Illari Isn't Overpowered, She Just Exposes The Overwatch 2 Community's Biggest Struggle

Highlights Overwatch 2 Season 6 brings PvE story missions, an updated firing range, and a new Support hero, Illari, who is considered one of the most fun heroes to play but difficult to face off against. The controversy surrounding Illari focuses on her damage output and the utility of her Healing Pylon. Some argue that Supports should focus more on healing rather than damage, but no changes were made to Illari’s damage numbers. Players should prioritize breaking Illari’s Healing Pylon as it halts her main source of healing and lengthens her cooldown timer. This exposes a weakness in the community’s ability to deal with characters with turrets.

Overwatch 2 Season 6 is going strong following the introduction of PvE story missions, an updated firing range, and a Peruvian Support hero. The new Support has seen some controversy since she was added to Overwatch 2’s ranks, though it appears the community agrees that she is one of the most fun heroes to play. Unfortunately, this sentiment does not typically apply to facing off against enemy Illari’s.

Due to her kit, Illari exposes a few interesting flaws in the player base. Still, Overwatch 2’s recent patch notes on August 24 confirmed changes for Illari, Echo, and Orisa. The most prominent of these were the alterations to Illari’s ultimate, Captive Sun, and her Healing Pylon. The debate surrounding her primarily focuses on her damage output along with the utility of the pylon.

Overwatch 2 Players Are Struggling With One Part of Illari’s Kit

The debate over how much DPSing Support players should be able to do has occurred for quite a few years now. However, this topic used to center around the damage output of Moira, Baptiste, and Zenyatta. When Overwatch 2 was released in October 2022, the switch from 6v6 to 5v5 saw an increase in damage statistics for Support characters. Blizzard justified this change by stating that due to one less Tank being in the match, Supports need a way to defend themselves.

Since the game introduced effective Supports like Kiriko and Illari, the controversy has only intensified. Lamentably, for those who believe Supports should focus more on healing rather than the damage done, the developers didn’t touch any of Illari’s damage numbers outside of her ultimate. Without alterations to her Solar Rifle, Illari is still able to do a lot of DPSing, similar to Moira except the new character is a hitscan.

Though the Peruvian woman’s damage is a force to be reckoned with, there is an argument to be made that she isn’t as overpowered as players seem to think. A lot of the value comes from Illari’s Healing Pylon, alongside her medium-range heal beam. Since her healing beam needs to be charged, the pylon is the first thing that players should be trying to counter.

Illari is the first Support to have a turret since Symmetra was swapped to the DPS role. She’s able to throw it a good distance and move it around unless it gets broken which yields a 12-second cooldown. The default cooldown is eight seconds, so it’s beneficial for the enemy team to break it for two reasons: halt her main source of healing and make her cooldown timer longer.

It’s fairly common in lower ELO for players to struggle against characters with turrets. This is one of the reasons why Torbjorn and Symmetra often do well in metal ranks. Since Overwatch 2 is a fast-paced FPS, it’s not unusual for players to forget to destroy turrets. It can also be quite hard to do so if they are positioned in a difficult spot. Unfortunately, turrets expose a weak link in the community.

If teams made deleting Illari’s pylon a priority, it’s likely she wouldn’t be as useful as some people think she is. Of course, Blizzard could still benefit from continuing to make patches for its characters and listening to player feedback. With updates promised to come with Season 7 of Overwatch 2, Illari could receive more nerfs.

Overwatch 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.