Blizzard warned us that it may have made Overwatch 2’s newest support hero—Illari—overpowered before it even revealed her to the masses.
Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, game director Aaron Keller said that the team learned a lesson from Lifeweaver: The devs weren’t going to let the next new hero be underwhelming.
With a week of Illari under everyone’s belt, it’s clear that not only is she powerful, but she is a little bit too powerful. Speaking to fans on Twitter last night, Overwatch 2’s lead hero designer Alec Dawson said Illari has some nerfs on the way as she gets added to the competitive ladder.
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“She will receive nerfs to Healing Pylon and Captive Sun,” he said. “Overall, we’ve been very happy with her release and the response has been great. Still aiming for her to be impactful when she enters Competitive, but a little tuning is needed.”
Healing Pylon’s strong 50 healing per second has made Illari one of the strongest and most flexible support heroes in the game. Her primary weapon heal averages at best around 60 healing per second when you account for the time it takes to recharge. But with 50 HPS and strategic use of her Healing Pylon, Illari is free to do things like run in with flanking teammates while still healing someone on the opposite side of a fight.
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“Over time, we’d like to position our changes to mostly keep her aggressive nature intact and hit the amount of sustain she provides,” Dawson said. “Believe this will help sharpen her identity and team fit well. Ultimate is getting tuned outside of this philosophy but is pushed in current form.”
Meanwhile, her ultimate ability, Captive Sun, combos off with other ultimate and CC abilities for exceptionally powerful results. The mark-of-death style ability with an explosive ending does require some team follow-up, similar to Sombra’s EMP, but you really don’t need to do all that much to make the ability turn into an automatic teamfight victory.
Based on Dawson’s post, we should expect to see nerfs to Illari’s kit next week when she is supposed to be unlocked for use on the competitive ladder.
