Patch is out - bring on the Nana Boost

[Destriel]

I just pick my words carefully. And no, not really. Played some more competitive with my team tonight, they had the same view; couldn't find a fit for her.

She fits practically anywhere, unless you're like those people who play Zarya and pop their ultimate with 0 energy charge. If you can't find a fit for someone with such a versatile tool kit as Ana then I have to call in skill level into question. Considering you will not provide any solid back up to your claim "pretty useless" except opinions of you and your friend, I'm left to my own assumptions. If you're not gonna provide a legit reason outside of she can't out snipe widow maker, then please move along and save providing poor information to anyone who hasn't tested her.

[Jessicka]

And to expand on that. She can't get into positions quickly (if at all) to provide Overwatch, so she can't exploit her range due to LOSing at ground level, and she's useless as a counter sniper because no head shots. It's actually harder to hit team mates ducking and weaving at close range because of her low rate of fire. So as the poster above says, she's best at medium range but out of LoS because of immobility making her an easy target for affore mentioned Heroes. But here she's very then heavily exposed to flankers. Her "escape" such as it is, is Sleep, which is on a long cool down and broken by damage, which makes it horribly unreliable. Even if you stay safe, shooting through a crowd of your own players to heal the ones injured at the front can be a nightmare.

Her kit seems all over the place, inconsistent and lacking any real synergy with itself. Maybe I just don't 'get' her or need some more play time (which she'll absolutely get, at least in Quick Play) but I can't see where she really "fits" as she's so unfocused. Sure her grenade would be good with Lúcio or Zenyetta ults, but it's kind of overkill at that point. It's also great on offense, if she can get close; which was an issue we had once when up against her. Rest of the time she was a free kill.

So yeah, very limited when you now have a very viable Zenyetta to provide that hybrid DPS/Support alongside the already very good Mercy and Lúcio.

Don't get me wrong, she is really fun to play, I immediately blew my savings on her Horus skin and I want to play her more; but to be seriously practical outside of Quick Play she still needs some work. That's not unexpected, and Blizz aren't shy of doing that.

[Destriel]

And to expand on that. She can't get into positions quickly (if at all) to provide Overwatch, so she can't exploit her range due to LOSing at ground level, and she's useless as a counter sniper because no head shots. It's actually harder to hit team mates ducking and weaving at close range because of her low rate of fire. So as the poster above says, she's best at medium range but out of LoS because of immobility making her an easy target for affore mentioned Heroes. But here she's very then heavily exposed to flankers. Her "escape" such as it is, is Sleep, which is on a long cool down and broken by damage, which makes it horribly unreliable. Even if you stay safe, shooting through a crowd of your own players to heal the ones injured at the front can be a nightmare.

Her kit seems all over the place, inconsistent and lacking any real synergy with itself. Maybe I just don't 'get' her or need some more play time (which she'll absolutely get, at least in Quick Play) but I can't see where she really "fits" as she's so unfocused. Sure her grenade would be good with Lúcio or Zenyetta ults, but it's kind of overkill at that point. It's also great on offense, if she can get close; which was an issue we had once when up against her. Rest of the time she was a free kill.

So yeah, very limited when you now have a very viable Zenyetta to provide that hybrid DPS/Support alongside the already very good Mercy and Lúcio.

Don't get me wrong, she is really fun to play, I immediately blew my savings on her Horus skin and I want to play her more; but to be seriously practical outside of Quick Play she still needs some work. That's not unexpected, and Blizz aren't shy of doing that.

I appreciate the elaboration on how you feel your opinion is justified. So instead of being the counter argumentative one like I've been most of the morning ... I'll instead provide the positives.

I do not in any way disagree that she will probably have the toughest learning curve of the supports because she takes a lot more timing and attention, so nothing should be expected to be mastered immediately. She isn't a prototypical sniper, she isn't used to counter snipe Widows and Hanzos ... she will lose the majority of those battles because she isn't designed for that ... she's a support, she needs to be played more like one with a little of the McCree skill sets mixed in.

Her scope is a great utility to provide healing and additional damage, to assist your teammates with those precious seconds between life and death. It shouldn't be considered a fully offensive tool. She is more or less just as efficient hip-firing for the healing of the damage which in midrange is probably more preferred because she needs to be near the scrum anyway. Since she has no head-shot modifier, you can quick shot long range body shots and duck back into cover or move to a different target with ease as the dot does the damage.

