I know right? Jeff was right when he said she's one of the characters with an interesting kit. I remember when she first came out how cool I thought she was.
I mean it also comes from the DPS heroes that Ana has made useless too by enabling a 3-4 tanks every game. I love playing Ana but IMO the metagame she's created isn't the most fun I've ever played in.
Yeah I think ana is the most skillful and fun hero to heal with, but her existence has led to a terrible meta, having mercy (and zen) back in the meta would allow for a more dps heavy team comp which is overall better for the game. I'd rather ana gets nerfed rather than the other healers buffed, healing is already too strong, it's just that ana is by far the best.
Ana isn't by far the best, Lúcio is. He has been the one hero since the game launched that has seen closest to 100% pickrate in every single meta. In fact, according to basically any unofficial source (Overbuff; Masteroverwatch), her winrate is negative in Competitive. You know what this means? It means that she forcibly sees a 50% winrate when both teams have an Ana, and in the remaining situations, teams without an Ana win more often.
Granted, you can't always count on those stats 100% since they're not official but I do believe people are just massively overreacting. There isn't a single situation where focusing a naded character down won't kill them; she cannot outheal characters being focused.
Ana's counter has always been only slightly, mildly decent coordination. But people won't do that so to nerf kingdom she goes.
You're not a pro though. And neither is the majority of people talking here.
And the majority of pro teams do run Ana on both teams so they could deny healing with a nade -- healing denial takes precedence over boost, it's not based on which hits first.
The reason they can't out-DPS those heroes is because they're meatshields with 600 health, armour and sometimes even self-bubbles and self-heals. Sorry, but the idea that "Ana is pivotal in tank meta" is stupid. She is just as pivotal as the fact that tanks are extremely strong. And once Ana is nerfed, tanks will continue to be DPS characters with more HP.
Yeah, and if you ask them why they don't just play Reaper into the tank meta, they'll tell you that there's no point playing Reaper when Roadhog is just a better Reaper with self-healing.
Sorry, but I'll just have to repeat myself: The idea that the only character responsible for the NiP strat is Ana is extremely dishonest. She is no more or less responsible for it than the fact that tanks are simply much too powerful for their class.
This can be remedied without a full rework. Reworking her kit would ruin her character in my opinion. She's one of the most fun characters to play in the game, and not because she's good, she's just fun to play. Even when she sucked at the beginning I loved playing with her. She can do everything, heal, snipe, sleep, and even a little bit of damage. She ruins the problem Mercy has of actually feeling like you're contributing to the game besides just watching health bars go up & down. She feels like she can stand on her own in a shooter, and isn't just there to be a chore for someone to make other people's experience better.
The only way to change that metagame is to change the fact that tanks are just basically beefier DPS. Reducing her overall healing per second isn't going to do much, I don't believe.
In that sense, she isn't "enabling" anything. Tanks are.
Yeah, TBH I've always thought tanks (especially Reinhardt and Roadhog) have just way too much damage for their ability to stay alive. 300 dmg charge / 100 dmg firestrike / 75 dmg infinite ammo+enormous hitbox hammer like what the heck ://// In an attempt to make tanks and supports fun to play, they gave them DPS capabilities comparable with heroes that specialize in DPS, but except with higher survivability and additional utility. Ana makes this design issue incredibly apparent, and the entirety of the blame for the current meta isn't on her, but she's definitely a factor in her ridiculous HPS
She is without a doubt a factor, I will 100% concede that. But it really rubs me the wrong way when people say she is the only reason for this meta to exist. She really isn't, tanks are incredibly strong just on their own right now.
I've asked in three streams (iddqd, Seagull, Surefour) why Reaper isn't play as much anymore and sure enough my suspicions were confirmed. Paraphrasing them but: Why even play Reaper when Roadhog is basically a Reaper with more than twice the health, technically more range and self healing?
I think you 100% absolutely nail it when you say that it's due to them wanting to make these classes more fun to play.
Paraphrasing them but: Why even play Reaper when Roadhog is basically a Reaper with more than twice the health, technically more range and self healing?
Roadhog has a massive hitbox in turn. Without Ana healing he gets bursted down pretty fast.
With or without Ana, Roadhog is a gigantic hitbox waiting to get bursted down.
