Overwatch account detailing Orisa’s creator and a subsequent attack at the airport of Numbani, a fictional city in Overwatch. Orisa serves as the central anchor of her team and defends her teammates from the frontline with a protective barrier. She can attack from long range, fortify her own defences, launch graviton charges to slow as well as move enemies and deploy a Supercharger to boost the damage output of multiple allies at once.
Orisa’s primary fire is her Fusion Driver, an automatic projectile cannon that delivers sustained damage, similar to Mercy’s pistol, but slows her movement speed while she fires it. Meanwhile, her alternate fire launches a graviton charge which can be detonated with the same action. The sphere slows and pulls nearby enemies to it, comparable to a mini graviton surge.
Orisa’s first ability is something called Fortify which gives her a 50% damage reduction boon for four seconds and also prevents her from being crowd controlled. Her second ability shoots out a device that deploys a protective barrier similar to Reinhardt’s shield, albeit with less health. Unlike Reinhardt’s shield, Orisa’s barrier is linked to the cool down as opposed to effective health.
Orisa’s ultimate ability is called Supercharger. Activating it drops a device that increases the damage output of nearby allies. However, it does have a 15-second duration and can be destroyed even earlier by the enemy team.
And that’s Overwatch’s 24th hero, which Blizzard sees as another main or “anchor” tank. It is interesting to note that Doomfist was mentioned in the origin’s video for Orisa so expect more of him to turn up in the future! The last hero Blizzard launched for Overwatch was Sombra.
