Very few maps have a decent vantage point that also offers protection as well as healing.
Ana’s “range” is more of a hindrance than anything; Ana is already super greedy with her abilities since she HAS to use them to stay alive, and now she has to take away from the other supports, or the team to be justified.
Also Zen? Moira? Brigitte? Lucio? They all have kits and tools to either dissuade being jumped, mobility to escape, or stun’s and knockback to turn the tide. None of which come anywhere NEAR Ana’s SINGLE target CC’s cooldown.
She on average heals 3000 less hp than Mercy, her mobility is worse than Zen’s, and she literally has no escape?
She has WAY more trade offs than ANY other support in the game; there still needs to be a reason to bring an Ana to play.
Right now, Mercy and Moira can just ignore what keeps Ana so down. They don’t need to waste what utility they have keeping alive. They can ignore chip damage. They have the chance to escape bad situations. They have tools to change positions.
Ana needs a healing passive to be even THOUGHT of as balanced in the way the game has moved
They’ve said they don’t want to fix her issues, particularly mobility and self-heal, because every character needs weaknesses lul. They want to buff her strengths. But they won’t do that either cause tank meta is scary and Ana will be OP/Broken/Mandatory again. probably
Ana needs something more. Whether that’s mobility or self-heal.
I’ve started playing her recently and she’s easily the most fun support with so much potential.
But she is inherently flawed relative to the other supports.
Like it’s depressing how simple a “Healing an injured teammate heals Ana for 10hp (Rifle Only)” would actually make her feel and play so much better
Lack of mobility I can live with since I DO agree she still needs a weakness; but if they wont give us damage, mobility, or a self heal; Ana will ALWAYS be the worst support option
Moria healing through barriers is on the Known bug list. Apparently is she not meant to heal teammates through barriers.
Proof:
But yes I do agree with you. Ana contribute less than other healers in a team thanks to her weaknesses. Her anti heal is great, but not enough am I afraid.
November until May; 7 months and it’s still not fixed?
We’re almost in JUNE and she can still do it
And even if they DO fix it; because of how her heals work she still offers the HoT effect after people pass by barriers (Kinda like how Lucio can’t heal through barriers, but his heal lingers 3 seconds after breaking LoS)
Plus she still has her orb to help supplement this if they DO fix it
Ana is just SoL for helping people behind barriers
Which wouldn’t be so bad if you could actually use your grenade for the team and toss it at the people who have come back across the barrier
Oh but it’s still on cooldown because you lost 70 hp from chip damage; sorry Ana, you should have been playing a better support!
Those r the weaknesses that the devs wanted to keep on her. All heroes have to have some sort of weakness to keep them balanced. Ana’s weaknesses are just easier to take adavantage of, especially against dive. Ana also has some of the best utility if u use them properly. She has the best healing of u land all of ur shots and that got is getting a buff too. She has plenty of strengths to balance out their weaknesses. Also btw the self-nano can used in FFA which is kinda just a tiny buff for her in FFA.
She is also the only healer who can immediately heal without being out of combat, with the exception of Moira who can heal while tickling the enemy or just like Ana by using an ability on cooldown
Ana being able to nade herself is NOT a handicap and you should use it whenever you need it and there’s no healthpack in sight
This gets her nowhere. Look at her pick and winrate compared to all the other healers. It is a handicap. A strength only means something if its an actual strength.
her win rates and pick rates mean nothing, the fact that her best use cases are so difficult is what drives people away from her but in the end the answer for Ana is very simple, if you can’t play her, then don’t play her or invest quite a bit of time finding out when and where she’s at her strongest
I’m no saying the use is for her only, you aren’t low on health all the time and if you can’t hit sleep dart or if you don’t use range to your advantage then of course you’ll be in danger all the time and will need to nade yourself, there is however a balance and a finesse on knowing when and where you use these skills
Mercy, Moira, Brigitte, and Lucio can all heal in combat situations?
Sure not as much as Ana has the ability to, but the all still can.
Also if you’re using your grenade in combat, that’s value lost for the team unless you’re within 6 metres of them; which then goes against one of Ana’s “strengths” of being ranged.
So using your grenade on JUST yourself is a handicap when no other support has their most useful tools just to stay in the game.
Also not being at full health for a support is a HUGE risk; there’s so much mobility in the game that at any moment an enemy can close the gap on you in a few seconds leaving you totally without anything to save yourself
Also like the fact that her “win rates and pick rates mean nothing”; guess that means Brigitte is totally balanced and fine! She’s easy to use and thus should have such high winrates in every rank
You eliminate yourself from being taken seriously by this. Even in GM among the best players in the game she is the least picked support and she has the lowest winrate. It truly shows how limited people’s understanding is when they can’t see that even among the best players in the game she is not a great option.
She’s not strong, the facts show that at all levels of play. There is no other support that would trade being able instantly heal themselves over their reliable passive healing, not one.
Edit: Even if I were to take her instant heal being “strong” as a credible argument, I’d fully be open to giving it up if it means she had a more reliable form of healing.
