After her reveal at BlizzCon, the newest hero, Moira, has officially launched onto the live servers.

The Talon scientist is not the only support stealing the spotlight this patch; tweaks to Ana's damage output and Mercy's Resurrect and Valkyrie have also been pushed out to live. One can hope all these patches will change the current Mercy centered meta that has persisted in competitive and professional play these past months.

As per tradition, we have transcribed the patch notes below:

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

New Hero: Moira (Support):

Wielding both regenerative and degenerative technologies at her fingertips, Moira O’Deorain is Talon’s ambitious geneticist who seeks the knowledge to rewrite the building blocks of human life by any means necessary.

Moira’s cutting-edge capabilities make her a mobile healer and damage dealer capable of adapting to any situation. Her main attack is Biotic Grasp, which she can use to either heal allies or sap an enemy’s life force. Biotic Grasp’s primary fire sprays a cone of energy that heals all teammates within range, draining biotic energy while active, which will replenish slowly over time. Her alternate fire is a beam that tethers to enemies, dealing damage and siphoning health. Draining her foes’ health regenerates Moira’s biotic energy even faster, allowing more healing for her allies.

Her Biotic Orb ability launches a sphere of energy that bounces around the battlefield, healing nearby allies or damaging enemies until it dissipates. Fade enables Moira to disappear out of sight and sprint through the shadows, and makes her invulnerable for its duration. When Moira’s ultimate is ready to be unleashed, she can cast Coalescence—a powerful, long-range beam of chaotic energy that pierces through barriers to heal allies or damage enemies in its path.

To learn more about Moira, click here.

As with all new heroes, please note that Moira’s release in Competitive Play will be delayed by one week.

GENERAL UPDATES

General

  • Clicking the "leave game as group" checkbox will now remember your selection for future matches

Arcade

  • One of the arcade slots will now change on a daily basis to include a variety of game modes such as Limited Duel, Low Gravity, and Capture the Flag

HERO UPDATES

Ana

  • Biotic Rifle
    • Damage increased from 60 to 70

Developer Comments: Ana has been outshined by other support heroes lately. Boosting her damage will help her defend herself and make her more threatening to the enemy team.

Lúcio

  • Lúcio now has an effect above his head to indicate which song he's playing in spectator mode

Mercy

  • Caduceus Staff
    • Increased visual readability of Mercy's healing and damage boosting beams
  • Resurrect
    • Cast time increased from 0 seconds to 1.75 seconds
    • Mercy's movement speed is now reduced by 75% while casting
    • Can now be interrupted when Mercy is knocked back, stunned, or hacked
  • Valkyrie
    • While active, Resurrect no longer has a cast time
    • While active, casting Resurrect does not reduce Mercy's movement speed

Developer Comment: We feel that Mercy’s recent rework has been successful, but her Resurrect ability still feels too strong and frustrating to play against. Now that it has a cast time, enemies are more able to counter the ability. However, Resurrect will cast instantly when Valkyrie is active. This should make her feel powerful when she transforms on the battlefield.

Winston

  • Barrier Projector
    • Now displays a health bar

Developer Comment: This change will help both Winston's allies and enemies know how much more damage his shield can absorb from oncoming attacks.

USER INTERFACE

General

  • Made several visual adjustments to revamp the spectator mode HUD including an improved spectator mode UI, a new unit frame style, and an animated ultimate indicator

BUG FIXES

General

  • Fixed a bug that prevented player portrait borders from loading in the Hero Select screen or on the Match Status screen
  • Fixed a bug that prevented players from adding spectators to a Deathmatch game from within the Custom Game lobby

A.I.

  • Fixed a bug that prevented bots from respawning when they were moved to a different slot or team within the Custom Game lobby
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the Sombra bot from hacking health packs
  • Fixed an issue that affected the Bastion bot’s movement when defending Point A on Eichenwalde
  • Fixed a bug that prevented bots from defending Point A on certain maps

Heroes

  • Fixed a bug that caused Ana’s sidearm to emit a bright light when viewed in the Hero Gallery
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Ganymede from making appropriate roadrunner noises when Bastion’s Dune Buggy skin was equipped
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Mercy’s ultimate icon from displaying correctly when hacked by Sombra
  • Fixed an issue causing Roadhog’s Chain Hook to latch on to enemy players for longer than intended
  • Fixed an animation bug that caused Widowmaker’s knees to snap together when jumping
  • Fixed an issue that caused the toy robot in Zarya’s Mystery Gift emote to inflate when she tore it apart
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Junkrat’s RIP-Tire from casting properly while jumping

Maps

  • Fixed a bug that caused the incorrect stage of the map (e.g. Sanctum on Nepal) to be displayed during the hero selection phase when playing on Nepal and Lijiang Tower
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the progress bar from displaying briefly when players reached checkpoints on Escort and Escort/Assault maps
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the targeting UI on Doomfist’s Seismic Slam from functioning correctly when aiming at the spinning turbine blade near the last point of Junkertown
  • Fixed a bug that caused some objects to uncharacteristically fly across the room when shot on Horizon Lunar Colony