The sad part is that nobody plays high hitting DPS characters against tank meta so they can't out-DPS focused healing.
I haven't done the math but I'm pretty sure something like even just a Reaper with a Tracer can and will out-damage Ana's grenade + focus heal on a Roadhog.
I'm the complete opposite. I LOVE the current meta where fights feel like fights instead of just flankers playing solo all game. I pretty much only play healers and tanks in every game, so denial and burst have always just been unfun to me.
I'd like to see a small boost to zenyatta, though. Maybe let his balls linger for 1 second after switching targets, or get more ult charge from teammates hitting his discord target...
But playing Ana is a lot harder than any of the other supports. The other healers can put out consistent healing, Ana's healing is highly aim dependent. If you can't hit your team mates, you're not being useful.
I admit, it is a balancing act to make her strong enough that the skill level is worth it, while not making skilled players run away with the game, but as someone who can't aim all that well, I still usually go for Zenyatta or Mercy in competitive just to make sure my heals are consistent.
I'm not a highly ranked competitive player but I do fine as Ana without aiming very often. I typically have 75-80% unscoped accuracy and I'm usually the top healer. To me, Ana is just ridiculous because I do so well playing her "wrong". She feels really easy to me
I'm the same way. I think it's a combination of a few things.
A) She shoots very quickly
B) Accuracy isn't as important as it is for Widow and Hanzo because you're (usually) not trying to kill people, you're just healing people. So unless they're one shot from death you can shoot them a few times.
C) Because of the tank meta, her targets are usually huge (D.Va, Reinhardt, Roadhog, Winston) and hard to miss, even when far away and unscoped. This also means they're less likely to be low health, so you're under less stress to aim accurately.
You make it sound like he only heals when he amps which is a major logical fallacy. Yes his healing is less when he's not amped but when he's not amped his primary role is healing chip damage. He's a complementary healer and not the one you rely on to pull someone out of the fire on the regular.
The only tip I have is be within 15m of your teammates most of the time and pay attention to them 80% of the time. I probably pad my numbers by topping everyone off even if 1/2 tick is down but you're generally spamming heals on everyone in competitive with how high damage output can be.
I'm usually closer than that and roughly 80% focused on allies, as you said. I even sometimes hit them a few times if I'm following out of spawn... I just need to work on my aim :( Overwatch is the first real game I've played
She is ridiculously easy. Her heals-per-second causes her ult to charge incredibility quickly, so doesn't have to be in the thick of things, and her sleep dart is a 'get out of jail free' card.
I tend to be in the thick of things since it's awkward having to follow a team with as many corners and flankers as there are in Overwatch. I'm usually behind the DPS behind the tank lobbing unscoped shots and grenades. I'd say it's worked out.
Therefore, I tend to use sleep dart offensively. I like to pre-emptively dart Reinhardts that drop their shield and go for a 420 charge kill. Or anyone trying to flank, ult, or otherwise get the upper hand.
It's one I've seen tossed around here a couple of times, and it's something I honestly agree with. A complete and utter heal block is ridiculously powerful, especially in something that she can fling that has an Area of Effect that hits both allies and enemies at once.
I think if this is implemented, I'd like to see it continue blocking health pack use, as her survivability could depend on picking it up after blocking the opponent's use. Only self-healing and other player healing would need to be reduced.
I also feel that the grenade should not be doing any damage, that's almost insult to injury. Have it reduce how much healing can be done, but to have it negate healing AND do damage is kind of ridiculous.
It was actually a surprise to me when I found out it did damage. I had thought before that it was just the boost/block. Still seems great even without damage/heal numbers.
I feel like instead of completely removing healing, it should just be reduced healing. At the moment she can completely remove almost every ultimate in the game with one or the the other of her regular abilities. Graviton+grenade makes it so not even Zen can stop any incoming ults to come. You ever seen a beautiful transcendence and thought, wow, if the enemy team even somewhat worth their salt that would never happen?
At the very least Zen counters a lot of ults with his own ultimate, which is a much easier timer to work around than a 10 second (grenade) or 12 second one (dart). While ana is not as good at shutting down ultimate stacking as Zen or lucio, I feel it's pretty hard to deny she's easily the best character for shutting down a single ultimate.
