Overwatch clip shows how OP Echo’s ultimate can really be

Bill Cooney

A wild new play with Echo shows just how powerful her ultimate can be, and is adding fuel to the fire for some Overwatch players claiming that the ability is much too overpowered.

Echo is the last new character that will be added before Overwatch 2, and her Duplicate ability is unlike any ultimate we’ve seen so far, since it allows her to imitate any other hero in the game.

It also lets her to charge up the ultimate ability of the character she’s copying 650% faster than normal, which means she can absolutely decimate an enemy team given the right circumstances.

Duplicate could be one of the most powerful ultimates yet.

We’ve practically all seen the practice range footage of how powerful Echo’s ultimate is supposed to be, but a new clip from Reddit user frozenwaterbear does a good job showing part of why the ability is considered so OP in the main game.

In the play, the Echo Reaper pops Death Blossom but doesn’t get many results on the first go, just a few shots into Roadhog later, though, and they already the ability again.

Most teams in Overwatch can survive a single Reaper ult no problem, but two over the course of a few seconds is obviously too much to stand up against for long.

These kinds of crazy Echo plays will only become more common as people learn how to use the new hero, so Reddit user Peach198 suggested cutting down on the amount of copied ultimates she could charge.

“She really should only be allowed to build one ultimate when transformed,” they suggested. “After that the ult charge should just be locked. It’s too powerful to let her have the pick of the enemies ults and then potentially use them several times in one go.”

This would be a drastic change and cut down on the game-changing potential of Echo’s ultimate a bit, but clips like the one above show that in the right hands and in the right situation, Duplicate can basically win team fights all on its own.

Dealing damage isn’t the only use for Echo’s ultimate, but it’s probably the most popular.

How quickly Echo charges heroes’ ultimates in Duplicate isn’t the only reason players feel the ability is overpowered – while copying another character she basically gains another life as well.

When Echo’s copy of a hero is killed or expires, she simply returns to the map with full health, regardless of where she was at before the ability, which makes it a very low-risk play to begin with.

Overwatch devs have definitely made major changes to heroes before (see Symmetra and Torb) but Echo just came out, so whether or not they’ll be making changes this quickly remains to be seen.

For now, your best course of action might be to hang back whenever you’re sure an Echo has their ultimate, and then try to take them out after they transform back.