Now that Doomfist is being reworked into a Tank and Orisa has the kit of a new hero, why not move forward with a change most of the community would welcome?
Echo is one of the least played dps heroes in OW (overbuff stats). We need more supports. The vast majority of OW fans thought Echo would be a support hero, and as you can attest from the forums, there was wide discontent at Echo being a dps instead of a support.
If Echo is reworked into a shield themed support hero, it would be a win for everyone.
The forums had tons of entries with people requesting Echo to be reworked into a support. It would be a great opportunity to own the mistake and make this much needed change.
I mean, if they can rework Orisa despite the concerns for the players that actually main her and like her playstyle, then they could do the same with Echo.
Fun fact: the devs originally planned on making a support hero when they designed Echo’s look and lore.
It wasn’t until they got to the stage of making Echo’s kit that they made the last-minute decision to make her a DPS instead. Geoff Goodman got really attached to the idea of Echo having a cloning ult, but didn’t think it would be an appropriate ult for a support to have… So they kept the ult, but ditched the original plan to make a support character.
As far as OW1, Echo has generally been pretty successful in DPS, one of the few projectile heroes that has done well. As for OW2, we don’t know enough to say although I’ve seen pros say she’s getting some play, nothing dominate.
Sure, the reasoning for making her DPS was silly in the first place, but what’s done is done, tearing up a fine hero is silly. If her ult ends up causing problems long term and needs reworked anyway, then sure, Support rework could be sensible, but for now, just let it go.
What if they made it so certain heroes could play different roles? You queue up into a game, and you have the option to play Echo as dps or as a support. And Mei, she could be tank or dps. Probably wouldn’t work for all heroes, but it’d be interesting for some.
In a world where people complain about not having enough support heroes, I don’t think the voices of those 3 existing Echo mains would drown out thousands of people who would be in fact happy that Echo is becoming a support that she was always meant to be.
Before she got released there were an abudance of people theorizing about her being a support and her pickrate clearly indicates that she’s irrelevant to 99% of the playerbase now.
