My problems with Ana

[Deleted]

Ana is NOT! a sniper.

She can perform the healing role just as well as Lucio/Mercy or even better situationally since her single target healing output is by far the highest in the game.

But she is also highly dependent on team composition, if your team got plenty o tiny hit box heroes that spam spacebar all day long even when their not even being attacked your better off swapping to Lucio or Zenyatta.

Notice how i don't say Mercy?
That's because i think Mercy is overnerfed now, i perform better with every healer then Mercy now and Mercy was my main for a long time.

With ana i can keep up a Reinhardt against a whole enemy team blasting away at him since she has like 160hp/s on a biotic grenade target that is further boosted by Zenyatta/Lucio's HoT.
There's no way Mercy's mediocre healing can do that.

The 30% ultimate nerf just killed Mercy's usefulness. Her healing output is low compared to Ana/Lucio and in a pickup both Ana/Lucio has more tools to protect themselves with Sleep Dart/heal grenade and knockback/boost.

Mercy need a huge boost to her damage capabilities for her to be on par with the other healers, as it is now shes just inferior to them all.

[Endus]

In pro games at the minute it's pretty much Lucio/Zen on both teams every match. Sometimes Zen is swapped out for Mercy, but of all the ones I've watched Ana hasn't been picked once.
So she has issues at the top end, and also lower down when you get the levels where people can't reliably hit their target as well.

Maybe in time she might get picked, but right now she's not doing very well. Blizz are already tweaking her which is pretty fast.

Given how recently she was released, this probably has more to do with pro players sticking to the heroes they know and are practiced with; she wasn't on the PTR for very long, either.

[Zelendria]

Blizz are tweaking her super early on though. She's only been around for a week on live.

[Endus]

Blizz are tweaking her super early on though. She's only been around for a week on live.

They've been pretty attentive, with Overwatch. Particularly with their first new hero, they're going to be babying things to make sure the release doesn't hose things.

[Jessicka]

They've been pretty attentive, with Overwatch. Particularly with their first new hero, they're going to be babying things to make sure the release doesn't hose things.

They probably already had these buffs in mind before they released her; I think it's pretty standard to try to undershoot than overshoot on balance so as not to cause too much disruption.

[Deleted]

In pro games at the minute it's pretty much Lucio/Zen on both teams every match. Sometimes Zen is swapped out for Mercy, but of all the ones I've watched Ana hasn't been picked once.
So she has issues at the top end, and also lower down when you get the levels where people can't reliably hit their target as well.

Maybe in time she might get picked, but right now she's not doing very well. Blizz are already tweaking her which is pretty fast.

I'm pretty sure Ana is currently banned from Pro games. I sometimes pop in to watch Seagull stream and he said that Ana isn't allowed in the pro scene atm.

[zito]

I'm pretty sure Ana is currently banned from Pro games. I sometimes pop in to watch Seagull stream and he said that Ana isn't allowed in the pro scene atm.

That's literally stupid. Yea her ult is good but so is everyone elses. Reaper, Pharah, etc can clear people with ease but you can counter them. And you can counter Ana's ult but nobody understands that part.

Her healing is sub par though - she lacks consistency.

[Taalyn]

She has the best single target healing healing in the game...The biggest problem I had while learning Ana was getting used to not being able to shoot through enemies to heal my allies :P

[Jessicka]

That's literally stupid. Yea her ult is good but so is everyone elses. Reaper, Pharah, etc can clear people with ease but you can counter them. And you can counter Ana's ult but nobody understands that part.

Her healing is sub par though - she lacks consistency.

I've repeatedly blocked Ana's + Roadhogs/S76s ult stacking tonight with D.Va's defence matrix. It's really not that difficult to do it, you just counter the player same as you ever would. I honestly don't get what the fuss is about, it's easier than blocking any other two offensive ult-stacks, because it's only coming from one place :S

I seriously doubt if it has anything to do with her ult.

[Zelendria]

I'm pretty sure Ana is currently banned from Pro games. I sometimes pop in to watch Seagull stream and he said that Ana isn't allowed in the pro scene atm.

