When you think of heroes in video games, you think about a young character stuck with the task of defending the world he or she lives in. However, Blizzard has created a new hero for players to use in Overwatch named Ana Amari.
According to pcgamer, she is the 61-year-old mother of fellow character Pharah and has her own style of fighting.
Her main weapon, Biotic Rifle, is a sniper rifle that does damage over time if you hit an enemy and does healing over time if you hit a teammate. Her sidearm, Sleep Dart, is a single-shot projectile that will put any enemy to sleep for five seconds or until that hero is damaged in some way. Ana’s Biotic Grenade is a projectile that can be used at an incredible range. When enemies are hit by her grenade, they can’t receive any healing for five seconds. Teammates caught in the Biotic Grenade’s blast instantly get healed for 100HP and receive bonus health from other healing abilities. Last but most definitely not least is Ana’s incredible ultimate ability, Nano Boost. It can be applied to a teammate to boost their movement speed, damage, and damage resistance.
Stefan Dorresteijn of pcgamer says that for the player who decides to play as Ana, Ana is a supporting character. Your main goal is to keep your teammates healthy, so you’re going to need to stay at a distance so that enemies can’t find you. Even though the majority of Ana’s role is to heal her teammates, her Biotic Rifle can do a lot of damage, so don’t be afraid to take out an enemy here and there, especially since there is no charge up needed in order to fire her Biotic Rifle at maximum power. When it comes to her ultimate ability, the player needs to be able to communicate effectively as it may be too little too late for the overzealous player.
The tournaments featuring the best players are mainly decided by who can get their ultimate ability before the other teams. Teams featuring Ana are almost unstoppable as she can make your strongest character even stronger, making it only fair if the other team is running Ana, as well.
Competitive players may be unsure of the usefulness of Ana in the metagame, but it seems clear that Ana will be useful in both casual and competitive play. Blizzard may tweak her up and other characters when there becomes a clear weakness to her game, so use her and wreck house while you still can.