Moira changes - some ideas and thoughts

General Discussion
1

For starters so people won’t have to bother looking at my profile, I’m a borderline Plat/Diamond player on console who heavily favors supports. One of my best characters is Moira. From the start Moira did not appeal to me at all, and I just did not get her the idea behind her at all. Since then I’ve grown to really like what she can and can’t do, but I’ve come to see that Moira will always be limited if some changes are not made. I will start by outlining what I feel Moira should and should not do.

Moira should:

  • Provide a ton of healing during the course of a game.
  • Favor tank heavy comps or comps that are grounded and close.
  • Be evasive and hard to attack.

Moira should not:

  • Be a dps-character for people in lower elos.
  • Be a character of great utility (think Ana).
  • Be impossible to dive.

With this in mind I will start outlining my thoughts about her kit. Despite popular opinion, Moira is not a great dps in terms of damage. However, for people who struggle with aiming she can be a reliable source of dps. Add to this evasion and self sustain and it’s obvious why she’s an issue in the lower tiers. Meanwhile, in the higher tiers most dps will laugh at her little leech and will force her to retreat or die.

The natural conclusion would be to make her damage more aim intensive right? However, Moira’s leech is also her way to restock her healing pool. Make it too difficult and Moira will constantly be out of healing for her team, which is a big no. Hence her leech needs to be forgiving.

So what do I propose then? Moira is the only support that only has two things in her kit - damage and healing. Everyone else has at least three other aspects:

Mercy - Healing, boosting, rezzing (not counting damage as it’s pitiful)
Ana - Healing, damage, healing-boost, healing denial, stun
Baptiste - Healing, damage, immortality field
Zenyatta - Healing, damage, discord debuff
Lucio - Healing, damage, speed boost, boop
Brigitte - Healing, damage, stun, boop

This is very simplified of course, and you could argue that being evasive is a really good quality for a support (although it’s really only Ana and Zen that lacks it completely, but I digress). My point is that Moira needs some more utility to be a worthy pick in higher tiers, while at the same time she needs to become less of a reliable alternative dps in the lower tiers. This is therefor my suggestion (I know, I took a long time getting here):

Healing

  • Moira’s primary healing is fine as is and needs no buffs or nerfs.
  • However, Moira’s ult needs to reward healing a bit more. I suggest giving her Coalescence the same “over time” effect that her primary healing has. The “ticks” will only do 50% of the healing though, which is 70 hps, and only over 2 seconds instead of her normal 4.
  • Moira’s healing orb now tethers more closely, slowing from 5,5 m/s to 4,5 m/s.
  • Moira’s leech is nerfed from 30 hps to 25 hps.

Damage

  • Moira’s primary damage is… fine. It’s 50 dps, and I find it hard to justify a nerf here. But, in case the other changes I proposed makes her too good it can be nerfed as far down as to 40 dps (but not more).
  • Moira’s damage orb is nerfed to a total of 150 damage instead of 200. It still does 50 dps. Should other proposed changes prove too strong another nerf as far down as to 100 damage might be considered.
  • Moira’s damage orb now gives an 50% anti healing effect for 4 seconds, meaning target healing is reduced by 50% from any source.

Evasion

  • Perfect as is, leave it be.

Summary
The idea is for Moira to be played more as the healer she primarily is while still keeping her a good option if the enemies tries sending assassins for her. I’m cutting off some of her self-sustain and damage in favor of making her more valuable to her team, where she should always be anyway.

The changes to her damage orb in combination with her leech will make it so that even if you are unlucky enough to take the full brunt of the orb Moira will still need to attack you with her leech if she wants to secure a kill (and if you could not walk out of range from that thing for 3 seconds you kinda deserve it). The compensation of healing reduction I hope will give her some utility that won’t be as oppressive as anti nade, but still work to help her team against comps that rely heavily on sustain. It’s natural to worry about anti-heal stacking, but since Moira and Ana don’t really synergize well I think it should be fine. It would also make for a good opportunity to give us more cleansing abilities in future supports.

By improving the tethering I want the healing orb to “run away” less and making it a more secure source of healing for her team. The buff to her Coalescence is to make it a better defensive and offensive ult as Moira now only has to “tap” her allies for healing, making it easier for her to switch around to different targets while still leaving some healing active. So this change isn’t so much to give Moira more healing as it is to enable her to multitask easier while in ult.

The numbers can always be discussed, so I’m more interested in feed-back about the direction I would prefer Moira to go. Is giving her utility the right call, or can she be a strong character without it? Are the sacrifices to her damage and self sustain where you should cut, or would it make her weaker as a whole?

TL;DR: If you don’t care to read then why even bother commenting? Just type “Moira is fine” and move on.

And because this is what people actually want to see, here’s a pic of me typing this:

6 Likes
2

I wouldn’t mind her orbs being weaker if they did some small utility.

I also want to be able to sacrifice healing resource to boost something she does (To reward those who can manage it well).

I also want to steal your bunnies.

3

How on earth did you read that so quickly?!

Also, nobody touches the bunny army.

However, we do allow people to join the bunny cult.

1 Like
4

I didn’t read it, I just skimmed through and decided I agreed with it. :rabbit2::rabbit2:

Whats the first step in joining the bunny cult?

5

Moira:
no longer requires to damage in order to recharge -> recharge is fast but goes on a cooldown after reaching 20%

heal orb heal speed buffed by 25%
heal orb travel speed buffed by 25%

damage orb now explodes deals no damage and curses enemies in a radius:

curse orb: you cant be affected by buffs including damageboost immortality speedboost heal boost

moira self healing reduced to 10hps
moira fade cd increased to 8s

coales: now heals 25% more

6

Ah, guess that’s why you didn’t see the suggestion for a Mercy rework then… :smiling_imp:

You apply by sending 5 carrots to me every month. In return we won’t stomp… I mean, cuddle, you to death when the time for the coup comes.

