Maining Healers, Any Tips?

[Zelendria]

Ana's skill quotient IS way higher than Lucio/Mercy, arguably higher than Zenyatta (who still has to aim for his damaging shots, at least). But her potential output is pretty spectacular, IMO. And in pro circuits, that skill quotient will be less of a factor.

Be interesting to see what happens with her, but I don't think for a second she will be a permanent fixture in 1st/2nd slot. Just another niche pick.
In the pro matches fights happen very quickly. There is no sustain whatsoever. 6v6 stack full burst with ulti rotations. Each fight is barely 10s worth, and unlike MOBAs there's hardly ever a disengage where Ana could heal up a team mate, and re initiate.
I don't watch tonnes of tournaments, but watch a fair few, and I don't recall ever seeing a 2v2 situation where Ana can really crank up single target healing. Both teams simply wait for a full stack then move together again.
That doesn't give Ana much healing outside grenade. Compare that to Zen being able to heal, DPS, and priority mark with discord orb. Or Lucio to engage with amp speed boost.

Even when you look at ulti's. Lucio, Zen are big, team wide, offensive and defensive skills. Ana's while powerful is powerful to one person only. It forces the target to be super aggressive. Also take a nano boosted Genji ulti that seems to be a FOTM. Transcendence outheals it... By miles. 300hps vs 180dps assuming he hits the target every time.
And in coordinated play the nano target will most certainly be #1 to bring down with discord orb on them.

I think she will get picked, but no where near a solid healer for all situations like other supports are. Until Lucio/Zen see nerfs, or the rest are buffed them two are here to stay for the forseeable future.

[Deleted]

I can only speak of playing Lucio and Zen.

Learn to love the speed aura as Lucio, it's more important than the heal and learn to love the melee button and his close combat qualities in general.
Speedboost teammates into and out of stuff you see that your random teammate is chasing someone? You better speedboost him or he'll die trying, trust me. It's both effective and will prevent your teammates from doing stupid shit.

As for Zen, keep walking around with a capable damage dealer in your team (if you notice that your Mccree is shit, abandon him and go with the Roadhog that looks like he has a 100% hook accuracy in your team etc.) and Discord anyone that seems to catch his interest. Zen is able to carry games this way. Never use your ultimate unless you want to counter something (Zarya, Genji and so on). If you can aim with Zen, you're basically another damage dealer. Your damage output is insane and you can 1on1 quite a few heroes though you should never actively try to look for a 1on1 encounter unless you are know they are weak or you are much better.

Don't hesitate to Heal-orb Genji's too, even if they move out of sight soon.

That's basically all there is to them, try to stay alive as long as possible of course, but that's not only true for every hero, but also the most important thing for support characters in general.

[Temp name]

I find healers pretty good at taking out turrets, since their fire is very accurate and their damage doesn't suffer that much drop off over range.

That is very true. If you're a mercy though, you're likely better off not doing it, as that means you can't heal. But if you're Lucio/Zen, you might as well, as you're doing your healing passively.

[WeAreStriatum]

Lucio has become mainsteam, which probably means a nerf at some point. Mercy is a lot of fun but so specialized it hurts her, zenyatta is not a healer just a suitable backup, roadhog is selfish

[Endus]

Lucio has become mainsteam, which probably means a nerf at some point. Mercy is a lot of fun but so specialized it hurts her, zenyatta is not a healer just a suitable backup, roadhog is selfish

Not sure how Zenyatta is "not a healer". His orb heals just slightly less than Lucio does during Amp It Up, but his orb can be on the target 100% of the time. He's just not capable of AoE healing like Lucio, outside of his ult (which blows any healing by anyone out of the water).

The issue with Lucio is he's too flexible. He's got decent offense; his slow-traveling pulse ammo provides good area suppression at range and hits decently hard if you're close enough for him to nail you, his knockback can get easy kills on many maps, he not only has great mobility but grants his TEAM mobility, and his AoE healing has a huge radius AND with Amp It Up can briefly match single-target healers for rapidity. His only "weakness" is in providing sustained single-target DPS, which doesn't seem sufficient.

Compare to Mercy, who has decent personal mobility with Guardian Angel, a strong single-target heal with a short range, and a damage boost. To deal personal damage, she has to turn off her healing/damage boost, and take the time to swap weapons, also requiring a swap BACK. Personal offense is a weak point, AoE healing is nonexistent. Zenyatta at least provides strong personal and team offense to go along with his targeted healing, and doesn't have to pick between healing and his offense, which is generally "better".

Mercy probably need a slight buff, though I'd be wanting to look at things like "weapon swap speed" rather than direct buffs to throughput numbers. Lucio probably needs a slight nerf, but not in terms of throughput; I'd nerf his healing radius down to 20 meters, if not 15. Still big, but not "if I can see you, you're getting healed" big. D.va's mech explosion, by comparison, is 20 meters; that's not tiny. Just means Lucio would have to pay more attention to positioning, and be engaged to heal people.

[Temp name]

The problem I have with Zen is that outside of the ult, I don't FEEL like I'm doing healing. The same reason I don't like Lucio. It's a secondary thing in my mind. I'm more focused on getting kills and general positioning than "Where can I be to heal my team?" like it is with Mercy. Granted, if everyone played like that, it would be incredibly stale.

