As the title suggests, I play a lot of Ashe, but looking at other Damage heroes to play in case Ashe is picked or isn’t working out so well.
What would you guys advise for someone who’s predominantly a hitscan player?
ashe functions as a hybrid of mccree and widow theres your answer
This is what makes this question difficult, because Ashe is pretty much one of the best - if not the best - carry Dps. She does absolutely everything.
Usually its other Hitscan mains having to constantly flex to Ashe just to get something done 
The only reason you wouldnt take Ashe is because you need some sort of Utility, like Sombra. All the Ashe mains I know have their secondary as Sombra or Reaper
For the case where someone else takes Ashe, Hitscans work really well with other types of Dps like Tank-busters or Utility or Projectile. Hitscan ontop of Hitscan can leave a gap in your teams comp because you wont have any Tank-busting capabilities, no Utility, and 0 divey Burst.
So again I’d recommend Sombra or Reaper, possibly Echo in that case as well
Why don’t you get out of your comfort zone and try out a projectile hero.
I main echo and I think she’s a lot of fun. But maybe as an ashe player you should try out hanzo.
This is like having an iphone 12 and asking to try the samsung note 3
They fill a bit too many of the same roles though, and arguably I feel more comfortable with Ashe.
The thing is when I think about what my time might need, it’d be raw damage, peel, or flanking to get picks.
Ashe provides great damage, but lacks in the other two.
Low healing? Soldier.
Low shield break? Mcree
Low everything? Widow
Ashe can do all…
well both widow and mccree can do all of those things.
peeling with widow essentially means shooting at whoever is shooting at your teammate. staying near a support makes both of you much more threatening and would make a tracer or wrecking ball more hesitant to take a 2v1. if youre not near whoever needs peel, well that means the enemy isnt pressuring you so its not like it will be a difficult shot. a bodyshot is often enough to tip the scale. if youre never flanking and taking aggressive angles with widow then youre doing it wrong. 300 instant damage on headshots is raw damage at its finest.
mccrees damage in his effective range is some of the most consistent and high in the game. flashbang and roll make mccree one of if not the best dps for peeling and even give him leeway to flank and secure easy kills. he works well as a duelist ESPECIALLY after his recent buffs so flanking on cree is much less risky than it was even with his higher rate of fire.
so i solved all your issues with the same picks.
you want similar heroes but not ones too similar but also ones that fufill the same skillset that is required to make ashe useful?
you can basically never go wrong with tracer and having that to pull out of your back pocket.
the other character i’d suggest is probably widow because double sniper is a thing.
As the title suggests, I play a lot of Ashe, but looking at other Damage heroes to play in case Ashe is picked or isn’t working out so well.
Pick a counter like tracer. Or for scrumming pick Mei.
Mcree, soldier 76, widowmaker. If you are really good at hitscan then stick to hitscan characters. I can play hitscan but I happen to be much better at projectiles which is why I put torb as my second dps character after hanzo
Ashe is my primary DPS and if things are not working out for me it is usually because my team either is getting heavily out-brawled, I am getting beat out in the hitscan duel, or I am struggling to survive getting dove on.
The heroes that I seem to have the most success swapping to are Reaper and Tracer. Reaper helps tremendously in the close range brawling fights, and Tracer isn’t really someone who gets dove on a lot. Swapping up the playstyle like that can sometimes help me avoid what I am having a problem with instead of swapping to McCree/Widow/Soldier where I would likely end up with a different flavor of the same problem.
Well if you use Ashe as more of a sniper then use widow or hanzo of course but echo is very good. I would also recommend Tracer, she is good and doesn’t take much time to learn especially if you are playing lower competitive, but if its higher, I would recommend playing her for at least a couple hours to at least get the hang of her.