We talked about the reveal and the story of the new character in Overwatch just yesterday, but Blizzard has followed up that information with another video where Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan discusses Echo's abilities and background. As we expected, the new character seems to be quite particular and her skill set includes an ability that will shake the foundations of the current metagame in Blizzard's competitive shooter.
Most of Echo's abilities were already shown when Blizzard announced Overwatch 2, since she is one of the characters appearing in the introductory video. Echo is a highly mobile character that can fly and glide. Although there are already other characters like Mercy who can soar the sky in Overwatch, Echo's arsenal will be a much bigger threat to the enemies. Her basic attack shoots three projectiles in a triangle pattern but she is also able to shoot a trio of sticky bombs that will explode seconds after hitting any target damaging everything around them. Echo's offensive capabilities are complemented with a focused beam of energy that she can channel for a few seconds and that causes increased damage to targets below 50% health, including shields and players.
Those abilities would be enough to make Echo quite a solid attacker wanted in any team, but her Ultimate ability is what makes her shine. Echo can duplicate any enemy that she targets with her ultimate, allowing her to use their abilities while she is in this form. That includes an accelerated version of their Ultimates. This ability grants anyone playing Echo a high degree of flexibility never seen before in Overwatch. Turning into a healer or a tank and using their abilities to change the flow of battle is something that will prove to be quite valuable in any team. This can be so powerful that Jeff Kaplan has confirmed that Echo will be on the test server for quite a while and they may be changing this ability depending on the feedback they get.
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