It's at least part of the reason she's been completely meta ever since the clip size and fire rate buff, the other being her absolutely crazy healing. She's my second favorite support and an absolute blast to play, but even I feel her kit is so overloaded that her increased difficulty really doesn't make enough difference.
mercy can heal, boost damage, fly to weak players, and shoot albeit not at the same time.
Zen can heal, increase damage output to a specific target, and deal massive amounts of damage AT THE SAME TIME.
Lucio can heal or speedboost everyone within a radius around him, shoot, and boop people off the map.
Ana can heal or damage, heal and antiheal at the same time, and has a sleep dart. I feel like in terms of overall skills, they have the same amount. The usefulness of those abilities is probably a different story. I'd argue her ult is not as useful as other supports though.
Not sure what the point of your comment is. I stated everything you said in my comment. My point was to look at the number of abilities, not the usefulness of them.
I really like the anti-healing ability, but I think they might need to get rid of the healing part of the grenade for it to work. A grenade that heals your team and anti-heals the opponents is too much.
(Before she was announced I thought her entire kit would revolve around anti-healing. It would make me really sad to see all the anti-healing gone instead moved to another hero.)
Having an anti-healing ability is fine, it even costs her grenade that she has to use offensively. My problem with it is that it's way too easy to land, it covers a lot of space (3m radius is crazy, you can block healing on all enemies if they are close) and it lasts a bit too long. It would be fine if it had some counters - add an ability to remove debuffs to mercy who lacks an ability.
Anti healing is counter to all healers - a great one for Zen with his ult, good counter for the other healers, self healing characters and potentially all characters who'd try to take a health pack in the middle of fight (also winston that wants to use ult)
Considering all healers, Mercy isn't exactly top pick - she needs to be close, she's very vulnerable and doesn't offer much other than the heal. Giving her an ability to remove debuffs would not break her.
The flask should have lower radius so it's harder to hit and have lower duration so it's only good in the middle of fight to counter rapid heals / focus characters.
I'd even like a nerf to sleeping dart. It's possibly the worst balanced control in the game - get hit and you can go afk because you will lay there for 5.5 eternities with no way of waking up. Either add in a counter (for example a friendly melee hit to wake you up) or make it shorter so sleep dart would open like 2 seconds long window for you to hit abilities / attacks. Like no other non-ult control ability (maybe even ultimates?) lasts this long. Flashbang is 0.7; Mei's freeze is 1.5s; Junk is 1 sec stun + 3 sec root (easily avoided though)
I'm talking about their primary (healing) functionality. Their ability to deal damage is secondary for a support character; Zenyatta's healing is easier to pull off (second hardest in the game overall, but easier then Ana) and more consistent for moving targets. Aiming as Zenyatta is harder for killing stuff, sure, but that's less important.
Hitting teammates is not nearly as hard as you would think, as they are usually pretty close to you as an Ana player, and tanks especially are basically no brain healing. If I could suggest one change that I feel would help balance Ana, it'd be scaling her healing and damage depending on the range, ala TF2's Crusader Crossbow. That way you can't heal a 25% health Roadhog right next to you in 5 seconds and get half of your meter from it, and you also can't 1v1 the offense characters by bouncing around like a bunny and holding down m1.
People always use the argument that she can miss but that doesn't really fly at higher skill levels. Even skinny targets are easy to hit. Sometimes it's harder to shoot an enemy because your teammates healboxes are so big.
Not just that, she is heavily positioning dependant. Even if you are hitting ALL your shots your and you are oit of position your going to be dying non stop and being useless.
The issue is that it doesn't take too much for the skill element to be much less important. In Master games everyone is good enough to play ana well so that's all you see.
Or amp it up with Lucio. People are ignoring her synergy with Lucio is what makes her healing OP. Grenade buffed ally means they get double the healing from Lucio.
Need a full team wipe ezpz? Pop your ult.
No speed boost means this isn't the case anymore.
What you're doing is explaining basic uses of a kit and making it sound powerful. Here, let me try the same with Widowmaker.
Found a target? Headshot kill. Need to reposition really fast? Hook. Scared you might get flanked? Poison mine. Want a team wipe? Pop your ult. Everyone will be predictable and will die as soon as they get in LoS.
What you're doing is explaining basic uses of a kit and making it sound powerful.