Really, fair enough. I've watched a few of the pro supports playing her on PTR. I can't remember exactly where they said she will fit, but their initial thoughts were she would be pretty niche.

The problem with her ult when you compare it against her healing rivals, is that theirs are always good in every situation and they're a team wide ability.
Plus it's super annoying receiving her ulti, and feeling like you have to do something with it. Now if only she had actually healed me first instead of expecting me to slay the entire enemy team with 50hp.

[Jessicka]

She has the best single target healing healing in the game...The biggest problem I had while learning Ana was getting used to not being able to shoot through enemies to heal my allies :P

Definitely an issue, I was hanging back a bit last night to avoid getting Roadhog hooked and our tank was getting stuck in and I just couldn't heal him. Nano-boost popped so I tried that and Hanzo just stepped forward at the wrong moment switching my target. He got very scared: 'Why did you do that? I feel like I need to do something now, it's a big responsibility' or words to that effect.

The problem with her ult when you compare it against her healing rivals, is that theirs are always good in every situation and they're a team wide ability.
Plus it's super annoying receiving her ulti, and feeling like you have to do something with it. Now if only she had actually healed me first instead of expecting me to slay the entire enemy team with 50hp.

I seem to get it a lot as D.Va, which makes no sense to me at all as she's probably one of weakest heroes to give it to. Throw in that they always land it as I'm lining up my self destruct... :S

[ati87]

She has the best single target healing healing in the game...The biggest problem I had while learning Ana was getting used to not being able to shoot through enemies to heal my allies :P

Easy fix is auto targeting ally's like Mercy till a certain distance and if needed adjust her output.

It's not about how much she can potentially heal, it's about being reliable.

[Endus]

I seem to get it a lot as D.Va, which makes no sense to me at all as she's probably one of weakest heroes to give it to. Throw in that they always land it as I'm lining up my self destruct... :S

It's not just about the damage increase. It's about the reduced damage taken and such. I had a match in Quickplay the other night with a 5-Winston offense, on Hollywood. I was on defense, as the only tank, playing D.va. We had an Ana as a healer. Got down to the final point, and I just sat on the payload and took on 5 giant apes for a solid three or four minutes, holding their advance. No deaths by myself, like a 22 kill streak. Only popped my mech from enemy fire two or three times.

A big reason why? Nana boost. I was taking damage, she was healing me back constantly and charging it up, then boosting me for better defense.

I don't claim to have soloed the team; my teammates were taking out Winstons that tried to get around/past me, and shooting past me to help burn them down. But I doubt I could've held that point for that long with anyone but Ana backing me up as a healer.

[Zelendria]

Zenyatta with discord orb.
Winston was always terrible at killing D.Va because most of her HP is armour. It means his cannon does 30dps, because his single round dmg is so low, and he's right in her face too for return fire.

Orb of Harmony does 30hps, so you literally need two Winstons on you at once to actually take any damage. 3 Winston's at the same time would be doing a combined 60dps (With orb on you) which is less than a single left click from McCree.

The enemy couldn't have picked a worse stack to go at D.Va

[Endus]

Zenyatta with discord orb.
Winston was always terrible at killing D.Va because most of her HP is armour. It means his cannon does 30dps, because his single round dmg is so low, and he's right in her face too for return fire.

Orb of Harmony does 30hps, so you literally need two Winstons on you at once to actually take any damage. 3 Winston's at the same time would be doing a combined 60dps (With orb on you) which is less than a single left click from McCree.

The enemy couldn't have picked a worse stack to go at D.Va

I wasn't arguing that I was super leet or something. Yes, D.va was a good pick. But, you're ignoring a few things; Jet Pack does 50 damage on impact, and Armor only mitigates that to 40, and there's also their ults

I still had plenty of cases where I had 5 Winstons and their Lucio all shooting me simultaneously, and I wasn't getting dropped. Ana can dish out something north of 70hps, now, and I was doing very little other than standing on top of the payload (dodging doesn't help against Winston anyway), so I was dead-easy to hit. Zenyatta could have maintained me from a distance under light pressure, but wouldn't have been able to keep up with bigger pushes.

