First of all, I am aware of the infamous YouTube video that supposedly explains why Moira’s right click is essentially a standard beam with a pseudo lock on animation, but it’s actually wrong, and I’m here to explain why.
People keep saying how lock on weapons are supposed to follow a certain list of rules by mentioning Sym and Mercy’s left click, and how they stay locked on even when the target is out of the target to reticle lock on angle or out of LoS for a short period of time, while Moira’s right click doesn’t. Here’s why this logic is flawed:
First of all, Sym and Mercy’s lock on left clicks don’t even follow the same rules themselves. Mercy can perpetually stay tethered to her target, even if she can’t see them on her screen, as long as there are no objects blocking LoS. Meanwhile, Sym will lose the lock if the target is not visible on her screen.
Second, Sym and Mercy are not the only ones with lock on weapons. Torb’s turret, Sym’s turrets, high noon, Sombra’s hack, and tactical visor are all lock on abilities with different rules, but they still lock on. Tac visor’s target to reticle lock on angle is a large circle, and will immediately break if the target gets out of the circle. High noon will immediately break with the loss of LoS, and Torb and Sym turrets and Sombra’s hack work exactly the same way.
This means that lock on weapons/abilities can function under modified sets of rules. So you might say "if they all follow different rules, then what is it that classifies them as lock on abilities and not just glorified huge hitboxes with pseudo lock on animations? This brings us to the third and most important part.
What do all these abilities (Moira right click, Sym left click, Mercy left click, high noon, tac visor, hack, turrets etc.) have in common, other than their lock on animation?
Think
Think
Think…
Well, the answer is simple. They can’t hit a hurtbox that is under the “untargetable” status. And which hero has the ability to enter the “untargetable” status? Sombra. What all these lock on animation abilities have in common is that they can’t target Sombra while she is invisible. Moira’s right click and her damage orb can’t hit Sombra while she is invisible, even if she moves directly within their hitbox, and the same rule applies to all the weapons/abilities with a lock on animation. If Moira’s right click was just a glorified Zarya beam, then she would be able to knock Sombra out of stealth with it.
There’s your proof. It boggles my mind how people can be so narrow minded to think that modifications cannot be applied to a certain type of code. It’s like saying that Zarya’s right clicks are not projectiles because they are lobbed and don’t move in a straight line like Zen’s orbs for example.
EDIT: A very good counter argument against my post is that both Sombra CAN actually be targeted by Mercy’s heal beam (and Zen’s friendly orbs). My answer to this is that Mercy’s beam (and harmony orb) is probably an exception, because technically is isn’t even a weapon or a harmful ability to begin with.