Overwatch 2 players are claiming support Illari is a “dead hero” after the season 9 changes saw her struggling to compete in ranked play.
Season 9 ofOverwatch 2saw major changes to the hero shooter. From a revamp to ranked all the way to a complete overhaul of hero health, the new season saw a shake-up like none other.
The hero health change also coincided with the introduction of a new DPS passive, which would reduce the amount of healing a target received if you dealt damage to them. This in turn made the game less reliant on overwhelming amounts of healing and more about focus firing targets with your team to score eliminations.
The huge amount of changes also meant that the meta shifted drastically when Season 9 rolled around. Supports like Zenyatta immediately became S tier, while fan favorites like Ana dropped in power. Unfortunately the same can be said about Illari, who fans have claimed is now a “dead hero”.
Overwatch 2 players want more buffs for Illari
As highlighted by a Reddit user, Illari is underperforming in stats for competitive play. According to Overwatch 2 stats websiteOverbuff, Illari has a 0.91% pick rate in competitive, with a measly 48% win rate. This is in stark contrast to heroes likeAnawho have nearly 8x her play rate.
“Dead hero. Which is a shame, because I played her like crazy when she first came out.” one userclaimed.
Therecent patchsaw a couple of buffs to Illari’s ultimate and Healing Pylon, but despite this, players believe she needs more changes.
“I’m kinda surprised they didn’t bring her turret back to 40 hp/shot with season 9. I really enjoy Illari but her pylon is the only good part of her kit, besides her pure DM potential.” one playerexpressed.
“She’s super cool in the design/animation department, they just need to pump her numbers up a bit and she’ll be great.”another agreed.
With no other patches announced for Overwatch 2 as of yet, it may mean that we’ll have to wait until the mid-season to receive more balance changes with Illari hopefully getting some love.
Liam Ho was a Games Weiter on Dexerto’s Australia team and his expert coverage areas include Destiny, Final Fantasy, League of legends, MMOs, and MOBAs. He is a media graduate with bylines at both GG Recon and GameRant.
