I have to disagree. I’d say Ana was pretty good before the support changes (right after her ammo buff she became a lot more consistent and less punishing), she was just shoved out of the meta due to double sniper meta making rez more important than healing, and Mercy being to out damage Trance with Hanzo right click whereas Ana would have to nano or nade (which is much less consistent).
In fact, in Contenders when they got the hitscan buff patch + the release of Hammond + the sombra, they BARELY played Mercy and played much more Moira/Ana, even though the support changes weren’t live for them yet. It just shows how the meta change heavily favors different supports than Mercy. Also, the nano buff made her ult much more flexible and able to be used defensively, which is great!
I mean, she does have effective 300 health because of her nade, and if your team/second support peel for you properly you shouldn’t be dying to dives so much. It’s just like Zen, he has zero mobility and a huge hitbox, but when his Lucio/Mercy/Ana peels for him he suddenly becomes very hard to kill. And for what Ana lacks in damage (compared to zen) she makes up with in CC and a 100 extra health on a 10 second cooldown.
Its wanna say its a hard dilemma to think about, but for what its worth Orisa, Zen, and Mercy are the roles that can dmg boost, Mercy will 100% not go to damage boost you as it pulls her too far from the team while not healing for both supports, & Zen is situational, while Orisa is an ultimate & still situational.
I do agree a lot with your point and its very fair from that POV.
My 2 concerns are how Ana fits against Widowmaker in that scenario as shes sorta this 2 shot body shot or headshot type of role and comparing her to even some damage roles at that point. Its hard to think about if its fair or not to be honest. I am unsure.
but its not just like zen. Ana’s strength is suited at a distanced playstyle away & outside the team. Zenyatta & Ana regardless of hybrids are 2 very very different playstyles. The positioning of an Ana player is comparable to a Widow player. The positioning of a Zenyatta player is close to the team as a team dmg support. Ana is a sniper role w/ utility while Zen is a team dmg support.
A support is too busy front-line to peel for you, and often times it is 1v1 or 1v2 scenario that requires Ana to have strengths she needs to win if the skill is there.
She spends too much time wasted in a 1v1, wasting too much utility that was uncalled for, and is often forced to drop down from high ground toward the team. Ana needs the damage for sustain, use, & to suit that distanced sniper support playstyle.
If she is playing like a heal dispenser 2 feet from the tanks, there is obviously something very broken about her that forces her out of that distanced playstyle and I am looking at the inconsistency in her kit where majority of roles aren’t in the 1v1 scenario.
Lets be real, 2 sniper with Rein and Zarya was the perfect Meta for Ana. Nano worked great on rein, hanzo, zarya and even zenyatta or brigitte in certain situations. She got the change to shoot through full health team mates allowing her to put pressure on enemy widow from behind rein’s shield, if nano’s down you have anti to counter enemy zen. nade to boost your zen’s ult/brigs aura, and picks weren’t nearly as common with the amount of shields/armor/healing. You rarely saw anything die unless it was a team wipe. 2 sniper was basically a game of who can get grav+dragon first. Mercy just did the bare minimum easier. Damage boost and high healing. Res for the off chance something did die without grav/dragon.
Both nade and sleep are better used offensively. They always have been. If a flanker does manage to get you to burn your cd’s using them defensively, the team fight is already heavily in favor of the enemy. To compare Ana to Zen is disingenuous. The value Ana brings to her team is through that utility and clutch burst healing. That utility is also tied to her means of survival making every decision matter. The value Zen brings to his team is offensive utility with consistent, albeit low healing. Zen doesn’t need to worry about burning cooldowns and has the damage to defend himself, while still keeping the value he brings to the team.
This is part of the design of utility having high value potential, but having its downsides.
In the same way her rifle damage has many disadvantages surrounding it, other aspects of her kit also do this. IMO that is the idea of balance when you have high value potential from her utility or rifle damage, but there certain drawbacks and things to exploit when it comes to Ana’s kit, & her rifle.
Widowmakers hook is strictly for mobility & sniper angles while she has 6 targets to dps. Ana has 11 targets & is a different story on what her rifle & utility is. How it works, how its strong, and how its exploitable. Ana is about pre-planning before things happen, decision making, and multi-tasking alongside positioning for 11 targets.
Yeah, im on board with this, if that’s what it came to. Do you feel like a movement or evade skill might also be a possible way to round out her kit instead, though? I’m thinking specifically of those moments when she has to play an extremely short game. i’ve always kind of felt like giving her more active defense was the better move, instead of just turning her into a dps
We all want that but movement and healing are OFF the table. The DEVs already stated that those are abilities and buffs that they won’t give or improve on Ana — unless it’s proven to them that nothing else at all will suffice. That’s why you see people offering every other kind of advice but those two.
The 80 hitpointers who want to see Ana returned to being a dual heal/DPS hero like she was when she first came out and…
The survivors who want Ana to have something that’ll give her a better leg up from being such an easy hero to counter or kill — a measure of self independence from having to have others peel ‘n heal her just to function.
Obviously I favor the latter. The lesson from old was that when her DPS was 80 too many Widow wannabes took to her and kept opting NOT to heal anyone. You sometimes see this with Moira today in that some people will pick her at spawn then proceed to play her as a pure DPS even tho her kit is actually stronger as a healer.
whoever wants ana to return to 80 damage are smoking something
she is already the meta pick and you wanna increase her damage output for some reason? this would lead ana to 2 shot heroes when they are discorded or damage boosted with no fall off which just makes her almost a dps
I’ve always liked the idea of giving Ana a short ledge climb ability. Sort of like Genji and Hanzo, minus the whole wall climb aspect. It would help Ana’s survivability by giving her new escape options from flankers, as well give her new sight lines to play with overall. The biggest benefit of this being first point volskya from forklift to hut and highground on temple of anubis first point by climbing the backside on box’s. As far as a movement abilities go, it’s not overbearing to the point it adds to mobility creep, and it does dampen her survivability issues without the mess of adjusting damage values.
Still doesn’t solve interaction with armor though.
just just check overbuff this week and tell me that’s not a meta hero, everyone is playing ana at my elo because she is currently the best main healer and the lucio buff is even better for ana
Rein is the equivalent of a mobile shield. Even with his bugs fixed that doesn’t change. Fixing his bugs would be the start of seeing what would put him in a better spot.
Well, this is just blatently false, but i’ll agree to disagree as it’s not the original point i was trying to make.
A hero’s problems don’t just stop existing because they’re played more. That will never be how things work. Everybody and their dog was calling Ana f tier just a couple of weeks ago. Her issues didn’t just stop being a thing because mercy took a heavy handed nerf making Ana worth running.
Yet you’re opposed to giving her damage, or an actual fighting chance?