After being revealed at BlizzCon followed by a two-week PTR gestation period, Overwatch's newest hero, Moira, is now playable on the game's live servers. A support hero that manipulates biotic energy to heal allies and harm enemies, Moira offers a play style unlike the other healers on Overwatch's roster.
I had a chance to play her at the show, but now that she's on the live servers I have an even better grasp on how Moira's somewhat complex kit works. At first impression, she seems like a healer that will be easy to pick up and contribute to her team, but with interesting auxiliary abilities that will afford a high skill ceiling.
All of Moira's skins are also on display, including two David Bowie-inspired outfits. Here's everything she can do:
Biotic Grasp
Using her left hand, Moira expends biotic energy to heal allies in front of her. Her right hand fires a long-range beam weapon that saps enemies’ health, healing Moira and replenishing her biotic energy.
Biotic Grasp is Moira's main method of healing allies and damaging enemies. The primary usage, left click, heals players for 80 health per second—slightly more than Mercy. The healing beam feels a bit like Mei's freezing stream, can heal multiple allies at once, and leaves a small heal-over-time effect on allies for four seconds. The healing stream is blocked by Barriers such as Reinhardt's shield, but not D.Va's Defense Matrix. It depletes a resource meter that recharges very slowly while not in use.
Her right-click beams out 40 single-target damage per second—a little bit less than the DPS of Winston's Tesla Cannon. The beam has a range of 20 meters, and locks onto targets—somewhat similar to Symmetra's beam, except it requires significantly more aim to maintain a connection. If the target reticle moves away from the target for more than a brief moment, the beam will disconnect. Dealing damage with this ability recharges the resource meter, meaning that Moira will have a logical cadence between healing and damaging. The damaging beam has no ammo and can be held down indefinitely without reloading.
Biotic Orb
Moira launches a rebounding biotic sphere; she can choose between a regeneration effect that heals the allies it passes through, or a decay effect that deals damage to enemies.
Moira's E ability is Biotic Orb, another ability with an offensive/defensive split. Pressing E brings up a selection choice between a healing and damaging orb. Both orbs travel slowly—around or a bit faster than the speed of Symmetra's alternate fire orb or Orisa's Halt! orb—bouncing off walls, the floor, and ceilings, and disappear after 10 seconds or once a total amount of damage or healing is done. The healing orb tethers to allies as it passes, healing them for about 60 health per second, disappearing after 300 healing has been done. The damaging orb functions similarly, tethering to enemies as it passes and dealing around 60 damage per second, disappearing after 200 damage dealt.
The orbs pass through Barriers, can be deflected by Genji, and are absorbed by D.Va's Defense Matrix. The ability has a 10 second cooldown.
Fade
Moira quickly teleports a short distance.
Moira's shift ability is Fade, which causes her to disappear for a little less than one second, gaining speed, invisibility, and invulnerability for the duration. With a cooldown of only six seconds, Fade is a a powerful escape ability that will allow Moira to either play aggressively and slip away or to evade flankers attempting to pick her off. It has a maximum range of 10 meters.
Coalescence
Moira channels a long-range beam that both heals allies and bypasses barriers to damage her enemies.
Moira's Ultimate ability, Coalescence, is a powerful tool during teamfights. It heals roughly 140 health per second over its eight-second duration, bypassing Barriers and Defense Matrix, with a range of 30 meters. Enemies hit also take roughly 70 damage per second. Moira can move while channeling the ability, at a speed slightly faster than normal.
