Date played: November 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th
Platform: PS4
Today's hero is Ana.
Favorite quote: "Need someone to tuck you in?"
The biggest problem with Ana is that she requires excellent aiming to be effective. For example, when the team has many small and fast heroes. Trying to heal Tracer, Genji, naked D.Va or Sombra is kind of a nightmare, and is usually not very effective. The only real solution is to use the grenade on them, and that means I can't use it on enemies.
Another thing that makes her difficult to use is that she has no mobility skills at all. She can't climb, grapple, jump, fly or teleport, so just like Zenyatta, she is relegated to the back line and is very vulnerable to flankers.
Surprisingly, she is actually a pretty effective sniper when needed. For example, she can take care of a turret or Bastion that sits at long range. She can even take on Widowmaker or Hanzo in some cases. However, if Ana is busy taking out targets, she's not healing.
Her sleep dart is pretty cool, but it's real fucking hard to aim, so I often use it only on large targets or people that are running straight at me. On the other hand, her biotic grenade is incredibly powerful and versatile. It can save a group that was hit hard, but it can also cripple an enemy team that is already struggling to survive.
Finally, her Nano Boost is fantastic. It used to provide a speed boost, but it was patched to remove that ability. It's still incredible, particularly on a hero that has his Ultimate ready. Reaper is probably the one that benefits the most with his Death Blossom. Roadhog's Whole Hog is terrifying when boosted. Reinhardt is very dangerous with it too when he swings the hammer like a madman. Surprisingly, Mei is also a great target for the boost, since she gains a lot of damage resistance while shooting her freeze gun in the middle of the fray. Overall, Nano Boost is a very strong ability.
I love using Ana, though I still struggle with my aim. I've been steadily improving with her. At first, I was healing for maybe 3000 HP on a good game, now I can reach the same numbers as Mercy, Lucio and Zenyatta if the conditions are good. I still need to learn how to use her grenade most effectively, and I always need to work on my aim, but I feel like I can use her relatively well, considering I've only recently started playing her. I love Ana, but only on certain maps.
Most satisfying kill: Widowmaker
Platform: PS4
Today's hero is Ana.
Role: Support
Difficulty: ★★★
HP: 200
Armor: 0
Shields: 0
Total: 200
Favorite map to play on: King's Row
Appearance
Ana is Pharah's mother. They share a similar tattoo below their eyes and they definitely have a family look. Ana is much older of course, with white hair and plenty of wrinkles. She is missing an eye from a battle against Widowmaker, leaving Ana with an eye patch. She wears light armor and a sort of hooded trench coat. She wields a big sniper rifle, some grenades and a special gun that shoots sleep darts. Ana has some of the coolest skins, my favorite is Shrike.
Skills
- Biotic Rifle: A long range rifle that damages enemies and heals allies. It can be scoped, allowing greater precision at long range. Weirdly enough, this weapon doesn't deal more damage with headshots. It also deals damage and heals over a short period of time instead of dealing all it's damage at once.
- Sleep Dart: Ana fires a dart that puts an enemy to sleep for 5.5 seconds. If a sleeping enemy is damaged, they will wake up. It has a 12 second cool down.
- Biotic Grenade: One of the craziest abilities, this grenade heals allies in a radius, and also damages enemies. It leaves an aura on the affected heroes. This boosts healing for allies for a short time, and denies enemies from healing.
- Ultimate - Nano Boost: Ana boosts an ally for 8 seconds. This will increase the target's damage and damage resistance.
Strengths
- Ana is the hero with the strongest healing, outperforming even Mercy on a single target. Granted, it's pretty hard to heal that much consistently, but the potential is there.
- Nano Boost is a game changer. Ana's Ultimate works really well on heroes that deal a lot of damage with their Ultimates, like Reaper, Roadhog or Genji. It can work well with most heroes though, so it's always an important ability.
- The biotic grenade is a lot stronger than it first appears to be. It's a great defensive tool when Ana is under attack, since it heals her too. At it's best though, it should be thrown to hit as many enemies as possible during a push, as it will stop them from healing.
- The sleep dart can turn the tides of battle, as long as your teammates don't hit your target. It can incapacitate important enemies, such as tanks or healers.
Weaknesses
- Aiming is very difficult with Ana, and for multiple reasons. First, her weapon fires rather slowly, so each hit is important. Second, when allies or enemies walk in Ana's line of sight, they will block your view of the target. This is infuriating when trying to heal your tank, then a teammate walks in front of you, preventing you from healing the dying tank.
- If she gets flanked, Ana's only option is the sleep dart and biotic grenade. The sleep dart works well, but it's hard to aim due to a slight delay when firing. The biotic grenade is a bit of a last resort where Ana will try to fight an enemy head on. It's very difficult to do well.
- On maps with many tight corners or lots of walls to block line of sight, Ana becomes even more difficult to use. She does better on maps with long sight lines.
- The timing of her Ultimate, Nano Boost, is pretty tricky. It needs to be used when people are actively fighting to be most effective. Plus, your target needs to have a good amount of health, you don't want him to die just after receiving the boost...
Comments
I think Ana just might be the hardest hero to use well. Just like Zarya, Genji and McCree, she requires lots of coordination, good aim and excellent awareness. When she works though, she fucking works. She can heal more than anyone but a Transcending Zenyatta, making her excellent at healing tanks.The biggest problem with Ana is that she requires excellent aiming to be effective. For example, when the team has many small and fast heroes. Trying to heal Tracer, Genji, naked D.Va or Sombra is kind of a nightmare, and is usually not very effective. The only real solution is to use the grenade on them, and that means I can't use it on enemies.
Another thing that makes her difficult to use is that she has no mobility skills at all. She can't climb, grapple, jump, fly or teleport, so just like Zenyatta, she is relegated to the back line and is very vulnerable to flankers.
Surprisingly, she is actually a pretty effective sniper when needed. For example, she can take care of a turret or Bastion that sits at long range. She can even take on Widowmaker or Hanzo in some cases. However, if Ana is busy taking out targets, she's not healing.
Her sleep dart is pretty cool, but it's real fucking hard to aim, so I often use it only on large targets or people that are running straight at me. On the other hand, her biotic grenade is incredibly powerful and versatile. It can save a group that was hit hard, but it can also cripple an enemy team that is already struggling to survive.
Finally, her Nano Boost is fantastic. It used to provide a speed boost, but it was patched to remove that ability. It's still incredible, particularly on a hero that has his Ultimate ready. Reaper is probably the one that benefits the most with his Death Blossom. Roadhog's Whole Hog is terrifying when boosted. Reinhardt is very dangerous with it too when he swings the hammer like a madman. Surprisingly, Mei is also a great target for the boost, since she gains a lot of damage resistance while shooting her freeze gun in the middle of the fray. Overall, Nano Boost is a very strong ability.
I love using Ana, though I still struggle with my aim. I've been steadily improving with her. At first, I was healing for maybe 3000 HP on a good game, now I can reach the same numbers as Mercy, Lucio and Zenyatta if the conditions are good. I still need to learn how to use her grenade most effectively, and I always need to work on my aim, but I feel like I can use her relatively well, considering I've only recently started playing her. I love Ana, but only on certain maps.
Worst enemy: Sombra
Best teammate: ReinhardtMost satisfying kill: Widowmaker
