Overwatch technique lets Baptiste deal damage and heal at the same time

An Overwatch technique allows players to pump out both damage and healing simultaneously as Baptiste without sacrificing the quantity of either.

Baptiste has now been in the hands of the full Overwatch player-base for several days, having been released on March 19, and so players are starting to figure out how to get the most out of his abilities.

Players are already discovering powerful ways of combining other heroes with Baptiste’s abilities, and identifying bugs that impact the effectiveness of his abilities. Most recently, players have realized it’s possible to increase Baptiste’s effective output using animation-cancelling.

Animation-cancelling is a technique found in many different games and using many different tactics, which involves using another action to interrupt the animation of a weapon, ability, or interaction so that you can then perform the action again more quickly than normal.

Baptiste’s Biotic Launcher has two modes of fire – a burst rifle for damage, and a grenade launcher for healing.

For Baptiste, it turns out that if you time the shots right, it’s possible to swap seamlessly between firing the burst rifle and the grenade launcher, such that you have a constant output of either damage or healing, with each alternate shot fitting into the gap between rounds.

The applications of utilizing both firing modes simultaneously in this way might be fairly limited, but it’s still a useful technique to be aware of for hectic fights. Doubling up in this way does detract from either mode, so you may well end up dealing a little bit of damage while focusing primarily on healing, or vice versa.

• Read more: Overwatch bug prevents Baptiste’s heal from working

This isn’t the only use to which Baptiste players can put animation-cancelling, however. Baptiste can also use a more tradition animation-cancelling technique, which involves hitting the melee button immediately after firing, to speed up his fire rate for a particular mode of the rifle.

Certain techniques for animation-cancelling have been patched out by Blizzard in the past, so it’s possible these may not remain permanently, but while they’re in the game it’s worth keeping them in mind if you’re trying to play as efficiently as possible.