I’ll keep this short so as to focus on the balancing, but think about if any hero we have right now, balanced as it is on the Live Server, were to release as a brand new hero.
Pharah would be called an Echo replacement because she can fly forever
Hanzo and Widow would be called OP
Winston getting 1000HP in Primal would be called Broken
Tracer’s entire kit would never be left alone
My point is, people blow things out of proportion because of “newness” and the lack of time/organized play agaisnt her. She feels OP because nobody realises how to counter her yet. Her ultimate is a little different than “shooty shooty and she go bye-bye”. You have to ZONE HER OUT. She does not want to waste the ult, so a Good Echo player isnt gonna rush in like crazy and get the Dupe killed unless its Overtime. And even then, her only stalling potential is Duplicate.
So I ask you all to calm down, and think rationally.
Then read the changes below:
Focus Beam is no longer cancelable by the Player
Focus Beam high-HP mode decreased to 45DPS (Down from 50)
You can no longer activate Flight during Focus Beam. (It still stays if you activated Flight first)
Flight is put on a 2 second CD after coming out of Duplicate.
Spread Angle increased on Trishot (Suggested by Skund)
This makes her more risky. If you hyper-dive in, expecting to laser something, and you don’t hit it at the right HP, you have lost tons of DPS and your only escape option for the next 2.5 seconds. She can still activate Focus Beam in mid-air during flight, but that is okay because of flight’s short duration.
The CD added to Flight out of Dupe is to lessen the effect of “dumb plays” on a hero. I do NOT think she should die as Echo if the Dupe dies, because that would eliminate any Support or DPS from being used aggressively.
The Angle Increase for Trishot decreases her effective poke range.
Let me know what you think about the changes, but make sure to take deep breaths before you do so if you’re about to break your keyboard in rage…
Phara would not be called a echo replacement because phara has only two damage outputs… One is easily dodgeable, the other locks her into place while making her shout out loud, letting everyone know where to shoot their stun or damage. Unless phara can wipe out the entire team within a second, her ultimate is a suicide option, a sacrifice.
Echo meanwhile can do that exact same ult, and escape without issue.
Hanzo has a two primary damage outputs, and his easily dodgable ult. In teamfights, he is quite strong, and with some teamwork, his ult is devastating… But in a 1v1 is is Terrible, especially if you get close enough.
Widow has only one primary damage output and a weak mine… In fact, if she is on your team, unless she can fully exploit her one damage source, she is completely useless and most likely throws the match
Echo, excluding her ultimate, has three very strong damage output, which alone can melt away most heroes.
Winston is a very good example… Yes, his health reset and doubles, but he loses any range he had… He gets a puny melee strike, shortened jump cooldown, and THATS IT. He does not get two hammer downs, or gets a reaper ult, and he dies in his ultimate, and keeps whatever hp he had if the duration expires. If he had 20 hp left over, he will only have that, no more… And he is a dive tank!!
The mere fact that echo’s ultimate not only dublicates, but also lets you use any ultimate multiple times, with absolutely no fear of dying, is already a prime example that she is overpowered.
In higher levels, maybe she isnt so bad, becayse she gets focused… Just like hanzo or widow get focused… But at silver or gold, were amajority of the players are, where teamwork is less known, she is terrifying. No hero can use their ultimate twice in a row, so why can echo? Explain that to me
Im not arguing her skillset… She is fine on those… Its her ultimate that i have troubles with. Sure you can gun her down, but she needs to slip by your hitscans ONCE to completely flip the tables around, all on her own
I can see your points, but let me try to discuss them:
No offense, but people bash PharMercy all the time still. Barrage needs looking at, but her rockets are still pretty good. I’m saying that people argue a character is OP because of their new concepts added to the game: Pharah being able to fly forever and never have to touch the ground once in the match is what I was using as an example here.
