Blizzard devs reveal how they’re updating Moira for Overwatch 2

Blizzard devs have revealed how they’ve gone about updating Moira for Overwatch 2 in a new blog post. It also serves as a look into how every hero gets put under the microscope for the sequel.

The biggest aspect of Overwatch 2 is undoubtedly hero changes. In a new blog post on June 7, Associate Hero Designer Alex Kwok went over some of the scrapped ideas for new abilities and passives for Moira.

Not only that, he also went over what the team is currently working on when it comes to abilities for the support.

Moira scrapped abilities: Pain Converter, Purge & Nullify

First, Kwok went over the two new updates for Moira that didn’t make the cut. Iteration one was called “Pain Converter” and operated much like her Biotic Grasp, but on allies.

Pain Converter would have been a damage mitigation ability that refilled her healing bar based on how much damage was prevented. In theory it sounds intriguing, but it didn’t make the cut because it felt “too situational” during playtesting and it was awkward to implement, Kwon said.

• Read More: OWL pros baffled after bizarre Overwatch 2 bug causes losing team to “win”

“The ability also felt too situational because you got the most value from using it on the tank and not on teammates getting dove or flanked,” he said. “Lastly, Moira already has a complete kit, and we struggled to find room where we could add another ability. We tried binding Pain Converter to the reload key, but this felt awkward since Moira wasn’t reloading a weapon.”

Next up were two separate ideas: Purge and Nullify. The former of which were actually inspired by World of Warcraft’s Shaman class, that would remove buffs from enemies.

From Purge to Nullify and finally Weaken

However, Purge was too hard to reign in which buffs would be affected and which ones wouldn’t. To solve this, devs came up with “Nullify” which only negated damage reduction, damage boosts, and movement speed while active.

Nullify had several versions — one of which allowed Moira to stop her orbs in place to provide consistent AoE healing, and another that dealt extra damage to Overhealth — but in the end this too was scrapped in favor of a new ability the Overwatch team is currently testing with Moira: Weaken.

• Read More: Devs announce Junkrat buffs for next Overwatch 2 beta

Weaken begins charging when reload is pressed once, causing Moira to build up energy. After it’s all charged, Moira can fire a projectile that significantly lowers attack and healing output. She can either fire this projectile, or hold it at the cost of not being able to use her primary or secondary fire at the same time.

There’s still some tweaking to be done, like how large the projectile will be and finer stat points, but Kwok added that Weaken is looking “promising so far.”

So, don’t be surprised if Moira has a brand new skillshot added to her kit by the time the next Overwatch 2 beta test rolls around.