BioNade has been a problematic ability since its inception.
Sure at Ana’s release, Nano was even more of a problem, but after that got nerfed, BioNade shaped metas.
It took Moth Mercy to push Ana away. Not nerfs. BioNade still needs to be made into an ability instead of a pocket ultimate on cooldown.
Anyone who says that doesn’t know what powercreep is. If people think buffing Mercy to 60 HPS and Zen to 30% discord (which are the most common requests) is powercreep when it was literally how their kits were for the first 3 years of the game…they need a dictionary.
I don’t play Comp, but I get the argument I’ve heard and read here a few times (mostly just repeating what I’ve read about this often enough):
Ana is the only Support that can make the enemy team’s healing efforts null (especially in crucial moments, which a good Ana would always exploit).
On paper, and probably in practice it makes Ana a ‘must pick’ Support.
But the problem is not everyone wants to play Ana, even though they know inside that switching to her (especially if the enemy team has one) is objectively necessary (I.E. the best answer versus an enemy Ana wrecking up your team’s healing efforts is to have one too doing the same to them to ‘brute force’ a balance; similarly to how it is in good Widows Vs good Widows scenarios, you better hope someone on your team can also play her and wreck the other one just as often)
It is just one single ability, yeah? Not an Ult. Let’s see what it does:
Damage to enemies
Healing to allies
Healing on self
Block healing to enemies
AoE effect on healing block to enemies
Sounds pretty damn good to me. In a scenario where Ana did not exist in the game yet, if people would give suggestions to a new Hero on the forums, and you’d see the exact description above as an Ability on a 10 seconds cooldown, everyone would lose their sh and call you crazy.
Let’s see it two different ways:
If today Ana was a new Hero coming out just now with this bio nade, would we see ‘Ana is broken’ / ‘Ana is OP’ threads by the hundreds every hour? You bet we would (which is a statement that goes to show that this bio nade has been a problem in the eyes of a lot of players apparently since a long time by now).
If another Support had the same ability but was maybe applied differently, then Ana suddenly wouldn’t be that much of a must pick anymore (except maybe for the very good aim and tracking players out there, maybe). Let’s say, if we had a slight rework for Zenyatta’s Orbs, and one of the Orbs would instead nullify healing on the enemy target from ANY source of healing possible and it’d last 4 seconds (and the Orb would never break away for those 4 seconds regardless of what happens to Zen), then guess what… people would play Zenyatta more because blocking healing is an absolutely crucial ability to have on your team. Same goes with Baptiste, if he had some new ability on his gun that would throw a debuff-style grenade then we’d see more Baptistes around (I genuinely don’t see many at least not in QP).
But with all this said, some people here only say this about Ana:
“She already has counters”.
“Send Winston on her!”.
Welp then, let’s forget about it, nothing happened, she’s fine. Never mind!
I think ana needs a small nerf if at all. Maybe nano healing to 150-200. Maybe ammo nerf. Maybe healing/shot to 70.
Not her nade. Definitely, not her nade. Supports should not just be healbots. They should be able to support in different ways too like anti nade. A nade nerf just makes her more of a healbot and her kit less interesting.
I think it’s mostly the fact that every other main healer had their heals nerfed one way or another then there’s Ana who managed to dodge it, while also dodging hero bans twice in a row with a 78% usage.
I would happily take this nerf over a nade nerf. The suggestions of changing nade so it only blocks 75% of damage are just stupid. It would remove any playmaking ability from the last fun support
You either nerf Nade or let it have an actual counter. Sorry, but certain heroes being able to cleanse themselves is not a reliable counter.
I’ve been wanting a multi-cleanse ability SINCE ANA WAS INTRODUCED and I finally got it during that 1-3-2 Experimental Card with Zarya, but noooooooo, it was taken away from me!
They got rid of most of the Support powercreep, which was the influx of new Support heroes that did a whole bunch of AOE healing whilst being able to offer utility and decent damage.
Buffing the weaker single-target healers that are falling behind performance wise, wouldn’t be Support powercreep.
My favorite part is that people are saying that Ana is “Blizzard’s favorite” conveniently ignoring just how bad Ana was before she got her buffs.
The worst part is that these same people wear swear up and down that DPS-Mains are the sole reason as to why Supports are nerfed, but in my opinion, it has more to do with just how much infighting / “crabs in a bucket” mentality that goes on within the Support-Main community
If Nade was broken then pros would be using it every match. Instead you see Moira + Lucio on KoTH, and Bap + Zen on payloads. Ana comes in with Mercy on some maps/points, though.
Honestly, supports are mostly fine balance wise. If your current pick isn’t working out, swap (I don’t swap when I play DPS, I’m a hypocrite).