My opinion on the changes that should be made to Ana: Rifle damage 70>80, mag size 10>12, reload speed slightly increased, and the stutter in rate of fire between an un-scoped shot followed by a scoped shot removed.
If these changes are not enough, I’d suggest a movement ability like Hanzo’s; A short, quick, sliding dash, executed by holding crouch+jump, that would allow her to both evade an enemy strike or quickly reposition herself to improve her sight-lines when healing her teammates
The firing through full-health teammates change feels wrong to me because it goes against Ana’s playstyle of precision, encroaches on what makes Moira unique, and removes Ana’s ability to act on prediction and over-heal teammates
The idea of getting all the synergy together is fantastic, but a lot of these maps and overall play has been ruled bymobility & verticality. OW plays like ‘The early bird gets the worm’, all the speed makes it very difficult & having to rely on melting people is the only answer. The new CC with Brig is looking at it in a good way, but now we have 350HP supports & raid bosses. Ana making a comeback to show anti nade is going to be key could be what we need.
Have you considered the option of giving Ana Rifle reverse falloff? Ie, the further she is from her target, more damage/healing she do. Maybe with some lower limit so she don’t get useless if forced to heal upclose.
Have you considered adding an option under her settings to turn off heal darts piercing full hp allies? The healing over time being given to a target is important but I understand others benefiting from such a change as well. By having a turn on/turn off full hp friendly fire option in her settings it could enable two different trade offs for her heal ability, sort of like the Guardian Angel settings for Mercy.
The whole point of them adding this is to make her more viable lol? Why would you want to turn it off? What’s bad about shooting through another ally to heal another one especially when people are so close together it’s hard to shoot through people? Unless you are padding stats then it shouldn’t be that big of a deal?
While this should be the case, i also feel like Ana should have a way of FULLY healing herself, rather than just half worth. That makes her especially more weak. Every other support, except Zen (who gets 150 back w/o any CDs), can get their health back full on their own. It feels a bit… strange. Especially since she’s a main healer.
Your team’s philosophy is what makes ana fun we love the strength and weakness of the hero and gives us a challenging support to play. Ana nade has high value in the game with the rise of triple support and I’m actually excited to see her come up as a viable counter.
My personal opinion about her strength is that if I am too far lets say in temple of Anubis point B.
I can easily be picked off by tracer right when I am scoped in.
Another sniper could take me out from far.
A Winston shield or my own allies running behind cover hinders me even if I am a skilled sniper who gets every shot.
I understand I should work around my counters or switch but often times even with communication the denial for ana to high ground breaks the strength of long range healing while still making her vulnerable to low risk flanks.
Personal ideas
Junkrat treatment(Mines) : Giving her 2 nades with less splash , damage and anti healing
More skilled players can land the nades right and make the most out of the small time they have. The major healing brawl meta that brig has brought into the arena can be countered and enhanced(But mostly countered as brawl meta demands triple support which the nade disables 3 people if landed right) while keeping every other aspect intact about her.
Thank you, i’ll be more confident taking her more into comp! I only enjoy playing her or zen as a healer so i’ve been waiting for a buff for a long time Ana will keep that Rein up so he can slowly rise back up!
1st) Pre-healing can mean the difference between keeping a target alive and having a dead genji who was trying to escape the front line. When you shoot a target they have a certain amount of heals they can absorb during the duration of the shot, if their HP is full nothing will happen, but if they take in any kind of damage the shot that connected with them will already be in the process of healing them letting them immediately start taking in heals from you healing dart as soon as they are damaged(The heals are over time, not instant). In my hundreds of hours of Ana this has bailed out plenty of targets from Winstons to Widows who were dueling. Think of it at Mercy beam only healing when a target has taken damage instead of being constantly attached to the target. Same with Ana, stats don’t mean anything if a change can make the difference in winning or losing a game.
2nd) Hitscan vs Projectile heals. Lets say you have a Roadhog in front of you and a Hanzo in front of him. You are standing at an angle that lets you slightly see the hanzo past the roadhog. You aim so that it seems like your cross hair will hit Hanzo, and when you fire your shot at hanzo with her unscoped projectile it will hit the Roadhog(I assume it has to do with projectile size, im not sure why?). If you scope in at the exact place your crosshair was when you were unscoped hitting the hog and use your hitscan fire it will hit the Hanzo instead of Hog.
3rd) A turn off/on switch in setting, By turning full healed friendly fire on we could still preheal/dart pocket targets at the cost of being able to shoot through full health allies. By turning it off we could have whats on ptr right now for those who don’t mind this and would rather just be able to pierce allies at the cost of prehealing. This could be implemented similar to the Mercy Guardian Angel settings and how they affect her ability.
