Overwatch log

Developer comments: We’ve trimmed the numbers so talismans aren’t quite so magical, and donuts aren’t quite so nutritious. Sometimes too many sprinkles really are a bad thing.

Developer Comments: Kiriko’s clone is reworked to serve a more utility-focused role, rather than functioning as the overly lethal auto-turret it once was. This change should help her contribute more reliably to team utility and generate Stadium Cash more consistently. In addition, Fleet Foot has been updated based on popular feedback, requiring a bit more commitment when diving into the backline, reinforcing the risk-reward dynamic of aggressive plays.

Developer Comments: We're shifting Kiriko's clone to serve its role as a decoy and utility tool, rather than functioning as a lethal, cold-blooded assassin. This adjustment is the first step toward making the ability feel more fair, interactive, and enjoyable for both Kiriko players and their opponents. More updates are planned to further refine its identity and gameplay impact.

We have identified that Kiriko's clone is causing significant gameplay disruption and can be a source of frustration for players. While more comprehensive adjustments are planned for a future update, we are implementing an interim solution to mitigate its immediate impact in the current meta game.

Developer Comments: Soothing Step was designed to be a core part of Kiriko’s ability power-focused build, enabling her to serve as a highly mobile healer. This update brings it more in line with other build options while reinforcing her role as a capable burst healer in fast-paced fights. Additionally, Self-Care has been redesigned—both to address a bug and to make its healing more accurately reflect Kiriko’s healing output.

Developer Comments: Self-Care was falling short in terms of sustain, especially in longer engagements. This buff gives it a more meaningful impact, allowing players to recover more effectively and stay in the fight longer without relying solely on external healing.

Developer Comments: Kiriko was consistently earning a bit too much Cash from damage and healing.

Developer Comment: Kiriko took some swiftness out of her step and put it into attack speed. What could go wrong?

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.

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 Comments: "Hard knockdown stuns" refer to most all of the existing knockdowns where the player is stunned and laying on the ground (such as Reinhardt's Earthshatter), with the exception of Ana's Sleep Dart effect, which is removed upon taking damage or Protection Suzu's cleanse.

Dev Comment: You should see her on her trampoline.

Developer Comments: Reducing the Protection Suzu invulnerability time further will help it feel less frustrating to play against but still enable it to have big play making moments although with a stricter timing requirement. To counterbalance that power loss we're making Kiriko's healing more reliable.

Developer Comment: The Protection Suzu no longer knocks back enemy heroes, so the projectile doesn't need to impact them either. This quality-of-life change prevents accidental activations when thrown into groups with both enemies and allies.

Developer Comment: Protection Suzu now rewards more deliberate usage by increasing its healing when cleansing negative effects. It will no longer knockback enemies, as it wasn't particularly important to its overall design and was there to provide feedback for the impact. These Kunai changes will make the weapon damage output more consistent and reduce some of the disparity between landing critical hits or not.

Developer Comments: Originally, we increased the Ofuda recovery time to promote more Kunai usage between healing bursts. Despite that benefit, we are partially reverting that change so the primary fire feels more responsive in situations where Kiriko is pressured to focus entirely on healing.

Developer comments: Despite Kiriko's healing projectiles being slow-moving and single target, her average healing output per match is higher than we'd like. We've seen players tend to get overly focused on maximizing her healing potential and only use primary fire for extended periods of time. Rather than reduce the amount of healing per projectile, which may lead to feeling locked into focusing on primary fire even more, we're increasing the recovery time before she can start firing the Healing Ofuda. Increasing recovery times opens the opportunity to weave in secondary fire Kunai more freely.

Developer comments: The hit volume adjustment is to help address her arms sometimes blocking headshots in some of her animations. Kiriko feels balanced overall, but her ultimate could feel too frenetic at times. We're reducing both the movement speed and cooldown rate boost it grants so that it's easier to aim during its effect for both allies and enemies, as well as there being fewer abilities being thrown about. The rest of the changes are primarily for quality-of-life improvements to make the abilities feel better to use.

This invulnerability window is primarily intended to help avoid instantly dying to something unseen after teleporting through walls, but it ended up being a little too long and led to some confusion while shooting at Kiriko.