A hobbyist game designers thoughts on the new Moira

General Discussion
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Hi i’m a hobbyist game designer who has been studying OW since it’s original beta. I wanted to do a quick break down on the new Moria as well as give my own personal thoughts towards the end.

So what’s new?

Their are actually quite a few changes that came from the last patch
(link below for full details)

~https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/beta/

Be it that the primary change is to Moira’s damage orb is replaced with the new “Enfeebling orb”, This orb is a straight moving projectile that will explode on contact. Doing 40 damage to any player it collides with in addition to 10 explosion damage. (50 all together)

Any player hit by this orb with have their damage reduced to 25% of it’s normal output for up to four seconds. At the same time this ability is now on a separate cooldown (16 seconds) from Moira’s healing orb. Meaning that she can use both effect shortly after each other. Much in the same way zenyatta can have both his damage boost and healing orbs out at the same time.

What does this mean/affect?

The devs have effectively traded Moira’s ability to do damage in quick secession, by layering her damage orb and primary. (100dps while orb is out) With the ability to slow down the enemies TTK, while at the same still having access to her survivability tools.

This maintains her ability to duel in close range, even when the “Enfeebling Orb” is on cooldown. As she can still escape and or heal self in that situation.

Especially when you consider that even a dps like soldier will be doing max 40.5 dps on body shots with 100% accuracy. that is further cut down by the fact that moiria’s life steal from her primary will heal her 20 hps, cutting that output in half for the duration of the Debuff.

With the four second duration of this ability also means it can cover the duration of most damaging ultimates, as the likes of Orisa’s, Reapers, Pharah’, and more are all shorter then or equal to 4 seconds in length.

This also has great effect on any hero that doesn’t have mobility, or shielding options.

Something like junkerqueen, hammon, doomfist, hog, genji (to an extent), are all going to constantly be face tanking these orbs. removing their ability to effectively rush an opponent, while a hero like Zenyatta is more or less shutdown completely this ability. As he not only depends on his own damage to survive, but the effects of his damage orb are effectively nerf on any ally that is affected by debuff. Do to it’s percentage based buff.

there are other heroes like Tracer, Sombra, Mei, Reaper, and Moira herself that can self-cleanse these effects. While the likes of D.va/Orisa/Sigma can in fact prevent the ability from landing, via defense matric like tools.

The likes of Rien and Winston can make space for the team with their barriers. Be it that unlike D.va, their will be periods where those defences are down and simply can’t prevent the debuff from landing. Be it that shield breaking or simply rien attempting to attack. A similiar thing can be said with Orisa to, who can simply be waited or baited on her spear spin, to apply the debuff.

However Zarya is both capable of prevent the debuff, as well as cleansing it in the first place. And do to the range of her bubbles and flexibility of where she can use her bubbles, their is quite a bit of room for her to actively push a Moria and counteract her debuff at the same time.

So, there are definitely ways to play around the ability. Be it at the same time their several heroes that simply don’t have anyway to really play around it.

My thoughts on the matter?

I’m personally not a fan of this ability, that’s not to say I don’t want strong supports with powerful tools. As I do.

But in this specific case it’s a tad to… Universally applicable. As all heroes do damage, even supports (At least they should be doing damage/damage boosting whenever you can)

As this tool kind of shuts down most heroe’s in the game, at least when it does land. As most tanks use damage as a means to maintain/make their space, while supports need it to defend themselves or to help get picks on other heroes.

While the damage role specifically is more less completely shut down by this debuff, even those that can cleanse it will have to burn a cooldown to do so.

As most of their kits are there to primarily do damage, or to get into position where they can apply such. I would even go as far as to say this is stronger then Anti-nade, as even tho it blocks all healing. The supports that primarily do said healing, still have multiple utiliities tools, as well as the ability to do damage. So their is still plenty of ways for them to still influence the game at hand.

Yet a dps with the enfeeble debuff, is at the mercy of their team to either cleanse the effect. Or stall long enough for either the Debuff to fade, or long enough for the cooldown they burned to cleanse comes back online.

So they can go back to being remotely effective again.

I will say that I like the idea of Moira having utility, just not in this specific way.

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I agree. Perhaps they can consider a weaker damage mitigation type utility. I know there is give and take with these changes. So why not reduce her attach angle even further while bumping up her damage.

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I could see a version of this utility where it does more impact damage, something along the lines of doubling it’s damage/splash. With a 30% damage reduction. Giving her a 2 seconds TTk on 200 hp heroes, while at the same time still giving herself more room to duel with the additional sustain.

