Overwatch’s Baptiste is the GOATS buster we’ve been waiting for

Overwatch has been providing Blizzard with a bit of a conundrum of late. A distaste for the three tanks and three healers meta known as ‘GOATS’ has bled over from online to the Overwatch League. During the second week of competition, the Houston Outlaws met with a chorus of boos from the crowd for swapping to that particular strategy. Those more attracted to Overwatch for its promise of diverse and inclusive heroes to root for have also been disappointed by Blizzard’s last hero reveal Ashe - as she represents another white female in a cast of heroes lacking representation of a black woman. It's against that backdrop we’re introduced to Overwatch’s new healer and DPS hybrid character Baptiste. While he certainly has Blizzard’s sparkling charm and personality woven through his character and abilities, he may not address all of the communities qualms. Blizzard seems to have designed Baptiste with the communities GOATS frustration in mind. Speaking before Baptiste’s reveal, Overwatch lead designer Geoff Goodman explains that the team wanted to avoid making a character that would strengthen the problematic set up. The GOATS composition relies on a collection of three healers and tanks grouping up and using Lucio’s speed boost to steamroll through the other team while sustaining itself with healing. “You do have something like AOE healing which is quite good for GOATS,” Goodman explains. “But he also has some things that don’t work as well for GOATS, which is probably good because we don’t want to reinforce that.”