Do her sticky bombs have any fall-off and if they don’t, then why don’t they? Her bombs should not be able to travel in a straight line at a long distance and not be impacted by gravity. She already has no fall-off with her primary and her laser is a straight line that increases it’s damage based on how low her enemy is. wtf?
The sticky bombs have a slow travel speed and are seriously impacted by changes in aim because they’re fired sequentially with a delay, not unlike Genji’s shuriken or Symmetra’s orbs which also don’t really have drop-off.
Considering the rest of her damage kit is useless past McCree’s firing range, since her primary’s pellets start in a triangle shape and spread out with distance and her beam legit is no longer than maybe Moira’s RMB, the longer range on her stickies is really only useful for zoning out certain problem heroes such as a Torb turret or sniper, or as an engagement tool. It’s no different than a DF groundslam.
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They have a “slow” travel speed. Like its not lightning fast but it isn’t really that slow, especially for the dmg potential. Firestrike or Junk and Ashe’s nades are slow projectiles, Echo’s is twice as fast (50ms to 25ms for those 3).
The closest is 76 rockets, as they are the same speed and the same cooldown, and that can be dodged but its not a sure thing. Like yeah there are faster projectiles but neither can really be called slow.
But now lets compare where they differ:
Advantages of Echo’s Sticky Bomb
- Max dmg is 60 greater
- She has better mobility, especially vertically, for clearer shots with this ability
- Another dmg ability on top of this
- Her bombs block vision with direct impact
- He is more of a long range hero, so has a greater need for a faster projectile
- More Splash dmg
- No dmg drop off on this or regular fire
Advantages of 76’s Helix Rockets
- 50% greater AoE for splash dmg
- No cast time
- Easier to aim
- Slightly better dmg from regular fire (180dps to 153dps at <30m)
I don’t know about you but that doesn’t look like a balanced list to me, maybe because she isn’t balanced well?
Her verticality is as much a liability as a strength: every weakness Pharah has is shared by Echo and her flying up to use the skill exposes her a lot.
Additionally the stickies might have higher damage potential but that assumes complete accuracy with them. Soldier trades in potential for consistency, since if the ability hits it ALWAYS does the stated damage.
As you point out his overall DPS with his primary fire is also higher and he works better at longer ranges than she does, meaning she has a much lower effective engagement range, which the stickies can only somewhat help to close.
Her stickies are comparable in speed to Lucio’s primary, another projectile with functionally no drop-off, which is not especially hard to dodge and which has comparable damage per hit on criticals. Landing a full set of critical primaries with Lucio isn’t considered broken, however, and neither should Echo’s stickies.
Have you met Mei’s Icicle or Symmetra’s orbs before?
Short of boops it is his only dmg ability, its fine if it packs a bit of a punch.
Not really, she can’t use them consistently to actually be a long range hero, rather she is a short-medium hero who can sometimes go long. The question is does she need that? I think she’d be fine not having that extra range (at least not this the level it is now) as she is very good short-medium. 76 however is a long range hero so he needs his dmg to work at range in a way she doesn’t.
Totally agree, its got its downsides but also huge upside. She can do things like snipe it over a barrier to melt a tank in a way 76 never can, its worth the cost.
And he lacks mobility, alternative dmg options and has a kinda meh ult to help mitigate this. She still has pretty good dmg, plus great mobility, ult and other sources of dmg, so what if she is a little worse at longer ranges, she is better everywhere else and he still loses at longer ranges to any other long range hero.
It always has to hit as the splash is pitiful for 76, mostly its an anti armour tool vs tanks and not a very good one.
This is true but as “inconsistent” dmg deals go echo is pretty consistent, the sticky bombs are not hard to land at least some of and it’s way easier to get meaningful a partial hit than 76, her regular fire has no fall off, decent RoF and a very minor spread and her beam is phenomenal when used right, which is really easy to do.
I’ll admit 76 as a whole is underpowered, so he could be noticeably better than him and still balanced. I only used him as an example because helix rocket is likely the closest thing numbers wise to sticky bomb. That said it isn’t even close a comparison. Outside him being a little more consistent and better at range (though Echo isn’t that bad in either category) she straight bodies him.
Soldier’s value is considerably higher than it has been, thanks to the buff in his rocket CD and the reversion of his primary damage. If a player has good trigger discipline Soldier easily performs at par with the other hitscans these days while still having better sustain and above-average horizontal mobility. As for his rockets always needing to hit, the point is that as long as you CAN get the hit you achieve maximum value, whereas Echo’s stickies need to get the same hit for almost every projectile in order to simply match helix’s value, which is harder to do and/or requires less competent enemies.
As for Lucio’s primary being punchy, generally it’s not considered that strong even by the standards of Support weapons because of the aforementioned travel speed and comparatively low DPS output.
I generally consider Echo’s damage and mobility kit comparable to D.va, and I find they fill very similar niches in teamplay. D.va, as a tank, of course brings additional utility beyond just the damage output, which is why her lower DPS is justified relative to Echo’s comparatively higher threat level, but neither one is particularly threatening outside their relatively short maximum range and is easily brought down by competent hitscan use, a threat which the other ground-based heroes like Soldier and McCree don’t have to contend with.
Both need time to charge up, I play as both heroes.
Sym’s orbs are slow and glow bright as hell, so moving out of the way is easy.
Mei’s icicles are her only long distance fire, so you should be ideally strafing if you’re going against her whilst she uses icicles.
The difference between those and Echo is that even if you strafe, you’re not safe because they stick to anything and explode which can still potentially damage you. On top of her long primary fire and her beam which is used to secure kills.
What weakness do her sticky bombs actually have? Or what similarity do they even have to your examples?
Sym’s orbs also move at 25mps so if they’re so easy to dodge sticky bombs should also be easy to dodge? Mei’s icicle fires a hell of a lot faster than that.
Sticky bombs all need to hit for maximum damage which I think is 180 and they have a cooldow.
Echo needs to invest a lot to secure a kill. I think she’s balanced. If she’s out of position she’s an easy kill.
They don’t have fall off because they stick to the player… that is <1m range