OverwatchOverwatch Echo Guide and Overview

True to her name, Echo copies and repeats the abilities of other heroes. The ability to dash, fly, and glide gives her some of the best movement of any DPS hero. She’s nimble and sneaky, but can be easily punished for positioning mistakes. Floating above the ground means she doesn’t make any footstep sounds and that makes her absolutely lethal when going on deep flanks behind the enemy team.

The nature of a copy ultimate means she simultaneously has one of the best and most difficult ults in the entire game. Echo mains can’t truly be one-tricks because they need to maintain a large hero proficiency pool to get the most value out of every ult use.

TLDR

Play As

• Take advantage of Echo’s silent movement and set up surprise flank attacks as often as possible.
• Wait to visually confirm an enemy’s health is below half before activating Focusing Beam, or else you’ll lose out on a lot of damage.
• Plan out your Duplicate target ahead of time, and make sure they are in a position to be selected. As the copy, play safe until you get their ult.

Play Against

• Hitscans like Soldier: 76 have the advantage against Echo when she’s flying around.
• Pay attention and notice if you don’t see Echo. She’s likely setting up behind you for a sneak attack, so watch your flank.
• Many Echo players use Flight to get in and attack. Dodge and get cover for a few seconds, then quickly focus her while her dash is on cooldown.

Strengths

Mobility

Flight and Glide give Echo nearly endless options for movement and positioning. She can outrun most attacks to stay alive, and she’s able to rush down enemies trying to get away. One unique quality of Echo’s mobility is that she can use Flight for vertical and horizontal dashing. Most heroes are limited to one or the other.

Versatile Ult

Being able to copy anyone on the enemy team means Echo can adapt her Ult usage to be offensive, defensive, zoning, tempo, or simply as a self-survival tool. Paired with Friendly Imaging, Echo can have up to 11 Duplicate choices in 6v6 game modes. Instantly gaining max HP and all the copy's cooldowns is very strong, plus when Duplicate ends, Echo will always have a minimum of 100 HP.

Burst damage

Sticky Bomb followed by Focusing Beam is a lethal combo against all DPS and Support heroes. Echo is great at finishing off enemies who think they are safe because of Focusing Beam and her mobility. Beam against critical health Tanks is one of the best abilities in the entire game to make sure those Tanks don’t get healed back up.

Weaknesses

All or nothing cooldowns

Echo’s primary fire is not particularly strong, and when Beam is used on a target above 50% HP, the damage is very low. Sticky Bombs are also easy to miss due to their slow travel speed. You either are going to get massive or no value from her cooldowns. When Echo isn’t getting solo kills and final blows, she’s not contributing much to her team.

Ult hero pool

One major drawback to a copy Ult is that you have to achieve at least a base level proficiency with almost the entire cast of Overwatch 2. When the enemy team isn’t running a hero with an ult you want, or a hero in your main pool, you may struggle to do anything other than feed with her ult.

Glass Cannon

Echo’s lethality comes at the cost of low health and no defensive abilities. She dies quickly when exposed and has to play evasively if she wants to stay alive. When Flight is on cooldown, Echo is a sitting duck against dive heroes. Moreover, if the enemy runs more than two hitscans, staying in the air becomes a problem as Echo can’t sustain the damage.

Primary Fire: Tri-Shot

Tips for Tri-Shot

• Poking
• • Before you get into deep flank positions, you should be poking with primary fire to start building Ult and apply a bit of pressure on the enemy. 
  • Anytime someone survives your Bomb + Beam combo, Tri-Shot comes in for the finish.
• Save cooldowns
• • Tri-Shot should be used while waiting for ideal opportunities to use Bombs and Beam. Those two are not abilities you can afford to waste, but you can spam primary fire as much as you’d like.
• Range
• • Primary fire can be effective at any range because it has no damage fall off. The bullet spread and travel speed will have you dealing less consistent damage the farther away you get.
  • Close to medium range is best for Echo to maximize primary fire damage and stay in range for her other cooldowns.

Secondary Fire: Sticky Bombs 

Tips for Sticky Bombs

• Surprise attack
• • The best use of Sticky Bombs is as a combo starter against unsuspecting enemies. 
  • Maximize direct hits by getting an off-angle or deep flank where your target doesn’t see you. They won’t be trying to dodge, and you’ll have a higher chance of landing every Bomb.
  • Immediately after firing Stick Bombs, begin using primary fire and Focusing Beam. Sticky Bombs travel slower than Tri-Shot, so at longer ranges, all your damage will land close together.
• Spam damage
• • Because they are on a short cooldown, anytime you’re poking with primary fire, you should also be firing Sticky Bombs. 

[SHIFT]: Flight

Tips for Flight

• Save for escapes
• • It’s so tempting to use Flight to dash right into the enemy and start blasting. Doing so, however, often leads to your death. Echo will end up being exposed to the enemy team and have no way to survive.
  • Most of the time, you should save Flight as a disengage tool. Walk or Glide into position, eliminate your target, then Flight out to safety and repeat the process.
• Chase
• • The times when you should use Flight aggressively is when needing to chase down a low HP enemy and Beam them to death.
  • The initial burst of Flight is very fast and can catch up with most enemy movement abilities. Don’t let them get away!
• Plan ahead
• • When you do use Flight to engage, make sure to plan how you will survive without Flight. Is there a wall to fall behind where the enemy doesn’t have someone who can chase you? Maybe an ally has a resource like Zarya Bubble or Suzu that can keep you alive. The point is, don’t go in just hoping for the best; make an actual plan.
• Min-maxing Flight
• • Activate Flight, then immediately cancel the ability. Echo will benefit from the instant burst of speed and carry some momentum while Gliding. Also, this puts Flight on cooldown much sooner.
  • You’ll get to use Flight again quicker, and don’t lose that much distance or speed. Useful when returning from spawn, or when you are mid-fight and need the movement, but can’t afford to go 9 seconds before the next use.