That’s if you build it up. When you use Dupe, the enemy is VERY aware that you are a ticking time bomb. You are going to get focused so you don’t build ult. Its almost like adding a wind-up before you can actually use an ultimate. Imagine if there was a 5 second delay between when you pressed Shatter, and when you could actually Hammer Down. That’s what Duplicate is. A very delayed version of an ultimate.
I used Hanzo and Widow to highlight their one-shot potential.
See above.
Trishot had spread at long ranges and is a projectile, Sticky Bombs are slow-moving, and I already stated how to fix Focus Beam above.
Winston is a Tank, and again, I’m using the argument that people will argue basic stats to say a hero is OP. If Winston JUST came into the game, I’m saying that people wouldnt know all of that. Do you see my point?
Theres a pretty intense fear of Dying. Nobody wants to just waste an Ultimate. Again, I suggested how to fix this above by making her weak after getting knocked out of Duplicate.
Because it’s not her Ultimate. There is a Wind-Up time before she gets any ultimate-level value out of Duplicate (unless shes stalling as a Duped Tank). You are unlikely to get multiple ultimates on Many heroes, and the ones you can (Looking at Rein and Tracer) can be outplayed. If the enemy Rein is better at Mindgames than the Echo is, he’ll block every shatter before smashing Echo with his own. With Tracer, the Echo player just went from playing Projectile, to now having to focus heavily on Tracking, Blink Management, and not getting hit by an AoE while trying to build Pulse. You have to be GOOD at you Duped hero to get value, which is why I don’t think it’s broken.
Many DPS heroes can say this. Doomfist, Widowmaker, Hanzo, Mei, Sombra. If they slip past your defenses, someones getting one-shot, or the entire team is about to be Frozen or EMPed. Slipping past defenses is called an “outplay”, and is normally encouraged. If you’re able to do that, how is that the Echo Player’s fault? That they actually made a good play?
Chip damage is huge agaisnt her. I agree with Torb, as you have to waste Sticky Bombs on it to take it out.
Now, Mecho, on the other hand. . .that’s a whole new beast I’m not discussing here.
I actually like that idea. Along with what I originally suggested, that might help. Are you okay if I add that to the post?
Sure, add it.
I tested her effective range on the training ground you can technically hit all your projectiles from 50 meter afar.
If you consider she can easily take a position where it’s hard to block incoming damage, she can quite effectively poke, build ult and dive in when an enemy is low
(Hitting from this far is not easy, but 30m is for an experience player feasible)
sure, the enemy reinhard can do mindgames with the echo… but what if the echo gets behind him and his team with, i dont know, her very capable flight? sure, its your dps’s task to keep her in check, but if they keep constant focus on the enemy echo, then the 5 other players can easily overpower you.
in platinum and above, im sure this is less of a issue… .players are aware of what echo is, and can divide their attention more. but in gold and below, she is a powerhouse none of us have ever been dealt with before.
everyone’s votes matter here… of the casual players down below to the pro players at the top. Echo is a neat concept but released way too early out of the development oven
Fair point. I think that in that situation, CC is king. Hacking a Dupe is huge, an I don’t care who you Dupe, getting Flashbanged in the middle of the enemy team (not even mentioning you’re glowing bright red and are making a loud warble sound akin to Tac Visor) is gonna get anyone killed. The flight CD after Dupe I suggested would also allow Echo to get deleted for trying this.
No ones ever dealt with her before.
I agree everyone’s opinion matters, but she’s been in development since waaaaayyyyy back. She’s been a planned hero basically since launch.
Best thing you can do as Rein: Ignore her and let your team deal with her, but here is the catch: It’s very likely your team can’t deal with her and/or blame you/each other
This is exactly what Jeff said, he mentioned the craziness of the ult is actually its biggest downside. Players do rush in, get tunnel visioned and try and do as much as possible which actually equals to them doing incredibly little and just feeding.
