A new tank! Orisa is the new Overwatch hero Blizzard has been teasing as of late and is now available for testing in the PTR. Built by prodigal inventor Efi Oladele, Orisa is built from parts of the OR15 robots tasked as the security in Numbani. A recent terror attack in the Numbani airport, which later revealed to be the work of Doomfist, has inspired Efi to salvage the scraps of fallen OR15s and made a new robot with some new tweaks of her own, including a personality.
As you might have noticed, the name Orisa is derived from its original OR15 designation.
Here’s a short origin trailer, depicting the events that lead to her creation:
As a hero, Orisa is a tank. Her main weapon is the Fusion Driver that should slow her down a bit when firing. Her alt fire, Halt!, acts like a mini Graviton Surge as she can lob a projectile that when detonated, slows down enemies and pull them towards the explosion. She has the ability called Fortify that can temporarily be immune to “action-impairing abilities” like Reinhardt’s Earthshatter. The protective barrier should do as its name implied, though it is a planted, stationery one. Her ultimate, Supercharger, drops a device that will increase any allies’ damage output within her line of sight.
Her kit seems solid for a more defensive tank, but will it fill out a similar niche that teams that run Reinhardt do? So far the other tanks are either good or diving into enemies (D.Va, Winston) or acts better as the secondary off-tank (Zarya, Roadhog) that helps out the main tank that will keep the team alive (Reinhardt). Our early testing indicates Orisa as a solid pick on the defense side, as her barrier and alt fire seems well suited for holding a point.
It’s not Doomfist, as many would expected, but it is a tank hero. The game desperately needed a new tank to a pretty stagnant tank choice so Orisa’s inclusion is a welcome one. Hopefully she fares better with fan reception than the other robot hero Bastion, that has recently got a buff. On that note, in the PTR a Bastion nerf- after only recently buffed- is being tested out. Full details on the PTR patch here.
Orisa is now on the PTR, but it should be a few weeks until she is available to everyone.