So I like to play Ana and I like to think I’m quite good as her…when I can stay alive.
I’m looking for any tips on surviving as Ana (outside basic positioning) that anyone has. I’ll take general tips as well as I’m always looking to improve.
You have to push what you already know from playing her to the absolute limit to get the most value out of her. Playing her a lot in FFA helps you get the sleep dart down, and gives you experience predicting DPS characters firing paths and patterns (making you harder to hit). In regular play, it’s all about learning communication with your team, and timing your grenades and nanos. The sleep dart is usually your best personal defense, but you can also take advantage that Ana actually jumps a little higher than the other heroes with a single jump. Ana can often jump onto opponents heads to get away from them, at least this is my experience with her. Also, remember her sleep dart does not fire from the center but from the side, so the aiming can be different as compared to her primary fire.
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Okay…that’s some interesting tidbits I’ll have to experiment with. Thanks ^-^
You dont get to stay alive as Ana.
You put 1 attacker out of commission with sleepdart and then the next one kills you.
The biggest thing is communication. Because Ana lacks mobility, you’ll generally want to let your team know of any flankers you see, or any potential threats ahead of time. Like some of the other posters said, landing that sleep dart can be crucial, and in-general practice 1v1 situations in death-match type environments. Each hero will be fought differently.
Sometimes taking high ground might help as well, or being in a position that’s line of sight to enemy snipers. Pretty much you have to be aware of your immediate surroundings. Sound is another big one, you should teach yourself to hear footsteps, and other in-game sounds to distinguish where the threats are, and who they might be.
This is kind of a general support survival tip, but if you’re getting dived, remember to flee into your team if you can. Resist the urge to just backpedal, which can get you further isolated and make it easier to pick you off.
I especially like this as Ana, because then if I have to use my grenade on myself, it will also heal up the teammates that I’m hiding behind.
I find that Brigitte is a good body guard for her fellow supports, so try to stay close to her and/or your tanks so that they can protect you. When the new Symmetra hits live, try to use her Teleporters to make up for your lack of mobility.
And as always, practice landing your shots. Your Biotic Rifle is a useful dueling tool, so killing your enemy before they can kill you is always a good option. And landing Sleep Darts is very useful as well.
And as a last resort, you can heal up with your Biotic Grenade. Try to avoid using it on just yourself whenever possible, but at the same time, don’t be afraid to. A dead Ana is far less useful than an Ana with her grenade on cooldown.
Ok well here are a few:
Always stay cozily with your tanks, Reinhardt is prevalent right now
Unless your sure you can make it 12 seconds without your important cd’s, usually reserve sleeps for flankers
Use grenade on your feet only if it’s a last defense, usually request mercy backup or something
Well atleast when dive was alive don’t bother running from an enemy if you don’t have cover or allies to help. Get aggressive for example if a winston engages you push inside his shield at close range and punch that sleep dart to his face. Panic dart and panic nade is a great weakness.
Also, on a less serious note.
Mind the bug if you sleep a super-punching Doomfist. Sometimes he will continue to rocket forward, completely asleep, “doom-footing” you into a wall. I don’t know if this happens in regular play, but I know it happens in FFA from experience.
Learn how to use cover effectively, Ana is pretty small herself and using walls will help you stay alive a lot, also use crouch quite a bit to make yourself even smaller but take in account you become even slower so use it with care
Find super far away spots, range is your best tool, and I’m not talking 20 or 30 meters, there are maps where you can stand over 100 meters away from your team. People might be preocupied with flankers but when you stand this much far away even a flanker will be out of position and if the enemy team doesn’t have an Ana of their own the flanker will be completely alone, focus on hitting your dart and you’re set
Learn killing combos, they are pretty easy to memorize, most heroes take 3 shots, so try to memorize the state of their bar for when you need 2 hits or 1, Tracer for example dies on 1 hit, 1 nade and 1 melee
Don’t hesitate to heal yourself with nade but of course don’t use it if you are at 199 health… your survival is more important than anything but you need to learn when is best to stay at half health and heal your team with your shots and when it’s best to top yourself. Also remember health packs are there for you to grab, specially because you can heal from far away so hang around those and save your nade if you are close to one
I prefer to play Ana unseen. Hidden away behind an obstacle or a tank makes her less of a target. Since Ana’s shots don’t leave a trail like Widowmaker’s, the only sign you are around to the enemy is if they hear you. They’ll have to find you to attack you. So, stay out of line of sight.
While I can agree with running to your allies for protection, it’s not something I actually do for the simple fact that, in my play experience, my teammates do not bother to protect me. Even when I played in the Noob League tournament, no one felt it was a priority to aid their healer. So, I tend to help myself. Which usually means dieing since my aim goes out the window when I’m attacked. At least with Mercy, I can fly away. With Ana, there’s no where to go.
The only other advice I can offer is practice that aim. With the new mechanic that Ana no longer hits a fully healed character, I often feel like I’m missing now. That takes getting used to.
Because of her obvious lack of survivability, you have to pick a corner in the map so that your team can see you, you can see your team, but the enemy can’t. If they pay attention, they would see your tracing shots, but still, you are far enough to notice that they are coming to you.
Next is when they spotted you. Run your old legs like hell, and also practice your sleep darts. I think you have no problems with sleep darts aimming right?
Rinse and repeat, that is what I do. I play Ana on maps where I know I can pull this strat off: Hanamura point A (actually this is the only map where I can pull this off, I am too busy to find other spots on other maps).