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There are a lot of playable characters in Overwatch 2. With 35 heroes and counting, many newcomers to the game might be a little overwhelmed when it comes time to pick a character and jump into the fray of battle. Because teams are so much smaller this time around with Overwatch 2‘s switch to five players per team from the original’s six, knowing what role your selected character should be filling could be the difference between victory and defeat.
Obviously, there’s no way for you to actively improve your skills at the game without actually sitting down and playing it, but reading up on your preferred heroes is a great way to improve your strategic skills and hit the ground running when you finally start your play session. After all, half of the skills needed for winning a match are the mental ones, so it’s good to get a feel for what your chosen character should be doing before you even start playing.
Orisa is one of the Tanks that’s unlocked when you first log in to Overwatch 2 so plenty of players are flocking to her when they first start getting into matches. Her abilities make her a versatile character that’s able to lead the charge as a Tank and help ensure victory.
More Overwatch 2 guides:
| How to Unlock the Founder’s Pack | How to Unlock Role Queue | How to Unlock Every Character | Can You Fix “0 Players Ahead of You” Error? | Does it Have Crossplay and Cross-Progression? | How to Merge Accounts | Which Characters are Unlocked and Free? | Best Characters in Each Class For Beginners | How to Play Tracer | How to Play Kiriko | What Does MIT Mean? | What Do Endorsements Do & What Do They Mean? | How to Get Golden Weapons |
Orisa’s Abilities
Like most of Overwatch 2‘s tanks, Orisa has a straightforward set of relatively limited abilities. Her kit consists of just three abilities in addition to her weapons, Ultimate, and class passive meaning that she’s a great character to pick up for beginners. Most tanks have a limited number of abilities, however, meaning that they’ll need to rely on working together with the rest of their team if they want to play optimally.
Augmented Fusion Driver
Orisa’s main method of dealing damage is the chain gun that’s attached to her arm. It’s an automatic weapon that doesn’t ever need to reload as long as it never overheats. When it overheats, you’ll be unable to fire it for roughly three seconds which, in a game as fast-paced as Overwatch 2, can feel like a pretty long time. That said, Orisa’s Augmented Fusion Driver packs a pretty mean punch meaning that there are rarely situations where overheating will be a large issue unless you’re going head-to-head with another fully healed Tank.
In addition to the heat-up mechanic, the Augmented Fusion Driver also deals more damage the closer you are to an opponent. While it might seem negligible at first, it extra damage that it deals can actually mean a lot in the long run. While Orisa is far from a character that should exclusively stick to close-range combat, the increased damage she deals when up close makes her an ideal Tank for pushing directly back against the enemy on the front lines.
Ultimate: Terra Surge
Because Orisa is a Tank, she’s meant to be right in the thick of the battle with multiple enemy attackers around. Her Ultimate ability, Terra Surge, is used to take advantage of that. When activated, she’ll start swinging her javelin around her head, pulling all enemies in the affected area close to her. As she continues swinging the javelin, she’ll be powering up a giant AoE attack. If you want, you can start the actual damage-dealing part of the attack before it’s fully charged (which means you’ll be dealing just a fraction of the possible damage.) Once she’s fully charged as indicated by the circle in the center of the screen, she’ll bring the javelin down and deal massive AoE damage to all enemies in her proximity.
It’s important to note that when you initiate Terra Surge, you’ll be left vulnerable to attacks as you can’t move when it’s being charged. Luckily, as soon as you start charging up, Orisa’s Fortify ability will automatically activate meaning that you’ll have an increased health pool and take less damage. While that’s all well and good, it’s a good idea to reserve her ultimate ability until you’re at nearly full health to reduce the likelihood of being eliminated before you can get the attack off.
Because of the nature of most objectives in Overwatch 2, it’s also a good idea to use Orisa’s Ultimate as often as possible when at different objective points where the density of enemies will be at its highest.
Energy Javelin
Orisa’s Energy Javelin is another attacking move that can finish off damaged enemies in a single pull of LT. When used, Orisa throws a javelin to wherever her aiming reticle is pointed. If it connects with an enemy, it knocks them back significantly and if it knocks them into a wall, it’ll deal extra damage. When hitting an enemy with a low health pool, the Energy Javelin can deal some pretty substantial damage requiring them to hang back to look for health kits.
The ability is pretty straightforward but is extremely useful, especially when Orisa’s Augmented Fusion Drive is overheating and you need to get one final shot off to finish an enemy before they finish you. Because of its knockback, it’s also a great tool for keeping enemies back at a choke point when playing defensively for an objective.
Fortify
Fortify is an ability that allows Orisa to temporarily increase her health pool and reduce all incoming damage. In addition to helping her stay alive, it also greatly reduces the heat buildup from the Augmented Fusion Driver allowing her to fire it continuously without needing to take a break to let it cool off.
Be warned: when using Fortify, Orisa turns golden which means that all incoming enemies will be able to see that and steer clear of you until you return to normal. While that’s a potential downside to using it, it shouldn’t disincentivize you from activating it as frequently as possible in order to keep your defensive line strong.
Javelin Spin
Javelin Spin is another defensive ability of Orisa’s. It blocks all incoming projectile and melee attacks and can be used to push enemies back. When activated, Orisa can move forward with increased speed allowing her to push back enemies out of objective zones and into more hazardous areas of the map.
When hitting enemies, it does a little bit of melee damage in addition to pushing them back so it can be used in a last-ditch effort to finish someone off while the rest of Orisa’s abilities are on cooldown. It’s important to note that it doesn’t block all incoming damage as characters like Moira or Symmetra who don’t deal projectile damage can still break through.
Orisa’s Role in Combat
As a Tank hero, Orisa should be leading the charge into battle with the rest of the team. Because her abilities largely lean towards amplifying her defensive abilities, she’s a good pick for payload objectives when your team is playing defense. Orisa excels at holding down choke points, so make sure that when you’re playing as her, you’re on the front lines.
When playing Orisa, you’re able to target just about any enemy of any class, but it’s a good idea to focus on Support characters and other Tanks. Because of her increased health as a Tank, taking out Support characters while tanking damage from DPS heroes is important so that the DPS crew on your own team can come in and sweep them out. Orisa’s health pool also suits her for dealing with other Tanks quite well as she’ll be able to stand up to them with abilities such as Fortify.
At the end of the day, if you’re playing Orisa, you should be in the center of the action. Her defensive abilities make her a lethal force when taking out unprepared individual enemies as well as scattering large groups with her Javelin Spin ability and Ultimate. When paired with a dedicated Support character like Mercy, Orisa is a force to be rekoned with.