So in a way nerfing her ult would cause players to be more careful, and as a result of that would actually be a major buff to her.
and there are clear signs she only was swapped to dps role recently, such as her ultimate being too powerful for a dps, or the fact that her abilities seem somewhat… random… seriously, what other hero has 3 sources of damage?
imagine for a moment, where she only had a primary attack, two support abilities, and this exact same ult… sure, it would be powerful… but your team would lack a entire support, so it would be risky, even when that support can do major damage on the enemy.
she feels rushed to me… the way her ultimate also blocks people from swapping heroes is a sign the engine wasnt meant to handle this… i wish they waited with OW2 to release her, and release her much more gradual.
this is also a major problem in silver/gold… you cant always expect your team to do the right thing. releasing a hero that alone needs to be focused on as a team is devastating to the lower rank players… i cannot even begin to count where we as a team get screwed because one player keeps screwing up
They tried her out in all 3 roles multiple times. Only so much they can come up with.
Reinhardt (Hammer, firestrike, Charge)
D.Va (Primary, MicroMissles, Bomb, Boosters)
Doomfist has 5 (Uppercut, Punch, Slam, Primary, and Meteor Strike)
Ashe (Coach Gun, Dynamite, 2 forms of Primary, B.O.B.)
Ball (Primary, fireball mode, Piledriver, Minefield)
Winston (Tesla, Jump Pack, Primal)
Even if you don’t count ultimates or Quick Melee here, many heroes still have 3.
That’s the problem. Why would I want to queue up for support only to have an ultimate that removes my ability to heal for 15 seconds? That would suck heavily.
I mean, they load all the character models in after the initial “select your hero” timer ends. That’s why you cant change skins once that’s over, and why it locks them from switching for the duration of Dupe. They need to have something to load that from, and having it use an enemy player is much more resource efficient than having to load in all 31 other heroes specifically for a single Echo player. This would also have gotten worse into OW2 as more heroes come out. They made it work for the long run, and I appreciate that.
Felt that. I had an amazingly close game on Junkertown the other day as Bap. All we had to do was sit on High Ground at first point defense and drop to under bridge at the last second to contest cart there, since we pushed it barely past that and they had 1 minute. So, I made this callout, and made sure to repeat to the other 5 players in Team Voice to NOT DROP UNTIL MY CALLOUT. We had Double Shield, Bap, Bastion. They didn’t play a Sombra or Junk the entire game, and we had a huge advantage because of it. Lo and behold the enemy comes out of spawn with no counter to what we have, and blindly tries to push. Everything’s going fine and dandy until our Rein decides to charge into them with 30 secs left on the clock for absolutely no reason at all. I had to use Immortality to try and save him, and he got deleted. We try to retreat to Bridge, but get Ran over with only one Shield and no Lamp. We lost the game because our Rein pressed one button way too early. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as mad at a misplay as I did in that instance. Finishing a game with 23k Healing and a loss will do that to you.
Tl;dr, I feel your pain XD
i can totally understand unloading all assets for heroes that arent being played… if they made it keep everything loaded, it would just mean less computers could run overwatch, and those that can run it, will run it at a lower framerate… bad news for all.
but the engine doesnt ‘need’ to keep everything loaded, ‘just’ for a ulting echo. its not designed to do this, but it could keep a copy of all assets it loads, or keep them loaded while also loading the assets of the hero the enemy player wants to switch to. im sure the current engine would need lots of rework, but nothing says it cant be done. it just feels a little hackey to say ‘just lock that player out of hero select’ not that its a big problem, sure. its only 15 seconds… but in a commercial game as overwatch, it shouldnt be done so crudely. it feels like a patch of ductape… it holds, it works, but it could be done more elegantly
in a game where there can be 12 players, loading the assets of a 13th player shouldnt matter so much… then again, im not a developer of overwatch, so i could not say how possible this is. i just hope OW2 can deal with it better~
i dont think we sit that far apart honestly… and the last thing i want is to divide this community. im gonna pull out of this discussion… both because i said what i wanted and cause im tired of this whole echo thing…
im gonna give it a week to pass and see what the devs will do, if they do anything… at the very least im not gonna touch comp for now…
She is gonna eat echo alive thou, just saying. I’ll be hunting next week for sure, we’ll see how many will openly admit they were wrong about echo when I farm them with widow. Her hitbox is massive, and she is so clunky in the air. Ez HS or just body shots. especially on maps with good sight lines.
