The new Overwatch 2 Hero named Illari has been released. A Peruvian wielder of sunlight, Illari is another mesh between offense and support, like Brigitte. Now she has been out since Aug. 10th and received her dose of nerfs and tweaks before being added to competitive play.
Ability Overviews
Due to her poke playstyle akin to Soldier: 76, Illari has netted an insane amount of POTGs (Play of the Game). She not only possesses insane damaging capabilities, but her ultimate is one of the deadliest in the game.
At maximum charge, her basic weapon fire can deal 150 damage on a headshot and is most effective at a long range. This gives her insane kill potential, considering her weapon auto-charges. Moreover, when paired with someone that can slow enemies for easy hits (such as Ramattra or Mei), Illari truly shines.
Her left shift attack is a fantastic way to deal with overconfident enemies, shoving them from cliffs to instantly destroy them much like Lucio’s alt-fire. Brawl-focusing enemies can’t even get close, because Outburst will just push them away and into Illari’s effective range.
Add onto this already amazing kit stationary healing zones and you get an extremely powerful hero.
Illari’s main gimmick is her Healing Pylon, which automatically heals the closest ally. It can be destroyed, though. Before the nerf, however, Illari’s healing pylon dished out more healing than could be damaged. This made it incredibly tough to kill a team with an Illari.
Illari’s stationary passive healing ability in the form of her Pylon can be incredibly useful, but this pales in comparison to her ultimate, Captive Sun. Captive Sun fires an explosive projectile that slows all hit enemies and, if they take 90 damage while slowed, they receive a massive 120 damage in an explosion, making Illari’s ultimate the second support ultimate to directly do damage; and the first to not provide any supportive abilities to allies such as HP, over health, speed, or damage increases. If you also consider that the explosions can cause a chain reaction, Illari seems much more deadly than other supports. Is she an offensive support, or a damage character with healing abilities?
Fixing Illari
First, increase the ammunition of Illari’s alt-fire. Illari’s alt-fire is a healing beam like Moira’s M1, with refilling ammunition over time. If this reloading is sped up, Illaris will be more pressed to heal allies.
Also, tweak Illari’s primary fire so that it cannot headshot. An auto-charging rifle that deals 75 damage at long range is already amazing, and making it deal 150 on a headshot is not befitting of a support.
Another change is to tweak Outburst. Reduce Outburst’s knockback, but allow it to grant nearby allies brief regeneration, like a nerfed Regenerative Burst (Baptiste). In addition, scale Healing Pylon’s healing based on proximity. Heal less at a farther distance. Too many Illaris have been placing them in high up spots so that bullet damage falloff ensures them longer lifespans. Ending that would mean less annoying and more creative usage of Illari’s pylon.
And finally, Captive Sun. Much like Moira must decide between using Coalescence to heal or hurt, allow Captive Sun to give hit allies a boost to speed and regeneration. This would accentuate Illari’s supportive abilities and give her a decision to make so that Captive Sun cannot be randomly fired into crowds.
The Peruvian sun goddess; is she friend or foe? To the community, currently, she has been deemed a foe, and her unbalanced release has caused much backlash. But if the changes were to happen, would the opinion of her change?
