ECHO GETS A TRYOUT IN OVERWATCH LEAGUE EXHIBITION MATCHES

Overwatch League planned to get back on track last weekend, but ultimately a California shelter-in-place order prevented matches from happening. In order to make up for the lost content, OWL scheduled exhibition matches between four Pacific teams on the Public Test Realm. This means that new DPS hero, Echo, got quite the tryout as she is currently available for testing.

The San Francisco Shock took on Seoul Dynasty ad the Los Angeles Valiant faced off against the Los Angeles Gladiators in a PTR “Battle for LA.” The matches were wild and “hilarious” according to viewers. Here’s a just a few things we learned about Echo so far:

Echo has a projectile-based DPS kit

Echo’s kit features Tri-shot, which fires off three projectiles per volley, and a similar secondary ability in the form of six sticky mini-bombs. Her focusing beam is more of a direct attack that deals higher damage to targets under 50% health. An additional Flight ability allows her to propel in directions similar to Mercy, but with a quicker descent time.

Her ultimate ability is a game changer

Echo is aptly named as her ultimate is “Duplicate,” a mimic ability. It allows her to copy an enemy hero’s abilities with an ult charge increase at 650%. Flex DPS players will go ham on this ability. During the exhibition matches, we saw a lot of the players using Echo’s Duplicate to grab tank abilities from opponents.

Hitscan DPS can counter Echo

Like Pharah’s projectile kit, Echo’s can be countered by a decent hitscan DPS. You can expect a lot of Soldier 76 or McCree play against her, which we also saw in the exhibition matches last weekend

Echo is a wild card until release

There’s no real way to know how Echo will be in competitive rotations until she is released. Teams need to figure out how she ticks, and the ladder will also grind her abilities down with community feedback.

Echo will likely be the last Overwatch hero until the sequel

Blizzard Vice President Jeff Kaplan admitted that Echo will likely be this game iteration’s final hero. “We know how much people love new heroes. We’re making new heroes for Overwatch 2. There is development happening, but we don’t want people’s expectations in the wrong place ⁠— for now, we will not be getting another Overwatch hero,” he explained in an interview.

Keep your eyes out for developments on Echo and Overwatch 2 by following SlashShout!

Theresa Gaffney

Theresa is a seasoned esports professional with nearly ten years under her belt developing content and running esports teams and leagues. She is currently the head coach for Messiah College's esports program and a freelance industry consultant.

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