OFF TOPIC on Heal dart option-4th) I have played her through many seasons all they way from console(season 3-4) to PC(season 4 to present) at a Masters level sustaining a positive win rate for most seasons excluding current and Mercy must pick season. I will say her biggest issues don’t come from letting allies die but from her survivability, her get out of jail free card requires strict mechanical demand, is on a 12 second CD, does low damage, and can easily be undone (Thanks partly to the quick wake up animation targets have when they are woken up before the last 5 seconds vs the slow one in the final moments of the sleep and how fast targets get up in general). The other supports escape mechanisms do not require as much skill and are more effective at dodging multiple targets rather than only one. You can’t escape both Winston and Dva by sleeping one of them vs just flying, wall riding, fading. You also don’t have the burst damage potential of Zen to bail you out either. When people try this out they will realize the healing output is not the issue, although the introduction of Brigette might make dive less prominent raising Ana’s presence and viability. So to answer your question stat boosting is worthless and the least of my worries.
Ana’s weaknesses are very much exposed when you take in account the top players for each hero.
According to Overbuff
The #1 Ana, Galeadelade averages 8,124 healing and 5,000 dmg per game.
The #1 Moira, Roxxxy averages 12,451 healing and 11,927 damage per game.
Keep in mind that this would be fine if Ana wasn’t the skill shot hero she is. So, to get this much value out of Ana, you have to hit most of your shots. The numbers would be worse for Ana if she couldn’t aim. That’s a problem. A hero who requires crazy amounts of aim and positioning cannot outheal or out damage a healer who can outdmg and outheal Ana, whilst having mobility, self heal and good range.
I think Moira is a perfect support, she’s my favorite and very balanced in my eyes. But Ana is a mess in my eyes. Moira still outheals and outdamages Ana. Ana can only provide a sleep which (is probably the most counterable cc in the game). Her utility is great but keep in mind she often has to waste it to heal herself, and the cool down is a longer CD than Moira’s orb. Why isn’t a high skill ceiling healer not out performing her former supporting in at least one thing, while requiring the most aim?
I totally understand where you’re coming from, and not to sound ungrateful for the buff but… I think the main problem is that by not giving Ana any form of self-sustain outside of her grenade, a lot of the time she has to effectively “waste” it on herself which detracts from the interesting decision-making on how best to use her grenade, either on her allies or her enemies. It’s a real bummer when it’s the most impactful part of her kit.
As an Ana main I’ve never understood people wanting her to have ways to get to high ground (where she would be easily singled out, sniped, and generally be less effective because of the travel time on her abilities) or for her darts to go through shields because they’re intentional weaknesses. The only thing I do want is to be able to make more plays with her biotic grenade rather than throwing it at my feet whenever I take too much chip damage.
Instead of thinking about “Do we need AoE/burst healing right now or should I try to anti them to get a pick?” I’m thinking “Do I want to use my grenade the intended mechanically-rewarding way to try to get the best value from it and risk dying, or do I want to chuck it at my feet and play safe?”. You can call it risk and reward, but it’s honestly just a letdown to be so dependent on your other support and healthkits to be able to consistently use the best part of your kit.
Anyway, I AM happy for the buffs to Ana and for the quick concise feedback in general. These last few months of balance changes and communication have been really great! Thanks guys! Can’t wait to see Symmetra’s rework!
Would you by chance ever consider reducing the CD of her beautiful bio-nade down to at least 7 or 8 seconds since it is useful in a pinch mass heal situation? Or maybe even a trade off where it keeps the 10 sec CD, loses the damaging effect, but it also temporarily stops or reduces damage boosting effects on enemies on top of anti-heals. So it becomes anti-heal and anti-booster.
She did steal her bio-rifle from Mercy, so I could see why her bio-nade can effect damage boosting too.
Bio-nade is currently one of the best things Ana has going for her, and we should be able to utilize it a little more.
If you do consider the anti-boost effect on it, and are thinking of the repercussions. Then here you go. Orisa’s ult, even when targeted, can last longer than the 4 seconds bio-nade effect lasts, and Mercy has a consistent damage booster on her already, which is never used that often. So this won’t make Ana step on anyone’s toes to much, it could simply help her become a little more viable.
Hi Geoff, I have probably 300 hours on Ana across 4 accounts, peak SR master.
Can I suggest the team consider a short range grapple hook for Ana? This will put a premium on positioning and only allow her to get up one floor height, say like the middle level or Hollywood or straight up to first level Numbani if she is standing right below the ledge. This will give her mobility and survival options or reposition to offensively support her team, eg get an angle that can heal past enemy shields.
Ana would not be able to grapple to very high sniper perches like Widowmaker, or carelessly position herself - in my example, her grapple wouldn’t get her to high ground Numbani from the middle or the first capture point, she would have to be right under the ledge to get up there. If the opponents run dive, a careless Winston and DVA who did not keep track or her cooldowns would land just out of range as she could move just out of reach of the Tesla cannon.
This would make her maintain her status as a fun and high skill cap hero with the BEST kit and design in the game, and not be OP. 10 bullets are more than enough if u can make them count.
![:cry:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/cry.png?v=5" ":cry:")
Ana will keep that Rein up so he can slowly rise back up!