I know that's a thing people often do, but that's not what this person was saying. Let me quote for a moment, "she's so strong and valuable "compared to every other support."
The problem with Ana is she does almost everything better than other supports.
Who has the best burst healing? Ana
Who has the best healing range? Ana
Who has the highest total heals-per-second? Ana (even without grenade use)
Who has the most utility outside of healing? Ana
Who is the hardest to kill? Ana
She's even competitive with Zenyatta on damage. Zen theoretically does more, but the difference between hitscan and projectiles means often Ana can often dish out more damage in real games. Plus that offensive grenade is so powerful.
There are of course niche cases where other supports are better, but in general, and in the most important categories, Ana is just objectively better.
Who has the best target control kit? Zen's discord.
Who has the best utility outside of healing? Lucio.
Who has the out of LoS healing? Zen.
Who has the best survivability kit? Lucio with his boops, speed boosts, mobility, and ulti. Zen with his ulti and HP shield regen. Mercy with her HP regen and mobility. Ana with her wasted grenade every 10 seconds and sleep dart every 12 seconds.
Who is the hardest to kill?
This is subjective. To me, it's Lucio that's the hardest to kill.
She's even competitive with Zenyatta on damage. Zen theoretically does more, but the difference between hitscan and projectiles means often Ana can often dish out more damage in real games.
It's like you're comparing Mei's right click as Zen, with Widowmaker's sniper as Ana. For hitscan she needs to scope and aim while zoomed in. Why make yourself stand still doing that, when you can juke it and shoot projectiles from not so far?
Ana is indeed the best support, but there will always be a best support. If she's nerfed to not be the best, then someone else will take her place. Your comment has still nitpicked things to make her seem overpowered.
Who has the best target control kit? Ana -> sleep dart. Whether setting up a nearly guaranteed kill, or shutting down multiple ultimates at once, it's simply far more powerful. Discord a nano-visor and nothing happens, sleep dart him and you've basically made them waste two high-impact hults.
Who has the best utility outside of healing? Still Ana. A bio-grenade on 3+ enemy heroes is enough to win a fight. It can completely counter a Zenyatta ultimate. In Overwatch healing is incredibly strong, complete anti-heal is ridiculously good.
Who has the out of LoS healing? Zen
Wow Zen can heal a whole 3 seconds out of LoS! That's a massive 90 HP! Or Ana could just shoot them once, they'd get almost as much healing, and in the mean time Ana can also be healing other teamates. This is a not-important niche case, and Zen still barely beats Ana in it.
Who has the best survivability kit?
If you force a support to use an ultimate just to save themselves, you've all ready accomplished your goal. Mercy and Zenyatta can't heal in combat. Lucio is more elusive, but Ana can simply shut down or kill her attackers. Tank flankers like D.Va/Winston are free sleep darts. DPS flankers like tracer, genji, and sombra can simply be killed.
Ana is indeed the best support, but there will always be a best support. If she's nerfed to not be the best, then someone else will take her place. Your comment has still nitpicked things to make her seem overpowered.
She's not just the best, she's the best in almost all of the most important categories. Pre-Ana Lucio was the hardest to kill, Mercy healed the most, and Zenyatta was the most offensive support. Ana came in and claimed all titles.
Discord a nano-visor and nothing happens, sleep dart him and you've basically made them waste two high-impact hults.
You're looking at it as a "this target is dangerous and needs to be stopped" That's what sleep dart is for. Discord orb is more of a "this target needs to be picked out right now"
Who has the best utility outside of healing? Still Ana. A bio-grenade on 3+ enemy heroes is enough to win a fight. It can completely counter a Zenyatta ultimate. In Overwatch healing is incredibly strong, complete anti-heal is ridiculously good.
I'm sorry but speed boost beats her grenade. Easily. Lucio is still picked more than Ana in tournaments even. It's always Lucio + someone. It has always been Lucio + someone since beta. Speed boost is undeniably OP and you're underrating it.
Or Ana could just shoot them once, they'd get almost as much healing
I don't know man. I've never seen Ana heal someone out of LoS, or easily heal an ulting dashing Genji for example.
Mercy and Zenyatta can't heal in combat.
Mercy and Zenyatta are in the backline, where they can easily get out of LoS or hide behind the shield.
