Overwatch Orisa gameplay guide and tips

The 24th hero in Overwatch came as no real surprise to those of us that had been following Blizzard’s cryptic teasing over the past few weeks. She’s now out of the PTR and ready to be played by the broader Overwatch community, so let’s take a look at how to best play her.

Orisa is a new “anchor” tank character — joining Reinhard in that category — and she has a fascinating and deep lore, tying into recent narrative revelations featuring Efi, the 11-year-old robotic engineer.

Efi built Orisa from parts from Numbani’s short-lived OR15 defense robots with the intent to create a robot that would protect the city.

Orisa’s addition certainly helps diversify a tiring Tank class. Her shields can protect teammates from opposition attacks, while her Supercharger ultimate buffs damage to surrounding allies.

She is primarily a defensive character, helping balance out a Tank class that was struggling for consistency among major D.Va and Roadhog nerfs.

Reinhardt stood as the only true defensive Tank character, so Orisa may prove to offer a nice variety for teams looking to evolve their defensive strategy.

Let’s take a look at some gameplay tactics across her skill set so you can be prepared before choosing her.

Orisa counters

There are three characters that stand to cause the most damage and disruption to Orisa: Sombra, Pharah, Soldier and Tracer.

Sombra can easily disable Orisa’s abilities outside of the Fusion Drive, which makes her particularly useless.

Pharah can “boop” her rather easily and attack from above, outside the protective range of Orisa’s barrier.

Soldier and Tracer can easily flank Orisa, making it tough for her to quickly respond and move to aim down agile heroes.

Fusion Drive tips

The Fusion Drive is an automatic weapon projectile, which slows Orisa down while firing.

This is Orisa’s only means of causing damage, and while Damage figure of 12 is quite low, she has a magazine size of 200, meaning long bursts of accurate firing can cause significant damage.

Players on the PTR are noticing that frequent reloading before the end of a magazine actually sees a significant drop off in damage output across an entire magazine, compounded but what is already a low rate. Her fire rate is hire and magazine large, so keep firing and manage her accuracy to get the best out of her primary.

She’s no Soldier in terms of accuracy, probably closer to Tracer, although a little more manageable due to her sluggish, slower movement.

Her reload is slow and leaves her incredibly vulnerable, so fire an entire magazine and then retreat momentarily to reload. Don’t user her Protective Barrier in this instance: you want to save it when bombarding and attacking the enemy.

Fortify tips

Fortify reduces damage taken, and allows Orisa to continue moving regardless of enemy attack.

Fortify is perhaps one of the strongest and most useful abilities in the game. It allows Orisa to significantly reduce the amount of damage taken, while also allowing her to withstand any and all charges, explosions, forces, and hooks.

This means that Pharah’s primary, Reinhardt’s charge, and Roadhog’s Hook are completely ineffective against Orisa while she’s in Fortify mode.

The trick to using this is when you’re either capturing an objective, or defending one: don’t use it whenever it cools down, because Orisa has good health anyway so it’s fairly useless against standard primaries.

Outside of capturing and defending, you also want to use it effectively against a skillful Pharah, and whenever a Roadhog is close enough to reel you in. Keep an eye and ear out for audio and visual cues from Reinhardt’s charge, too, because she can stun him when he hits.

Halt tips

Launches a graviton charge, which is launched, and then detonated (two inputs). The resulting sphere drags all enemies towards it.

Think of this as a blend between Roadhog’s Hook and Pharah’s primary. It’s fantastic for getting environmental kills by luring enemies over an edge.

One particularly effective tactic is to use it to drag Support heroes away from their teammates, rendering their healing capacities far less useful.

Protective Barrier tips

Creates an impenetrable barrier.

Unlike Winston’s barrier, this barrier is fantastic for holding the line and staying at a distance between yourself an enemies.

It can also allow Orisa to provide great shooting cover should you be effective and accurate with her primary. It’s great for flanking enemies and finishing them off while their fire is focused on enemies at the front.

Much like Reinhardt’s shield and Winston’s barrier, is particularly useful against Ultimates, so try to time it so that you have a good balance between covering fire, and protection against more powerful ults.

Supercharged tips

Deploys a device that increases damage dealt by allies.

Players are in two-minds about this ultimate so expect it to be buffed slightly before launching on the public servers. The problem as it stands is that the booster itself can be easily destroyed, and the damage boost isn’t that significant.

As it stands, you need to make sure you place the booster surrounded by allies and out of direct view of enemy fire. A few direct hits from a Soldier or even a Widowmaker and it’s finished.

Try and save it for a final push, too: if the clock is winding down and you’re rushing to capture or defend a point on the last line of defense, give your teammates that finally power boost.