As even 30% will require dps to be on near top form to make that kill within 2 seconds. Without completely shutting them down.

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While I think the ability is on the strong side currently I think that it is a good ability and in theory is much stronger than in practice.

Applying this to a tank character does limit them but it really forces a commitment choice. If weakened the tank should back out or use defensive abilities. A Winston could and should use buble to block or avoid powerful cooldowns like this. A Ball could roll away and reengage when the effect wears off or just displace targets for the team without directly dealing the damage. The big tank that is destroyed by this is hog. He cant block it and it destroys his big one shot move. But that is another topic and I think hog is terrible in ow2 as a solo tank lacking any tanking ability.
I don’t see how it much worse than sleep dart. While needing to hit the target it’s a hard cc that if properly coordinated translates into a kill. This new orb gives the effected player full control to react and make a decision to commit to a fight or leave. It doesnt prevent ability usage or limit healing. I think if anti and lamp can be in the game this has no problem in the game. Does it need to be balanced yes, but I think powerful cooldowns are important to making the game less about the ult fight or making shutdown plays without using ults to mirror. Ult should not equal win.
I think in practice 3m is not many meters and if you miss uh oh it’s on cooldown for a long time and there was your big move gone. Just like sleep dart where if you hit that nutty sleep in a blading genji his ult just got dumpstered so too should you be rewarded for hitting the mid air orb and dumpstering the ult. But in both cases if you miss your big shutdown plays is gone. I think the big benefit of the orb is it forces decision making for the effected player while not taking away control. You can int harder while doing no damage, die and complain about the orb being op or you can back out or wait and then go in after it’s done.
This ability has decent counterplay from both sides and there will be characters you are stronger against with it. This is part of overwatch where there are some matchups that don’t favor you. I love Winston but I’m not going to say that I should be able to duel reaper and hog on Winston and if I can’t they need to change this. I want more status abilities that allow players to make choices about their next move and weigh wait the best choice is it makes the game less about aim good and more about being smart and learning.
I think making this into a deal damage and have a really weak effect is not a good change. Then why not just scrap the effect and make it a high damage skill shot. The effect has to feel impactful otherwise why have it. Putting to much focus on ability do damage and maybe a minor inconvenience makes the game reductive. Then the game just becomes a numbers game and you look at who has the best numbers and pick them without thought of utility or matchups.

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It is a pretty gnarly debuff, but it’s also not a stun like Ana’s sleep meaning even the person effected has counterplay they can do. I think it’s pretty good as is.

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The one aspect that the enfeeble orb has over sleep, is simply that it’s a lot easier to apply. As it is an Aoe explosion that is slightly larger area of effect then the splash on a pharah rocket. Meaning their is room to have it be applied to multiple targets at once, or around tools like brigs personal barrier/genji’s delfect. Making it more comparable to nade if anything.

This is also on a hero that is very self-sustainable, and very mobile. Making it a lot easier for Moira to get in and out of positions to use it offensively. Even if the cooldown misses, Moira can still fade out or use her sustain to win the duel that way.

Where as ana can easily be caught out or punished if she attempted to use sleep offensively. A tool she herself can’t secure kills with on full health targets do to her max combo only outputting 160 damage with the use of nade and melee.

On top of the fact it’s effect is rather global in it’s application, as in hitting any role with the new orb in both team/and in 1v1 situation is huge advantage. Where as a diving tank in a 1v1 would never really have to worry about sleep or nade, as at most that would be a 1/5 their hp pool missing when it’s over.

Were they can then proceed to push the ana.

Yet Moira has to the tools to potentially infinitely sustain her self in that tank fight. The tank wouldn’t even be able to play for the ult, as the damage reduction would also effect their ult charge.

Not saying this is a completely realistic situation at the end here, I’m just pointing out that the orb it’s self isn’t the only aspect at play here.

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Unless the enemy is positioning itself extremely poorly, Feeb is a straight downgrade from Sleep Dart… which is apparently not so strong that Ana couldn’t also have a second massive utility that gives a one hundred percent debuff, and damage+healing that is comparable in numbers but with infinitely better range.
And I’m sorry to say that in spite of a bunch of half-baked theories about her so-called vulnerabilities, Ana’s death numbers say she survives is just fine in practice. Ya’ll forget that she has a huge range (pun) of positioning options away from danger, which can not be said for other supports. Mercy, Moira, and Lucio all have “escape” abilities because their effective range forces them into positions they need to have escapes from.

So.

