Hot on the heels of the Year of the Dog Skins being released, the other highly-anticipated event of the season has been the Overwatch Baptiste launch. That’s right - Baptiste has now finally arrived and is playable on all servers in Blizzard’s multiplayer shooter. Ever since fans found out about Baptiste through the company’s teasers and the subsequent reveal, they’ve been waiting patiently for the chance to test the combat medic’s skills out on the field. Now, it’s time.
The Overwatch Baptiste launch has been in the works for some time, and players have been chomping at the bit to try him out for themselves. The hero’s backstory sees him orphaned by the Omnic war which had wide-reaching consequences for the whole Overwatch roster. Baptiste looks to have signed up with Talon, the faction housing the sleek assassin Widowmaker, before later defecting and living by a new moral code.
Blizzard has released an official trailer on YouTube to celebrate the Overwatch Baptiste release. The trailer shows off a lot of his unique abilities and skills that were teased in earlier press releases by Blizzard. Check out all of his information here:
Bio
Real Name: Jean-Baptiste Augustin
Age: 36
Occupation: Combat Medic
Base of Operations: Tortuga, Haiti (formerly)
Affiliation: Caribbean Coalition (formerly), Talon (formerly)
Abilities
Biotic Launcher
Baptiste’s three-round-burst Biotic Launcher rewards accuracy and recoil control with significant damage output. It also doubles as a healing device, lobbing projectiles that heal allies near the point of impact.
Regenerative Burst
Baptiste activates an intense regenerative burst that heals himself and nearby allies over time.
Immortality Field
Baptiste uses a device to create a field that prevents allies from dying. The generator can be destroyed.
Amplification Matrix (Ultimate)
Baptiste creates a matrix that doubles the damage and healing effects of friendly projectiles that pass through it.
Exo Boots (Passive)
By first crouching, Baptiste can jump higher.
From the looks of the information that’s now out in the wake of the Overwatch Baptiste release, we can tell that he’s going to be focused almost equally on dealing damage to enemies as he is on healing his teammates. The Amplification Matrix looks like an incredibly useful tool when you have to defend the point or stay on the payload, especially since it’ll make your teammates more adept at picking off any targets gunning for your throat while you focus on keeping them alive. Baptiste’s Biotic Launcher and its AOE heal will be useful as well in chaotic teamfight situations, so it looks like his kit is perfect for compositions that want to focus on skirmishing and being hyper-aggressive.
Now that Baptiste is officially out for everyone, it’s prime time to test out how he works on the various Overwatch maps and what the interplay with different heroes feels like. We suspect it’ll only be a matter of time before he works his way into competitive play on account of his kit currently still being strong, as a lot of heroes were on release, and it should make for some really exciting matches.
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Source: Overwatch official Baptiste page