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Overwatch’s newest hero, Ashe, was introduced to roaring applause at this year’s BlizzCon. We spoke to developers and top players about how she might change the game.
In a train-crash-induced storm of smoke and gunfire, Blizzard introduced us to Ashe at BlizzCon 2018, the rifle-slinging, fast talking DPS hero with a bone to pick with Jesse McCree. She’s the newest hero to join Overwatch’s colourful cast of characters, and she could shake things up in this currently well-balanced meta.
She’s equipped with a precision rifle with a red dot sign, a shotgun used for close range combat and spacing, and dynamite that can make enemies go kaboom. If that’s not enough, the best part of her kit is B.O.B. – or Big Omnic Butler – a robotic sidekick that serves as Ashe’s autonomous ultimate. Her kit makes for an interesting addition to the game, and to find out more about just how she’ll be fitting into Overwatch’s cast of 28 other heroes, we got the chance at this year’s BlizzCon to quiz the game’s dev team, as well as some pro players to find out how she plays.
“Ashe came from our desire to explore more of the Deadlock gang, the gang that McCree came from,” Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu tells us. “The gang had been an idea for a while but we never developed it, however, we knew that we wanted to since we created Route 66. We always knew the payload cart carried [an Omnic] Echo.”
Chu emphasised that the team had been in love with Ashe from the start and her kit hadn’t changed much over the course of development, which isn’t the case for most heroes. Her reveal cinematic, Reunion, featured Ashe and her gang robbing a train that carried Echo – a mysterious new robotic hero that we don’t know too much about yet.
While Ashe only entered test servers on Monday, we got our hands on the hero while at BlizzCon and got to discuss her impact on the meta with some of the game's top players who were in town for the Overwatch World Cup.
A hitscan hero
One of the biggest observations players have taken away from their short time with Ashe is that she uses a powerful hitscan weapon, which means her shots have no travel time and connect directly, making her valuable to a lot of the mechanically skilled stars in Overwatch.
“The most important part is that she’s hitscan, it's something people like me can play,” Terence ‘SoOn’ Tarlier tells us, a member of Paris’s Overwatch league franchise. “She’s a great addition to the game. She adds more depth to the game since the meta has been very similar for the past two years. Hopefully she can can be powerful enough to move away from the Winston-D.Va meta.”
The most prominent setup in competitive Overwatch has been the dive composition, an aggressive strategy that involves the entire team attacking a high priority target at once to gain the advantage in a team fight. It usually includes a team like Winston, Lucio, Tracer, Genji, D.Va, and Zenyatta (or something similar, while the only mainstay in this is Zenyatta).
It’s highly prominent, even at the Overwatch League level, due to how well the different attacks and abilities mix to cause an efficient amount of damage quickly.
“I'd like to see more heroes like her, more hitscan characters. I want things that reverse the current meta. Right now it's too much of the same thing, it's too much diving,” Tarlier added. “It’s how the game is with high ground control and the only heroes that can do that are Winston and D.Va. Ashe might help change that a bit.”
The dive strategy was an original response to a common three-tank team roster, where quicker characters could isolate and kill individual members of the other team before finishing off support-less tanks. This led to a majority of Overwatch’s heroes getting pushed to the wayside in favour of the quickest ones. Tarlier hopes that more characters like Ashe, alongside more balance patches, may diversify the types of heroes used and bring some spice back to Overwatch.
Best omnic boyfriend
B.O.B., Ashe’s new ultimate, is a computer-controlled character that attacks nearby targets with melee attacks and built-in machine guns. He’s the only ultimate that can actually serve as a whole new target on the battlefield. “He effectively functions as another character,” Chu says. “Even though he’s an ultimate.”
While players aren’t sure how Ashe will fit in to certain compositions, having B.O.B. around as an ultimate could serve as a good distraction and an extra source of damage. Although it's not clear how effective he is, since you can’t choose who he attacks.
B.O.B. lasts around 10 seconds once you deploy him and does over 100 damage per second, and Ashe can even start building a new ult as soon as she deploys him. He’s definitely a cool addition to the roster, but we’ve yet to see how the duo will fit into current team setups.
“She seems very interesting, she brings more to the game,” said Houston Outlaws player Jiri ‘LiNkzr’ Masalin. “It seems like you can play her in very different ways, although I don’t think she'll fit in a lot of compositions very well. But it's early, I’ll have to try her more after the tournament.”
A scopeless Widowmaker
Ashe’s rifle does around 85 damage when scoped in the red dot sign and half that from the hip, while her headshots do around 170 damage in one hit. Her first shot is precise, while the following ones lose accuracy.
“For me, she can’t replace Widowmaker,” Tarlier added. “Since Widowmaker is really powerful and she has a good dash into the air. I'll have to keep practicing to see how she changes in the next season though.”
It’s clear that Ashe is a hero for DPS-using, incredibly quick fingered pros that use heroes like Widowmaker and Zenyatta. Her combination of shotgun and dynamite, a different take on Widowmaker’s grappling hook and SMG, lets players relocate and engage with enemies at close range.
We’re still early on in the process, as Ashe has yet to be fully released to the public – she’s only on the Public Test Region (PTR) for the moment. We’ll most likely see a few changes to the power levels of her kit and the way B.O.B. works before she fully launches, but so far, Ashe has the player base ready to put on their cowboy hats and ride along Route 66.
“Blizzard have never let me down before,” said Team Chinese off-tank Ma ‘Lateyoung’ Tianbin. “I don’t think they have with Ashe either.”
