overwatch New Overwatch Hero: Ana!

[Valks 2,375]

The latest Overwatch hero has just been announced! Ana, Pharah's mother, will be the newest hero to be released!

You can check out the gameplay trailer of Ana below:

It looks like she has the following abilities:

• A sniper rifle that can both damage enemies and heal friendlies.
• Some form of stun/sleep grenade that can interrupt ultimates.
• A grenade that blocks healing.
• An ultimate that buffs allies, similar to how Lt. Morales does in HoTS.

As for who Ana is, she is the mother of Pharah, but it looks like she might not be Sombra as was previously believed. If you want to find out more about her story, you can check out her Origins trailer below:

The newest hero has been announced!

[Sajakain 104]

As someone who has the most time invested into Widow. . . I am thoroughly looking forward to Ana.

[Archimage 98]

Reading the basic abilities from the PlayOverwatch site:

You can hit enemies or allies with your basic attack, dealing damage to enemies or healing allies. You don't need to scope to shoot.

Sleep Dart incapacitates the target for 6 seconds, but any damage taken will break the effect. The animation+projectile works a lot like Mcree's basic attack.

Biotic Grenade has a small AoE, allies gain increased healing and enemies cannot heal.

Nano Boost is a single target buff which's animation is like  Zarya's Projected Barrier. It increases their movement speed and damage dealt, while decreasing damage taken. Very OP on Reinhardt

 

Possible team combos are:

Ana+Lucio/Soldier = Insane AoE healing 

Ana+Reinhardt = Profit?

 

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by Archimage

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, Sajakain said:

As someone who has the most time invested into Widow. . . I am thoroughly looking forward to Ana.

Agreed.

Just now, Archimage said:

Reading the basic abilities from the PlayOverwatch site:

You can hit enemies or allies with your basic attack, dealing damage to enemies or healing allies. You don't need to scope to shoot.

Sleep Dart incapacitates the target for 6 seconds, but any damage taken will break the effect. The animation+projectile works a lot like Mcree's basic attack.

Biotic Grenade has a small AoE, allies gain increased healing and enemies cannot heal.

Nano Boost is a single target buff which's animation is like  Zarya's Projected Barrier. It increases their movement speed and damage dealt, while decreasing damage taken. Very OP on Reinhardt

 

Possible team combos are:

Ana+Lucio/Soldier = Insane AoE healing 

Ana+Reinhardt = Profit?

 

 

I feel like Zarya's ulti just found another counter. Biotic + Lucio and you completely ruin that ult combo. Even more so with Zenyatta. I feel like Ana will fit into the role of the 2nd support, so running Lucio + her, Mercy + her etc.

For combos, I wonder if it will combo with things like McCree ult, Roadhog ult.. Maybe Genji too? I cannot wait to play her, she is the support I've been waiting for!

[ghostdeini 12]

Really looking forward to this.  I've been very curious how they would handle rolling out new characters in OW and it looks like I won't have to wait much longer.

[Valks 2,375]

13 minutes ago, ghostdeini said:

Really looking forward to this.  I've been very curious how they would handle rolling out new characters in OW and it looks like I won't have to wait much longer.

I'm just happy that she isn't gated behind anything. If you want to play her, you can. No need to pay, buy an expansion, whatever.

[Shine 144]

I think this is ANAmazing concept . I'm definately gANA play her.

Seems like the utility she'll bring to the team is bound to be fANAtastic.

Ok, I'll stop. 

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, Shine said:

I think this is ANAmazing concept . I'm definately gANA play her.

Seems like the utility she'll bring to the team is bound to be fANAtastic.

Ok, I'll stop. 

Continue pls

[ghostdeini 12]

16 hours ago, Blainie said:

I'm just happy that she isn't gated behind anything. If you want to play her, you can. No need to pay, buy an expansion, whatever.

Completely!  The game isn't F2P like HotS so it doesn't make sense to charge for new characters.  Sure if they do an expansion somewhere down the line I'll buy it, but new maps and characters are like getting a new raid or dungeon in WoW.  You get it because you have already purchased the game.

 

2 hours ago, Shine said:

I think this is ANAmazing concept . I'm definately gANA play her.

Seems like the utility she'll bring to the team is bound to be fANAtastic.

Ok, I'll stop. 

Honestly, I don't even mind admitting that I laughed my ass off at this.  Loved your enthusiasm.

