Jeff Kaplan’s reasoning behind huge February Overwatch balance update
Baptiste is Overwatch’s newest support hero and his surprise release and a major new balance patch has everyone, including game director Jeff Kaplan, talking.
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Just after Baptiste and the massive new update hit the PTR, Blizzard put out the first Overwatch Developer update in several months to formally introduce the new hero.
As usual, it was Kaplan in the update walking players through the new heroes’ kit and abilities.
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In the update, Kaplan goes over all of Baptiste’s abilities in detail and explains some of the thought process behind them and how they might work in game.
- Read More: Overwatch PTR patch notes for February 26 – Baptiste now live along with major balancing updates
Baptiste’s ultimate ability, the ‘Amplification Matrix,’ is very precision-based and can end up being a huge asset for a team.
“All of the damage your team does is boosted significantly as they shoot through the matrix,” Kaplan explained in the video.
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“In addition to Baptiste, the coolest part of the patch, there’s a lot of hero changes, like a lot,” Kaplan told streamer Nathan ‘KarQ’ Chan on stream. “It’s quite a significant balance patch as well.”
In total, there are balance changes for 14 Overwatch heroes in the latest patch.
“All of these balance changes, I think there’s gonna be a lot of different characters that become viable,” Kaplan told KarQ towards the end of their interview. “There’s a lot of fun stuff in this patch, it should be cool.”
It looks like fans got more than they were bargaining for from Overwatch’s latest hero release, and it will be interesting to see how the numerous balance changes end up affecting the game overall.