No, Feeb is not too strong. And anyone who thinks it’s “too frustrating” can just deal with it, the way support players have been dealing with getting their heals completely shut down by an ability that has a shorter cooldown, greater potency, and is easier to aim than Feeb is. Getting effectively countered isn’t supposed to feel good.

My opinion now is that the main issue with Feeb is how poor the control mapping is. Two cooldowns on one button is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

I’d like to see Feeb moved to the Reload button. And I think Blizzard should consider putting Angry Orb back where it was, with modifications of course. What is the point of making an enemy do garbage damage for four seconds here and there, if you play your cards right… when the trade off is that you do garbage damage all of the time no matter how well you play.

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I would have to disagree their, as you have to keep in mind the hero this ability is attached to. We are not comparing sleep with need, were comparing Moira to Ana.

As unlike ana, who has no mobility and her one sustain tool that also being one of her big play maker. Making it a trade-off to use it offensively or defensively, as it could leave her open to counterattack if she did use such for a anti-effect.

Moria with two form of self-sustain separate from feeb (as you put it), also has fade to reposition even on to highground do to the built in super jump.

Moira has a lot more room to get in and of situations were she can apply (Feeb) offensively, which is something ana would have to take considerable risks to even attempt such.

and once ana does sleep offensively she is left with only nade and her damage to defend her self.

Where as moria can both fade, and use her healing orb to get out of any bad situation, or to even push further into the fight to capitalize off the effect of (Feeb).

Ana also hangs in the back of a fight away from most of the and ususes sleep primarily defensively. you would rarely see sleep being fired outside that, with the exception of countering specifc interactions like a DPS ult.

Moira can just go and use enfeeble like ana would an anti-nade. And unlike ana Moria can still heal herself, and reposition with fade.

like if Ana is dived on by more then one of the enemy team, she is going to die if her own team doesn’t peel or use abilities like bubble. Or even if it is just a single flanker, their is a good chance sleep will not hit. At which point she has to burn nade primarily on herself, and has to land three to four shots to pull of the flanker. If not more in the case of tracer who can selfheal.

Moria on the over hand just say no to that fight and fade away, then apply Feeb were she has 4 seconds to kill a target that will not being remotely even the same damage as moria will be doing to them. If the target does live past that four second mark they ultimately still have to deal with the healing orb, which could then easily stall into a second fade.

Like tracer doing 50dps max to the body point blank, is not exactly a fair fight with a hero that has the same damage output but with a tool that has considerably more range. And significantly more consistent then tracers spread weapon.

Ya that tracer can burn rewind, but would have to kill moria in three seconds or so while still burning through her healing orb.

To put it simply (Feeb) is an anti-nade that works on the primary tool of every hero, not just healing. that is attached to a her hero with mobility and multiple layers of sustain.

I didn’t say this I stated it’s interactions.

It has it’s counters, with like a third of roster being able to burn a cooldown to get rid of it in some way. So their is room to play around it.

I just don’t personally like that it limits a universal tool that everyone hero relies on, one way or another to such an extreme. That it does make the damage role when inflicted pretty much useless. As unlike supports with anti-nade, they have loads of utility to use and damage to use. while the damage role doesn’t really have much outside of damage and positioning tools.

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You talk about all DPS getting shut down but like…

Ranged DPS typically fight from relative safety. So getting hit by the orb doesn’t seem like it’d be a death sentence, just a momentary delay.

Brawl DPS tend to have their own cleansing effects, which I would say is a fair trade since morbs CD is pretty long.

Flankers definitely get boned here. As do dive tanks. Brawl and poke tanks…

Come to think of it, all tanks get boned by this orb. Tanks are pretty much the definition of heroes that need to “commit” to a fight. Imo they suffer the most here.

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Keep in mind that most maps do push for more close range combat, Their are exceptions of course.

but in most cases your playing around the cart or on/next to a control point. so that soldier/ ashe isn’t always going to have the benefit of range.

That and removing them from a fight for 4 seconds (mostly) does in turn allow your team a lot of extra space to play around. It might not be sudden death, but it can be a lost team fight. As what damage they are doing is either barely overcoming or being completely outweighed by healing.

Like junkrat is doing 30 damage a nade, and has to wait .667 seconds to launch another one, mercy is doing 33.35 hps and can’t exactly miss.

Also on a side note people were already playing moria like a secondary dive hero, so her diving say that back line soldier with a tank or another mobile hero in tow is definitely possible.