[Sajakain 104]

I played her some last night (PTR) and here's a couple of things I noticed (coming from a Widow "main"):

1. There is no charge time to her shot. Widow / Hazo having that charge and then going to a scope that doesn't is a little odd.
2. The damage she does is a DoT to the enemy, not instantaneous.
3. That I noticed, she has no mobility. She's a ground hero and has to use stairs like normal people. Maybe I'm wrong here and didn't try it out as much as I thought I did. (Referencing the Anubis location she was in on the video)
4. Have to remind myself to constantly use my two other abilities (Dart / Bomb). Sniping tends to put you in a mindset that you only have the one weapon. Ana has multiple, useful, abilities.
5. You cannot shoot through friendlies to hit enemies. If you try that you'll just heal your friendly.

In relation to #5, I was talking with other teammates last night and it would be an interesting approach if we could toggle friendly / enemy shots like we do with Lucio's speed / healing toggle. I'm not sure what button we'd press to do that but it'd definitely raise the skill cap on her even if it was slightly.

Anyway... another observance I made was her rifle is exceedingly long. At first look, it appears out of ratio. In reality, the barrel is extremely long.

She's extremely fun to play and it was odd killing Pharah. (I was not fortunate to put her to sleep during her ultimate; she never attempted it lol).

Ana's a completely different playing style for a sniper. I think she'll be "new" at first but only the dedicated will actually try to "master" her.

[Valks 2,375]

31 minutes ago, Sajakain said:

I played her some last night (PTR) and here's a couple of things I noticed (coming from a Widow "main"):

1. There is no charge time to her shot. Widow / Hazo having that charge and then going to a scope that doesn't is a little odd.
2. The damage she does is a DoT to the enemy, not instantaneous.
3. That I noticed, she has no mobility. She's a ground hero and has to use stairs like normal people. Maybe I'm wrong here and didn't try it out as much as I thought I did. (Referencing the Anubis location she was in on the video)
4. Have to remind myself to constantly use my two other abilities (Dart / Bomb). Sniping tends to put you in a mindset that you only have the one weapon. Ana has multiple, useful, abilities.
5. You cannot shoot through friendlies to hit enemies. If you try that you'll just heal your friendly.

In relation to #5, I was talking with other teammates last night and it would be an interesting approach if we could toggle friendly / enemy shots like we do with Lucio's speed / healing toggle. I'm not sure what button we'd press to do that but it'd definitely raise the skill cap on her even if it was slightly.

Anyway... another observance I made was her rifle is exceedingly long. At first look, it appears out of ratio. In reality, the barrel is extremely long.

She's extremely fun to play and it was odd killing Pharah. (I was not fortunate to put her to sleep during her ultimate; she never attempted it lol).

Ana's a completely different playing style for a sniper. I think she'll be "new" at first but only the dedicated will actually try to "master" her.

Firstly, I agree that she is amazing to play. So much fun and just such a refreshing style of play for someone that plays a lot of support.

I'm going to add a few things to what you've put here:

• Lack of mobility is very strange. I was trying to move into better positions to snipe from, but quickly realised that she actually doesn't need to be played as Widow is. If you're in trouble, you can dart and run. Quickly just took to playing from the back of the team, picking targets from the ground. From what I can see, she has no special way to get up anything.
• I don't like the reliance on friendly positioning to be able to hit enemies. In those crazy moments on the point, you'd expect there to be a level of skill required to make sure that you hit the right targets. In reality, you could be shooting perfectly, but your team mates are just constantly in the way. For example, trying to finish off an enemy hero mid-ult, your shot could be blocked by a Genji dashing at that enemy or a Tracer blinking in front of them. I would love a way to toggle between the two. I feel like the fact that it's done by a simple priority that we have no control over sucks.
• In addition to the previous point, how does the priority system work with shields? I know it makes a friendly Zarya shield a priority over an enemy on the other side of it, but does it include Reinhardt's and Winston's shields too? 
• Dart is absorbed by Zarya shield, as is the bomb.
• Bomb has a maximum range, dart does not. The bomb will explode eventually, this can be tested by simply throwing the bomb directly into the air and watching it.

While I love Ana, I'm extremely nervous about her in games. I feel like we're going to have another situation where players declare themselves Ana mains, as they do with Widow, and then be unable to hit offensive or defensive shots. Definitely a support that is going to need decent aim, unlike Lucio/Mercy, especially if you consider that you can ask your Genji to stop moving in the middle of the enemies while you try to heal him.