With echo being teased and people speculating about her, I noticed that a lot of people are speculating that she doesn’t actually provide any form of healing , which is a horrible idea.
I would have suspected that people who have realized that a support with no healing will never be good with sym, and will rob supports of an actual healer. A utility support will never take the position of a healer. It will take a damage role, just how sym was and is played. When selecting heroes, it doesn’t say “no supports” it says “no healers”.
Many of these concepts include
repairing shields/turrets
*giving shields
But that simply doesn’t work. There are 4 shields and 2 turrets, but normally only 1 shield tank is used and then brig has a personal shield
Also providing shields as a solo ability won’t work. A healer can make a 1hp rein go up to 500 hp. While a shielder can make it go a rein go to 1hp and 75 shields. That’s only 76 hp. See the issue? The only way this could possibly work is if it’s a secondary ability, and she already has a main healing ability (if she was a main healer), but even that would be “eh”. It could work if it removed debuffs and gave them cc immunity for 3 seconds. But if they don’t have any healing, it really won’t work
Sometimes people even ask for shield generator! Like the ability that didn’t work at all. 75 shields does nothing. Hell it was just replaced with rally, because armor is actually good.
I’m not sure if those people even play healer, because not having a healing support is robbing us of a hero. It’s like getting a damage who does the same amount of damage as mercy. I have been playing main healer on console since release (and healer in general) and it’s been really stale. I have had to use the same 3 heroes for a year, and before Moira we only had two.
So please blizzard, don’t take their advice. Support mains need an actual hero, not some old sym copy
She could be a Dps you know!
Why do everyone assume she is a support we dont have any info what role she would be if anything it would be a shocker if she end up as a tank.
Cause she is extremely angelic, fragile, and friendly looking. All supports follow that code. Even Moira, who is evil, still looks delicate and angelic. It’s like saying mercy looks like a dps. She definitely won’t be a tank or dps
I mean…Blizzard tried to maintain Syms supportive nature in 2.0 as already defined by the mechanics in her kit.
Another utility-only support could be given drastically different abilities and mechanics that actually function as a replacement for a second healer.
However, there have only been three genuinely unique heroes released: Ana, Sombra, and DF. Ana might be a sniper, but no other hero in the game has an anti heal or a cc similar to sleep dart except for maybe Reins shatter. All other new heroes have simply been amalgamations of things that are already in the game. I’d imagine most new heroes will share this quality.
Jeff literally asked the community what role they would want Echo to be… So yes she very well could be.
People assuming she’s a support are just imposing their own desires on it. She could be a “niche” in that she doesn’t fit any of the existing roles and is rather raw utility for her team.
My personal speculation is that, being as her name is “Echo” and an echo is essentially a recreation, that she will be a character utilizes the other characters on the battlefield in some way, either via summoning weaker versions of her enemies or by using their own abilities against them.
Why do you assume that the shield could only be 75? Imagine if she provided something like a single-target Sound Barrier, or simply made a hero immune to damage for a short window. There are all sorts of non-healing support options that the devs simply haven’t tried.
Symmetra never really counted as a support. She was a damage dealer with utility. She never had active supportive abilities, only passive ones. If Echo had active supporting tools like powerful spot-shielding, buffs, debuffs, and CC, she could absolutely fill the off-support role without healing.
I think the real major hurdle of having a non-healing support is the lack of a viable solo healer if a non healing support were chosen.
Before, this was undoubtedly filled by Mercy, as her previous incarnations were easily the best solo healers, but with Ana and Moira being the only options really left now, it severely hurts the chances of a non-healing support being useful.
That also seems extremely underpowered. A support should sacrifice others of it means they survive. Taking away her own health goes against one of the biggest concept of a support. No matter how good of a concept, a support without a heal wouldn’t take up a support slot
Old sym provided 75 shields to all allies as an ult and her first version had only 50 (or 25). Also making a hero invincible would be op but since off healers have good damage, it would still fill an off heal. What’s the point in adding a support that doesn’t heal? That doesn’t help how stale playing support is. Why not just add the utility to a support who can heal. It just doesn’t make sense because utility can only do so much. Solo healing doesn’t work
As I said above I don’t think that really means much as Blizzard tried to keep Symmetras supportive utility as true to her design as possible. But her supportive utility was never good enough by design, which is why it collapsed in on itself.
A hero with completely different abilities could have a better chance.
I think a non “healing” support could work so long as they have some way to prolong ally uptime in the midst of a teamfight. A way to soften mistakes.
Maybe like a Mercy beam that applies shields instead of health (that are replaced by healing), or an ability that prevents a targeted ally from being killed until the support is interrupted.
Would have to be an off-support though, as they wouldn’t be well suited to resetting an initiation or negating poke damage.
People just said she was a support. I want her to be a support, but a healer. Hopefully a main healer with high utility, healing, mobility but low damage.
I really doubt they would ever make a pure utility support after sym. Also because that doesn’t fix the issue of low healers. And a utility hero still needs to go into a role
That’s actually what I’ve always said. I made threads about different supportive abilities Sym could’ve been given.
Ultimately, the only thing that rivals healing in this game is barriers (which is why they gave 2.0 a barrier). They are essentially complete damage negation for most things in the game. Therefor, the only thing I could think of as ults for a new Sym was a brief period she was locked in place but provided herself and all teammates with invincibility essentially, or an ult that essentially grants teammates in range stronger Zarya barriers for a brief period.
Actual game designers might be able to come up with some new concept for this game that could rival healing, but you’re correct. The only thing currently that would rival it from a reasonable standpoint is damage negation/mitigation.
It would be quite a large projectile and would pass through all enemies and allies to damage and heal multiple targets. Maybe it could be increased to 50hp?
It wouldn’t require los to stay on a teammate. It would also be higher shield health than Symmetra. Usually 50 with a maximum of 100 combined with the ultimate, or maybe a second application of photon shield. Unlike Symmetra, Echo would need to choose which ally to apply extra shields on, and how many she can give without lowering her health too much. She would also be able to heal with her primary fire, and share healing and give damage reduction with Life link.