That… was incredibly fast. Well, let’s talk about it!

After what seems like barely any wait at all, Overwatch‘s newest character, Moira, is live on PC and Console. It’s no secret that the game has been hungry for another support character. Moira intends to sate that appetite. But what does she bring to the table? What can Moira do that the other healers can’t?

Moira comes with a handful of new and unique abilities, largely centered around resource management. Now, every character in Overwatch has to put up with resource management to an extent. The cooldown on abilities means you have to be strategic about using them, lest you not have them when you need them most. But Moira takes things a bit farther. See, Moira expends the charge from her meter as she heals her allies. While the meter does return on its own, it’s insanely slow. But it comes back faster if you can do damage with her main attack. So how does she play?

Something like that. Now, that clip doesn’t encompass nearly everything to be seen in Moira’s kit. But it did give a good idea of her damage capability. Moira doesn’t do a particularly large amount of damage. It’s reliable damage for certain, but it’s simply not on par with the likes of the other healers in sheer output, especially Ana and Zenyatta, who are both pretty good at burst damage.

Speaking of Zenyatta, Moira has a vaguely similar vibe to his Harmony and Discord orbs, with the whole “giving and taking life” thing. In fact, she even has an orb of her own. Her biotic orb is her best tool for burst healing, especially in tight corridors and closed-off rooms. They ricochet and heal a nice chunk of damage. The damage ord is very much the same. It’s no quick kill, but it’s useful for helping the damage output in a team fight.

Frankly, my favorite of Moira’s abilities is her fade step thing. Simply put, I like having a healer who can reliably get themselves out of danger without help. Mercy can only fling herself between dead bodies for so long. Lucio can’t speed boost away from everything. Ana and Zen have zero escape options. I appreciate Moira having a mobility option that can get her away from assassins. It certainly isn’t like she’s going to be particularly good at killing them. I mean just look at her stats.

Really, if anything, Moira is yet another example of a problem I tend to personally have in the game. She’s not a hard character to use and playing her feels pretty good. It’s genuinely fun. But she has so many abilities. The characters that have a ton of abilities are always the ones it takes me the longest to get used to. I just always wind up forgetting about one or mixing up the controls. Luckily she isn’t also very mechanically demanding. It makes my job easier and makes Moira an overall blast to play. Especially since her ultimate makes you feel like a Dragon Ball character.

“Kamehameha!”

I’m really looking forward to seeing how she’ll fit into the meta as things develop. She seems pretty well balanced, so I don’t foresee a ton of tweaks in her future. But only time will tell. So until then, have fun with the new character, everyone!