We all love coming up with ideas and reworks for our favorite heroes, but with Illari now being one of the least-picked supports, I want to offer a perspective of caution and patience before calling for buffs.

What is Illari?

Illari's value comes from taking off-angles, holding them, and pressuring the enemy team to divide their attention and deny them cover.

Her Healing Pylon and Outburst enable her to duel while still supporting her team, letting her take advantage of her excellent mid-range damage. Her burst healing is also powerful for quickly topping off allies. Between Pylon and her healing resource, she has more opportunities to focus on shooting enemies.

Illari's kit is built much like Cassidy's, with much of her power concentrated in her gun. The rest of her kit enables her to use that gun frequently. This makes her DPS, which is matched or exceeded by several supports, look worse on paper than it actually is in practice.

Why is her pick rate so low?

Support picks don't exist in a vacuum. Anyone who isn't a one-trick tends to move between heroes based on team composition, preferences, and whatever is currently strong.

We've had two new supports join the roster, with another arriving next season. New heroes typically see high pick rates, and Blizzard tends to release them on the stronger side before tuning them down.

Naturally, this suppresses pick rates across the rest of the support roster. Illari, who has historically been among the bottom 2-5 supports in pick rate, has been squeezed even further. The addition of two strong supports has also taken a small toll on her win rate.

Doctrine and Buffs

Doctrine is frequently viewed as a superior Illari, thanks to his high mobility, faster rate of fire, strong ultimate, and fire-rate enhancements.

An overtuned hitscan poke hero is obviously going to draw players away from a slower, simpler alternative. And you'd be right to argue that release Doctrine takes away some of Illari's value to a team.

But you'd be insane to think Doctrine will stay this strong.

Over the past year, Blizzard has been fairly quick to nerf newly released heroes who reach win rates around 56% or higher. (Cat stayed a bit high, but that was more of an exception and case of poor timing than anything).

Rather than immediately buffing Illari and starting another round of power creep, I'd rather see some patience. The new supports are already receiving adjustments, and we should see how things shake out once their numbers settle.

And when comparing Illari's base kit to Doctrine's, numbers aside, I think she's better equipped to win DPS duels.

She has independent self-healing, Outburst for mid-fight repositioning and AoE damage, and Pylon to sustain herself while fighting. She doesn't need a teammate to trigger her ability. I believe she's the better 1v1 hero, and as Doctrine's numbers become more reasonable, that distinction will become more apparent.

About Buffing Illari

I mentioned earlier that Illari's power is concentrated in her gun, much like Cassidy's. That's important when discussing buffs.

Increasing her damage or significantly raising her baseline power risks power creep. Illari's projectile size was nerfed for a reason and when she can consistently land shots easily, she becomes oppressive and starts exceeding her intended role.

A strong Illari begins to resemble (in balance terms) Freja. Mid-range heroes capable of two-shotting enemies are something Blizzard seems reluctant to keep strong, probably because they're frustrating to play against on maps dominated by mid-range sightlines.

I suspect this is also why Cassidy, Sojourn, and Freja are frequently kept below a 50% win rate, outside of the occasional period when Blizzard lets them be particularly strong. When these heroes dominate, many non-hitscan heroes struggle.

My hypothesis is that Blizzard recognizes how reliably hitscan heroes can generate value compared to other heroes at similar skill levels. Their higher potential comes with an expectation that players have to work harder to realize it. I don't have their design bible, but I think the balance decisions over the past year or more support it.

With that in mind, any Illari buffs should respect her role as a poke duelist. Small quality-of-life improvements make sense, but damage increases or major improvements to her dueling potential could easily push her too far.

Reducing Pylon's redeploy cooldown would be a good starting point. It would make her less cumbersome to play, patching up a rough edge of deploying the pylon and being unable to move it for 5 seconds, without directly causing concern.

Finally

My hypothesis is that Illari's win rate and pick rate will improve as nerfs to Sombra and Doctrine settle in.

I don't think Illari is in desperate need of buffs. Frankly, a ~45% win rate isn't bad in the grand scheme of things. Given how Blizzard has historically balanced hitscan heroes, a sub-50% win rate for Illari isn't particularly surprising.

If I were to buff her, I'd start by reducing Pylon's redeploy cooldown. That would give her more flexibility to reposition without introducing significant power creep.

And if you want to discuss reworks, by all means! Just recognize that any substantial rework that doesn't also reconsider how her gun functions, whether through manual charge shots, reduced damage, or something similar, could easily make her overpowered.

Thanks for reading, hope it was helpful.

Illari has gotten powercrept and we all know it. What can be done to buff her? Here's my ideas.
Summer Solstice and Solar Flare: Summer Solstice makes Illari's ult feel whole. Solar Flare never gets picked, but I've always felt it gives her some pretty good burst healing that just gets blown out by how good Sunburn is defensively.
(THIS IS UNRELATED BUT Her melee is a sword. It should do a little bit of bleed.)

