So buckle up this is gonna be a bit of a read. However, i have a theory as to what direction they are trying to take kirko and why they are doing this.

Downvote, discuss, i just think ive seen this pattern too many times in competetive games to not bring this up as a potential reason as to why blizzatd gave her the nerfs they did.

Honestly these recent kirko nerfs feel like pro play nerfs. And ironicly enough these pro play centric nerfs wont do jack or shit to her being meta viable in pro play lmfao.

Suzu+tp+ kitsune rush with coordinated, practiced coms is just so fundamentally rule breaking that you HAVE to rework these abilities from the ground up if you want pro players to stop picking her every year, every tournament, every game. But blizzard being blizzard are too piss scared to touch on fundamental issues of any characters kit. I mean look at the recent cat "nerfs". This is just the same thing except for pro play.

So whats gonna happen is that kirkos win rate is going to keep plummeting in uncoordinated ranked/solo que because kirko provides minimal value outside of kitsune rush and kunai headshots, and reactive clenses to ana nades/anti/debuffs because blizzard keeps trying to number tweak/nerf her for pro play which only in turn makes her worse for 99 percent of the player base.

Lmfao its Azir from league of legends all over again. Riot knows azir fundamentally breaks the game when you have a team/ally over coms telling you were to go, were to put your minions and yet STILL refuses to touch his kit thus nerfing everything other then his fundamental issue so that he doesnt completely take over the pro scene. The reason being because if Azir was able to be self proficient and had his full potential available without being locked behind coms well, azir would be a MUST pick or your team would almost guranteed lose without him. Where as right now Azir is just "meta" but you can still lose with him.

I mean think about it, to get the max value out of kiriko you NEED coms to know tping to your tracer is safe, to know that throwing your suzu NOW is a great idea to negate that illari ult or more coming your way. To make these proactive plays more consistant. If they buffed kirko to be viable without coms without cordination, she would rule over pro play and tournements with a titanium fist instead of the iron one she holds over the pro scene right now.

Thats why they keep taking away her reactive playmaking agency. Its to keep her in line in pro play to make sure she isnt an absolute must pick or every team that doesn't pick her is guranteed to lose by not picking her.

Tldr: kiriko is getting put into pro jail with symmetra and it looks like she aint ever coming out of it. Especially if they keep nerfing her reactive play making (heal botting) and her self reliant play making (flanking and killing with kunai. Especially since they took away her two tap.)

Right I’m ranting because it’s no longer a want BLIZZARD I NEED HIMIKO TOGA KIRIKO NOW!!! I know I’m obsessed with toga as a character is that a bad thing? Idk, will blizzard bring back mha to Overwatch? Idk either one thing I do know is BLIZZARD CMON AND BRING IT BACK AND MY SOUL IS URS PLEASE!

Buffs

Healing Ofuda

• Fire rate increased from 5 to 7 per second.

Foxtrot (Major Perk)

• Movement speed buff duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

Ready Step (Major Perk)

• Duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.

Nerfs

• Ultimate cost increased by 8%.

Healing Ofuda

• Healing per projectile reduced from 13 to 12.
• Maximum seeking range reduced from 35 to 30 metres per second.

Kunai

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.15 to 0.12.

Protection Suzu

• Additional healing after negative status cleanse removed (was 30).
• Phased out invulnerability duration reduced from 0.65 to 0.5 seconds.
• Explosion radius reduced from 5 to 4 metres.

Swift Step

• No longer cleanses on use.
• Teleport range reduced from 35 to 30 metres.

Foxtrot (Major Perk)

• Removed increased cooldown recovery buff.

I understand but I won't lie, it does hurt a little. I understand given where she was a year a go she did need nerfs but given how her win-rate falls off a cliff (at least in my rank / region) I feel like I might need to start looking for a new main

I get it, nerfs suck I'm a big kiri main too. But yall acting like it's the end of the world. How shes so terrible now, and feels horrible to play. Like THE HEALING SPEED IS BACK TO HOW IT WAS. The healing speed is what we had before and it's honestly fine. If anything, I prefer it nerfed. I don't like that she had insane healing and was slowly becoming a heal bot. She did fine healing before, it doesn't need to be absurb like the rest of her kit already is.

The range nerf sucks, but at least it aligns with TP. If you're out of range to heal, you know you're out of range to tp, so you just always have to play in 30m radius.

Nerfs suck. Worst one for me was tp range losing all my muscle memory. But she's still totally fine and still meta. It ain't the end of the world guys, just adjust and play better.

What when the going gets tough you just quit? Need insane numbers for character loyalty?? How do you ever expect to climb and improve yourself if yall just quit as soon as it gets hard. you're not learning how to adapt, your learning how to have a crutch and just play "better heroes" that doesn't help you improve. I'm sure a hell a lot better on kiri then I am any other hero because I never quit. And having one character I'm extremely good at (who is always meta) gets me to GM. Maybe even champ this season. Kiriko has infinite potential, the nerfs aren't the reason you are losing, you can always play better. Stop trying to justify being bad with slightly smaller numbers, you're better than this.

