Both Moira and Brigitte had very early prototypes near each other actually. There was a time where we just really felt like we need to add more healer options to the game asap, so we got to playing around with different prototypes and mechanics. In fact, Brigitte (who we just called ‘pally’ internally) was the one that first started with Moira’s Biotic Orb ability (though she only had the heal part of it). Initially Brigitte’s prototype was sort of… ‘lets see if we can do a healer who only healed via powerful cooldowns’, so thats where the bouncing heal ball started.
Eventually we wanted to push the tank hybrid angle much more which lead to her Inspire passive and armor ultimate. We weren’t even sure, originally, that it was going to be Brigitte or just some new character that has yet to be seen, but once her kit started coming together it really felt like a perfect fit.