Rebekah D. March 4, 2019
The Overwatch development team has released a further update to the PTR, making changes to new hero Baptiste.
This is the second balance update to the PTR build in less than a week, showing that developers are rapidly changing the way their newest hero works.
The update arrived on PTR on March 2 and also included a changes to Symmetra.
Baptiste’s ultimate has a brand new look after players commented on the that the previous visual effects of his Amplification Matrix looked too much like a standard shield. While no official response was offered, developers quickly pushed out the update to correct the problem. Instead of a flat shield effect, the new Amplification Matrix looks more like a three-dimensional field.
The second update to Baptiste is specific to a particular map. The cars on control map Oasis are an instant death mechanic, but with Baptiste’s Immortality Field players can survive the impact of speeding vehicles. To prevent Baptiste players using this to their advantage by building charge through players being repeatedly struck by vehicles, the hero can no longer gain ultimate charge from players being hit by cars.
Symmetra became the latest hero to receive a balance change with the latest update to the PTR, with her primary fire being buffed to deal more damage. Her Photon Projector beam now has a damage increase that scales 20% more quickly, allowing the hero to more consistently reach the highest tier of her weapon’s damage.
The current PTR patch first arrived with 14 hero balances and a brand new support hero, Baptiste. The patch was updated to update a further four heroes, with these latest changes dropping just two days later.
As the patch is only on the PTR server, it’s currently unavailable to console users. All changes made to heroes are for testing purposes and are subject to further revision before going live.