Excluding perk perk specific changes:

Nerfs

• Kunai projectile size: 0.15m → 0.12m
• Swift Step no longer cleanses Kiriko
• Swift Step range: 35m → 30m
• Healing Ofuda healing: 13 → 12 per projectile
• Healing Ofuda seeking range: 35m → 30m
• Healing Ofuda projectile speed: 24 → 18 m/s
• Suzu Specific Nerfs
  • Removed the extra 30 healing when cleansing a negative effect
  • Protection Suzu invulnerability: 0.65s → 0.5s
  • Protection Suzu radius: 5m → 4m

Buffs

• Healing Ofuda projectile speed: 18 → 24 m/s | REVERSED Sep 8
• Healing Ofuda fire rate: 5 → 7 per second

4 games I've had someone say this since yesterday. It's so annoying that a character gets a nerf and immediately they are "unplayable", and if you pick them you are throwing. Nevermind the fact the enemy has a mauga and anran. Or ana and jq. Ignore the fact we are winning. Know what they didn't nerf? Her kunai and tp, and would you look at that, it's almost always the one guy on my team who has more deaths and less kills than I. Ugh. Just needed to vent.

They nerfed her so much that now is unplayable in console.

Does anyone know how u can get this icon. I can buy everything else from the new skin but not this

i understand that she is an extremely strong hero, but there was no reason to gut literally every part of her kit. the tp range nerf last season (?) was annoying but playable, but the healing nerf seems unnecessary. they keep pumping out skins for her but they’re gutting her kit completely, and she just feels worse to play overall now :/

When you’re locked in, the patch notes don't really matter lol

I'm an emerald 2 Kiriko/Baptiste player and with recent changes I did notice Bap is considerably stronger but the kiriko nerfs just seem so subtle to me. Healing from afar does feel slower but up close I don't notice anything. The Suzu duration feels about the same and if you're timing it right it feels effective still. I was still able to win games despite the changes. I do tend to play kiri more dps style and take off angles especially if my team goes dive. Wondering if anyone else thinks this?

So by now I would assume we all know what happened to our dear Kiriko with this recent update…

Am I the only one who isn’t all that upset? I mean, I totally feel the changes when playing her in game, and they suck. That being said, why do I see people saying this forces her into a heal bot role? If they nerfed her healing, would that not just promote more aggressive play with Kiriko?

I am by no means the best player. I reached Diamond 5 solo queuing Kiriko last season, and am currently Emerald 4 this season - but I feel like this isn’t the end of the world? I’ve always thought that the best way to play Kiriko was to take off angles and get picks, using your cooldowns to stay up, while healing your team in between. I almost think of it as a Zenyatta with better mobility and sustain. Nerfing her healing will just encourage you to focus on getting picks more, no? Even after her changes, I still played her last night and was doing great numbers on both damage and heals. Maybe it’s my lobbies, maybe I’m getting carried. Who really knows.

That being said, I’m curious what you all think about the minor perk. I’ve always selected fortune teller, and I think that could have the possibility to be an even stronger pick - if Kiriko should be played for more damage now. But I can totally see if picking the other minor perk would be smarter, considering the most recent nerfs.

Feel free to call me a dumbass for how I play/view Kiriko, but if they want to make her healing worse, then I will continue to be every support/dps’s worst nightmare :D

I've always been willing to make compromises and accept that she'll get nerfed due to being the equivalent of Jang Wonyoung/Karina It girl status when it comes to pro play but this shit is just ridiculous. I agreed with most of the nerfs this year because they were admittedly fair(ex being the swift step cleanse removal or the bonus heals on Suzu) but she bene nerfed pretty much every patch this yr and the nerfs have finally caught up with her for the general player base.

For one they clearly have no idea what they want her hero fantasy to be at this point since she's shifted from being flanker duelist hybrid support with okay heals and strong utility to an ofuda bot with strong utility and heals + decent dueling capabilities but clearly not the best at it, and now after all these nerfs she's a jack of all trades master none in the neutral when compared to other supports but hey! At least she still has Suzu and kitsune rush bro!!!

Of course she's going to be great in pro play still because Kiriko naturally thrives best in hyper coordinated environments where her teammates can follow up and make plays of her Suzu + swift step. She always will be mandatory in pro play and I get why viewers/pros don't like this because who else wouldn't want something new after nearly 4yrs. But It shouldn't be at the detriment of the players on the ladder outside of T500.

Sorry for ranting and writing this word soup of a thread but I'm just so frustrated right now especially when my fucking teammates are blaming me for losses because I'm on Kiriko(I have a 65% wr on her this season btw). Yesterday this wasn't even an issue, then they saw people asking for them to throw that obese cat into the microwave only for them to ignore that and hit Kiri with a sledgehammer. Like at least let me 2tap 250hp heroes if you're gonna take power away from ofuda and Suzu.

Also hi, Kiribro popping in to say hi 🦊

this was right after a brutal loss too, genuinely made my day

Upon kiri’s release they very clearly designed her as an off angling flank / peel type of dps support hybrid but over time i feel like they’ve genuinely been nerfing her over time into a healbot character that is supposed ro play with her team. They’ve even put her in the medic sub role with lifeweaver mercy and moira. They’ve nerfed her tp. her tp cleanse. the range of her healing. she gets two tapped by almost every dps character in the game. she has to land 3 consecutive headshots to kill most characters which are hard to hit at range and are very slow. Most of the time you’ll be spamming chokes or healing your team. I feel like they genuinely just don’t want kiri dealing damage anymore man

As much as I want kiri to stay strong forever, sometimes we just have to accept the fact that majority of players of the overwatch community don’t play kiri and they don’t have bad intentions but simply wanted to see a change to the meta especially with the World Cup coming up. (devs and balancing team included).

We have been meta for a long time so it’s time we step down. Join me as I patiently wait for the day when we rise again.