Her grenade can be used offensively and defensively, if your team knows the tool kit enough with you, they will know better how to benefit it. When the grenade is on your team, they should use their own heals too because they are also boosted, Roadhog's heal almost becomes a full heal under the effect. If you can coordinate that with your team mates, it's a huge benefit, even more so for teams running two supports. The grenade when used offensively can negate healing, even from ultimates, like Zenyetta's which is a heal and leave the target open to being killed easily if it does not retreat.

Her sleep dart has more impact with better communication. If you're pushing a point, a simple notice to your team that your target for the dart is such, makes it a potent way to remove someone for a short period to turn it into a 6v5. Mei is a great target for it, as are the other supports, No wall skating for a sleeping Lucio. It can also be used to your advantage. If you land sleep on a flanking Tracer/Genji, a combination of a grenage + melee attack will knock out most of the lower HP heroes after being slept. It can also shut down ultimates, much like in her release trailer when she slept a McCree doing dead eye. Sleeping tank Bastion? Yes please. You can save your teams life if multiple of them end up stunned by Reinhardt or vortex'd by Zarya. Once more, I can not stress the importance of the communication when it comes to her tool kit.

Nano boost (Nana Boost) is self explanatory. Pair it with Reaper/Genji and you have a high probability of a team kill or at minimum .. enough to push a point/objective. Just remember enemy Ana's can simply sleep your Nano Boost target and negate two +ultimates with a single ability (just gotta develop good timing ... tough to do before you lose a team mate or two).

Do we all wish she had a little better mobility? Sure but the woman is designed to be 60 fricking years old, keep it real.

Just don't be like the Bastion who hides in one place the entire game, only to get killed by the same Widow/Hanzo and learn to adjust to your surroundings and her tool kit can really be put into good use.

Remember it's a team game, if you don't communicate anything, then you can't whine and complain that your skills don't work to best of their capability.

(At no point did I claim she was a better healer than Lucio or Mercy but that's all those two have in their kits and in the right hands she will rival most players who use Zenyatta as an overall tool kit. For the love of god, please don't play her like Hanzo and Widowmaker .... your team will be sad.)

[Eapoe]

She's a load of fun, but I'm noticing in comp if I pick her first then someone picks something pointless, and if I switch to synergies with the comp better they immediately switch over to her.
From the very limited time with her, I feel she is like Zen: great as a backup healer and an awesome Ult if there is a good pick to use it on. On her own though she seems very lacking. Much more open to a Winston jump/focus if you're the only healer as well as just not an amazing steady thru put. Maybe it's just me and the admittedly extremely few games I've played with her; but, having her on my team as the lone healer I haven't won a match yet.

[Destriel]

She's a load of fun, but I'm noticing in comp if I pick her first then someone picks something pointless, and if I switch to synergies with the comp better they immediately switch over to her.
From the very limited time with her, I feel she is like Zen: great as a backup healer and an awesome Ult if there is a good pick to use it on. On her own though she seems very lacking. Much more open to a Winston jump/focus if you're the only healer as well as just not an amazing steady thru put. Maybe it's just me and the admittedly extremely few games I've played with her; but, having her on my team as the lone healer I haven't won a match yet.

I couldn't agree more, playing single healer with her isn't all that great. In the same way I feel Zenyatta suffers the same with groups with less sustainability. In terms of Zen vrs Ana, I think it'll come down to play style. From experience I feel more comfortable with Ana than I do with Zen so I'd probably opt for her in that situation ... Strictly talking competitive obviously. Free play I play whoever I feel like. To each their own between the two.

[Ophenia]

Nano boost (Nana Boost) is self explanatory. Pair it with Reaper/Genji and you have a high probability of a team kill or at minimum .. enough to push a point/objective. Just remember enemy Ana's can simply sleep your Nano Boost target and negate two +ultimates with a single ability (just gotta develop good timing ... tough to do before you lose a team mate or two).

Nanoboosting an ulting Roadhog is also a huge butchery

[Pendulous]

D.va and Lucio are the only characters I feel I'm good at. And both got a nice change. So this should be fun...for me.

[Mordin Solus]

Was suprised the patch is out, then I got matchmaked into 4 consecutive matches against a double rank 77 premade (while I am rank 63).
Now I don't feel playing for a week.

i feel your pain i always get into matches with ranks 77/79 while im 64 atm

[Mifuyne]

i feel your pain i always get into matches with ranks 77/79 while im 64 atm

But why?! :< damn blizzy!

