New Overwatch hero Ashe available now on the PTR

You can get your hands on the new, sexy gunslinger ‘Ashe’ right now if you’re playing on PC and are willing to play on the PTR (Public Test Region). If you’re serious about Overwatch then it’s usually a good idea to play new heroes as soon as you can in order to not be at a disadvantage when they’re released, and logging into the PTR is as easy as 1, 2, 3:

1. Load Battle.net
2. From the Region drop-down menu select ‘PTR: Overwatch’, this may install the PTR client if you haven’t used it before
3. Click play

Ashe was unveiled at Blizzcon last week, where we learnt more about her abilities and her backstory. A quick summary of her abilities are below and you can find more about her backstory in the animated shorts released by Blizzard:

Primary Fire: Semi-automatic quick firing repeater rifle, 20 – 40 damage, 5 rounds per second.

Secondary Fire: Ashe aims down the scope giving her more damage at range while reducing her rate of fire.

Ability – Dynamite: Ashe throws dynamite which will either detonate itself given time or Ashe can detonate it herself by shooting it. As well as giving off blast damage, it will also burn the enemy for 100 damage over time.

Ability – Coach Gun: Ashe shoots 15 pellets which cause damage to enemies and also propels her backwards; this can be used for extra mobility similar to Pharah’s ‘Concussive Blast’.

Ultimate – B.O.B: Ashe summons B.OB who will charge enemies and provide covering fire for Ashe. B.O.B will be active for 10 seconds and requires 2000 charge, which Ashe generates passively at a rate of 1% every 4 seconds, or, in other words, every 6.6 minutes.

That’s all of her abilities. As with any new hero, when reading the abilities they always seem overpowered—which hers do, especially her ultimate—however, Blizzard generally do a good job at balancing Overwatch, so I have faith in them. You can view some Ashe gameplay from Blizzcon below:

On first look, you’d think that the hero that is most similar to Ashe is McCree. However, that’s not the case; she’s actually not like any hero currently in the game. If I had to give her a similarity to another game character it would be Nomad in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Seems strange, I know, but that’s who she reminds me of when she looks down the sights and calls in some help with her ultimate.