Overwatch's Latest Hero Revealed As Ana, A Sniper Who Can Heal

After much speculation, today Blizzard has finally revealed the first new character for its ridiculously popular shooter Overwatch. That new hero goes by the name of Ana, and she'll be bolstering the support class with her introduction. That will be a welcome relief for many support players, who for the most part have relied on just Mercy and Lucio when their team needs a healer.

Unlike Mercy and Lucio, however, Ana actually heals teammates by shooting them with her biotic rifle. At the same time, her rifle does damage over time to any enemies it hits, and from the reveal video posted below, it doesn't look like players will have to switch between ammo types when targeting both teammates and enemies at the same time. For her sidearm, Ana employs a sleep dart, which isn't too difficult to figure out: use it to put an enemy to sleep, wake them up by dealing damage to them. Perfect, as the trailer shows, for stopping enemies while they're winding up their ultimate.

Ana's biotic grenade might be the most interesting of her abilities, as it affects both enemies and allies. Allies who are caught in the blast will receive increased healing for a short duration, so good enough players will be able to toss the grenade and then quickly shoot teammates who are in need of major repairs. Enemies, however, will not only take damage from the blast but will be prevented from receiving any healing for a little while after the grenade detonates. That sounds like a very interesting (or frustrating) mechanic that's sure to be used frequently.

Finally we come Ana's ultimate ability, which is called Nano Boost and is used on an individual ally. Once active, it will boost that ally's movement speed, damage output, and damage resistance, turning them into a hard-to-kill berserker. Good timing on the deployment of Ana's Nano Boost seems like it could turn the tide in a battle, as it might allow a beefy hero like Reinhardt or Roadhog to clear out a point and usher in the rest of the team.

There's no word on when Ana will be live in the stable version of Overwatch, but she'll be available on Blizzard's public test realm for Overwatch starting today. Once she goes live on the PTR, Blizzard will probably spend a week or two watching her usage statistics and making tweaks where necessary before eventually releasing her to the masses on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. What do you think? Is Ana the hero you expected to see for Overwatch?