Also, just a small annoyance: Pharah's ult does more damage than Zen's ult does healing. I don't feel like that should be the case. With Zen's ult I've had my team survive Zarya+Hanzo ult, and Genji+Soldier ult (Though not all 4 at the same time). Yet Pharah can kill people through my ult. Granted, it can be stopped by my team not being idiots and killing her, but solo queue quickplay, what do you expect?

[shammypie]

The problem I have with Zen is that outside of the ult, I don't FEEL like I'm doing healing. The same reason I don't like Lucio. It's a secondary thing in my mind. I'm more focused on getting kills and general positioning than "Where can I be to heal my team?" like it is with Mercy. Granted, if everyone played like that, it would be incredibly stale.

Also, just a small annoyance: Pharah's ult does more damage than Zen's ult does healing. I don't feel like that should be the case. With Zen's ult I've had my team survive Zarya+Hanzo ult, and Genji+Soldier ult (Though not all 4 at the same time). Yet Pharah can kill people through my ult. Granted, it can be stopped by my team not being idiots and killing her, but solo queue quickplay, what do you expect?

depends on how far away the ulting pharah is. Long range pharah ult you will outheal it, short range pharah ult you simply stand in front of it immune to damage

[Endus]

The problem I have with Zen is that outside of the ult, I don't FEEL like I'm doing healing. The same reason I don't like Lucio. It's a secondary thing in my mind. I'm more focused on getting kills and general positioning than "Where can I be to heal my team?" like it is with Mercy. Granted, if everyone played like that, it would be incredibly stale.

What should be at the top of your focus, as Zenyatta, is where your orbs are, and what they're doing. If your healing orb is on someone at full health, and there's someone who needs healing, that's a priority to switch. I find he's more active in that regard than Lucio is, more comparable to a long-range Mercy in terms of attention paid.

Also, just a small annoyance: Pharah's ult does more damage than Zen's ult does healing. I don't feel like that should be the case. With Zen's ult I've had my team survive Zarya+Hanzo ult, and Genji+Soldier ult (Though not all 4 at the same time). Yet Pharah can kill people through my ult. Granted, it can be stopped by my team not being idiots and killing her, but solo queue quickplay, what do you expect?

As said by Shammypie, body block the rockets where possible. 50% of Zen's ult's usefulness is your immunity and the fact that you can use that to intercept fire.

Pharah's also WAY more vulnerable than Hanzo/Genji/Soldier, while using that ultimate. That's her tradeoff. You can probably body block and kill her yourself before it's finished.

[Deleted]

The only thing that I dislike about Zen is that it can get quite difficult to replace your healing orb to the right target. I really don't like the auto-target system.

[Temp name]

What should be at the top of your focus, as Zenyatta, is where your orbs are, and what they're doing. If your healing orb is on someone at full health, and there's someone who needs healing, that's a priority to switch. I find he's more active in that regard than Lucio is, more comparable to a long-range Mercy in terms of attention paid.

More active definitely, but I generally don't pay too much attention to my balls. Just a quick glance at peoples health to make sure it's not being wasted.

depends on how far away the ulting pharah is. Long range pharah ult you will outheal it, short range pharah ult you simply stand in front of it immune to damage

It's a bit difficult when stuck in a Zarya ult. But I can see the idea.

[Endus]

Lucio is the best healer in the game right now. His only real weakness is lack of single target healing, which synergizes well with every other healer in the game.

Even then, Amp it Up provides 40hps while it's active, which beats out Zenyatta's 30hps a second. I think the big issue is that none of the damage, really, is focus-fire damage. If someone's getting focused, they're dead, unless they've got a defensive CD that can save themselves. The one hero who has SOME shot at healing through that is Ana, with biotic grenade and spammed shots.

So in general, healers are topping people back up from what slips past and happens to tag them. And AoE healing is just better than single-target, for that, in most cases, especially when you don't need to pay attention to who needs it, but just get LoS.

It's why I think Lucio needs a bit of a nerf. He's just TOO good, both offensively and in terms of healing.

[GennGreymane]

Lucio is my default main now unless I am with my Tank friend. I am so sick of never having a team with a healer though when I am playing as Hanzo

[Ihnasir]

I'm pretty inexperienced and play best with Zenyatta or Mercy. Lucio is alright, but I'm still getting used to his style. I have no idea how to play Symmetra and am starting to get good with Ana.

Zenyatta you gotta understand that you're there as a pure hybrid and you'll probably do best with another hybrid.

Lucio is nice but for me, purely situational depending on the map or other heroes I'm facing.

[Temp name]

I'm pretty inexperienced and play best with Zenyatta or Mercy. Lucio is alright, but I'm still getting used to his style. I have no idea how to play Symmetra and am starting to get good with Ana.

Zenyatta you gotta understand that you're there as a pure hybrid and you'll probably do best with another hybrid.

Lucio is nice but for me, purely situational depending on the map or other heroes I'm facing.

Symmetra you have 2 ways to play:

1 - You set up a room with all your turrets and brutally murder anyone who would even dare to step inside
2 - Put up your turrets spread out. They function as semi-vision, meaning you'll know when people are trying to flank, etc. This is best done with a full, or almost full team though, as it relies on everyone else doing the damage, and you acting as a scout.

For both though, find good places to place your teleporter. If you think it's a good hiding spot, everyone else will too, so it won't last long (Most good Genji's/Tracers will know the most common places for a TP by now), so be unconventional. I had pretty good luck with a TP on Numbani where, from the first point to cap, looking at the attacker spawn the right high ground.