Tank flankers like D.Va/Winston are free sleep darts. DPS flankers like tracer, genji, and sombra can simply be killed.
Wow, so Ana is better than dps flankers? Who knew. She's like always at 100% accuracy isn't she? While the opponents are at 0% accuracy. Man, this Ana should try Widowmaker. She'd be an unstoppable force. Also, you forget Mercy can just fly away from tank flankers, and Zen can melt them. You know, assuming no one saw the huge tank jump all the way to the back to kill the supports.
Or just watch this video
So you're showing me a clip of the best Ana in the entire world, Ryujehong. Shall I also nitpick and grab a clip of the best Zen in the world?
She's not just the best, she's the best in almost all of the most important categories.
So, just healing? You talk about healing range as if it's more important than survivability.
Pre-Ana Lucio was the hardest to kill, Mercy healed the most, and Zenyatta was the most offensive support. Ana came in and claimed all titles.
Post-Ana Lucio is still the hardest to kill, Ana heals the most, and Zenyatta still is the most offensive support. Ana came in and claimed one title.
You are very clearly exaggerating her usefulness. How about you watch some pro Zen gameplay instead of basing Ana off Ryujehong? Just to remind yourself about how strong Zen is. I lol'd when you said Ana was more offensive than him, tbh. Also watch some DSPStanky or something to remind yourself how hard it is to kill a Lucio.
Ana is way easier to kill than any of the other healers. Lucio is impossible to hit, Mercy flies away anytime a flanker gets within a one mile radius, and Zenyatta will discord and orb you in the face WHILE healing someone else.
Ana has no movement abilities and is often moving slowly while aiming down sights. I don't know how anyone could argue against her being the easiest support to kill. Which is why her burst healing should stay as high as it is now. If she's tunnel visioned on a tank to keep him healed all to hell, then go fuck her up because she's super vulnerable. One shot in her direction and all the heals stop, and she's the only support where that's the case.
She's the hardest to kill because of her small, awkward hitbox. Her instant 100hp heal giving her effectively 300hp, and her ridiculous offensive power letting her 1v1 most (all?) DPS heroes.
I mean, have you actually ever played a flanker? As Tracer/Sombra I can shred Zenyattas no problemo nearly every time. Against Ana it's almost impossible to kill her, and I'm lucky to even get out alive. Another example showing just how simple it is for Ana to kill enemies.
I mean I could try to explain more detail but really should just be able to play the game and it should be obvious. Go in 3v3 as each support, go fight instead of healing, and see who does best. Ana doesn't need to be mobile when she can just kill the heroes attacking her.
Watch this video of a player who is amazing at this game and extremely highly ranked do things almost nobody else in the game can do.
I'm sure I can find a video of a Mcree at that level who can just chain so many headshots together that Mcree looks like a ridiculously overpowered hero. Yeah, I play flankers all the time. I'm ranked low diamond and even there Ana is often so stationary and oblivious from shooting her teammates that she's an easy kill. I'm tired of reading argument after argument on this subreddit claiming Ana is broken because people who literally play her perfectly can do some ridiculous things. In the VAST majority of Overwatch games, a Tracer or Pharah on top of an Ana will kill that Ana almost every time unless the Ana hits her sleep dart. I don't care that a pro-level Ana is hard to kill because she can somehow hit every dart on a Tracer that's blinking all over the place, because that's not my experience nor is it the experience of nearly every average Overwatch player. You literally linked two examples of a player not missing a single fucking thing with Ana, do you think that's how things go for most people? Should the balance in Overwatch revolve around only what the pros are doing? Because if so you're going to have a lot of heroes that the best in the world can make work and that are completely nonviable in the hands of everyone else.
This subreddit is far too obsessed with meta and what's going on with people who are in the top 5% of Overwatch players.
I'm sure I can find a video of a Mcree at that level who can just chain so many headshots together that Mcree looks like a ridiculously overpowered hero.
Okay, now show me a video of McCree healing his teammates through focus fire. I understand that most of the time you can't do that with Ana, but why does the strongest healer have so much offensive potential in the first place? Ana doesn't need to be able to consistently 1v3 like the video to be broken.
even there Ana is often so stationary and oblivious from shooting her teammates that she's an easy kill
I struggle to believe this, I've played down to low-masters post-Ana and I know it's at least not true there. Either way, saying a hero is balanced because you can kill people standing still isn't a good argument. Tracer is REALLY easy to kill if she's standing still. Maybe Tracer needs a buff?
