The latest and 32nd hero to join the Overwatch roster is perhaps the most diverse and intriguing of the Damage roster. She brings with her a fascinating Ultimate, a range of unique abilities, and a demanding sense of precision, which makes her an especially entertaining character to play as. Here are some tips to help you shred, duplicate and carry with Echo in Overwatch like a pro.
Float like a Pharah, Sting like a Doomfist
First and foremost it’s important to understand that Echo, at only 200 HP, is heavily reliant on her Ultimate and strong Support play to stay active for long periods. Against an effective counter, she can be easily squished and eradicated from an important battle, and so you need to know when and how to commit to a fight.
With a floating ability, she has the aerial mobility of a Pharah, and with her low health but relatively fast and high damage output, she has the ground damage of a Tracey or Doomfist.
So, sure, you can deal a hell of a lot of damage, and when combined with a well-timed float, you can quickly get out of harms way, but you don’t have a Shield or self-healing ability to quickly shift a losing battle in your favour, at least not in the same way a Tracer or Doomfist can.
As such, you need find a balance between conservative damage output, and fast, effective diving. Combined with your duplication Ultimate, and the right timing when it comes to entering a battle, and you’ll find that long-term survival is the obvious key to effective Echo play. Alongside effective Support healing — which effectively offsets the lack of any self-healing/shield generation — and Echo can be as if not more damaging than the most effective Tracer or Doomfist. This ties into the next tip …
Have Mercy on call
Mercy is without a doubt the most efficient and effective Support character to play alongside Echo. She can work in much the same way she does when pocketing Pharah, and can double as both a long-term healing solution, as well as a superb damage booster.
Echo deals enough damage on her lonesome, but with some boosting from Mercy, her sticking bombs can deal and shred most Tanks and shielded Damage heroes. Those bombs deal almost 190 Damage on their own, so a Mercy pocket can cause some significant damage. Just best avoid a Genji or shielded Zarya given how major the blowback can be if you’re just feeding into their abilities and Ultimates.
C-C-C-OMBO
This goes without saying given most Hero Ultimates are best combo’d with other heroes, but a Zarya, Mei or Sigma Ultimate, alongside a Mercy-boosted Echo grenade hit, can deal insane damage given there’s splash damage, as well as the capacity to utterly shred any heroes sitting on 200 HP or thereabouts.
Ultimate Power
Echo’s Ultimate comes about with a very unique ability, one that can terrifying opponents and really turn the flow and pacing of a match. That said, it’s also one of the more difficult in a game to use at optimal effectiveness, and so knowing when exactly to use it — and on who — will make all the difference (as is the case for pretty much every Ultimate in the game).
Echo’s Ultimate allows her to Duplicate the look and abilities of any opposing hero in the match for a set period of time, with boosted Ultimate charge. This means that you can build up the Ultimate of most duplicated heroes in a matter of seconds, and in some cases build up two Ultimates across the duration of Echo’s single Ultimate timer.
As an example, Tracer stands as perhaps the most damaging of all potentially-duplicated heroes, provided you are extremely accurate: within 2-3 seconds of firm hits onto an enemy, you’ll build up a Pulse bomb, and can easily achieve a second Pulse bomb before Echo’s Ultimate runs out.
My favourite as it stands are Tracer, Reinhardt and Torbjorn, as they all build up their Utimates very quickly as it stands and so you can multiple that speed there with some effective play. Junkrat can also cause some insane damage, but it’s difficult to blend both in-close play to quickly build up the Ultimate, as well as distanced, shielded play to effectively get of a rip tyre.
Perhaps most exciting about Echo’s Ultimate is that, if you die as the Duplicated hero, your Ultimate ends and you return in full health as Echo. Additionally, if you’re low on health as Echo, you can initiate hero Ultimate and Duplicate, to regain full health. This means you can enter into a fight on low health, Duplicate a hero, build up an Ultimate, use it, and then respawn in the same spot as Echo with full health.
As for when to use the Ultimate, I like using it to push at the start of a battle, much in the same way I like utilising a Zen or Lucio Ultimate for a push sometimes (rather than holding them out more defensively against an enemy Ultimate). When pushing with Echo, use the Ultimate, and the enemy team will naturally focusing on your Duplicated hero, given you can build up Ultimate so quickly. This allows your team to flank and surround the enemy team whilst they focus all of their energy on you.
Have any Echo tips to share? Sound off in the comments below!
