Let’s talk about Ana
Compared to ow1 i think many of us would agree that Ana doesnt feel quite as good. She has an effective and fun kit that has always been popular and beloved. Ana is one of the more difficult heroes to get consistent value out of. Right now we are in a meta run by Kiriko who counters Ana’s abilities harder than any other character before. Ana had most of her kit nerfed moving to ow2 except for ammo count and the passive. As well as the newly buffed tanks posing a much larger threat to you. You will find yourself in many more unwinnable scenarios as ana and can be left feeling quite helpless. I would say that if you wish to play optimally you really shouldn’t play ana but instead kiriko/lucio/bap/zen or moira/mercy if you can’t aim(though anas range/utility offers a unique kind of support that should not be overlooked). As things currently are, the amount of skill and effort it takes to make use of her kit is just not worth the trouble unless you mastered her in ow1. Here is a list of changes that I think will make her feel less helpless and make her a more competitive option to other supports. In order from most to least reasonable though i think they are all good ideas.
1.Anas damage should ignore armor: since all of the characters with armor have 250+ hp there is absolutely no reason her already low damage should be reduced by armor especially since most armored characters are tanks with 500+ health pools. It makes sense too because it’s a syringe that does a set amount of damage either the armor blocks it or it goes through and does the full damage right?
2.Suzu cleanse should not affect sleep: considering how many situations there are where Ana’s one option to survive is to sleep the opponent it’s insane that this was even allowed to be a thing. Let me give you a scenario lets say a competent dva dives on you, your one option is sleep her and then run or get help the dva can eat your sleep your nade and melt you before you can cry for help so why in this scenario can a kiriko teleport to the dva out of nowhere MAKE HER INVINCIBLE AND WAKE HER UP while healing her and throwing daggers at you. Any sliver of hope you had to survive that situation has been completely crushed and with little to no counter play on your part. Let me give another scenario: you got a nanoed genji who just dashed and ulted at you but you landed the nastiest sleep dart of your life and stopped him. guess what Kiriko can just teleport over wake him make him invulnerable and heal him. These kinds of situations are unacceptable and should not be in the game. This is the equivalent of having a hero that rips Kiriko back when she teleports or turns off Lucio wall ride and speed boost just by pressing E.
3.sleep dart cooldown and duration:either increase the duration of sleep effect to 7 or lower the cool down to 12 idk why they nerfed this. With duration at 7 the full sleep can overlap a full ult and give you more time to get away if you or your team cant follow up. You could also just do both but that’s maybe a bit much especially with cleanse not affecting it.
4.Anti nade cool down, anti duration, and damage: The damage of the nade should be increased to 70-80 with kiriko running around it should have more damage to make up for suzu(also helps with her overall damage potential). I think also with the anti effect duration being nerfed from I think 4.5 to 3 seconds(don’t quote me on it but it is less than before) the cool down needs to be lowered to 8 or the nerf should be reverted. The radius of the explosion should be slightly bigger as well. I swear they messed with it because nades that would have hit before just don’t and i’m not the only one who’s noticed this. They could implement all of this but for sure the radius of the explosion needs to be looked at. I suppose you could also have duration tied to the radius direct hit 5 sec then splash 3.5 sec
5.anas ability to deal damage to bulky targets:the easy thing to do would be to just buff her damage to 75 while ignoring armor but i think that’s lame. My idea is that with each successive hit that Ana does the next hit on that same opponent is increased by a percentage like a poison slowly building in their system. If you miss that will result in a damage reset and there will be a short time window for you to make the follow up shot(probably when the damage stops ticking your damage resets). For example 10% 70, 77, 84, 92, 101, 111, 122, 134. I think the neat thing about this is it doesnt ruin any squishy break points except for the 3 shot on 225 but I think she should 3 shot those characters anyway cus them being left with a sliver is just demoralizing. You could also have a flat +10 damage per shot or something like that. Also could have the damage cap at 100-120 per shot so it doesn’t get too crazy but I still think this would be fair because there would be a time limit on the damage reset, you can’t miss or it resets and it’s easily countered by just putting up a shield or taking cover. To compare Hanzo landing 4 body shots or 2 head shots is 500 damage vs ana 4 shots like this with 323 damage. I think this would be good, especially since she can’t land headshots and this would be her form of a critical hit. I think it’s also important so she has a better chance against a Winston or Dva and they have counter play options of their own like disengaging or matrix/bubble strafing. I suppose another thing you could do is make it so ana and only ana does more damage to slept targets.
6.let ana nano herself: I mean people have been asking for this since she came out and i’m pretty 50/50 on it because on one end i’ve had games where I don’t have any good nano targets and i know i could use it for myself better also would be a life saver in a pinch. On the flip side can you imagine diving an ana only for her to get nano and whoop your butt like that would cancer lol. I guess you could run from her but she can sleep you and you likely already used your movement option to get to me. Not to mention a good ana has nano for almost every engagement. They could give it a longer, more telegraphed animation so you have time to react. I wouldn’t mind testing waters with it since I don’t think it would be game breaking and if it was they could just revert it immediately. Then again it’s been a whole season and they haven’t touched sojourn so maybe not.
What are your thoughts?