Kiriko officially joined the roster as a support hero with the introduction of Overwatch 2’s first season. As Overwatch 2’s first support hero, Kiriko comes stacked with a plethora of fresh abilities, putting a unique spin on what we already know about support. She’s capable of dealing devastating long range, projectile damage while at the same time providing reliable heals from either close or far relatively easily. She also comes equipped with an ability that can cleanse the effects of other heroes and simply cannot be ignored..
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Kiriko’s strengths involve denying most hero abilities as a reaction, or propelling her teammates with her ultimate by enabling them to move faster, shoot quicker, and suffer less cooldown on their abilities. She shares a relative passive with Genji and Hanzo, giving her the same ability to climb walls. While comparisons can be made with some of the other support heroes, her new kit allows her to have an impact on the game in an interesting way that has not been experienced before in Overwatch.
Healing Ofuda
With every new support introduced to Overwatch, we experience new ways to heal and Kiriko is no exception. She uses 10 healing talismans at a time that spread out and follow her target for healing. A talisman that is following and successfully healing, or will heal a target, glows yellow and a talisman that does not reach its mark will instead glow blue. That doesn’t mean that blue talismans don’t heal, though. All blue means is that the talisman is not tracking a nearby ally.
In the settings, you can toggle whether or not Kiriko sends out all 10 of her talismans while you hold your alternative fire or make it so that you can press again to interrupt at any time. Either way, after some time, the talismans will be completely reloaded whether they were all used or there were some remaining.
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The Healing Ofuda cannot go past enemy barriers, but it can follow targets that have completely teleported away or have used a dash or movement type ability so long as the talismans are yellow. While Kiriko’s healing may not be as potent as Mercy or Ana, it is still strong enough to allow for many different combinations of support heroes to be used in tandem for other angles of approach in combat. For instance, use Lucio and Kiriko together to focus on speed and AoE healing, or use Mercy and Kiriko to have many damage boosting opportunities while sustaining the team and keeping them alive through many tough situations.
Protection Suzu
Speaking of tough situations, Kiriko’s Protection Suzu is one of the best tools in the game and has two main functions to help her team get out of any lethal damage, debilitating debuffs, and potential team wipes. The first function of Protection Suzu allows Kiriko to momentarily give her teammates invulnerability to most effects and damage in a fight. Not only that, but it also makes her allies intangible as well, meaning that things like Roadhog’s Chain Hook, Sigma’s Accretion, and Doomfist’s punches pass through instead of making contact.
The second function of Kiriko’s Protection Suzu cleanses her allies from most negative effects and CC abilities. This cleanse works similarly to Zarya’s bubble in some cases, but can be in many more situations.The Protection Suzu can wake up any allies slept by Ana’s Sleep Dart, pick up allies downed by Reinhardt’s Earthshatter, unfreeze anyone caught by Mei’s Blizzard and cleanse debuffs like damage over time from Widowmaker and Ashe or anti-healing from Ana and Junker Queen. Finally, the Protection Suzu can remove debilitations such as Zenyatta’s Discord Orb and Sombra’s Hack.
Given the impact of this ability and its long cooldown, it’s extremely valuable and it’s important to find the right timing to use it. Waiting for the right moment can completely negate a large pool of abilities and, in the right hands, mean the difference of team wipe or turned tide of battle.
Swift Step
If protection Suzu was for the team, then of course Kiriko needs something for herself. With the same range as her Healing Ofuda can reach, tracking wise, Swift Step lets Kiriko teleport through terrain and walls to her allies. The ability also, just like Protection Suzu, cleanses Kiriko from most negative effects. However, sticky abilities such as Cassidy’s Magnetic Bomb, Tracer’s Pulse Bomb, and Echo’s Sticky Bombs will travel with her so to avoid damage from these timing is key.
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Kiriko’s Swift Step works in any direction as well. You can teleport all the way up to the Pharah in the sky, through walls to catch your pesky DPS allies, and behind enemy barriers in case Reinhardt charges too far ahead of the team. Combining this with Kiriko’s Wall Climb passive gives her all kinds of maneuverability as well as survivability that most of the support heroes in the game do not have access to.
Kitsune Rush
Kitsune Rush is a distinct and unique type of healing that separates from the other supports. Where most would either heal, damage boost, or do both, Kiriko’s Kitsune Rush provides a 30% movement speed bonus, 50% increase in rate of fire, 50% reload speed, and reduces the cooldown of abilities by 2. This extraordinary ultimate has huge playmaking ability. It’s pretty much the reason Kiriko has become a mainstay in pro and high level play, even more so than her Protection Suzu at times.
While Ana’s Nanoboost buff one hero and Baptiste’s Amp Matrix benefits heroes that are either long range or hitscan, Kiriko’s Kitsune Rush benefits everyone and makes even the smallest helper into a huge contributor or a lethal executioner. The only drawback to this super is that it can be blocked by terrain or lack thereof, and character’s such as Mei can completely put a stop to it with either her wall or Cryo-Freeze ability. The ultimate can go through barriers and even Ashe’s B.O.B can benefit from the ultimate as well.
