Would the game be better without Echo Shard/Refresher? Discuss

With the last post about the loved/hated items, people mentioned Echo shard and Refresher being very strong items with negative opinions. I never really thought about the meta if these were removed, but the more I think about it the more I like it.

Cooldowns for ultimates are already low enough that every character can find an opportunity to use them in each teamfight/after each respawn later in the game when echo shard and refresher become affordable items.

As a result you get this spike from early game where you track people’s ults and take engagements with that information in mind, to later fights where you just know that any misplay or disadvantaged position WILL be punished with double ability and double Ults from the strongest impact characters (think Seven, Haze, Dynamo, Bebop, Yamato). There’s less thought involved and more of a fight to single out and kill someone before those problem heroes come in and destroy the teamfight with a repeated ability.

Do you think the game is better served by picking the best time to use your single strongest ability and predicting when your opponent will do the same, or doubling down and using those strongest abilities multiple times per fight to win the game? I imagine if ES/Refresher were removed it would further increase the value of having debuff remover, knockdown, unstoppable, etc.

EDIT: I’ll share the best changes I’ve seen people share as an option instead of removing the items altogether.

Echo shard: after using your echo sharded ability, increase the next cooldown of that ability more than its base cooldown, so if you want to double up on an ability for more burst or CC, you wait longer to use it again. Fair trade off but may affect people’s perceived value of Echo Shard.

Refresher: Option A - make the cooldown reduction a percentage, like 50-75% reduction of your abilities’ remaining cooldowns so double ults aren’t immediate.

Option B - make refresher a channeled ability, user must stand still or can move slowly for a few seconds while refresher is being activated but it gives its current cooldown reset. Again allowing players to react before being ulted twice and the user must reposition to not be killed while channeling.