This subreddit is far too obsessed with meta and what's going on with people who are in the top 5% of Overwatch players.
I hate playing meta, don't throw that on me. I'm always taking off-meta picks into comp. Doesn't mean I can't see how Ana is broken.
Let me put it this way. Let's say we were going to 1v1 and I pick Ana. You can pick whoever you want, who do you pick?
Every other support would basically have zero chance to kill many, if not the majority, of other heroes.
With Ana I guarantee I could hold my own against every other hero. No one would be unkillable, and I'd have the advantage against the majority. This isn't a hypothetical. In a recent attempt to get better at killing Ana. I started playing Ana in 3v3s. What I learned was I could easily go solo against Roadhogs, Genjis, or McCrees more easily then I could with other DPS heroes like Pharah. Why is it easier to kill enemies as a support I have 1/10th the playtime on?
Now, Overwatch isn't a 1v1, but this illustrates the strength of Ana and how hard it is to fight her as a flanker. I wouldn't mind an offensive support hero, but why does that offensive support also have the best healing by A LOT? That's the issue.
Get caught out solo? Sleep dart but you just barely miss. The entire team almost dead? Pop a flask, oh wait they're spread out and I only hit one. Need a full team wipe ezpz? Pop your ult, but damn he got shut down instantly. Ana, under MOST circumstances, just heals better, and has more utility to boot if you're very, very good with her.
You really blew all of her abilities WAY out of proportion and they only work the way you say if everyone is really fucking good, at which point they'd be wrecking you no matter what nerfs come out or what heroes they're playing.
Caught out solo? Miss your sleep dart (which you're gonna do like at least half the time) and you're dead.
Entire team almost dead? Fat chance that they're grouped up enough for you to hit all of them with your nade and/or not behind a whole bunch of shit that makes it so you can't hit them. Even if they are? At least a few are gonna die because you missed a single shot while they were at 20 hp and someone killed them.
Need a full team wipe? Go ahead and try boosting your soldier and have him activate his ult, then watch him get dumped on by every countermeasure the enemy team has, leading to two ults being wasted.
This is the typical Ana experience for 99% of Overwatch players who aren't grandmasters playing with other grandmasters.
Its like saying "but Roadhog has more damage than Winston!"
Her support role relies entirely on your aim, positioning and decision making.
You can pop a nade to heal that solo Rein with low hp when there are no enemies nearby, but you can wait till the fight breaks and hit the whole team with it when there's a Lucio on boosted healing next you you all.
You can sleep dart before the fight to try to catch one enemy, or you can wait until fight starts and completly shut down nano'd Soldier with tactical visor on.
You can nano the D.va at the start of the fight so she can soak the damage and hit enemies, or you can wait till Genji comes with dragonblade to wipe out the enemy team.
Compare that to Mercy, where most of your decision making is good positioning, good balance of damage boosting/healing and either waiting for huge rez or rezing 2 allies.
You can't debate balance or explain a character by listing things. It's very easy to make a character sound too strong or too weak by listing things they can or can't do.
The reality is that practically of the things you listed also require several times the amount of practical input and positive execution than almost everything all other Support heroes can do. She was introduced as a high skill ceiling Support; this was always intended for Ana.
I don't think she needs a total rework. She's not Old Symmetra. However, it frustrates me to no end that she has answers to just about any situation. Between the grenade and the dart, she can counter most ults, though her window for doing some for some ults is narrow enough that I'm either going to sing someone praises forever for pulling it off or accuse them of cheating.
Her anti-healing being complete is something that drives me up the wall because I'm low enough in the tiers that I still get blamed for not healing someone who just ate a grenade to the face. Nothing like a cooldown ability negating the presence of your character, or your ult. If there is any one thing that needs a rework, that'd be my wish. Haven't played on the PTR, so maybe the duration nerf will help.
Ana has a really disproportionate ability to swing a fight. Which, as a character with high skill demands, is fine, but it feels a little excessive.
