Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Echo has been revealed as a damage character in Overwatch. Initially, many people — ourselves included — expected her to be a support character based on her design. Plus, one more support would have brought the balance back to 16 damage dealers, eight tanks, and eight support characters.
But now, Blizzard has confirmed that she is a damage dealer that shoots three projectiles from her hand. She also has a volley of sticky bombs that explode after a short moment as an alternate fire.
The gameplay details on Echo
Besides her two attacks, Tri-shot and Sticky Bombs, Echo also comes with a range of abilities. Her primary ability is Flight, which is similar to Pharah’s boosters. But Echo’s version has more freedom, less uptime, and, in Jeff Kaplan’s words, “she won’t be able to do the same hover maneuvers that Pharah can.” And when you say Pharah, you must say Mercy as well, as Echo also has an ability similar to Mercy’s Angelic Descent called Glide. But where Mercy falls slower and more vertically, Echo falls a bit faster but more horizontally.
Focusing Beam is an ability Echo has to finish off other Overwatch players. Or rather, you’re encouraged to use it that way, as it does significantly more damage to players below 50% health. This is a great help against targets with a pocket healer or with large health pools that might otherwise be difficult to eliminate. This also counts for barriers that are below 50% health.
As for her Ultimate, called Duplicate, well… as both she and the Ultimate’s names suggest, Echo can literally turn into an enemy player and use all of their abilities. On top of that, your Ultimate of that specific character will charge up at an extremely accelerated rate. There was no clarification on how long you remain in the form of a different character, but it’s a “pretty significant period of time”. Of course, Jeff did note that things are still subject to balancing. If this move proves too crazy, they’ll have to dial it back a bit.
As a quality of life option, Overwatch will also have the option to pre-select a character before you confirm your Ultimate so you don’t accidentally pick the wrong person. This option will also be available for Ana, which is excellent news.
The official Hero page for Echo is now up as well, where you can take a look at her abilities and story for yourself. And if you want to give her a test run, she is available on the PTR right now!
