Overwatch 2 leaker reveals planned Illari nerfs after pros test them early

The Overwatch 2 devs appear to be scaling down some of their planned nerfs to Illari after pro players had a chance to test them early.

With the Overwatch Contenders playoffs beginning, teams were reportedly given access to test out some of the balance changes coming to the game’s newest support hero ahead of time in order to practice.

The changes caused a lot of stress with some teams not wanting the hero to be playable. However, according to the British main tank JkAru19, the nerfs are “less impactful than the ones already planned.”

Following this, leaker ‘varuna’ posted screenshots of what was supposedly the original nerfs. As such, we can look at them and see where the dev team wants to take the character before they’re officially added to the game in an upcoming patch.

Original Overwatch 2 Illari nerfs leaked

According to varuna, the devs specifically targeted Illari’s Healing Pylon by lowering its output by ten while also decreasing its shield health by 25.

Meanwhile, for her Captive Sun ultimate, the team had planned to lower the duration of the powerful Sunstruck effect from 7 seconds to 5 while also decreasing the duration of its slow decay from 7 to 4.

It’s important to remember that these changes may have been scaled back, so if this leak is accurate, we can get an idea of where the devs are headed.

For instance, the Healing Pylon nerfs may have been tossed out, and instead, the team may have decided to only opt for the Captive Sun changes. Or, perhaps, the severity of all these nerfs has been tuned down.

That said, teams also reportedly said that the nerfs were “less impactful than previously stated” so it’s also possible that these changes end up going live as is and pros simply overestimated the power of the nerfs.

In any case, we’ll find out for sure what the changes are when Illari joins the rest of the cast in Competitive play next week.