Is Kiriko Worth Unlocking in Overwatch 2? An Enthusiastic Yes!
As a passionate Overwatch 2 player and content creator, I am thrilled to give an emphatic "yes!" – Kiriko is absolutely worth unlocking and learning for players of all skill levels. Her high mobility and lethal kunai provide a uniquely fun ninja gameplay style unmatched by any other support.
Despite a challenging skill floor, Kiriko‘s incredibly high skill ceiling and carry potential make mastering her a deeply rewarding endeavour. Let‘s dive deeper into her well-rounded kit to see why she adds immense value in nearly any composition or situation.
Potent Healing and Utility Rivals the Best Supports
Kiriko‘s healing output rivals Overwatch‘s premier supports when played to full potential:
| Hero | Healing Output | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Mercy | 55 HP/s | Easy |
| Kiriko | 72 HP/s | Hard |
| Ana | 66 HP/s | Hard |
Her low skill floor healing comes from the auto-targeting Protection Suzu, which I often use to enable aggressive flanking allies. The channeling Healing Ofuda is stronger for sustaining tanks but requires good aim. With practice, Kiriko can pump out incredible healing numbers to save teams from even the most overwhelming incoming damage.
Her Cleanse ability also adds utility that no other support brings by removing debuffs and stopping even the deadliest crowd control abilities. Well-timed Cleanses can completely swing teamfights, especially against heroes like Ana, Mei and Cassidy.
High Mobility and Carry Potential
Kiriko‘s Wall Climb passive enables immense mobility for escaping danger or chasing down low health targets. Combined with her Swift Step teleport, she can easily navigate the map and position aggressively to make plays that other supports simply cannot.
In my experience, this mobility is integral to carrying games by both sustaining ally aggression and driving kills yourself with lethal Kunai headshots. Kiriko has true hard carry potential thanks to these ninja abilities – a good one will dominate games by both healing and fragging out.
Talent Tree Adds Immense Build Diversity
One of Kiriko‘s best assets is her talent tree, which unlocks at Tier 2 mastery to enable vastly different playstyles. My favourites are:
Swift Steps (T3): Reduces Swift Step cooldown by 3 seconds per elimination. Perfect for highly aggressive flanking builds.
Wall Climb Master (T5): Climb walls 25% faster and higher. Great mobility boost and synergy with Kunais for lethal angles.
But choices like Healing Stream and Protection Suzu Range allow more defensive play if desired – no other support has this flexibility!
Current Meta Powerhouse Pick
Kiriko currently boasts very strong ~60% pick rates in high ranks per Overbuff‘s public data. Her popularity only dips below 50% in lower tiers where mechanical skill cannot fully leverage her kit.
As the dive meta continues, her strength and pick rate will likely grow even higher thanks to unrivaled mobility and ability to enable flankers. Even against brawl comps, Kiriko‘s Cleanse provides game-changing utility.
Accessibility Analysis – Worth Instant Unlock?
For new players, Kiriko can be unlocked for free by completing challenges which I estimate will take around 5-10 hours of gameplay. This grind is perfectly viable but means you‘ll lack her game changing abilities temporarily.
The other option is instantly unlocking her (along with Sojourn and Junker Queen) via the Watchpoint Pack for $40 USD – reasonable value given each hero costs ~$10 normally.
As an avid player myself, I highly recommend this pack not just for Kiriko‘s strength, but also to have full roster access which lets you counter enemies and synergize allies in any situation right away.
Kiriko‘s high mobility and lethal kunai gameplay enable uniquely aggressive and flashy support plays no one else can match. Despite her skill floor, her incredibly fun style, diverse talent builds, and meta-dominating strength make mastering Kiriko incredibly rewarding and worthwhile.
She brings immense, often game-changing value through healing, utility and damage-dealing to empower teammates and hard carry games herself. I couldn‘t recommend strongly enough for players of all skill levels to unlock Kiriko and add her flashy ninja abilities to their arsenal!
Let me know if you have any other questions about dominating your Overwatch 2 games with Kiriko!