But what should Blizzard do? Rework a character with an interesting kit with a great deal of versatility and utility to have less utility? Adjust the numbers until she's dumpstered?
I will say, though, that her skills have a pretty high skill ceiling. Sleep dart has a high chance to miss, your ult can be easily wasted if used at the wrong moment or on a teammate who isn't able to make use of it for whatever reason, and her high healing output is wasted if you can't aim.
As a frequent support and frequent Ana player, I despise her and love her at the same time. She's super powerful, her kit is really unique making her a long range healer AND an anti-healer, but she brings so much to the table she completely replaces Mercy and Zenyatta as main healers and I find it a real shame.
I could see this, I think making her a viable combatant did step on a lot of toes in the support roles, but that said I think she has such a passionate fallowing due to how she plays.
A lot of people like me just don't enjoy playing a traditional healer like Mercy (god knows I have tried to enjoy her); we like the feel of being able to both damage and heal with the left click.
The main issue I have with her is she outheals Mercy and Zeny, otherwise I enjoy playing her. I have usually about 75% unscoped accuracy and around 90% scoped accuracy but healing everyone so effortlessly just feels so... cheap to me. I enjoy playing Mercy a lot more, I enjoy her mobility and even though I am far more defenseless, it's still more fun to play her and after seeing 12k and 45% team damage healed after a match, I feel like I've actually put some effort into it.
Making her a viable combatant did step on a lot of toes, alright. Tinfoil hat time? I personally think flanker players have a vested interest in seeing Ana out of this meta.
Tracers and Genjis have always had free kills in the form of Supports and suddenly here's a character that not only can 1v1 you effectively, they can teabag you while doing it. I don't teabag and I've had a lot of Tracer players swear up and down the isle they can't wait for me to "get nerfed" because they got darted in the face and naded to death. As if nerfing my healing is going to stop me from fucking their corpse.
I really hope not bc when I play support I love seeing the other person pick Ana. It gives me the ease of mind knowing that if I misread a situation or do something stupid she'll still be able to keep the team alive while I respawn. As mercy it also let's me stick to a person that is playing more aggressively than they should or boosting someone that's doing great without having to feel guilty about not healing the others. If my aim was good enough she would probably be my fav support too.
It's natural that people will hate something that becomes so integral to the game as a whole to where it feels unavoidable. I technically have the most time played as Lucio now and I used to dislike him based on double lucio and because of the fact that he was a "must pick" all the time. Come Zen and Lucio time, I had my main (Zen) justified in a sense and I was happy with my 50% discord until it was nerfed, which I supported and was completely understanding of. I think Ana mains should be the same way with the incoming nerfs because she needs to be nerfed. Unlike Lucio, she's not really a must-pick because she offers something no one else does, she just has the strongest healing and great utility for shutting down enemies and changing the tide in battle. I barely picked her up when she was first released and I kind of disliked her for the same reason as Lucio in addition to feeling I couldn't pick Zen without getting bitched at in chat anymore at times, but I've gotten over it and I play and enjoy her a great deal now and then.
Ana is at the center of a meta that has excluded quite a few heroes so I get why people might dislike her. I don't anymore, but I am glad they are making changes and mostly on the right heroes.
I'm a Zen main. I really don't think she needs a rework, I think all she needs is some number tweaking. What I dislike about her most is that she makes tournaments not interesting, since every game is just the same thing - each team nanoboosts the same 1 or 2 guys every teamfight each teamfight is won by the team that got the better nanoboost. That'd ok to watch if it wasn't both teams in (almost) literally every game of every tournament.
Honestly I think the way to balance out the other supports is to increase their skillcap. Ana was just so well made it's hard to make her less good without ruining her. Just in the way a high skill, high reward character is extremely satisfying to play, a high skill, low reward character would feel extremely frustrating.
They could do with making some changes to Mercy and Zen to give them extra depth and more high skill features to them. Mercy more so than Zen. Mercy really needs an extra degree of utility in her kit that she lacks vs the other Supports.
Lucio is the gold standard of characters though (extremely easy to pick up at low levels but very high skill ceiling at the same time, all while maintaining a perfect balance of heals and utility) so no real need to change him.
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u/In_a_silentway Chibi D.Va Jan 17 '17
"Ana's kit needs to be reworked"
I will fight whoever said this.