With Overwatch 2 on the horizon, it stands to reason that the team are preparing to shift the bulk of their attention to the title. Before doing that, though, one last hero had to be added to the original’s roster: the much-ballyhooed A.I. fighting machine, Echo.
As is always the case with a new Overwatch hero, it can be tough to gain XP as Echo, considering that the whole world seems to want to insta-lock her on sight. Once you do have her selected, though, you’ll want to know what makes her tick. Here’s a handy guide to some things that all damage players will want to keep in mind when playing Echo.
10 Understand Her Basic Strengths
The first thing to get to grips with is why you should pick Echo in the first place. Well, she’s one of the most mobile heroes in the game, capable of taking sneaky routes to enemy flanks (where those darn invisible walls allow) thanks to her versatile flight ability. She’s very well suited to a hit and run style, being especially effective at finishing off weakened enemies (as we’ll see later).
At close range, she can output very high levels of burst damage, rewarding very steady aim and mechanical skill like few other DPS heroes.
9 Understand Her Basic Weaknesses Too
Like Widowmaker and the rest of her fellow damage-oriented brethren, Echo is very fragile with her low HP pool. Like most DPS, she has only 200 points, which can be shredded through in an instant with no shield HP to fall back on.
Unlike the infamous French sniper, Echo does not function well at range at all, owing to the spread on her primary damage dealing attacks (more on that later too). Yes, she has great maneuverability, but there’s a reason for that: she’s a sitting duck without it.
8 Be Very Wary Around Hitscan Heroes
Regardless of what that one friend who keeps charging into the frontlines and being carted unceremoniously back to spawn may think, no hero and no player can be a one-man army. There’s a reason this is a team game: because 1v6s don’t tend to end well.
Every hero matches up better against some and worse against others. If the enemy team is heavy on hitscan heroes (such as McCree ans Soldier: 76), you’ll need to be very conservative with Echo, perhaps benching her entirely. Why? Because she’s a flyer, that’s why.
7 Take Advantage Of Her Mobility
If you’ve had a lot of experience with Pharah over the years, you’ll know that her unique ability to fly is a real double-edged sword. On the one hand, it gives her all manner of vantage points that much of the rest of the cast can only dream of, putting her in the best spots to deal devastating damage with her rockets.
Sadly, though, those pesky hitscan heroes will be fully aware that you’re on the opposing team, and can clip your wings in a nanosecond if you get careless. Forget about that McCree for the slightest second and you’re an hors d’ouvres for a cowboy. All of this also applies to Echo (bar the rockets, of course), with the crucial difference that she works best at closer range. As such, you’ll need to be even more careful to dance around your opponents and watch those cooldowns.
6 Try To Master Her Tricky Ultimate
There’s no doubt that Echo’s Ultimate, Duplicate, is one of the most unique the game has ever seen. You’ve probably seen it in action by now: Echo targets an opponent and duplicates them, gaining that hero’s exact moveset and HP for a brief time. Crucially, she also has said hero’s Ultimate meter, charging at 6.5 times the normal rate!
Potentially, then, she can activate multiple Earthshatters, Graviton Surges, RIP-Tyres (and so on) in the 15 seconds the Ultimate lasts. If the duplicated character is killed, she’ll revert back to Echo without dying herself! It’s a very powerful Ultimate with ridiculous potential, but you’ll need a lot of practise with all heroes and a lot of game awareness to know who best to copy at a given moment.
5 Try To Avoid Fighting Other Echoes Wherever Possible
As we’ve mentioned, Echo is the latest addition to the roster, which means she’ll be rearing her robotic head in matches more often that not. Tempting as it is to charge in against the opponent’s Echo and prove whose Echo is the echo-est Echo in town, that might be a terrible mistake.
Again, the Pharah comparison holds true: it can be very, very hard to one-on-one an opposing Pharah. It’s just not the way their kits work. When the other team also has an Echo, you’re better served having a hitscan buddy deal with her.
4 Always Remember That She’s Most Effective At (Fairly) Close Range
We’ve made a point of comparing Echo with everyone’s favorite rocket-toting justice-unleasher, but the important distinction is that Echo’s damage potential falls off a great deal at a distance. Her primary fire, the Tri-Shot, fires off three projectiles in a triangular pattern and it’s super hard to hit with them all at a distance.
The same’s true of her Sticky Bombs' spread, while her Focusing Beam won’t reach the enemy at all if you don’t close the gap. Yes, Echo can fly, but she doesn’t want to be soaring way up there in the clouds like Pharah sometimes will. The likes of Torbjorn’s turrets can be a huge problem for Echo.
3 Focusing Beam Has Huge Damage Potential: Use It Wisely
Speaking of Focusing Beam, you may have tried this ability out in a match or two and been entirely underwhelmed. For an ability you have to get in relatively close and personal to use, its damage just looks sub-par, doesn’t it? Even those bots in the training area didn’t seem too phased.
As the game itself notes, however, this ability deals “very high damage to targets with less than half health.” It increases from 50 per second to 200 per second! That’s the key here: learning to pursue fleeing enemies and/or finish off weakened ones with Focusing Beam --while harrying healthy ones with Tri-Shot and Sticky Bombs and combining the two in devastating bursts-- is the way to maximise your effectiveness with Echo.
2 Remember To Cancel Out Of Your Abilities At Key Moments
With a hero as offensive as Echo, every second counts. Overextend just slightly and you can get yourself killed. Hang back a little too long and you can miss the chance to make a game-winning play. This is usually true of damage heroes and it’s certainly something to keep in mind with Echo too.
Newer Echo players may not know that they can cancel out of her Flight and Focusing Beam abilities simply by hitting the button again, but it can be hugely helpful (both offensively and defensively) to get into the habit of doing so.
1 Accept That She Isn’t A Very User-Friendly Hero
With all these tips in mind, it’s clear that Echo is one of the more technical characters in the roster. When it comes to getting the most from her abilities and primary fire, you’ll have to be very accurate or risk seriously limiting your damage potential. As we’ve also mentioned, her Ultimate essentially requires solid ability with every other hero in the game to work at its very best.
With her fragility and limited effective range thrown into the mix too, Echo is a character that requires a lot of the player, in terms of mechanical ability, game knowledge, positional awareness and more. She’s a blast to play, but she’s not a character who will carry you to easy wins.