Overwatch

... I like her.

I think she came about more of a gameplay concept than an actual story or lore one. At least i believe so.

Her dynamite has fire damage, something that was introduced for Torb's rework so im pretty sure was being worked on for a while

I kinda feel like you can say Ashe is one of the weaker character concepts they've gone with and still really like her; the bar for Overwatch design is rather incredibly high.

Ashe is basically a Fusion Dance between Mcree and Widowmaker. But hey, I like those two.

I sort of agree. To the point where I am not joking when I find that Bob is more interesting design wise as a character. The robot with the metal handlebar mustache and bowler hat looks so much more memorable.

That is a given.

Everyone loves B.O.B. more than Ashe herself. But i guess we have to live with him being an ult.

In a perfect world, B.O.B. would have been the Roadhog to Ashe's Junkrat

I do like Ashe but I agree shes pretty generic. I have seen many other characters that looked exactly like her and personality wise were pretty similar if not the same.

I do not necessarily mind the character type though and like her way more than I will ever like Mccree. And I do think she will be very fun to play.

Now Echo on the other hand has me way excited way more though which is more than I can say for the past few new heroes. And she is confirmed to being worked on. I haven't been excited for a new hero since Sombra and Ana.

Edited by Wispy on Nov 3rd 2018 at 12:40:08 PM

There was also a little post-credits scene with her, if anyone missed it.

I find her design, on its own merits, cool enough, a take that keeps to the western bandit theme while still being obviously distinct from McCree's outfit. I won't pretend it's the most original design out there, though. And her introduction does seem to suffer from the cinematic not initially intending on her being a new hero; she doesn't really come out of it looking that impressive or anything.

Anyway, I'll give you deeper thoughts once I get to play her.

I see Ashe as a filler hero, someone added in to pad out the roster around the time folks would be expecting a new hero, but everything's not ready yet.

Seeing a character get their ass kicked in their cinematic introduction is sort of hilarious in a Memetic Loser kinda way.

I'm getting some Doronjo vibes.

To be fair barring Doomfist and Sombra all the villains have gotten their asses kicked in their shorts.

It seems to be an regular occurrence. Reaper especially although he was the one to help break Doomfist out off-screen apparently.

Widowmaker did a pretty good job in Alive

She actually is an important character in the “filler” sense.

She fills the world showing there’s an immensely large variety of individuals & provides a sort of common antagonist role so bigger villains like Doomfist can take the really important appearances & maintain their menance level.

It’s like how in the early cinematic’s Reaper was the go-to villain for anybody to face. Now Ashe can fill in that role & Reaper won’t have to be taken out like a chump every time he fights a hero.

Edited by slimcoder on Nov 3rd 2018 at 4:55:39 AM

i'm always a sucker for badass cowgirls so ashe is a-ok in my book

I like her as because even if she is a filler character we finally are seeing the plot progress after Recall and there is so many directions that Echo can take the story.

My bet is that Echo is an brain scan of Liao in a Vishkar omnic body as Liao is mentioned to be one of the original founders of Overwatch but yet we have never heard anyone mention them in-game or even in the past so perhaps they died early on and that chip is what is left of them.

They could still just be another character though that we just didn't see before, whom knows.

Someone on Reddit did a write-up of all the things mentioned during 'What's Next' part of the con. I think a lot of this most of you are going to already know, but some interesting things.

• Her primary gun reloads bullet by bullet, so you can interrupt the reload animation if you want to and start firing with however many bullets you've got.
• Her gameplay was designed from a 'weapons approach', compared to the 'abilities approach' of characters like Sombra and Doomfist.
• BOB is designed to act almost like a seventh hero — he 'can be healed, debuffed and buffed, Nano-Boosted, slept, Zarya Bubble, capture and contest points'. They had to fix a few things like you not losing Deathmatch if BOB was out or the game starting early if you were waiting for one last player but summoned him.
• 'B.O.B. knocks up in an AoE around him upon making contact with an enemy, and then turns around and begins shooting. Enemies lose air control when knocked up (though they can still use abilities). If he does not make contact with an enemy, he will turn around after running a short distance or hitting a wall.'

Oh, and here's the concept art for two of her skins.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Nov 3rd 2018 at 1:10:02 PM

An additional info said by Jeff somewhere else. Echo is not going to be Hero 30.

Bummer

Ashe is kind of adorably fail-tastic, and I like that.

Yeah she strikes me as being kind of like Brigitte. She'll get some development in other characters' stories and then become playable.

Thats depressing to me as I really like her.

Although in other news I am hearing now through streams were Jeff directly talked to the streamer that hero 30 is actually already playable in Blizzard's internal testing which is kind of surprising considering Ashe hasn't hit public servers yet so this may suggest that we will be getting more hero releases yearly.

And if that's the case then finally I would love to see more than 3 heroes an year.

Edited by Wispy on Nov 3rd 2018 at 6:29:42 AM

And she is unrelated to Athena

Yeah I keep seeing people call her Athena when Jeff confirmed she is not Athena.

I am kind of surprised that people are sticking to Athena so much considering that Athena is the announcer which would make making her an hero very confusing unless they change the announcer or something.

Oh and he also stated that "Athena’s not running around doing hero stuff, like, that’s not her character."

So, don't expect her as a hero anytime soon

A subtle detail that some people may have missed. Mc Cree is the one who tipped them off about the train and orchestrated the whole thing to get Deadlock to do his dirty work and take the heat for him.

It probably has to do with the fact that earlier cast concept designs had a slender tall robot with Athena's 'A' symbol on her chest, so most assumed Echo was the next itteration of that idea.

Jeff did say that Echo would be a hero though. Just that she's "not ready yet".

I'm ok with Ashe being "generic" or similar to Mc Cree. Not EVERY hero can be perfectly original and we're eventually going to hit some roadblocks of similar concepts. I remember when people criticized Orisa because she has a Reind shield and a mini-Zarya ult. But she's still visiually interesting, fills out the world and lore, and holds her own gameplay wise with her own identity.

We already have three snipers; Widow, Ana, and Hanzo. Do people really think we'll never ever see a sniper ever again? Or that, if we have another hero that can fly in some way (Echo?), that it's too similar to Pharah and Mercy's niche?

I would also argue that Ashe is a counterpoint to Mc Cree's cowboy concept. Mc Cree is rugged and rough around the edges while rather calm and quiet in demenor. Contrastingly, Ashe is boisterous, loud, abrasive, and rather clean and prestine. Mc Cree is missing and arm and his clothes are torn, while Ashe's look like they just got polished. Mc Cree is a Lone Cowboy Archetype while Ashe relies on a team and allies (specifically her and B.O.B.)

I also really don't particuarly care if Jennifer Hale is "doing the same voice" either. Ashley Johnson does the same voice for Gretchen from RECESS, Tara from Teen Titans, Petra from Minecraft: Story Mode, Gwen Tennyson from Ben 10, and Ellie from the Last of Us. But, that doesn't make her a bad voice actress. Each role is completely unique even if she uses almost exactly the same voice for it. I would never confuse Ellie for Tara or Gretchen because she does change things between them. Who cares if Jennifer Hale sounds like "Southen Chain Smoking Commander Shepard"? Its a voice she's GOOD at.

That and low sounding female voices are often uncommon. I think Hale's voice works perfectly rather than pushing some higher pitched tenor voice onto her character.

Eh. The tough-as-nails-boss-lady-with-an-attitude has become as much an overused and expected thing now that, had Ashe been a bubbly homemaker type running a western biker gang, that would have actually stood out and been novel.