I know that would rub a lot of expert or dedicated player of Ana the wrong way. But if they did turn Ana into a spammer like Junkrat. She would very easy to heal with and popular.
I don’t think they have to go totally easy mode with Ana, but she does need some of her abilities made a bit easier. Ideally all heroes should be a mix of easy, medium and hard abilities, so that it’s possible to grow with them, and they don’t have low skill ceilings or ridiculously high skill floors.
Okay…that is not what I was saying at all and you are definitely putting words into my mouth.
I was simply pointing out why Ana having to focus too much time on an attacker is actually a bad thing.
First off, relax my man…you’re coming off as being too hostile and I didn’t even say anything to you. We can have a nice discussion or we can just end it right here if we’re going to down this path.
Second where in the world did I suggest any of this? Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY wants Ana to be an OP hero that lowers her difficulty curve by a significant amount.
Most of the things that have been suggested have been minor, and if they were suggested, have been shut down.
The only reason I suggest a rework because it’s become clear that absolutely NO-ONE has a good idea of where and how Ana should be played right now, not to mention her niche being detrimental to her survivability and her being not so great in the meta that literally supports her better than the previous meta.
Some of these Ana-Mains have been hostile to you on this thread but I have not yet thrown one-insult or put words into your mouth.
Relax.
1 Like
Maybe it would, but I’m fine with Ana the way she is tbh, I think she could use some help, but that doesn’t mean I think she’s unplayable or even actually underpowered.
I’m already glad that dive isn’t the dominant comp anymore so I can actually play her more without gimping the team.
I don’t really care about how popular she is or her pickrate for that matter, I just want her to be fun and viable which to me she is right now.
No no, I’m not say you insist to make Ana easy mode. That’s completely my accord and solution. Making Ana a junkrat spammer to help her pickrate or popular is mine idea. It’s only meant to be helpful and accessible.
Really? I offered a fun solution and you got offended. I have no problem whether you like Ana adjusted to easy mode or not. It’s nothing personal. I think out of box is only way to really increase her pick rate and popularity. Jeff gave Ana several buffs and people insist it’s still not enough.
This would hold water if not for Ana’s statistics which show that her pickrate is one of the lowest, as well as her winrate.
As a matter of fact, in Grandmaster, where high skill comes as a given and where Ana should be naturally amazing because GMs have the highest skill, according to Overbuff in the last six months in competitive on PC, she is the least played healer and the hero with the worst winrate in GM, Master and Diamond (also in Plat and Gold. Second to last worst in Silver and Bronze). If Ana is a hero rewarded by high skill and great mechanics, why is she not played and why is she losing when she is played? Worst winrate of all heroes indicates more than just an issue with various changes in meta over the past six months.
I don’t see this Ana gold mine to be honest. If players with the highest possible skill are losing en masse to the point where this affects months-long statistics across all high elo ranks, how is she rewarded for having this high skill requirement? Is a consistent worst winrate considered a reward?
1 Like
Well…part of that could be due to Dive-Meta but regardless there are still issues that do need to be addressed when the two Main-Healers that strive in Deathball-like environments are still being picked less than Mercy & Zenyatta.
I have a hard time believing that you were being legitimate considering the phrasing of your words. If you were then I apologize, if you weren’t then what I said previously still stands.
The problem is that currently Zen is Ana, just more reliable and with a better ult. I mean, both are back-line, low-mobility characters that apply debuffs. And Zen just has way better damage.
1 Like
Not going to lie, this was the most disappointing comment to see from a Dev. She needs more than an ability that has the factor of your own teammates negating the effect. Heck, her codename was “shrike” and she refers herself has “ghost”, so why not give her temporary invisibility, something, anything to help her out.
2 Likes
Disagree
Zen is more DPS than support and his discord is vital in burning down targets quickly.
Discord and tranq are both reliable, sleep and anti aren’t
1 Like
“The problem with this is that if Ana is focused on killing someone she’s not healing her team,”
I didn’t put any words in your mouth. You complained Ana has to focus heal. I offered an helpful easy solution to make Ana heals ricochet to make it more accessible to others so she doesn’t have focus heal and spread. Then you got mad. If you don’t like the suggestion I made, that’s cool to.
Nor have I. So please don’t be a crybully and high road me.
I think can clearly see I’m the one who suggested making Ana bullets ricochet to make her more easy and accessible. Third time I cleared that up. So EpsilonKey14-1509 you don’t have to be paranoid about receiving credit for that helpful suggestion.
