Overwatch 2 accused of “catering to noobs” with over-the-top S13 Baptiste buffs
BlizzardBaptiste’s Overwatch 2 Season 13 buffs have made the support hero more lethal than ever, and players think Blizzard overdid it with the balance changes.
Season 13 of Overwatch 2 went live on October 15 with a slew of hero updates including a pretty sizable buff for Baptiste.
The patch reduced the recoil on Baptiste’s Biotic Launcher by 30%, meaning that players won’t have to control the weapon as much for follow-up burst shots.
The devs explained this decision in their patch notes, “This change is aimed at reducing the fatigue resulting from controlling the recoil over longer periods of play more than trying to add power to Baptiste’s primary fire.”
However, players aren’t exactly pleased with this change. Many feel as if Bap was already strong before these buffs were implemented and that he didn’t need them.
Popular Overwatch 2 support streamer ‘Awkward’ took issue with them and compared the Haitian hero to a third DPS.
“I don’t get the point of the changes. The old Bap was perfectly fine,” he said. “Bap is like a third DPS. He literally deals more damage than most DPS. When you have recoil, at least it makes it slightly harder to hit shots, but this is catered to noobs. Every time Blizzard tries to cater to noobs, the game’s always worse.”
Awkward wasn’t the only one on X shocked by the surprising changes. “The Baptiste buffs are way too much!” echoed another after posting their POTG.
Players on Reddit were also surprised by the changes and wondered why Blizzard felt they were necessary.
“He already had damage significantly higher than the average Support,” one said. “I’m cool with Support being able to do enough damage to be able to defend themselves, but this was way too far.”
“Lowering the skill floor is just as bad as lowering the ceiling. Now this change alone probably won’t have a massive impact, but talking in general, you will see lower ranks able to climb higher whenever the skill floor is lowered,” someone else chimed in.
It’s still early days for OW2 S13, but it’ll take some time to see how the meta evolves, especially in the pro scene. The Overwatch Champions Series 2024 Finals are only scheduled to begin on November 22 at Dreamhack Stockholm, so we could get a couple more balance patches before then.
In the meantime, Baptiste mains should take advantage of the hero’s new lethality now that it’s easier than ever to land shots and frag out.