[E]: Focusing Beam

Tips for Focusing Beam

• Never use until half health
• • When using Focusing Beam, focus on confirming the enemy is already below half health before activating. Using Beam to try and get in enough damage to get them below half, then start benefiting from the damage increase, will not work in your favor. 
  • Expect the enemy to get healed during your attack unless they are completely isolated. Consequently, if they are above half health when you begin using Beam, they’re likely to stay above half as they get healed.
  • Focus beam deals damage faster than any Support can heal as long as the target is below 50% HP.
• Beam bypasses
• • Remember, Beams ignore certain damage mitigation abilities like Defense Matrix, Kinetic Grasp, Deflect, and Javelin Spin. Heroes who have these typically use them to survive long enough to get healing while at low health.
  • In these matchups, save Beam to counter such abilities and get the kill when they think they’re safe!
• Deployables
• • The below half health damage buff also activates when attacking deployables like turrets, B.O.B., and Immortality Field. 

[SPACE]: Glide

Tips for Glide

• When to float
• • Glide above walls to use the vertical cover and create unique attack angles only available to the few heroes with verticality. 
  • Against close-range and melee heroes, you can essentially perma-fly to keep as much distance as possible between you and the enemy.
  • After using Flight to keep momentum and move faster.
• Don’t Glide when:
• • The enemy team has multiple hitscans like Widowmaker, Cassidy, and Illari.
  • Your team isn’t being aggressive, so the enemy is free to focus you.
  • You’ve already been Gliding in the same position or area. Repeating your Glide patterns makes you predictable and easy to kill.

Ultimate: Duplicate

Tips for Duplicate

• Copy for cooldowns or Ult?
• • Echo can base her duplicate selection on either the copies base kit, or their ultimate. 
  • Some heroes like D.Va, for example, have powerful cooldowns but their ult isn’t very good for an Echo Copy.
  • Depending on the available hero pool, consider what abilities would benefit your team the most to help you determine your copy target.
• Don’t rush it
• • Duplicate lasts up to 18 seconds (with Minor Perk) which is really long in Overwatch time. Take your time, use the new cooldowns intelligently, and don’t take unnecessary damage.
• Positioning
• • Don’t copy and end up in the middle of the enemy team. Duplicate is a shiny homing beacon for the enemy team to focus you. If you Duplicate, then jump between the enemy Tank and Supports, you’ll be instantly killed by team fire.
  • Instead, position as you normally would on the perimeter. When copying a Tank, you can also just stay frontline with your Tank. If you copy a Support, position like that Support normally would.

Minor Perks

Friendly Imaging

• Safer ults
• • When you have the option to copy your own team, you can activate Duplicate from safer positions, and not even be in the enemy LoS.
• More options
• • The most obvious benefit is that you have access to a larger selection of heroes to copy. When your team is running a hero you really want to copy, Friendly Imaging is a great Minor Perk choice.

Enhanced Duplication

• Install ults
• • The best use of the extra 3 seconds ult duration is for copying heroes with install ultimates like Primal Rage, Annihilation, Dragonblade, Overclock, etc.
  • Many times, you’ll find that without Enhanced Duplication, by the time you generate the copied ult, your time runs out and cancels the ult.
• Prioritize earning ult
• • Enhanced Duplication should be treated as a time extension as soon as you activate copy. Take extra time to play safe, stay alive, and farm your copy's ult.
  • Dying (copy ending) before getting ult completely wastes your Minor Perk selection.

Major Perks

Full Salvo

• Best Major Perk
• • Echo can benefit from Full Salvo every 6 seconds as compared to only benefitting from High Beams when specifically getting elims from Beam after using Flight.
• Extra burst damage
• • The math works out to roughly 30% more damage compared to regular Sticky Bombs.
  • Full Salvo is more consistent at getting all DPS below half health for Focusing Beam combos (even those with high health and armor).

High Beams

• Full aggro beam usage
• • Being able to use Flight twice in a row enables some crazy aggressive plays. You can Flight dive the backline, kill, fly to cover, wait for Beam, and assassinate another.
• Hard to rely on the reset
• • To fully benefit from the Flight reset, you’ll want to fly in deep, secure an elim with Beam, then fly away. However, if the enemy survives your beam, you are left with no cooldowns and a death sentence.
  • You should be used to Flight management and not leaving yourself exposed after Focusing Beam use. Therefore, you’ll have to adjust your playstyle to benefit from the Flight reset.

Echo’s quick movement and flying abilities are best utilized on maps with plenty of high ground and natural vertical cover. Peeking over walls, or air strafing around structures high in the air allow Echo to play more aggressively and do so more safely. 

On flatter maps, as long as there are lots of side paths for flanking, Echo still performs great thanks to her silent footsteps and horizontal dashing. The maps that hinder her playstyle the most are the long range sniper maps where she has to expose herself down sightlines to approach the enemy. Echo also has difficulty on maps with large open objective areas and maps with too many small areas that hinder her movement.

Best maps

• Watchpoint: Gibraltar
• Numbani
• Oasis

Worst Maps

• Havana
• Circuit Royal
• Ilios

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!