With the lineup of support players in Overwatch, which has recently expanded to 7 unique heroes with the addition of Baptise, there’s been much debate as to which are the best healers. Obviously, much will boil down to personal preference, along with in-game scenarios. Usually, however, the discussion of the game’s greatest, most effective overall healers tend to boil down to a couple - Mercy and Moira.
Mercy was an easy go-to for gamers and pros alike for Overwatch’s first couple of years. Yet, a significant nerf has somewhat brought her down from her elevated angelic status as the top support. Still, she’s an excellent single-target flying healer and a safe choice in most situations. Moira, meanwhile, remains a consistently solid, speedy AoE healer for more ground-level play, who can actually hold her own on DPS when in the right hands.
But which of these two powerhouses is truly the greatest overall healer? Let’s attempt to settle this as we examine 5 ways in which Mercy is still the best, and balance the scales with 5 reasons Moira may have snagged her crown.
10 Mercy: Mobility And Speed In Flying Towards Targets
One of Mercy’s handiest abilities is Guardian Angel - a sort of “get out of jail free card” that allows her to swoop directly to the position of a player in the area. This lets her escape hairy situations and to swiftly rendezvous with teammates in need. At the same time, this allows Mercy to cover quite a bit of ground at once, as players can exploit this ability’s super-short 1.5 second cooldown to bounce from player to player; even if they’re pretty spread out. This sort of heat-seeking magnetic drift allows even more inexperienced Mercy players to be safely positioned.
While Moira’s Fade can also help her ditch out of trouble, it’s confined to ground movement and comes with a rougher 6 second cooldown.
9 Moira: Speed And Ability To Escape On The Ground
As seasoned Moira players might know - it can be tough to try and be everywhere at once with this healer, especially when several of your teammates decide to disperse just about everywhere on the map.
Thankfully, her Fade ability allows you to cover quite a bit of ground with haste. This Tracer-esque dash move allows you to scramble towards injured teammates relatively quickly. At the same time, it enables you to escape situations where you’re being targetted by pesky DPS players. Though Mercy’s heat-seeking Guardian Angel is useful, Moira can utilize her mobility without the aid of nearby teammates as a springboard to move her around fast.
8 Mercy: Valkyrie’s Chain-Healing And Damage Boosts
It’s true that Valkyrie isn’t quite what it once was, given Blizzard’s removal of Mercy’s ability to revive multiple players at once with this Ult. Regardless, the impact of her chain-healing or damage boosting - which targets multiple teammates at once - is undeniable.
Not only this, but Mercy is often safe while popping this move, as she can hover skywards and watch over the team from a distance, making it very tough for opponents to take her out. And she can still swoop downwards and revive a single teammate relatively quickly during this ability. Although Moira can help turn some tides in skirmishes, her Coalescence beam doesn’t have nearly the same impact of well-timed Valkyrie.
7 Moira: Multi-Purpose Ultimate
Despite our previous entry - Moira’s swirling beam of life and death should not be overlooked by any means. The trick is to utilize it at the right time, and at the right location.
A neat trait of Coalescence is that it dishes out both healing and damage at the same time. This means that you’ll usually want to pop it within a cluster of both friends an foes, and in chokepoints. Assuming these measures are taken, Moira’s Ultimate can prove very handy, as it simultaneously damages opponents while lifting your own team. Even Mercy, with all her healing prowess, has to swap between heals and damage boosts.
6 Mercy: More Effective Healing Output On Single Targets
Moira can spray an admirable amount of healing at once - which is particularly useful as it can cover multiple targets. But when it comes to single-target healing, Mercy wins out. Not only is her healing beam more precise, but it’s also a constant stream that never needs to be “recharged.”
She can also rock this beam on teammates from greater distances than her mad scientist counterpart when in Valkyrie. Specifically, her beam extends to a whopping 30 meters and can temporarily go through walls. Moira’s slower, less-precise Biotic Grasp is confined to 15 at all times, making her more vulnerable as she needs to be positioned closer.
5 Moira: Better DPS
While she’s no Zenyatta when it comes to wheeling and dealing damage, Moira’s Biotic Grasp secondary fire, when coupled with a cheeky Biotic Orb, can chip away at targets, and melt squishier DPS foes in the crossfire. This should be used pretty sparingly - and often to recharge her energy - as it’s not as potent as her healing abilities. Still, she can certainly hold her own in a fight if the situation calls for it.
Mercy? Well, she wields a pretty weak and ineffective pistol that’s even outshined by baby D.va’s Bunny Blaster, and it’s pretty cumbersome to switch to in the heat of battle. To compare - Mercy’s pistol deals 20 damage per shot, but Moira’s Biotic Orb alone can notch up to 200 over just 4 seconds.
4 Mercy: Regeneration
While the malevolent Blackwatch scientist must resort to soul-absorption with her Biotic Grasp to regain lost health, Mercy comes with a super handy passive ability that allows her to regenerate her health with no action required. This move makes Mercy a natural at survival, as her health bar refills at a pretty fast rate of 20 per second.
Couple this with Resurrection, Valkyrie, and her ability to fly around from one teammate to another; Mercy is truly built to endure. More importantly, though; she’s built to allow her team to endure. Moira tends to be more susceptible to death - at least if she’s being directly targetted.
3 Moira: Healing Multiple Nearby Targets
This orb-dealing support Hero is perhaps most known for her ability to cover a lot of ground with her heals. While Mercy clings to a more binary system of honing in on one target at a time, Moira is quite resourceful and versatile.
Her default healing beam alone can cover an impressive range of teammates in its vicinity. In fact, it can churn out 80 health restoration per-second, and it also lingers for a few seconds at 65 healing even after the player has stopped using it. She can additionally launch a healing orb, which, if placed well-enough can turn into a barrage of healing. This is particularly effective in more confined, indoor areas, as the orb will bounce around like a ball in a pinball machine.
2 Mercy: Revives And More Revives
Sure, Moira can go a long way in assisting living teammates, but what of those that perish? Her lack of a Ressurection means she’s worn out much of her use for a fight if people start dropping, and has to wait for her fallen comrades to respawn or fend for herself.
This angel of Mercy, on the other hand, thrives best in this spot, as she can utilize one of her best abilities - Resurrect. While this move comes shackled with a 30 second cooldown time, using it wisely, at opportune times can essentially give extra lives for fallen teammates. It also cuts several seconds off the time it’d take to respawn and regroup. After all, “heroes never die!”
1 Moira: Juggling Multiple Tasks - And Orbs
Sure, there’s occasional trouble that comes from having to swap between DPS and healing output to keep Moira’s healing charged. Still, players who know how to manage these efficiently can turn Moira into an absolute monster who can help dictate the tempo and turn fights.
This unique method of synergizing both energies and keeping these ecosystems balanced is a fun little game in its own right. Moreover, though, it allows talented Moira players to truly thrive. Moria is both quick and versatile with her ability to quickly change from healing to damage beams, all while tossing orbs to add further impact. Though her trait of running out of juice can be problematic at times; she can execute an impressive array of moves all within a short window compared to Mercy.
Next: 10 Mistakes That All Healers Make In Overwatch
