You’ve seen her in the BlizzCon 2018 opening ceremony during the Overwatch segment. Now let’s take a deep look at Elizabeth Caledonia “Calamity” Ashe, or just Ashe.

Voiced by Jennifer Hale, the 39-year-old silver-haired gang leader of the Deadlock is Overwatch’s 29th Hero!

Quick Background

According to Overwatch’s official website, Ashe, born into privilege jumps into battle accompanied by her omnic butler by the name of Bob. But as fate would have it, she encounters an outlaw by the name of Jesse Mccree. Ditching her cozy life of wealth and her non-existent parents, Ashe went on to form the Deadlock Gang.

Gameplay

Ashe is a DPS character. Her rifle is extremely powerful & as per Overwatch’s standard, the closer you are to the enemy, the more powerful the damage dealt. We are yet to see her actual damage stats, but from the video released, you can see that it only took her about a couple of shots to get rid of other squishy DPS heroes.

Similar to Reaper, Ashe (despite how attractive you may find her to be) is a hero that you do not want to be up close and personal with. I’m looking forward to seeing her damage stats so I can compare her damage with Reaper’s when going face to face.

Ashe’s kit can be summarized to be a combination of several other heroes’ skills. With her main weapon/ primary fire – Viper, Ashe can fire several quick shots, while also enabling her to aim down iron sights for more precise shots (Hanzo much?). Coach Gun knocks back the enemies, much like Brigitte’s Whip Shot or Pharah’s Concussive Blast can be used to either disorient her enemies or as a quick getaway card.

Like McCree, Ashe is more of a close-ranged DPS and isn’t much on flanking duties. However her Dynamite could be fatal for enemies clustered in the backline. From the looks of things, the Dynamite can be detonated at will, and deals a burn damage to enemies affected by it - much like Widowmaker’s Poison Mine.

B.O.B, the butler, is probably one of the most interesting and unique Ultimate we’ve ever seen in Overwatch. I often joked with my friends that Overwatch should introduce a summoning as an ultimate, like in Final Fantasy (I was secretly hoping Brigitte being able to summon Jetpack Cat as her ultimate).

Blizzard finally granted my wish as Ashe literally summons Bob the omnic butler as her Ultimate. Acting like a programmed, personal Doomfist, Bob juggles enemies in his path, finishing them off with his arm cannon.

Jeff Kaplan mentioned that Ashe is a character that requires advanced player mechanical skill. The Overwatch hero catalogue rates her character 2 out of 3 stars on the Hero page , on par with the likes of Tracer and D.va.

How Does She Fit In?

Realizing how much players been having problems countering Brigitte lately, Blizzard purposely showed how Brigitte could easily be countered by Ashe in the heroes reveal video. She may very well be the counter to the GOATS meta currently dominating the competitive scene. Her Dynamite decimating clustered enemies, while her Coach Gun isolates squishies for quick picks.

Combining her & Reaper could prove deadly for the high durability and high vitality meta where you need an opening and high damage count to crack down the GOATS comp.

With the quick fire and precise aiming as an option coupled with the ability to zoom in for better accuracy, she could as well be an anti-Pharah & anti-Carpe anti-Widowmaker unit. Personally, I see her less as a hit-scan, but more of close to middle range DPS.

Due to her lack of mobility, flanking may not be her strongest suit. She’s more of a frontline type, the one that supports Reinhardt or Orissa up close. DPS players who enjoy approaching team fights head-on would very much enjoy playing as Ashe.

Enemy Support mains would be wise to keep an eye for her whereabouts and stay outside of her line of sight. Tanks have to always be alert for high skilled Ashe players or risk seeing a quick wipeout of their backlines.

Stay tuned to Kakuchopurei as we’ll definitely dish out more information once she’s available on the PTR servers.