Echo is super weak to hit scans as whole. With mcree and widow in the pool she is gonna feel a lot worse. Honestly the only thing broken about her is the fact she can get two ults out. Like double grav or double shatter, they ought to just cap it at 1 ult. Other than that she is perfect like this, any nerfs and she will be non viable unless every hit scan goes on vacation again.
Btw the most important reason for this as well is the fact she is very ineffective at long range, plus she slacks proper splash damage that can off set the aim of hit scans. She also does not have a one shot with damage boost, furthermore she needs to be in close range for her most potent ability. The be frank with you, the only advantage she has over phara as of right now, is her ultimate, and its strong coz it gives u a third tank essentially.
No, it wouldn’t- because Primal leads to feeding primarily, even if you’re getting something done.
See: Roadhog
She should have had changes long ago, we wouldn’t have gotten Brig (though I do enjoy Brigitte).
No, they’re blowing it out of proportion because they’re being emotional and are likely lower-elo and thus, require more work for them to kill her than she does to kill them (See: Pharah on Console).
People don’t like Duplicate because it’s risk-free.
You get restored to the character’s full health, without affecting your own.
This means, at minimum- you get 200+150. At maximum, you get 200+600.
All your cooldowns are refreshed during the Ultimate.
Being shot to 0 HP, CAN NOT kill you. It does, however- end your ultimate.
No other hero is capable of this.
That is the issue.
First off, I really like the numbers and stats you did here to back up your argument, so props for the work you put into this.
But I still have to disagree. There are many factors that go into a good Duplicate:
Who does the Enemy Team Have?
Which of the Enemy Heroes can I actually play?
Am I going to be able to get my Ultimate?
Is it really better for me to give up my aerial pressure for another hero for the next 15 seconds?
If I get melted, am I gonna be able to fly away?
What CC is the enemy running?
My point is, you don’t have to stun an Echo for the full duration of the ult. You hack her when shes in a position dangerous to your team, and you block her out the rest of the time of Dupe. She cannot physically use a Dupe Ult for 5 seconds, 1/3 of the Ult. If you hack her Early, that gives your team time to back up, and kill her out of it, or just shield her to stop her from getting ult charge.
Her head hitbox is also one of (if not the first) largest critboxes in the DPS roster. I think once Widow and McCree come back in the competitive pool, people will change their perception. I’ve gotten dunked on by Multiple McCree’s in QP already.
A change I saw suggested, other than the 2 Sec CD to Flight after Dupe I suggested, was by Samito, which suggested she come out of Dupe how she went in, CDs and all. So, if you used Flight to get above the enemy team to Dupe, you now have a 6 second CD coming out of the Ultimate. You’d better hope you’re in a safe position, or that critbox is gonna get you melted. I would be fine with that change, but she NEEDS the extra life if we want to see DPS or Support Duplicates outside of extremely niche situations.
I could be wrong, but if so, time will tell. I just don’t want sledgehammer nerfs coming in, and THEN people learn how to counter Echo. That will make her useless, and then Hero 32 will really have been a waste of everyone’s time.
Just wanted to comment on this: I use these as examples because they are big numbers. People in Overwatch see Big Numbers/Stats, and instantly think OP. I’m saying that, for Primal specifically, people wouldn’t realise that it feeds a ton of Ult charge. They wouldn’t realise that 1000HP is DEFINTELY able to be chewed through. They wouldn’t know that until the hero had been played for a while, which is why I’m saying people are calling Echo OP too early. Just because there is no defined counter yet does not mean that one will not make itself apparent. I’m sorry for the miscommunication on that, I just wanted to make myself clear.
Her stickies need their speed reduced, her ult gain nerfed, her DMG buff in copied hero removed and % of ult gain nerfed there too. Boots, she can copy rein, swing once and get ult, almost twice when doing that