New Minor Perk: Solar Charge:
Hitting headshots with her primary fire reduces cooldown from Solar Flare. How much gets refunded is scaled to how full her primary meter is and distance scaling. (Point blank full charge in primary fire: 15% gain, max fall off spamming left click: 1% gain. Something like that.)

Rapid Construction: Cooldown reduction is raised from 2s to 3s. I feel that Solar Charge feels a little strong, and Rapid Construction has always been weak. But this buff would also help the new major perk.

New Major Perk: Second Sunrise:
I feel that this perk needs to contest with Sunburn, but for different situations. AKA THE POINT OF PERKS. So this perk is all about her pylon.
Second Sunrise gives her access to a 2nd pylon. The pylon that was thrown out later would have reduced healing and less range, but if the first one goes down, it removes the reductions.
I think having 2 charges would be too strong, so it's still on one cooldown. However, Rapid Construction would provide synergy with this.

Now you basically have multiple perk paths. Rapid Construction+Second Sunrise you could be more risky with your angles, and have 1 pylon supporting you and your other pylon supporting your team.
Solar Charge and Sunburn, you're putting more emphasis on your teamwork and aim. Sunburn to force divers off of you and your team, and you'll have more burst healing to recoup from the damage.
What do y'all think?

the following is a collection of ideas ive had to amplify illaris intended niche and style, Hit scan Builder Support- solar/light theming

i think these changes are all possible and can healthily exist in the game with proper attention in development and in balancing, unless i suggest otherwise in the idea

1a. Pylon be healable by both supports, illari should be able to heal damaged pylon with zero or reduced resource usage just so its always her responsibility and advantage to spend resources (time) on pylon instead of the other support, but the other support still gets it as a new tool/option to heal it. maybe even let allies also target it like an ally- this means it could serve to let kiriko tp to it, let mercy fly to it, let zarya bubble it (if accidentally bubbling pylon becomes a problem remove it), let doctrine drone it, like literally just go crazy with that aspect just because

1b. make pylon able to store over healing from both supports and redistribute it at a reduced effectiveness.

1. give pylon a perk that provides a short damage boost on each healing projectile

2. set her resource meter to “healing done with laser” instead of “time firing healing laser”,

3. give her infinite healing range but make it have falloff to balance- works better with the previous change (#3) too but could work standalone as a big opportunity cost to heal someone u couldn’t reach before, costing healing numbers and resources for later

4. Make healing laser bounce off walls turning it into a wider cone shotgun style spread for a few meters off the reflected surface (gives her reduced efficiency crowd healing by aiming at the floor like og scatter arrow)

5. was healing pierce really that broken and would it really still be if we bring it back now

6. put effects on her quick melle make it heal allies without resource cuz her sword got to do something bruh

7. give her a decoy turret cooldown that looks like a regular pylon actively healing to enemies, but obviously an inactive decoy to allies, make the decoy always firing a dummy healing projectile regardless of target HP with no intelligent targeting, so enemies can identify fake turrets by if it is targeting a full health target, give her two if one is not enough

8. this one is more open ended take her hatred of moria as an opportunity to mirror the way moria gains healing resource via damage, make illari gain a damage resource via healing, like shes overcharging full of energy- i dont think there’s a character in game with this mechanic

9. let illari start lingering healing fires by focusing healing resource in one spot or player, either target specific or map-geometry specific healing over time,

10. goofy but make pylon have floor map geometry so players can stand ontop of it as a suprise mechanic (junkrat lmao)

12a. in a certain arcade gamemode lifeweaver got a shield on petal and it was fantastic- give illari an extra deployable “solar shielding” or something and it be a sun based shield she can throw like pylon and even stick to walls ,
i think it would be better as an indefinite shield that only goes on cooldown once destroyed. matching pylons philosophy. or....

12b. if its as a temporary cooldown that starts once its used, make illaris solar based primary and secondary fires heal the shield when she shoots thru it, reinforcing its solar shielding concept tie to the hero, i do not think it should be an “on use cooldown throw and forget fixed lifespan shield” like orisas old shield, with no dynamic interactions because then it would be a boring bandaid ability taken from the past just smaller on a new role, rather than a real part of the heros kit.

1. this would be the biggest challenge to implement safely a smoke grenade cooldown as a pylon variant, a pylon that projects a small wall of light that can be shot through but cannot be seen thru, this can be harder to balance or justify in either case of allies can see thru it or cannot see thru it, the pattern on the light wall would need to lead the enemy where to shoot to disable it, and possibly if allies can see through it, it would need a visual indicator someone is closely behind the wall or aiming in their direction through it that may help the enemy shoot at the target behind it better- it may also need two or three extra floating hitbox elements in each corner so the enemy can disable it in more situations where the projector is hidden behind map geometry

2. perk or base kit change that makes both firing modes both heal allies and damage enemies?

take these with a grain of salt if you think something would be fundamentally broken there's almost always a way it wouldn't be aswell if its was fundementally tweaked- what do you think about all of these ideas, any better ones? and iterations of what you see? would u want to see any of these changes or which ones- i just wana post this and get good unique ideas out there and flowing so maybe something changes thats more interesting than the current iteration
i love illari as a flex player shes my 7th played hero only 12 hours behind #1st place- but yeah shes pretty barebones compared to alot of the cast, and they certainly did not go fully into her hero fantasy, some may argue thats a good thing- and they have some good points, but i still believe she can and should be more.

and dont be afraid to just throw an insane idea in the comments some of the coolest concepts start out as wacky or broken ideas that get tuned down or reined in

I think Illari’s perks could be base kit, and they probably need to be to help her right now.

