The meta is here that ana should thrive in at least as a sidekick to moira. Lots of tanks, aoe heals(the nade really amps this healing up), and heavy sustained healing that is hard to cut through without antiheal.
The fact that she doesn’t not work in this meta where she should thrive proves there are some severe weaknesses in her kit.
The reason ana was hit so hard with the nerf hammer and why people fear her being viable is bc she enabled the same type of composition Moira is enabling right now, Heavy tanks with a roadhog subbing into a dps role… I get that… But there is a way to rework her kit to where it works with tanks and dps heros evenly and makes her viable.
Based off lore.
-Rifle- traveled 980mps
-Cybernetic eye- “so strong she often didn’t need a scope.”
-Took a full shot to the head from widow and healed up fine. She has some sort of recovery.
-Is aways seen in high positions in the comics indicating she is meant to heal teamates from high ground
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Give her self heal upon shooting and a dot that heals 30 health over 3 seconds after the initial heal from her gun and nade
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How would this work? If you hit the shot or the nade you are also healed?
You hit you shots and you are healed for 20 health(over 1 second) per shot.
You heal a teammate and they receive the main heal that they get now as well as a small dot(30) to heal any extra health. Nade also applies this effect and still boosts it to 45.
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Then we have Zenyatta who got his powers from some sort of “Spiritual Enlightenment” ??? I don’t know if this is correct but I believed all that did was basically allow him to learn from experience.
Edit:I don’t think they really have an explanation for his powers either but hey I’ll roll with it
I think I heard it that sometimes they just want characters to be in the game the way they are just because. I mean, when did Mercy go from an outbreak in nanobiology to bringing people from the dead? Where did Mei get her ability to instantly turn to ice? WHY is there time travel? A tire with explosions that has its own ability to go behind the enemy team, climb up walls and drop a bomb on all of them… Idk man. This is basically the line of Overwatch vs Reality, and I think If the reality of the characters was applied in game there would be a lot of open and closed opportunities for abilities. Like Resurrect.
Ya I agree lore shouldn’t always dictate the way the balance otherwise everyone would be drastically op haha.
I do think there is a way they could balance ana tho. For example what if she could sleep herself?
If she gets jumped she freezes herself doesn’t take dmg and heals some? Anyone think a mechanic like that might work.
A cool idea, i think she needs better defensive capabilities than the hard to land sleep and her grenade, but thats essentially the same thing as mei’s cryostasis, it would be cool for her to have her own unique ability ya know? as opposed to a re-branded already existing one. all in all she needs a little help
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All they have to do is give nano’s speed boost back and her and Reaper are right back in the game, two birds one stone.
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The mechanics of sleep dart there is almost a .5 second delay for a wind up. It would work like meis except you cannot exit early you are stuck in sleep.
I like the idea that she could slow down enemies near her when she’s at a certain point. That way when there’s a huge gap between her and the team she has some way to defend herself while moving because the team always expects their healers to be right behind them and with them and when that (passive) activates it can be a notifier that you should honestly move closer to the team so they get the most effectiveness out of it.
I am still firmly of the belief that Ana is fundamentally broken and no amount of tweaks and reworks will fix that.
The long and short is that Ana is a fusion of a high-risk, high-reward sniper’s playstyle and a healer. The problem with that is simple: healers cannot afford to take too many risks. If you screw up too many times, people die. If you’re out of position, people die. If you wasted your cooldowns, people die. Ana has to deal with all of this AND has to aim her heals.
They are two completely incompatible playstyles, and no amount of adjustments or buffs will change that. Because of that, Ana is likely doomed to either languish in uselessness or be brokenly overpowered, with absolutely no in-between. Maybe a better development team could make it work; I mean, I’ve seen stranger things happen.
But this is Blizzard we’re talking about here. They’re never gonna get Ana right, and the only way out is to go back to the drawing board.
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Slowing down isn’t a bad idea!
Also Agree to a certain extent she is hard to balance especially with how the overall support class is treated. Her mechanics are so difficult, relative to the rest of the support class. Its to where if you mastered ana she would be arguably too strong. Every part of her kit is a skill shot with the nade being the least of these.
She needs to maintain the high skill potential she has but also have a way of having her skill floor lowered so she is more playable.
Ana is one of the few supports that have no kind of mobility and that’s where the connection between her and the team kind of drift apart. For most people it’s like a habit that their healer is always there and if the Ana is always falling behind with a not so good self reliability yeah positioning is probably her biggest problem at the moment.
This is like all she needs. 
The best idea I saw for self healing was to give her a passive whereby she’s heal boosted permenantly. She should also be full hitscan.
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The bullets in the lore came out of the gun at 980mps. Also… In the commics her biotic eye enhanced her vision without even needing a scope. Trying to land tricky shots is fun but idk why she isn’t just full hitscan
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