New Overwatch Hero Ana Now Playable on PC, Mercy and D. Va Updated

A new Overwatch patch went live yesterday on PC, releasing Ana, the game’s first new hero, to the general public. She was officially announced by Blizzard last week with two trailers, after being teased for some time. Ana is a support class with a sniper rifle, allowing her to heal teammates and debuff enemies from afar.

This patch also brings with it significant changes to other heroes, including Mercy and D. Va. The charge required for Mercy’s ultimate, which resurrects all nearby recently downed teammates, has been increased by a significant 30 percent.

As for D. Va, she’s received several buffs to make her a more viable tank choice. The cooldown for her Defense Matrix shield has been decreased from 10 seconds to just one second. However, there is now a secondary cooldown that determines how long her Defense Matrix lasts for. After ten seconds, it blocks all frontal damage for four seconds, with a decreasing length the less time a player waits between uses. Her ultimate, which self-destructs her mech, now takes 15 percent less to charge, explodes in three seconds instead of four, and can no longer damage the player who used it. These changes were all done because, as Blizzard writes, “D.Va isn’t being selected as often as our other tanks, and we feel a lot of that stems from the underperformance of her damage absorption abilities.”

This patch also changes Competitive Play rules to allow only one of every hero in a match—no more teams of Torbjörn. You can read the full patch notes here.

There is still no word on a console release of Ana. She will likely come in a future update, along with previously discussed console changes such as nerfing Torbjörn. You can watch Ana’s reveal trailer below.