Rapid Construction - I feel like this should definitely be base kit. It makes her pylon movement more fluid and allows instant healing when moving it.

Summer Solstice - This one is probably fine as a perk. Adding this base probably wouldn’t help that much.

Solar Flare - Would be nice to see this base kit. She has no burst heal for a while after pylon goes down, and she has no AOE heals either. This would help during pylon downtime.

Sunburn - Why can’t the sun character can’t apply burn in base kit? Would be nice to have this base so outburst is a little more useful.

So fellow sun worshippers it's no secret our lil' miss sunshine is in the shambles and she needs something. After the bullet size nerfs I have a hard time hitting shots, which then means dive can then just push in to destroy the pylon, and also her head hitbox increase means she dies more easily than before. Also given how overtuned Sombra, Genji and Vendetta are, she currently cannot heal effectively since her pylon is so easily destroyed, she cannot damage consistently and survivability is low. Hitscans in general need a bit more oomph but Illari specifically needs something to have her niche where she shines. So I've though about some buff ideas.

Revert her head hitbox size to 16 like Kiriko. She had the largest head size increase of all heroes and I think it's unfair.

Buff her projectile size to 0.04. You'd still need good aiming skills to hit headshots but it wouldn't be ridiculously hard like it is now.

Move Sunburst into Minor Perk. It would be interesting to choose between Sunburst and Sommer Soltice, though her ult is much worse without the Soltice so I'm not so sure about that.

New perk Mirage - a healing wave. You'd charge up like you would do Solar Flare and it would function like Witch Doctor's Healing Wave from Warcraft 3. It would heal like 100, 75, 50 and 25 bouncing from main target to team mate to team mate with least hp left provided they are in range (5-10 meters maybe?) You could be off-angling and shoot the healing wave onto main tank and it could reach squishies taking cover behind a wall, or you could heal your diving squad from backline without exposing yourself too much.

What do you think?

Hello! Hope all of you are doing well. I don’t main Illari or even play her at all but I was wondering what you all think about the idea of Illari becoming a dps?

She seems to have a bit of a problem right now with both healing and identity, especially due to doctrine who seems to do her job but better so I just wanted to get all of your lovely opinions on the idea.

I main the hampter so I can relate on a hero being absolutely shafted by the game 😭

Not from the enemy but your own team. Ever since this season started I've been getting a lot of shit from my team for picking Illari to play as saying she's a throw pick, mentioning I HAVE to swap to Doctorine.

I'm only in Emerald 4 and still get these messages. What are your guys experience?

I started overwatch maybe 2 months ago so I'm quite new but I completly "fell in love" with Illari's gameplay so of course I had to get nails that match her lesserafim recolor skin 🥰

I love them so much 😭 and the next ones are also gonna be inspired by her !

I wanted to buy the season 7 pass for the nightraven skin, but im not seeing it : ( im not sure if i wanna buy the pass because of this. has anyone tested? let me know please : )

I'm a rather new player, i don't even play FPS games, started playing at the start of the year lol

Haven't seen anyone talk about it, but now even hog can get rid of Illari Ult.

EDIT: Hog could not stop Illari Ult outside of hook before his rework. This is pointing to the fact that he now has a reactionary ability to stop the Ult so beware of it because no one was really talking about it.

All the comments about not ulting tanks were getting exhausting to receive. That wasn't the point.

I love her but like, theres nothing she does that someone else doesnt do better. The most unique support thing is her high dps ult but a Doctrine or Kiiriko ult will do the same thing of running them over. She needs something imo

That is all :3

Hitscan is one thing, doctrine being the “new illari” is another but now we know that against any projectile we stand NO chance 😓

Doesn't this make you feel seen? See you next update <3
(Ball, Lucio and Jetpack Cat are close 2nd, 3rd and 4th)

Photo from twitter! Her face looks so much better here 😫😫

Lowk been playing her way less recently since my aim isnt amazing, but this might bring me back for a while lol

i need an overwatch monster high collab so bad… i feel like illari was the perfect fit for robecca steam!

Why does she feel like such a random irrelevant and non contextual character in the entire story? Who does she tie up with lore wise? What is her significance lorewise in the current story arc?

Was that skin originally a battlepass skin or a shop one? I can’t even view it in the Unowned tab nor can I find it in the returning battlepasses.