This was never about me being pro at D.va or something, it was that Ana's a capable healer. I was standing there like a lump and keeping the payload from moving. My kill count was because I was spraying bullets everywhere and tagging everything, not because I was the main damage-dealer. I had a couple ults that got 2-3 kills each, but eh.

[Temp name]

A couple days ago (pre Ana buff) I was doing Temple of Anubis on attack. The defence had a Bastion, so I, playing Pharah, shot rockets at him. After ~20 seconds I had my ult, and he was still alive. He had an Ana just pumping him with shots, and that kept him alive. No Mercy, no Reinhardt shield, just the Ana. Granted, no one on my team helped me kill the Bastion, but still.

[ati87]

A couple days ago (pre Ana buff) I was doing Temple of Anubis on attack. The defence had a Bastion, so I, playing Pharah, shot rockets at him. After ~20 seconds I had my ult, and he was still alive. He had an Ana just pumping him with shots, and that kept him alive. No Mercy, no Reinhardt shield, just the Ana. Granted, no one on my team helped me kill the Bastion, but still.

So he had a pickpocket healer and 1 person kept 2 people busy?

Seems like a real good trade-off

Again it's not about easy raw healing but about reliability.

[Taalyn]

You keep saying reliability and I don't think you know what that word means.

[Endus]

You keep saying reliability and I don't think you know what that word means.

Yeah, I don't get how people think Ana isn't reliable. You need to be able to hit your ally to deliver healing, yes. That means she has a higher skill floor than the other healers; Lucio just needs LoS, Zenyatta just needs LoS and a click in your general direction, and Mercy just needs LoS, a click, and proximity (which she can admittedly snag with Guardian Angel pretty easily, but it can also put her in danger).

I think a lot of people bought into the whole "Sniper healer" thing and think Ana is meant to be played at max range at all times, and that's wrong. Her grenade is short-range AoE effect, and is a HUGE piece of her kit. You CAN snipe heals across the map, but I basically only do that if 1> I'm shooting a Pharah or something who's off harassing their flank, or 2> Reinhardt just Charged into the entire enemy team, leaving the rest of us behind, or 3> I'm running to catch up after a death and they need healing ASAP; I'll open up as soon as I have LoS. Beyond those, I'm almost always near the melee, within grenade-tossing distance. Whether it's to smack their attack for damage and heal prevention, or to slap on my team for the healing boost, I'm in close enough that I'm no-scoping my healing 90% of the time or more. It really doesn't take much to be "consistent" at that range. And in those instances where I'm sniping, the other healers are generally worse-off; Zenyatta's orb heals slowly enough it might not top off the flankers before they lose LoS, and Mercy/Lucio have serious range limitations; I consider those bonuses, not Ana's main focus.

Ana does 75 healing per shot. With the magazine bump to 10, and her RoF increase by 20%, she can fire those 10 shots in 8 seconds, with a 1.5s reload time. So 9.5 seconds total, if you're dumping healing as fast as you can, before another cycle starts. 750 healing in 9.5 seconds is 83.3 hps.

If I miss 1/3 of those shots, either by straight-up missing or hitting a full-health ally, that's 55.6 hps. That's still just over 10% more HPS than Mercy puts out, with the advantage that it's more "bursty" when needed (since we've got a reload factored in, where your throughput dips), and we haven't even factored in Ana's biotic grenade, yet. If my aim's so bad I'm missing more than that, yeah, Ana's probably not a great choice, but I hardly think that's a high bar.

Plus, Sleep Dart is great for shutting down all kinds of ults, something most healers just can't do. Damage your team never takes, because you Sleep Darted Reaper as he started Death Blossom, is damage you don't have to heal. Sure, other players could do that, too, but you get more coverage if you can handle it as well.

I just straight-up don't know what people mean by "reliability". Ana's a strong healer. If I had a team with offense I could rely on more consistently, Mercy and her power boost might be more appealing, but I solo queue a lot, and Ana feels more capable in that context, to me.

[Temp name]

So he had a pickpocket healer and 1 person kept 2 people busy?

Seems like a real good trade-off

Again it's not about easy raw healing but about reliability.

Ana is the only person who can outheal a dps though. Not even Mercy can do that.
And that was before the buff..