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There are a lot of abilities that are universally applicable and powerful. Lamp can be universally used to live through any source of damage no matter how great. Sleep can hard cc any character. Resurrect can reverse any pick even on a huge hp tank.
All of these abilities have two common point, they can be shutdown or circumvented and are on huge cooldowns. Sure you sleep the tracer diving you but now she calls to the genji that sleep is on cooldown and he pulls the blade and you can stop him. Maybe you lamp yourself to live through reaper jumping on you but once lamp is gone he blossoms and wipes your backline. Mercy may go for res but is vaunerable to getting picked off while she does it.
These are huge swing abilities and when they land it’s a big play. But they don’t always land and what you stopped may not always be as impactful as what comes after. And if you stop the big play that’s you being good and earning that.

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Yet most of those tools are applied to the user, and friendly target. Once they are up their is plays to get around the lamp such as pharah booping them out of it’s range. Or using it’s close range proximity to bait a mie’s ult. A simliar thing can be said about rez, I can stop it simply by attacking or knocking back the mercy.

Sleep on the other hand is primarily a defensive tool to keep the likes of flankers, and well mostly tanks off of ana. who otherwise doesn’t have an escape. It can used offensively at the major risk of not having it for that said tank and or flanker.

Were as Enfeeble once applied as a Debuff, requires me to play as a hero that can remove it themselves at the cost of their cooldown they needed to protect themselves. from tools being thrown at them by mostly the tanks and other dps.

Like Reaper that wraiths to remove the Enfeeble is one that is going to eat a cassidy sticky for free.

As I stated in my original post their is counter play for it, Zarya being the best example. And I do want supports to have strong tools to play around.

I just don’t personally like how this iteration interacts with heroes. Specifically that it makes dps either ineffective or weaker do to them needing to burn the a cooldown or runaway to stay alive/and or effective in combat.

In this case it is winning because it is stalling out the cooldowns on one team. Like I can shoot the mercy rezing, I can shoot the lamp, I can bait the sleep, but if a moira dives onto me especially with another hero in tow. I can’t exactly dodge an explosion that is only slightly smaller then ana-nade, I would have to break LOS to keep alive as dps. Or play passively as the other two roles.

This it isn’t as much as a skill shot as people think it is, as it is effectively a Pharah rocket with a wider splash range. And it only really takes a moira willing to flank to get around a rien barrier. Which they were more then willing to do to chase down other supports. Or weakened dps.

As it’s sorta pushing for a shutdown dive style of gameplay, as if OW1 sombra’s hack was on a projectile. And lot easier to apply, But in an environment where their isn’t two tanks to chase or stall the effects of.

Keep in mind this effect is being stacked on the like of lamp/nade/sleep/rez. So Enfeeble team dive, with lamp being thrown into a team that is barely pushing 40 dps individually. (Rien would only be doing about 22 damagea swing, winston would be doing 15)

a mercy rez being completely safe because the people pushing in can’t kill her in time.

A sleeped tank being Enfeebled while they can’t block or avoid it. (Hello chain stunning my old friend her we meet again)

Not saying that will be the gameplan or the meta strat, but this sort of thing feels like it should have been on a tank.

For example, image a big melee tank that had a AOE around him that debuffs enemy damage while they stand in it. Possibly something on cooldown more so then a passive.

Which to me would be more in line with what the tool would be good for, protecting the team. As it stands now it can be layered with tank tools like sigma’s barrier/DM buffering, Rien droping his barreir and letting healing stall out the damage to recharge his barrier, junker queen own self sustain. Oddly enough zarya is the only tank that doesn’t work well with it. Do to her bubbles wanting to absorb the full damage.

So it kind of really swings the effectiveness of the tanks, and no I wonder why that was the reason for the tank armor nerfs.

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From my point of view, this is why Tanks in OW are bad. I’m another hobbyist game designer like you, only I’ve been playing and enjoying tanks in other games for decades. Any hero should have the ability to make space since, you know, that’s an important thing in a team game. Tanks should do this, but their focus should be exclusively on taking damage for their team.

How do you make a role that’s easy to shoot, designate them as the space making role, and then make a hero that stops them from dealing meaningful damage so they can’t make space? That seems like bad game design to me.

Alternatively, if they were meat shields, and specifically had abilities to mitigate damage as their focus, the damage lowering wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately for Overwatch, it has a fanbase that just wants to play a first person shooter, so ideas like “tanks being tanky” are out of the question.

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I’m afraid this isn’t quite the case in the shooters space, as unlike an mmo or an rpg. Teams or not made to be completely sustainable, as they would be in an raid boss situation.

