Overwatch's Ana Can Block Healing In Heroes Of The Storm, And That Could Be A Big Deal

Following her initial announcement last week, Blizzard has now shared more details about Ana's debut as a character in Heroes of the Storm. She'll operate much like she does in Overwatch, although she might be even more effective in a MOBA setting.

Her passive, Shrike, causes her basic attacks to apply a damage-over-time effect. These can stack and are refreshed by subsequent basic attacks (which should be a bit easier to land as her attack range is longer than that of most heroes). Her Healing Dart ability has a short cooldown and is a skillshot that heals the first allied player it hits, going through both enemies and minions. Sleep Dart works similarly, shooting out in a straight line and putting the first enemy hero it hits to sleep. Sleeping targets can be woken up by any damage, except for damage over time from things like Shrike.

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Biotic Grenade is maybe the most interesting of her abilities. Again, just like in Overwatch, it heals allies in range of its explosion (and boosts incoming healing for a short time), while enemies who are hit suffer damage and can't be healed for a brief time. In the context of a congested fight in a MOBA, preventing healing has the potential to be massively powerful if it's used at the right time. That's especially true because it's not as if enemies have their cooldowns or mana refunded if they try to heal a target that can't be healed. That means Ana can not only rob one or more players of being healed, but she's wasting the ability of another player (or potentially causing them to hesitate throughout the match).

On the Heroic ability side, Nano Boost provides a lot of mana to her target, increases their spell power, and reduces the cooldown of their abilities. Eye of Horus causes her to assume a sniping position, from which she can fire shots across the map that instantly hit her target--either healing teammates or dealing damage to enemies.

Ana doesn't have a specific release date yet, but she arrives on the PTR today. Also on the way is a new Overwatch-themed map, as well as Junkrat (who hasn't been detailed). Additionally, the video below showcases many of the skins and other cosmetic items on the way to Heroes of the Storm, including a new look for Ana, Varian, and D.Va (who's looking particularly good).