Yesterday, Blizzard surprisingly announced the newest hero coming to Overwatch, a battle medic by the name of Baptiste. While the developer released a backstory video for the new Haitian hero, there were little to no details about how he might play beyond his balance of healing and hurting. However, no Baptiste is on the PTR, and we have a better sense of what he can do.
Baptiste wields a healing SMG, called the Medic SMG, which has a three-round burst with hitscan. The hitscan means that the bullets just have to be aimed at someone to heal them, there’s no travel time from the gun to the target, theoretically making Baptiste the fastest healer with that method. Of course, like Ana, shooting enemies damages them, too.
The alt fire on the gun blasts a healing grenade that does no damage, but heals teammates in an area-of-effect range. The grenade and the SMG have separate ammo counts, so you can switch around as the situation demands.
Baptiste’s skill involves creating a regenerative field around him to heal himself and allies, similar to Lucio’s music, but differs in that allies do not not have to stay near Baptiste to retain the active regeneration. He also has Exo boots, which allow him to crouch into a superjump for mobility enhancement.
Amplification Matrix, Baptiste’s ultimate, creates a matrix field that doubles the damage and healing effects of any friendly projectiles that pass through it, so proper spacing of the matrix can turn the tide of victory.
Blizzard hasn’t announce when Baptiste might escape the PTR to join the rest of the servers and console versions, but it probably shouldn’t be too long.
Source: Game Informer Overwatch's Newest Hero Baptiste Is Now Playable On The PTR, Here's What He Can Do