[Jessicka]

Nanoboosting an ulting Roadhog is also a huge butchery

As is double stacking most ults...

[TEHPALLYTANK]

D.va and Lucio are the only characters I feel I'm good at. And both got a nice change. So this should be fun...for me.

D.va needs a nerf, the defense matrix buffs went a tad too far. Either the recharge time needs to be longer, 12 secs instead of 10 for full charge, or the CD increased to 1.5 secs instead of 1 second. Doesn't reduce her overall power much, but it does stop her from being able to shut down heroes with slow firing weapons so easily.

[Deleted]

D.va needs a nerf, the defense matrix buffs went a tad too far. Either the recharge time needs to be longer, 12 secs instead of 10 for full charge, or the CD increased to 1.5 secs instead of 1 second. Doesn't reduce her overall power much, but it does stop her from being able to shut down heroes with slow firing weapons so easily.

Doesn't Reinhardt do pretty much the same thing with less effort though?
I think D.Va is good the way she is right now, in my opinion, she is even supposed to shut down these kinds of heroes (only Hanzo+Widow fall into this category anyway)

Mccree feels very strong once more. I still can't handle Genjis with him, which is why I pretty much never play him.. but when I see other players killing me with him, it feels so unfair.

TTK ~1,5s with bodyshots.

[Temp name]

Playing McCree and outsniping a Widow is so rewarding..

[Drakpower]

I couldn't agree more, playing single healer with her isn't all that great. In the same way I feel Zenyatta suffers the same with groups with less sustainability. In terms of Zen vrs Ana, I think it'll come down to play style. From experience I feel more comfortable with Ana than I do with Zen so I'd probably opt for her in that situation ... Strictly talking competitive obviously. Free play I play whoever I feel like. To each their own between the two.

I totally agree; she's really not a great solo healer but I don't think she was meant to be one either. I did a few matches as Ana with a Zenyatta on the team and we did pretty well. I'm going to do some more games like this and see how they turn out.

[Destriel]

I totally agree; she's really not a great solo healer but I don't think she was meant to be one either. I did a few matches as Ana with a Zenyatta on the team and we did pretty well. I'm going to do some more games like this and see how they turn out.

Ana and Zen double support has been a consistent pairing from my experiences yesterday on live ... It has so much utility to eliminate enemies with discord and grenades. I really enjoy the Zen changes but it only made me slightly less mediocre as him ... Lol.

[zito]

D.va needs a nerf, the defense matrix buffs went a tad too far. Either the recharge time needs to be longer, 12 secs instead of 10 for full charge, or the CD increased to 1.5 secs instead of 1 second. Doesn't reduce her overall power much, but it does stop her from being able to shut down heroes with slow firing weapons so easily.

you mean.... she's an actual fucking tank now? MY GOD A TANK HERO CAN TANK THAT'S NOT REIGNHEART?!?!

[Destriel]

you mean.... she's an actual fucking tank now? MY GOD A TANK HERO CAN TANK THAT'S NOT REIGNHEART?!?!

Simply crazy thoughts.

[Tharkkun]

every time a new champion comes out everyone goes apeshit and MUST pick the new champ, no matter how useless he is (for example a support champ in top lane and shit like that)

But in overwatch there is no champion limit so basically every match will be full with Anas.

It's a shitfest right now -.-

I bet you'll be surprised when there's 2 million demon hunters rolled during the 1st week of legion also.

[Karon]

I bet you'll be surprised when there's 2 million demon hunters rolled during the 1st week of legion also.

since they don't affect me in any way no I won't.

But hey, nice try comparing apples to oranges, stupid.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

you mean.... she's an actual fucking tank now? MY GOD A TANK HERO CAN TANK THAT'S NOT REIGNHEART?!?!

I get the feeling you didn't read my post, or you completely failed to understand it. I think it is fine that she can tank now, I do think her ability to do so is just a little bit too strong at the moment.

My issue is that her shield uptime is just a bit too high considering there is no damage cap on it, and relative to other tanks it is just a bit too far ahead. Zarya's ability shields have significantly longer cooldown/uptime ratios, and they only absorb a limited (and yes, I am aware they can absorb an infinite amount of damage from a single hit) amount of damage. Reinhardt's shield takes 9 seconds to fully charge, and 2 seconds for it to even begin charging. Defense Matrix needs a minor nerf, like usual Blizzard went just a bit too far with buffing something.