Here are my changes to Echo:
Echo
Tri-Shot
Sticky Bombs
Focusing Beam
Thoughts? Btw, Sticky Bombs now do 165 damage max with these changes, down from 180.
Sure
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I dont…i don’t understand the goal of these changes.
soldier v2?
errrrrr…
seems like a nerf to overall burst with a buff to overall consistency
Thoughts on these Echo changes to shift power from her burst damage potential?
Add more burst, for more tears!
Pretty much what Cerburus said. I’m trying to lower the burst damage potential of Echo and improve her some in a couple areas that are not tied to her burst damage to compensate to a certain extent. Might have to do some more changes, but this is a good start I think to shift some power around in her kit.
I think without her burst damage kill potential she would fall to the wayside of the already much more reliable hitscan heroes. I’m not saying that her current state is the healthiest thing, but I am saying taking her burst would just remove her from her hitscan peers in pickrate.
We should be able to take away some of the burst Echo has and not kill the character, especially if you buff some other stuff that does not contribute to her burst in any way. I think doing this makes Echo more balanced and less frustrating to play against. The idea is that she still has burst, but not as much. However, she is improved in some other area to keep her viable.
As I mentioned before, shifts like these don’t work.
You need to understand that Echo is primarily built as a highly-mobile burst-damage hero and you need to understand that Overwatch’s overall pacing is extremely quick and that split second decisions and reactions are required for exceptional play. That doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is going to be able to play at that level.
Nothing you do here is going to change that, and Blizzard isn’t likely to radically change Echo away from burst-damage.
Here’s some problems that you’ve made, but aren’t completely aware of:
So instead of having to aim carefully in order to latch on all six bombs in one cooldown, you’ve eliminated one bomb and dramatically increased the reward increasing consistency in landing burst damage in exchange for top end damage. Echo will still be able to burst heavily, but will also be more consistent about it.
Here you’re basically increasing her sustain by lowering the reload time between shots, allowing her to put out more damage overall wherein the loss of 3 ammo was intended to reduce that sustained output. Moreover, you’ve decreased the amount of time Echo is unable to defend herself against offensive pressure by lowering the reload time.
There are a couple more things you need to realize about the damage-role. Nearly every hero in the damage-role is built for bursting targets down. Soldier, Reaper and Tracer included. Soldier is arguably the best burst-damage dealer in the game thanks to his tremendous firepower and controlled burst. You also need to understand that many heroes are even more capable and even more reliable for killing targets than Echo. Echo’s biggest function to burst targets down requires the use of two-cooldowns. For Soldier its one.
The difficulty of applying said burst-damage is also related to how difficult it is to manage a shot. For heroes like McCree who are very capable of putting out 600 damage or more in less than 2 seconds. They require a cooldown and exceptionally close range. For Echo, she’s has to land four of those bombs on a target to bring a 200 health target to 100 health for a Focusing Beam finish. For someone like Hanzo, three out of five arrows from Storm Arrow need to connect to a target to kill them, or only two if the target is headshotted; that’s not as easy as you might think. But even the combined output of Storm Arrows (70x5 or 350 every ten seconds or 700 damage on critical) is still nothing compared to FTHx6 (600 damage every 6 seconds) or what Soldier is capable of (~300 every 2 seconds). You need to understand that bursts of damage tend to be very tightly controlled and calculated and if they were a problem (which initial PTR tests proved true), they would be reduced. So far, that hasn’t been too much of a problem. Focusing Beam, with its 9 second cooldown and narrower beam than Symmetra’s own level 1 primary; is also tighly regulated to produce only 200 damage per second for 2 seconds, or 400 if the beam can be maintained on the target long enough. By comparison, Genji only needs one head-shot and one Swiftstrike for a kill. Soldier only need 4 shots and a helix rocket for a kill. Two headshots from McCree’s pistol will anyone 250 health or lower and those two shots only take a full to launch. Overwatch’s pacing is extremely fast; this isn’t Halo.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think these changes would be great. They have not even been tried out yet, so hold your horses.
They won’t be tried out, because they’ve already likely done so.
I’m confused, Echo is a DPS character. She does a decent job at it and requires risk to get in and do strong burst damage. This is offset by having a relatively slow projectile, and stickies on a CD that can miss.
How is this in need of a change? Is she doing more DPS than is justified? Not really…is she doing outrageous burst? Not really…Widow, Doomfist, Hog all have high burst potential.
She also pays for it with high fragility, an acceptable level of complexity, and a large hitbox. I really fail to see why a high damage damage hero with risk is a problem.
Echo is very strong in the meta right now, and getting bursted down before you can really do anything (especially if Echo flanks you with her high mobility and you don’t expect it) doesn’t feel amazing on the receiving end. I would say toning down time to kill some when shooting at heroes across the board is a good change; doing this across all the characters would take tons more changes to all the roles.
Echo is considered strong right now so I was thinking about changes to dial her back in the key areas that contribute to that and increase a couple other things to help her in other areas. People hate getting melted as a tank from the 180 damage stickies and then 200 DPS from beam. I think a power-shift for Echo would be good, even if it is a relatively small power-shift.
Is Echo still considered op?
Instead of the reload and sticky bomb changes there, I’d increase the cooldowns of focus beam and sticky bombs by a second and give her 1 more ammo.
At least in high ranks, yep. In Master’s & GM she has the highest pick rate when looking at how she performs in all the tiers. Other heroes in the meta are likely to get changed soon, she is not the the only character in the meta that is likely to be changed.
This is what some want. Some DPS players on older kits don’t like losing the lime-light, while some non DPS want to defang every DPS that comes around that’s good. Once they get rid of Echo, the next DPS is on the block.
And there it is. I don’t like it, so nerf it 
Blizzard have done power-shifts or just outright nerfed stuff in the past because it is frustrating on the receiving end; for example, they nerfed the CC on several heroes (Reinhardt, Mei, McCree, Sigma, etc.). Usually if something is frustrating to play against, it is also strong.
Increasing the cooldowns could mess up her gameplay flow. Idk.