It’s mainly due to the fact that no other character in the original Strike Team can heal (except Gabriel, who can slowly heal himself).
The Biotic Rifle was invented by Torbjorn using Mercy’s technology like, well into Overwatch’s existence. We’re talking close to the fall of the organization.
(Note who the blueprint is addressed to: J. Morrison AND G. Reyes)
Additionally, Ana in her own comic says that she was a fully committed sniper up until her “death”.
When we consider “Crisis era” Ana, we need to think of her being a conventional sniper using a conventional sniper rifle. She’s not a healer – she was, in fact, the primary “overwatch” unit: she would snipe enemies and also provide cover fire, ostensibly for Reinhardt and Jack.
The structure of the original Strike Team matches descriptions of typical Special Operations Forces squads, albeit with a lot of “future” sci-fi elements like Reinhardt’s shield. Specialized SOF units can actually operate with 5-6 people (usually under extreme circumstances), and while a lot of SOF soldiers are cross-trained, they typically have something they are “an expert” in. Ana is the sniper or the weapons specialist. Torbjorn is the combat engineer. Gabriel is, of course, the commander and lead operator. Reinhardt again is a little bit unique, but he’s essentially another lead operator or breaching unit.
This leaves Jack, who is “the most standardized” unit in the group, but also is the sole carrier of the only healing device in the group:
The Biotic Field.
The timeline of Overwatch’s concept of futuristic biomedicine is actually a pretty interesting one: the biggest “breakthrough” in biotech didn’t occur until after the Crisis, when Angela “Mercy” Ziegler created the Caduceus Staff. As I wrote in that post, Soldier: 76 is actually pretty detailed as a DPS-support character, having very team-focused voicelines for his Biotic Field. The Biotic Field itself is a pretty hefty healing ability/technology, just that it also has a pretty hefty cooldown in-game. As a 76 main, I’ve actually played a ton of QP and PVE like Uprising and Junkenstein as the sole healer. It’s tough but do-able.
It just critically and notably impedes on 76′s high movement ability.
From a canon lore/story perspective, I wouldn’t say it “underutilizes” Jack’s enhanced physicality to “force” him to be a medic. Like I said in the SEP post, I believe Jack was pretty willing to be the team’s medic. He knew his role and he was willing to follow Gabriel into Overwatch to support it.
It also gives credit as to why Overwatch as a whole organization was so devoted to medicine and science development outside of the militaristic aspects of the org. Combat medics see some absolutely surreal and horrifying stuff: Jack being a medic fits his overall character and his dual nature.
Is he a medically-trained commander of a peace-keeping organization?
Or is he a soldier-vigilante at heart?
Two things to add:
1) Note that this was before Retribution. If I had to make a change to this timeline, I would say that Gabriel actually had self-healing as early as the Crisis or shortly after it, whenever his full “Reaper” condition kicks in. He’s asking Moira’s help to remove the condition, not enhance it further.
She very obviously does not do that.
2) Don’t ask about Liao.
Liao hasn’t been mentioned by a developer or any canon material since the game was launched.
Liao wasn’t even mentioned by name when “First Strike” was canceled.
While they probably still exist as a character concept, I can offer literally nothing insightful about them. Not their age, gender/sex, full nationality (Chinese-origin name but from where?), their abilities, or their relationships with the rest of the Strike Team. I think it is unlikely they will fully exist, but who knows.
The other issue with Liao is that the entire plot is steadily moving forward without them: yes, it’s slow, but even the plotlines for HLC, Junkertown, and Vishkar are progressing. The longer we go without fully introducing Liao, the harder it will get to actually “write them into” the main plotlines. Plotholes that Liao can fill are slowly being closed, resolved, or advanced.
We are basically bound to get a Crisis PVE mode at some point. The easiest version of it would offer four players as Gabriel, Jack, Reinhardt, and Torbjorn, with Ana as an AI or a narrator/voice on the comms. It’s legitimately just “Uprising” in gameplay, except that you swap Tracer for Reaper and Mercy for 76.
And it’s doable.
Given that 4 out of 5 playable Strike Team members have Crisis-era skins, the last character who is missing one
Is Soldier: 76.
With the biotic field: I also thing it’s reasonably likely that mercy’s “breakthrough in applied nano-biology” in her bio is the biotic field itself (or the teh that allows the field to work) not the staff and during the crisis they had more rudimentary healing tech (here meaning: not ‘sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic’ healing in the present day overwatch timeline is). Mostly, I think it makes her story more interesting if she is the originator of the base tech not just an application of it. But also, she seems to have more ownership over the tech in general than coming up with a good application of it would imply. And the original biotic rifle concept is basically a biotic field strapped to a sniper rifle and Angela replies to it with “I don’t like this delivery method very much” implys to me the thing they are delivering in her tech tbh and the delivery method Angela herself comes up with in the staff (after the field which is the most ‘basic’ method of delivery we’ve seen of this healing tech).
76 as medic (which makes sense to be his strike team role) being the one of them picking up this improved tech (but after the crisis) then also makes a lot of sense
fearlessstateofmind backup 