I think Anas absolutely should feel good about the hero they play and how skillful she is. Support is a great class full of beginner heroes you have to truly master to make viable at high ranks and skillful heroes that scale with your technical skill better.
However, Ana’s “skill armor” when it comes to balancing isn’t very fair, and below I will show why she is not that far ahead of other supports, and may not even be deserving of the “Queen of Support Role” she is so often granted without question.
Ana:
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Does not need to hit head shots, the defining element that has come to be associated with skill in regards to the archetypal “sniper” class. This is actually huge and completely overlooked by advocates and detractors alike.
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Is shooting gigantic targets most of the time.
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Nade is not much harder than a common junkrat mine/bomb. The skill comes completely from resource management on a fairly long CD…which lots of people have. It is an AOE ability with nutso effects.
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Has two GREAT outs, some characters don’t even have one.
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Nano is huge value, quick building, hard to counter, not particularly skillful.
Bap needs to do damage, manage recoil, and hit head shots. He also has less forgiving cool downs. Zenyatta is extremely exploitable, has no self-defense beyond hitting shots, and also has no mobility. He is far more punishable than Ana and absolutely needs to hit head shots. Lucio’s gun is wonky, he must expertly balance between harassing, front line support, and back line peeling. He also must have map mastery and technical movement rivaling any character in the game, and must be competent in shooting while moving erratically.
To my eye, all 4 of these support are pretty close in skill and should be balanced accordingly.
120 Likes
Mercy has more mechanical depth in GA than Ana has in most of her kit
52 Likes
Ana is a victim of overblown sustain.
Skill expression went down with the introduction of strong AOE heal.
Heal prioritization is far less needed and far less impactful and more forgiving than ever.
If your team can’t die, if you don’t have an attrition war, Ana can’t be pressured.
Healing tanks is easy, I give you that, but keeping your Genji behind enemy lines alive need pinpoint accuracy.
18 Likes
Not really. Her healing hitboxes are extremely forgiving, you just need to hit near the teammate.
28 Likes
In close range
Mid + longrange needs pinpoint accuracy (+15M)
And if you go for hipfire you have to predict
13 Likes
What do you mean victim? She was literally the one that started it all.
61 Likes
These forums love to ignore the fact that Ana literally tripled the available healing when she released
38 Likes
Attrition war was still a thing with Ana.
Yeah we had triple/quad tank, but she got nerfed, also Tracer was pretty strong in Quadtank (see misfits, Tiviq on Tracer)
Yes but muh skill its okay when she has an insane kit
2 Likes
This makes me wonder if it is Bias to reward skillful healing shots because then this reward will just be passed into Tanks, cause they are easier to hit, and slow deathball comps.
Maybe reverse fall off could be better to prevent this.
You don’t need to master ga tech to be effective. Superjump is probably the only one you need, all the others are niche
14 Likes
You don’t need to master any kind of tech as Ana, just very basic aiming.
13 Likes
Before Moira was recognized as a good support, you could bleed an enemy team dry with constant pressure.
I don’t know how long you play this game and if you were around when this was a thing.
I play since season 2 and the game has change dramatically.
A good example is that Soldier had 20damage per shot and was OP, got nerfed to 19, and he is back up to 20 damage but is very weak.
2 Likes
Ana doesn’t have her own tech, but mastering sleep dart and arching nade to go above shields is pretty difficult on its own
7 Likes
Like I said, basic aim, which is much easier to learn than GA techs
4 Likes
Genji is much easier than Ana just look at the WR in lower ranks 
3 Likes
Ok, and? That doesn’t mean Ana is hard. Genji’s not a very high bar to beat.
8 Likes
The only Support that I would consider “difficult” is Lúcio.
Having to constantly switch between songs while simutaneously wall scaling and leading shots? I respect Lúcio players a lot. I could never.
8 Likes
High skill heroes are getting a better WR the higher you go