Hello, everybody. In this blog, I will be talking about Kiriko. Kiriko is a support hero who was added to the game on the launch of Overwatch 2. She was the 35th hero that was added to the game. Since her addition, things have been great; she is one of the most picked heroes in the game, leaving behind Moira, Baptisite, Lucio, and every other support hero except Ana and Mercy.
Source: https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Kiriko
If you are not a reading person then this video is for you!
I will give every piece of information that you would need to get better at playing with her after reading this blog and following the things that are mentioned here. You’ll be able to perform way better with Kiriko. Now, before I jump into the guide itself, let’s talk about her backstory for a little bit. So she used to sweep the floors of the Kanezaka in her childhood.
That is where she learned about her connections to the fox. She joined the overwatch to bring peace back to her town and free it from the Hashimotos. Now that you know a little bit about her backstory, let’s get right into the guide
Want to get better at gaming? Choose our elo boosting services right away!
Playstyle:
There are mainly two playstyles that shine. The first one is the backline healer, where you send your duo character and let him take the early picks, and you provide him healing with some assistance in damaging the department.
The second playstyle is the pocket healer, where your duo takes the picks, and you heal them all of the time. Now, which one is most effective, and which one should you use? I’ll explain each of the playstyles below. So you’ll get an idea of it.
In my opinion, the backline or backstab assassin playstyle is more enjoyable and entertaining. You could do with a hyper-mobile hero who has seeing-through-the-wall abilities, someone like Sombra or Genji. Now, what you have to do is first send your teammate to tag the enemies with that wall seeing-through ability, and now both of you can rush toward them with an advantage. You could also sit at the backline, heal your allies, and attack your enemies whenever you get the chance.
Since Kiriko does a lot of damage on headshots, you’ll need to hold a higher ground above the enemies, and whenever you get spotted, you can just teleport and leave the enemies behind. The second playstyle is also very effective in terms of sheer healing power, but it is also less entertaining, in my opinion. Now, as we all know, Mercy is the ultimate pocket healer in the game. She can provide healing to her allies without even facing them directly.
Now, kiriko is not Mercy, but she can match her healing level. She has more healing per shot than Mercy, meaning that if you land all your healings on the targets, it will heal your allies quicker than Mercy. Meanwhile, you could also cause damage to the enemies.
But there’s a drawback, and that is your aim should be precise, and you need to have good movement skills. Because you have to face your enemies while healing them, and if you get caught in the act, there’s a high chance that you will get immediately eliminated.
Kiriko’s Abilities and their Best Use Cases:
Wall-climb:
Similar to Hanzo, Kiriko also has the ability to climb up the walls. But unlike Hanzo, it is Kiriko’s passive, which means she has two passives. The first passive is her support role, which lets her regenerate after staying out of combat for a brief period. The wall climb is part of her kit, which lets her climb up the walls up to 8 meters tall.
Now, there are use cases for it, but they are so simple because they can be used as filler ability to take on a new angle or to get out of trouble but all of these use cases are pretty simple. That’s why I am not going deeper into it.
Swift step:
We are starting from her utilities/abilities since I don’t want to tell you how to shoot with knives. The swift step is similar to Mercy’s guardian but is way better than that since it gets you instant teleportation with some immortality. What Swift Step mainly does is teleport you to an ally who is near a range of 35 meters. Upon activation, you instantly get teleported to your ally. It also gives Kiriko 0.25 seconds of invulnerability.
There are a couple of use cases that you need to understand before playing with them. The first one is that the swift can also be used to aggress towards the enemies. Just like I explained earlier in the blog, kiriko can do a lot of damage when coupled with a good DPS hero. So, use swift steps according to the situation and communicate with your DPS about when to aggress. Another use case is to stay or get back to the backlines of your team. This is a much safer use case for Kiriko since she is a support hero; the time she stays alive and supports her allies can be the differentiator.
Protection Suzu:
Kiriko’s protection suzu is a real gem if you know how and when to use it. Basically, what protection suzu does is it heals the allies within the area of effect with an 80 hp instant boost. It also cleans the allies, which means that if they got stunned, hacked, or whatever, they get free of those effects as soon as the suzu hit them. Now, while this ability is really good, its cooldown of 15 seconds is a downer since you have to use it carefully.
Unlike her kunai’s or ofuda, the protection needs to be preserved until your ally needs it. You can’t go off with using it on every ally who is stunned. The best use case of protection suzu is to use it when you are committing to a peek or an objective side. It gives the allies a brief moment of immortality, which gives them enough time to peek at a sniper or to get an instant peek without getting a single hp damage. You don’t use it on everybody, and every time, you need to be selective with it since once you have used it, you would have to wait 15 seconds to use it again.
Kitsune Rush:
Now we are at the end of her kit, and it is her ultimate, which is opinionated to be one of the best support ultimates in the game. What this kitsune rush does is buff quite a lot of things for Kiriko’s allies. It boosts the ally’s movement speed, rate of fire, and reloading speed; it also reduces abilities. Upon activation, a mythological comes out of Kiriko’s hands, which marks a straight of the ultimate, and that is this ultimate only downside. It only goes in straight, which, in my opinion, makes it really hard to find the right timing.
Because you can not use it on map location which has twisty angles or swinging corners, you need to activate it in a zone where the terrain is straight or the way you want to go is straight because if you or your allies got away with steps of the Kitsune the buffs you get will be no longer available. So be sure to only use it when you are committing or when you have the desired position to do so.
Team compositions:
As a support, kiriko’s team composition can be versatile since she doesn’t need someone to get her the map control, nor does she need to get healings from an ally. So here are my top picks that can be a great duo with Kiriko.
Genji:
Apart from the connections that Kiriko shares with Genji in her lore. There are several things that both can do to create a lot of value in the match. Genji is a really aggressive and super-mobile hero, but the only thing he lacks is his health. He only has 150 hp health, which makes him a little bit weaker in front of a team. Kiriko can solve this problem with her high healing and long distance per shot.
Soldier 76:
Soldier 76 is by far the easiest hero to main because, unlike other heroes who have a bit of a learning curve, the soldier can be picked just right out the gate. With decent damage and self-healing abilities, he can hold himself in situations. Pairing him with Kiriko is a recipe for double trouble since she has a really good damaging kunai knife, and the soldier can heal himself. Both can be the front liners for the team.
Sombra:
Just like I explained in her playstyle paragraph, Sombra and Kiriko can be a dynamic duo since Sombra can hack the opposition, and Kiriko can teleport to her instantly, which makes it easier for both of them to eliminate the enemies. Sombra is also good at getting early picks since she is passive, which makes her invisible. So she can use it with Kiriko’s teleportation, and both can do some serious damage behind the backs of the enemies.
Wrapping it up:
We are at the end of this guide, and we have learned about everything that you would need to get better at Kiriko. Keep in mind that you do need to practice all of this for optimal results. I have given you every bit of information that you would need, so just keep playing with her, and you’ll get better eventually. Till then, goodbye.