How does one best stay alive as Ana, while still keeping her team in sight? I try to stay far in the backline, but get killed a lot so I must not be doing it right and am hoping someone can point me to the way.
Watch an Ana unranked to GM video
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Being in the far back on your own while they run flankers like a tracer or Doomfist is suicide.
Staying very close to your Team while they run a Mei may also be suicide.
It always depends on your team comp and the enemies team comp + there is a fair share of personal playstyle. No point in abusing high ground if you are having issues Aiming down and knowing how to actually break LoS using ledges.
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I donât play much ana but staying about 15m seems to work best. It means youâre not too far away so you arenât so vulnerable to flankers, but not so close where like a reaper will walk up to you and delete you.
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Itâs less about distance and more about your accessibility to the enemy and your team. Consider the following:
- How many blinks will it take Tracer to get to you from cover?
- Can you easily close angles/take cover with a small amount of movement?
- Do you have unmitigated access to healing your team and providing supportive fire/nades against the enemy team?
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Distance is good, but itâs a fine line of not too much or too little. Out of shatter range and out of hook range is where I like to be, but thatâs a difficult distance to maintain when your team is kinda just all over the place, tanks way deep, dps way off to your left and right. Itâs hard to keep LoS on everyone without putting yourself in danger. The lower the skill of the players on your team, the harder it is to toe that line between safety and risky as they are prone too over confidence, being out of position for way too long, and usually feeding. Higher skilled players tend to be more aware of where they should or shouldnât be in relation to where their heals are coming from and will generally leave your LoS for brief moments before returning; they know their limits. Theyâll also peel for you, something lower skilled players often forget about.
The temptation to follow your tanks is what generally gets me into trouble, without comms itâs hard to gauge what teammates are gonna do. Are they actually committing that deep or are they just gonna do some poke damage and quickly yeet themselves out?
So, ideally, stay between 15-20m back, have some sort of cover you can hide behind, corners are your friends, if thereâs a healthpack nearby even better, make sure youâre aware of what could kill you and from what direction, especially if they have divey or flanky heroes. Move with your team if you think itâs safe, but always be aware and try to have an escape, ability management comes in here but thatâs a different post.
Every map has several sort of standard Ana-y positions people play from, kind of like Widow does. Thereâs probably some youtube videos that point them all out. Iâm lazy, so I donât even know most of them, but when I use the ones I do know, I do tend to die a lot less, so Iâd recommend checking those out.
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step 1. figure out your spacing. simplified thought process i use:
if the enemy team is threatening to flank you, can you hold a position where you can easily monitor and deny the flanks?
if yes â hold farther away and in that position
if no â hold somewhere within range to receive peel from team (varies depending on what heroes can peel for you and where they choose to hold)
if the enemy team is not threatening to flank you, further generally means safer⌠but it also means youâll lag behind if your team pushes out of your los.
step 2. find a corner in that position and hug it like itâs your best friend. ideally itâs elevated, near a healthpack, takes a slightly wider angle than your team, and denies line of sight to places dmg is likely to come from
You stay with the team.
It is easier to heal them and they can protect you.
You just have to look for doom or someone trying to ult you.
You have to balance between mid AND short range.
Being predictably in the back is just you isolating yourself. 90% of being a good flanker is isolating 1v1âs and winning the duel. You are giving them wins.
But you also donât want to be in brawl range all of the time.
What you want to do is move up to close range as your tanks turn corners so they donât deadzone themselves (its a paladins term for when someone turn a corner and cuts themself off from healing) - then hold that corner for cover till mid range - and maintain that mid range - until, they are going up to another corner, then move up again, then back, exc.
Hip fire is your friend as it doesnât leave a shot tracer letting people know where you are also.
As âyourselfâ said that range is great as it only take a fraction of a sec for your team to turn on a backline attack, itâs doesnât take long to catch up to get people around corners and hipfire is still good at that range.
This is just a baseline tho.
i just stay behind rein and shoot syringes up his butt. then i inject him with drugs so he goes beserk and kills everyone
always works out. if you dont have rein you have to improvise. that guy with the sword is overrated most of the time
Stay really back, play like a sniper, DPS atleast 2.5k dmg/10 min.
Also watch this dude his advice works on the ladder, i rate him above ml7 and other ana players in terms of being able to follow his advice, he keeps it simple, none of the oh they did that so i did that nonsense.
true the most self bloated popinjock in the game.
Letâs not promote these horrible contents please.
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As far back as possible while also having line of sight to your own team. You also should have access to cover and ideally a health pack too.
My favorite advice on Ana from an unranked to GM video by ML7:
Iâm going to play like I was in Gold, just making good decisions without just destroying everyoneâŚoh they have a smurf on their teamâŚjust find the smurf on your team, pocket them, and hope theyâre better.
But ML7, you are the smurf on your team!
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No enemy flankers? Stay far, far back.
1 enemy flanker? If only the flanker goes for you, you can stay back if thereâs a high ground you can comfortably shoot from, or be with your team. If someone else also tries to go for you, be with your team.
2 enemy flankers/divers? Be with your team.
Assuming they are good ofc. If their tracer/doom is bad you can just be wherever you want and take the 1v1.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. A follow-up questionâŚ
When people say âStay 15m away from your teamâ, how do I measure 15m visually?
I think itâs probably a little more than 15m, but 3 tracer blinks should be +/- that distance.
i love when your team keeps leaving your los and dying so you try to stay close but then you die because of that and they get mad at you for not sitting in the backline and healing them through walls 
you need to play around your team mostly, donât stay too far away from them so you can get peel, but donât be too close or youâre easier for the enemy team to get
Play with your Main Support. Wherever your Mercy or Brig or Lucio can easily heal you if you get attacked
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