1 Like
7

I have considered the idea of the orb “exploding”, but given that the trajectory is random at best it would be very difficult to get value out of. You would then have to make it so Moira herself can detonate it, and that might be too strong as she then can use it to shorten her CD on the orb when she misfires (which should be punished).

1 Like
8

Thats actually a pretty cool idea for an effect.

9

thats why i increased her fade cooldown

10

too bad the last 2 times i posted this same effect you responded moira is fine she doesnt need changes and didnt bother reading

11

I don’t ever remember thinking Moira is fine. Most of what I’ve seen you say has been more of a big fat nerf rather than a re work.

12

The idea of cursing is interesting as it aligns with Moira’s character well, but I don’t want to put too much power into her orbs as it would make it so everything in her kit is balanced around it (yes, looking at you Ana and your Nade!). Try consider toning it down so she can still retain her evasiveness and strength against flankers, because she really does need to be good here. It’s better for her to keep self sustain rather than damage I would say.

Might also make for a really interesting new support concept.

2 Likes
13

bcz you just didnt read

14

Just here for the bunny GIFs…I’ll see myself out. I kid. I do agree Moira needs some changes,what those should be though :man_shrugging:

15

The idea I’ve always liked is one that plays on the fact Moira has no utility, by giving her “utility” in the form of being able to ignore utility.

The idea is actually one I’ve thought about for a while to give Blizzard an easy lever in tuning healing which in turn will make burst DPS less essential and sustained DPS a bit stronger.

A rework of Anti-Heal.

The barebones of it would be that Anti-Heal is no longer exclusive to Ana. Instead it becomes a “generic” mechanic that is available to a multitude of heroes, though I would personally put it on the heroes who don’t have much, if any burst damage, and/or have historically struggled within the meta. Heroes like Symmetra, Junkrat and Reaper come to mind here.

How the new Anti-Heal would work is instead of being ability based with a decent duration and CD, instead it gets applied by heroes (typically through LMB, or things like Sym’s turrets) for an extremely short duration at a much weaker level. Ana might get Anti-Heal at 100%, but other heroes would only get it at 50% or so.

The goal would have it be an easy application (hence tying it to the LMB) but a short duration, so a Tank can’t just chase Junkrat’s grenades like a dog chases a tennis ball, it should be possible/easy to heal them up if they take a breather behind a barrier for a second or two, but if they’re being directly fired on, keeping them alive will be much harder.

This puts less impact on the value of OHK’s while giving a lever that can easily be changed depending on the power of healing within the game. Healing too strong? Bump it from 50% to 60%. Too weak? Bump it down to 30%, or maybe even lower. It’s a similar system to how WoW has Mortal Strike effects and League of Legends has an identical mechanic in Grievous Wounds.

But where would Moira fit into it? Well that’s easy. As thematical of a Blackwatch scientist who piggybacked off Mercy’s Biotic research, Moira knows the ins and outs of how Biotic tech, and it’s weaponized version in Anti-Heal works. This allows her own Biotic healing to completely ignore the effects of Anti-Heal.

This would mean that Moira’s utility comes in the form of ignoring Anti-Heal and keeps her firmly in her spot as the premiere throughput healer, as everyone else will have to deal with a more frequent (albeit less powerful) version of Anti-Heal, but of course, will have their current utility to compensate, without directly adding power to her kit itself and causing (even more) issues with Moira down at the bottom levels of play.

16

I guess you can have some ideas what you would like. For example, I’m fine with giving up damage for utility, but I understand if others might feel that it means becoming too weak to flankers (which is not the direction I intend, but given the proposed changes here it does make her weaker on that front).

17

This is a rework of the whole game though, not just Moira. The idea is interesting, but I think the effort in doing this might be more than Blizzard is up for. I also think supports as a whole would need a major additional rework if anti-heal is too prominent seeing as it still is their primary role in the team that might constantly be negated with little to no counterplay (unless a bunch of cleanses is added).

I’d suggest make your own thread for it and see the reactions. :slight_smile:

18

It is, but I’ve always liked the idea of indirect changes to Moira.

Nerfing her throughput or survivability to compensate for the utility she needs to be viable at higher levels of play always feels super bad as a concept, but at the same time she’s a dangerous character to just straight up buff outside fairly minor things (like healing through shields) due to how powerful throughput and healer survivability are at lower ranks.

Besides Moira, no healer has their viability hinged only on how powerful their healing is. Zen has Discord, Lucio has Speed, Mercy has Res/Boost/Mobility, Ana has the extreme versatility within her kit, Baptiste has Immortality Field and Brigitte has her peeling and frontline capabilities.

Moira just has her healing. If Anti-Heal existed, it would carve a solid niche for her in that she’s the only healer who doesn’t have direct counterplay to her level of throughput. She’d still have her other weaknesses, like her lack of range and having no direct utility, but she’d have this pretty solid strength in her kit without actually having to directly increase her power.

19

The whole point of Moira is what she lacks in utility, she makes up for in heals and evasiveness.

If you buff her utility, then you need to nerf what makes Moira who she is as a hero.

20

This is true, but it seems like this concept makes for a support that only functions in lower tiers (where she’s more used for her dps). To make her more valuable higher up she would need more dps (as she already has the most healing), but that would make her extremely oppressive in lower tiers. Giving her more evasive maneuvers would not really help her out either and would, again, just further her strength in lower tiers.

It’s hard to have to change a policy so fundamental to a character, but if it could be done for Mercy I think it can be done for Moira as well.