The April Fools Experimental Overwatch patch added a lot of bizarre changes, but some, such as Baptiste’s Immortality Field rework, are so good players want to see it added to the actual game.
Fresh off the pro and streamer-created Experimental patch, the Overwatch devs decided to have some fun on April Fools Day by creating a wild update filled with weird changes.
Among the strange ones were a fifteen-second increase to Echo’s Duplicate, Genji’s Deflect resetting after an elimination, giving Junkrat three traps, and disabling Sigma’s barrier.
However, there were a couple of changes that players seemed keen on moving to the live game. These included D.va’s Call Mech ability dealing 600 damage and Baptiste’s huge Immortality Field rework.
Immortality Field has been one of Overwatch’s most controversial abilities since its release. With the power to keep teammates from dying, it’s been considered an Ultimate with a cooldown.
The April 1 patch made it so Immortality Field would instead reduce incoming damage by 50% rather than set a minimum health value. Considering how Baptiste has become a must-pick in higher tiers of the game because of his lamp, this would be a nice change.
Overwatch pro Charlie ‘Nero’ Zwarg took to Twitter to voice his opinion, saying “lowkey would be a good change.”
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lowkey would be a good change pic.twitter.com/4Z32K48NHY
— nero (@ow_nero) April 1, 2021
Users on Reddit agreed. “I don’t care about whether or not it’s properly balanced, the Bap change should go through,” one remarked in a post about how many of the joke changes made sense. “Immortality Field is the dumbest ability in the game.”
“Yeah the real April Fools joke is acting like it isn’t a genuine nerf we should discuss,” another chimed in.
Some others felt that the change was the right direction for the hero, but noted that the numbers may need to be evaluated a bit more before they got pushed to the live game.
Additionally, some players commented that changing the name of the ability to “Mitigation Field” would be a smart move, as “Immortality Field” would no longer make sense.
We’ll have to see what Blizzard decides to do with Baptiste, especially with the hero being extremely dominant in the current meta.