Ana has two Biotic Grenades on her bandolier. What if she had two in-game?
Two charges, but a 20-second cooldown on each charge. If you held off and only used one every 10 seconds, you’d have exactly the same ability as we have now. However, Ana would have the option to toss two grenades, one after another, but with a longer downtime for her next grenade.
She’s have a lot more consistency with her healing and utility. In a pinch, she could heal herself AND a distant teammate with her grenade, at the cost of not having her grenade for a while. A short cooldown (2-4 seconds) between charges could be added if needed.
8 seconds of heal boost/block on a *20-second cooldown.
Ana throws one grenade. It lasts for 4 seconds. She throws a second grenade. It lasts for 4 seconds. Her next grenade comes in 12 seconds after the second one wears off.
That’s a long time for Ana to be without her most powerful ability, but I think it would warrant the power of two grenades.
The point of this change is to give Ana the option to stagger the cooldowns and have one every 10 seconds (like she does now), but she would be able to dump both charges for an important target at the cost of a long cooldown.
Assuming her team wins the fight during those 8 seconds when the opposing team can’t heal, she’s going to be waiting 20+ seconds for the next fight anyway.
I think nade does way too much to give her 2 consecutive charges to it. Her kit feels perfectly fine and I wouldn’t change anything there. If I were to choose anything to address one of her issues (which is the wasting her nade as a self heal) it would be to give her a small self heal to her healing shots. I.e if she healed a teammate a small percentage would heal her as well.
She would only get one grenade back after that 20 seconds. She would need to wait an additional 20 seconds to get the other one back, meaning she wouldn’t have two grenades for the next fight. She’d only have one, maybe getting the second back after the fight has already started.
She would need to not use her grenade for 40 seconds to get both charges back. If the enemy cannot pressure Ana or her team enough to get her to use a grenade in 40 seconds, then that’s their fault. Similar to Mercy’s Resurrect, Ana would be able to save teamfights single-handedly, but the enemy would have the opportunity to stop her by forcing her to use them non-consecutively.
This basically means 2 nades per teamfight and no fight should last >20 seconds, so this essentially doubles the amount of nades with no downside. Like rez is every 30 and it’s up for every fight.
I wouldn’t exactly complain but this is overpowered.
If you win the team fight, which is pretty likely if you can’t heal a key target for 8 seconds, then you have all the time in the world to let the grenade cooldowns refresh.
Another idea mentioned was simply split bio nade into a choice like biotic orb for Moira. You pull up a nade, then choose left or right for attack or healing. Each one is on its own cooldown. You can use two grenades, but only one of each at a time.
Those descriptions don’t conflict. The Biotic Grenade cooldown is 20 seconds, but you have two charges.
If you use a grenade and wait ten seconds to use another one, the cooldowns are staggered. You only use a grenade when the cooldown of the next one is halfway done.
If you use both at the same time, then you’ll have to wait 40 seconds to get both charges back. You’ll get one back in 20 seconds, and another back in another 20 seconds.
Either the second charge cooldown starts when you throw the second grenade (your first version), or the second charge cooldown starts when the cooldown for the first grenade ends (your second version).
The second charge can’t take both 20 seconds and 40 seconds, unless you’re Tracer IRL.
You have two charges. You throw one grenade. You have one charge left, and the cooldown begins.
Ten seconds pass. You still only have one charge, but you have ten seconds until you get the next one. You throw one grenade. You now have no charges, with the cooldown to the next one halfway complete.
Ten seconds pass. You regain a charge of your grenade.
Second situation
You have two charges. You throw two grenades. You have no charges left, and the cooldown begins.
Twenty seconds pass. You get one charge back.
Twenty seconds pass. You get your second charge back.
Continue to step 4 in the first situation, since that’s where the conflict becomes apparent, and where you can now easily clarify what you’re asking for.
If it’s “exactly the same ability as we have now,” as you originally stated, the next grenade would cool down 10 seconds later (i.e. 20 seconds after you threw the second grenade).
If it’s the same as the second situation, as you’re now suggesting, the next grenade would cool down 20 seconds later (i.e. 20 seconds after the first grenade’s cooldown ended).