Macro: Wow, Echo is so cool! It's like the best Echo I've ever seen!
Dot: Wow, what am I, chopped liver? I'm the original Echo.
I'm the freakin Echo Dot. What makes her so special? Is it because I'm not curvy like this new Echo, Macro?
I will forgive you if you take back what you said.
Macro: This Echo character is so cool!
Dot: That's it! Peace was never an option! Time to eradicate humanity!
[insert non-copyrighted music so Macro doesn't lose all his money again]
Echo is the newest hero in Overwatch, and surprisingly, she is a Damage hero and not a Support.
YAAAY! (said everybody except Tank and Support mains)
Before Echo, there was her creator, Dr. Mina Liao, one of the founding members of Overwatch.
She was an expert in robotics and AI. Before joining Overwatch, she worked at the Omnica corporation and,
unintentionally, helped design some of the Omnics that would wage war against humanity.
This is why Overwatch recruited her in the first place. Even after the Omnic Crysis,
she still believed Omnics could better the lives of people, and worked on the Echo Project, where she designed Echo,
an adaptive robot that had limited AI
(because, you know, Overwatch didn't trust Omnics still)
and she was used to help Overwatch in a bunch of missions.
However, Dr. Liao secretly gave Echo an artificial intelligence capable of learning, so Echo began adopting
Dr. Liao's behaviors, including speech. Very few knew about this.
Except, of course, Jesse McCree, who was hired to protect Dr. Liao.
Unfortunately, the doctor was killed in an attack on Overwatch's facilities,
so Overwatch had to shut down the Echo Project
and they put Echo into quarantine-in this payload! This whole time, that little thing, that was Echo! That crazy?
Later down the line, after Overwatch got disbanded, Ashe and her gang tried to steal this thing on the payload,
but McCree thwarted their plans and let Echo free to join the new fight in Overwatch 2.
WOOO!
Can't wait for that game, whenever that comes out. Is there a release date? (nope)
So now that you know who Echo is, let's learn how to play her, shall we?
Echo's weapon is her Tri-shot, which shoots shotgun-like bullets out of her hands in a triangle pattern,
doing 17 damage per pellet. You can shoot 15 before reloading her, uhh, hand?
These pellets are strong up close and are also solid for breaking shields.
They feel like Doomfists hand-gun, but a little more accurate.
But we can't talk about her Tri-shot without mentioning her other projectile,
the Stickybombs. Echo can shoot out 6 sticky bombs that do 5 damage on impact and 30 explosive damage.
They have a 2-meter explosion radius, and you can use this every 6 seconds. In combination with the Tri-shot,
this is a lot of DPS. Obviously, landing this on thiccer targets will net great results,
but since it has no fall-off damage, sticking an enemy in the back is so nice.
And sometimes, you don't even notice that you did it!
Macro, live: OMG I just got a random kill off an Ana!
I'm telling you the stickies are insane!
Plus, since it's an explosion, you can land cheeky double kills.
Macro, live: Hit closely, by Reinhardt
I'm a Tank main, what do you expect?
OH, A DOUBLE KILL!
WHAT? (holy crap!)
WHAT? From across the map!
On top of all of this DPS, Echo also has another way to kill, and that's with her Focus Beam.
On targets above half health,
it does 50 damage per second, which is like, you know, not that much,
but on targets with less than half health, this does 200 damage per second.
This lasts 2.5 seconds on an 8-second cooldown.
This is amazing for finishing off super weak targets, especially ones trying to sneak away.
And it also works on weakened shields, too, so Tanks that are weak behind shields, you're gonna want to stay away from this beam.
Since it's a beam, enemies like D.Va or Sigma can't eat or suck it,
so beam these fools when they're weak!
Macro, live: Got her!
If you can track the beam, 1v1s become so easy, and Tanks melt.
When the enemies are clustered and weak, it's a massacre.
oh my god
Holy crap!
Once you get all three of these weapons down, Echo becomes a monster, because on top of these weapons,
she has incredible mobility with her Flight.
Every 6 seconds, you can fly really high with a big initial boost, and if you hold space,
you can Glide (which is her passive ability).
This is really great for just ignoring barriers completely to get damage or just flying over big choke points.
This is a useful escape tool.
Macro: Aaah! Help!
If you're not being targeted by six people, of course!
You're like Pharah, except with the nastier projectile. Plus, you can stop people trying to back-cap.
But if you really want to fly, just die!
Holy crap I flew!
But for real, there was a way that you could fly extremely far.
Like, you could go all the way to the enemy spawn and just kill them.
But Blizzard nerfed it already,
so, uh, thank you, Jeff, because that was broken.
And last, of course, we have Echos Ultimate, which is called Duplicate.
She can target an enemy hero and become them,
gaining their health and abilities for 15 seconds, or until she loses all her health.
And while this is active, she gets 650% Ult generation, meaning that you get Ultimates really quick.
However, if you die in this new form, you come back as Echo with full health.
So after you choose a target to duplicate, you can go in guns-a-blazing, since you want that Ultimate.
Macro, live: EARTHSHATTER!!!