Tanks in ow don’t really want to take damage, as they are made in a way where they would win a 1v1 with most dps because of their bulk. But that would still leave them with little health to spare, And that is only within their ideal range. With some exceptions like rien landing a charge.

With healing only being strong enough to slow down TTK or to refill after the fight is over. Ideally they only want the attention of maybe two players at time, and either use the resource like barriers to get into/hold posisition. (Rien/winstons) or use their cooldowns to help set/prevent various cooldowns and ults. (D.va/Orisa) While others are best at disrupting the enemy team scattering their attention away from one target (Hammon/doom)

Tanks effectively anchor the fight as they need the most attention to take down, but shouldn’t by any means be looking to be take any more damage then they need to.

As they are designed to die at one point or another, otherwise the fights would stall to much and the cart/point would get stuck in one position for extended periods of time.

In other words your still playing a shooter were the goal is to have quick 3~5 minute matches, or at most 9~15 minute comp games. And that is if the game goes into round 3.

Focus on maximizing your elim potential, or at least how you can help your team achieve that. Not so much how you can block or prevent everything.

Think heavy weapons guy from tf2, not RPG tank.

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My issue with this comparison is that most characters in TF2 don’t just invalidate the Heavy like characters invalidate Tanks (or the “Tank”) in Overwatch. Plus, the Heavy isn’t really meant to be a tank, he’s just made to lay out heavy firepower and has extra health to facilitate his style of gameplay.

Tanks in Overwatch are, or should, be different. They should be closer to RPG tanks because that’s what’s advertised of them. I’m not saying they shouldn’t die, and I’m not saying this isn’t a shooter. What I am saying is, if you’re tanks can’t tank, you failed at making tanks. We should stop pretending this isn’t true.

Right, so this is an enormous failure. If you make tanks that don’t want to tank, what have you made. Would you be okay if Damage role heroes sucked at dealing damage? Or supports that can’t support their team? No? Then why be okay with tanks that can’t tank?

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Heavy’s weapon is best in close range do to random spread and falloff, one that always is in close proximity to a support (medic). That often combo’s with said support to take space in areas were the squishier members would immediately get blown up. Or relies on the games other support (engie) to get to front line faster.

Ya he is countered by other classes, but is the games tank. And is the baises for how OW built their tanks. As tf2 is the primary inspiration for OW, at least it’s failed mmo state. (As you know it was like the only other hero shooter on market that was remotely successful, one with cart pushing, and control points, and cosmetics galor)

They can’t I’m affraid, RPG tanks are built for a different gameplay style and would ultimately stall the game till the player themselves messed up at one point or another. Which is the scenarios tanks are built for in RPG and MMO’s, as the ai glues to them. Or is provoked by some sort of ability or last hit mechanic.

Acting as your teams actual HP bar, Or at least buffer for the rez spells.

where as in the PVP shooter enviroment. Their effectively just beefy close quarter damage dealers, with the tools to get into space. With the occasional ability blocking to boot.

Hate to break it to you, but you can’t just slap the conventions and mechanics of one game genre into another. And expect it to work exactly the same.

Like puting a litterial tank into a fighting game, can’t share the same design space as a tank in fps. `https://youtu.be/pHFVFMv7zpI?t=126

It would still need to be throwable, have combo’s, super’s and a personality to it to make it stand out from the crowd. ontop of being able to be punched to death by karate people.

But extreme examples aside we are playing a shooter, one that needs to move at a decent pace. Something that can’t be achieved if were just stopping for a minute at a time in the same space.

it’s why 2CP was kicked simply because players didn’t like attacking the same point over and over again. Simply because fights got stale running into the same scenario over and over again.

Something that tanks if balanced like an rpg can enforce greatly, as you wouldn’t be dueling charcters with unique abilities and weaponry. You would be fighting that one tank over an over again till one them dies, then the team without a tank gets steam rolled because of it.

You want those shorter interactions, you want players to engage with the most unique interactions they can in a given match. They want you to flank around the tank while someone else is engaging them. They want you to get the most advantage you can out of the skill shots, and the short periods of time you have to stop big plays.

They need to have attacks land as more then then not for the game to stay exceting.

Don’t get me wrong, flying up to a hog and DM’ing a hook combo, while stopping a Moira’s ult with and Orisa javelin are hyped moments to. However, that can’t be most of the game play or even a majority of, because it would get stale fast.

You would feel like you would have zero impact on the game, and simply would leave for other shooters that would give players what they wanted.