If you don’t want people offering solution to you complaining Ana having to focus heal on public forum. You should have a disclaimer on that first not being open to suggestions instead of easily getting offend. That’s pretty insufferable.
Now you know why people view some Ana mains as self-centered or greedy at times. You can give them several updates that back to back that they wanted in game, or suggestions out of the box to improve. And they can still unreasonably flip out. I’ll simply avoid your post pining for help for Ana when you aren’t really open to it. That’s what you said you wanted now, so okay.
she is not even balanced for the top end
outside of 2-3 specialists most people have given up on playing her in GM
mercy is mroe valuable than anything ana can do even when played perfectly
2 Likes
I wouldn’t exactly call Zenyatta the new Ana because he still approaches things much differently than Ana, not to mention his ult actually supporting his team…also Ana was designed with being an alternative to Mercy in mind.
…but in terms of taking up a similar role…probably? IDK.
Now you’re just prolonging this man, I already apologized why are you continuing this when everything has been said?
There’s no reason to have this conversation anymore.
Jeff, you’re great, I respect you and your team, Blizzard games have been a huge part of my life growing up. In no way am I trying to be offensive, but we would really appreciate some better feedback as to why the OW team is so afraid to give Ana some love.
Tweaks are always appreciated, but they’re not fixing her core problem. Which is that she requires a lot of skill, but still cannot outshine Mercy or Moira in healing output even when that skill is sunk into her kit. She’s the lowest picked support and it’s depressing.
2 Likes
Yeah, the problem is that she’s not going to be an alternative to Mercy when Mercy has resurrect and good healing numbers. Not to mention the whole concept of sniper-healer, really doesn’t work well, since she loses to divers and other snipers. If they want to do sniper-healer, they need to do something drastic like allow her to heal allies through walls with scoped shots or something. Because right now she doesn’t even feel like a sniper, she feels like a weak Zenyatta.
1 Like
Oh, you know for a FACT that would never happen or be allowed in this game. 
Just reading that sentence gave me all the warning signs of a nerf waiting to happen, but I still agree with you all the same.
True! Various metas post-season 3, as well as nerfs that happened to her, really never benefited Ana. I’d say that’s a cause for concern after over a year, is it not?
Another thing that kinda boggles my mind is the fact that Ana (specifically, her biotic grenade when thrown into the enemy) counters both Mercy and Zen. Mercy’s self-regeneration passive is quite strong as she can usually survive most damage that isn’t a sniper headshot, so hitting her with an anti-nade hurts her quite a lot. On top of that, Ana can focus Mercy with damage while she’s flying. Anti-nade is also the only thing that consistently counters transcendence, as well as Zen’s self-regeneration. So why isn’t she played?
Because her utility and survivability isn’t good enough. Simple as that. Sure, you can have Ana to counter the enemy Mercy and Zen, but Mercy and Zen bring far more to the table. Mercy is the best healer by far, can heal anyone at any time despite barriers and temporary loss of line of sight and she can escape any danger with guardian angel. Zen’s mobility is low but his discord and ultimate are too valuable so there’s the trade-off. It’s easier to simply… mirror-comp with Mercy and Zen. And if you do run Ana, you either sacrifice discord/trans which can lead to teamwipes or you sacrifice pocket potential/rez/unobstructed healing which makes your team weaker overall.
All of it kinda indicates that Ana isn’t in a good spot. She has every conceivable drawback to her kit. She’s slow, her disengage ability is inconsistent and often impossible to utilise (if I’m scoped in to heal my dying teammates as quickly as possible (which is my role), I can’t exactly see if there’s a sneaking Doomfist behind my back), she has no defensive healer ultimate, she can suffer from a reload in the worst times and her healing is blocked by barriers and line of sight.
Seeing as not even the best players in the world can pull her off and drag her out of winrate hell, I think she’s objectively in a bad spot.
1 Like
I don’t see why they couldn’t balance that. Obviously she couldn’t be allowed to damage enemies through walls (that’d be crazy), but healing allies I think would be okay. Obviously it wouldn’t be Mercy levels of healing, so it’s not like she can be entirely safe while doing so, but essentially the idea is to give this impression that she’s a watchful eye that can watch over the whole team at all times.
I mean shooting through walls would be designed as an option she has, obviously with the drawback that she can’t use her other abilities (since only the basic heal shot would be able to penetrate walls), so really it wouldn’t be the be-all, end-all ability. It’d just be a way to play her safely, and a potential tool in the Ana’s kit.