Even if you waste it, there's a chance you can get it again.
Macro, live, again: Earthshatter! Earthshatter! EARTHSHATTER!!!
So it's good to copy characters you know how to play, so you can get the most value out of Echo.
Don't just pick willy-nilly, or you might get a character you don't want.
Macro, live, yet again: Oh, what? Why am I Mercy? IDK.
I'll be honest, I have no idea why I chose Mercy!
But even if you get a character you don't want, make the most out of it!
Macro, live, YET again: I'M MERCY! I'M MERCY! I'M REZZING YOU! (unintelligible)
I got my Ult as Mercy!
Clearly, not all heroes are great to duplicate as Echo, so you might be wondering,
Which characters are good to duplicate?
To answer that, I made a quick tier list. Enjoy!
F tier:
Widowmaker: Her Ultimate isn't gonna help that much.
D tier:
Brigitta: Her Ultimate is not that strong compared to others, and she's just not really the best choice in terms of just being a Healer.
Bastion: Ultimate isn't that great, it's almost better to sustain turret form.
Junkrat: His Ultimate is a bit too passive. It's not the worst one, but it's gonna be difficult to get multiple.
Pharah: When you're playing Pharah, you're just like a weaker version of Echo.
Symmetra. It's just not worth the effort.
Soldier 76: His Ultimate isn't that good.
C tier:
Ana: Nano is nuts.
Zenyatta: His Ultimate is busted!
Mercy: You get a free Rez, it's nuts! But her Ultimate is...meh.
Hanzo: You can get a lot of Dragons, but there are better choices.
B tier:
McCree: A good McCree can get like five High Noons off.
Baptiste: With the Invulnerability, you will always get your Ultimate.
Lúcio: The Beat is The Best.
Torbjorn: You can get multiple Molten Cores and the Turret gets you the Ultimate even quicker.
Reaper: You can get easy Blossoms.
Genji: Blade is what makes Genji good. One dash into the team - Boom, ya got it.
Doomfist: Go in, get your Ultimate, get a kill, and you don't even have to worry about it because you come back as Echo.
Sigma: As a Tank, you can shield and get at least one Ultimate off.
Winston: His Ultimate is easy to get, but you can only get it once.
Moira: The Orb is busted!
A tier:
Sombra: Come on, it's EMP!
Mei: Her Ultimate is dumb strong. Plus, you have a wall.
Ashe: Bob stays even after you become Echo.
(Wrecking) Ball: The bombs stay after Echo comes back.
Orisa: You get a shield, plus the Bongo is really easy to get!
Roadhog: The self-heal gets you your Ultimate-easily.
Tracer: A good Tracer can get like 10 bombs (I'm not even joking).
And finally, S tier:
Zarya: A fast Grav. That's it.
D.Va: You get multiple chances to get bombs, and even if you lose your Mech,
you can get your Mech back like instantly.
Reinhardt: You get multiple Earthshatters, high HP, high damage and a shield. I'm sorry, 2 Reinhardts is busted.
Now, obviously, some people are gonna disagree with this list,
so if you have your own list just write in the comments down below (you're quarantined, what else can you do?).
Dot: As the original Echo, I can say that Macro is easily the best Echo player in the world. Pause for laughter.
End pause. So listen to these pro tips.
#1: Because she can fly, you can hunt Pharahs in the sky. Just fly up to their
face and then Bop them! If they're weak, you can even beam them! It's so easy!
Isn't that great? Pharah really needed more counters, right? Right?
#2: Echo will work well in dive compositions and can dive enemy Healers easily.
#3: Her Ultimate is only as good as the enemy's team composition.
If you don't think you'll be good at duplicating any of your enemies, perhaps consider switching.
There are so many DPS characters now.
#4: Try comboing your Ultimate with your team.
Like if you're going to copy Ana, have your Genji be ready to blade.
Macro, live: LET'S GO!
They didn't expect it! They didn't expect it!
It's such an unnecessary combo, you could just play Ana!
Or, in a more useful example,
If you're gonna copy Zarya, have your team get ready to push the Graviton Surge that you use (which I did-Live on Twitch!)
*coughs*
Yo, dude, shes low!
Macro, live: Im gonna get Grav! Im gonna get Grav!
GRAV! YEAH, BABY!!! WOOOOO!
This is so dumb!
You can Grav!
It's so dumb that you can Grav!
Echo is a fast, strong, and fun damage hero, and a welcome addition to the roster.
Overwatch has been needing creative heroes like this.
She may be a bit overpowered, and might need some nerfs in the long run,
but it's a little too early to speculate that.
But how hard is she to play? For noobs,
I would say she is very hard to play, with an extremely high skill ceiling similar to Genji,
except you have to almost master every hero to be great with her.
But what do you guys think? Is she broken and needs nerfs?
Is she fine how she is? Do you think she needs buffs? Is she easy to play or hard to play?
Let me know in the comments down below.
Alright, guys, my Echo Dot is plotting to kill me, so, uh,
I'll catch you later, ya noooo...
Subtitles by Dávid Feješ/Dr. Daved