Following a tease on Twitter last week, Blizzard have officially revealed the first character to join their team shooter Overwatch post-launch. Ana is a support class who wields a sniper rifle to heal allies at great range.
Ana uses the Biotic Rifle from the Twitter teaser image, firing long-range healer darts that will buff her allies and damage her enemies. She can also drop a Biotic Grenade for ranged, AOE heals. Her gameplay trailer (embedded below) shows Ana shows the grenade using a relatively small area-of-effect to heal/damage anyone caught in its radius. It also prevents any enemies within its range from being healed, which should bring dread to any Soldier:76 and Roadhog mains who are reading this.
Ana also comes loaded with a Sleep Dart that will put incoming enemies to sleep for a short spell. Abandoning journalistic non-bias for a moment, the fact that the trailer demonstrates it shutting down McCree’s High Noon ultimate brings us nothing but delight. Look for many an ultimate being shut down by quick-on-the-draw Ana players.
Ana’s ultimate is Nano Boost, a move that allows her to hit a friendly with a dart that grants a damage boost, faster movement and greater damage resistance.
Ana’s gameplay trailer was also accompanied by an origins trailer that illustrates her rather violent backstory.
Those who have already dug into Blizzard’s published Overwatch backstory know that Ana is the mother of everyone’s favourite justice-raining rocket queen, Pharah. According to her origins video, Ana is well-known by Overwatch veterans like Mercy, Torbjorn, Reaper and Soldier:76.
She also seems to have significant beef with Overwatch‘s already established sniper Widowmaker. We can’t wait to hear the incidental dialogue between these two when Ana makes her debut in-game.
Ana is the first of what Blizzard assures are many more characters to come. While no release for her has been set at this stage, Ana will be made available as free DLC.
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