Developer Comment: Despite the perception of how powerful Kiriko feels to play against, she is a hero that consistently underperforms when it comes to winning games. However, she is a highly evasive hero that makes a lot of sense to be in the 225 health bracket. To help counterbalance the loss of health, we’re smoothing out her damage dealing consistency by increasing the Kunai weapon’s base damage and removing the enhanced critical multiplier.
Developer Comment: Kiriko was heavily impacted by the health reduction to 225 HP and was already on the weaker side of support heroes, so we’re lightly reducing her ability cooldowns and weapon recovery to add some effectiveness back into her.
That’s why Reinhardt keeps getting buffed. It’s all about the statistics. It’s above the forum’s pay grade to understand the intricate nuances behind this engineering.
forum kiriko contends with ana for the most broken op character in the game. she two-taps EVEN TANKS! and when she suzus, you cant damage her for the rest of the match, as she teleports inside ur walls and puts a kunai in your dome
Obviously 0.65s of invincibility equates to immortality. I’ve always hated the term “immortality” being used for Suzu ngl because it makes it out to last forever when it’s slightly over half a second, but semantics I suppose
Okay please note that my results are from the practice range. The quote said two taps even tanks. I did the test, all tank players can breath a sigh of relief. Kiriko needs to hit you at least 4-6 times to eliminate you. That’s if every hit is a headshot.
All DPS but echo pharaoh Sombra and tracer are three shot head shots. Those 4 I listed are in fact two taps. Half the the support roster is two tapped the other three…but that was assumed
I’m mostly just getting at the idea that its hilarious to see people call Kiriko overpowered, then blizzard and the stats show she’s among the worst performing.
I would argue that win rate is very important, possibly the most important thing really when it comes to competition.
BUT, I highly caveat this with 2 things.
It’s the unmirrored win rate that is even more important than the overall win rate. We don’t know this information.
You are correct that Overbuff isn’t reliable.
The devs do have the correct information though so I think they should be using it as part of their balancing triangle. It’s just that we don’t have an accurate picture necessarily.
Right but when people come out with numbers like 46% winrate, it’s effectively meaningless.
All bs aside, Kiriko is #4 support before her buffs, and she’s a must pick for any tank that is being shut down by Ana nade. Juno/Brig and Ana/Brig are overall better comps which is why we see less Kiriko usage (and people who crutch Kiriko are prone to losing against Juno/Brig in particular).
#4 support is likely based on pickrate which it self is even less of an indicator of anything beyond simply popularity. Which popularity is not influenced by purely game performance as WR will indiciate. It has an element of I play this hero because they are fun or like the way they look.
Even more illogical. Top 500 usage one would expect something pick rate to indicate effectiveness, but Blizzard has proven this wrong in the past.
Kiriko’s poor effectiveness goes all the way back tp Season 2-3 in the interview with Blizzard where they point blank showed Kiri having a 60-70% pick rate in Master+ and a 45-46% WR in Master+ as well unmirrored. Kiriko the hero everyone is using, the most popular support, the best of the best in Master+ and she’s getting her butt whooped by other supports.
We got data back near the start of OW and the data in the recent years and Blizzard even telling people she doesn’t win well. Kiriko’s OPness is inflated as hell.
Which is fine. People can never bring up any information to prove otherwise so they look all the more an idiot for it. Now, if the stance was she’s just unfun to play against, then that’s more reasonable. Fun will always be very subjective to deal with.
