Nerfed defensively, buffed offensively.
Significant changes have been made to D.Va’s abilities on Blizzard’s internal Overwatch test servers.
Principal designer Geoff Goodman confirmed the news in an official forum post following the reveal of Overwatch’s brand new map at Gamescom 2017, Junkertown.
We’ve listed all of the changes below.
- Defense Matrix: Energy drain increased by 2x. This means her effective uptime for this ability has been reduced by 50%.
- Boosters: D.Va can now use her Fusion Cannons while flying.
- New Ability – Micro Missiles: D.Va launches a long salvo of small missiles that explode on impact, dealing damage in a small radius around them. This ability can be used while using her other abilities or firing her Fusion Cannons.
Defense Matrix has been a point of contention in the Overwatch community for a long time now, especially since the prevalence of “dive comps” in Season 5 of Competitive Play. Blizzard has listened to the community, and toned down her incredibly strong defensive capabilities in favour of granting some more offensive options.
”The combination of these changes allow her to play more aggressively and deal more damage, at the cost of being able to Defense Matrix as often as before,” said Goodman. “Defense Matrix still remains an extremely powerful tool when timed correctly, but the reduced uptime means D.Va won’t be able to use it nearly as often overall.”
”Her new Micro Missiles ability in combination with her ability to fire while flying allow for some more aggressive play, as well as opening up some new options versus heroes such as Pharah.”
- 1. Tier List – Overwatch Tier List
- 2. Season 5 – Season 5 guide
- 3. Doomfist – Doomfist guide
- 4. World Cup – Overwatch World Cup guide
- 5. Summer Games – Overwatch Summer Games guide
Blizzard’s main goal was to remove D.Va’s total dependence on Defense Matrix and simply make her appealing as a pick.
”Overall the goal here is to reduce her reliance on Defense Matrix and make her more fun to play. As far as balancing goes, we want to nerf Defense Matrix as an ability, not D.Va as a hero.”
We reckon these changes are just what D.Va needed. D.Va’s identity in any team composition was defined by her constant usage of Defense Matrix to soak up damage. Picking her was to choose to act as a bullet sponge, repetitively right-clicking to protect teams from harm – useful, but not very fun.
Now we can expect D.Va to be the fun-first mecha-pilot she’s always promised to be, and we simply can’t wait to fly around the map and pepper Pharah’s face with our Micro Missiles.
Finally, these changes free D.Va from her Defense Matrix cage and we’re looking forward to getting some hands-on time with her new-found aggressive abilities. Once we do, we’ll update the site with all our impressions – stay tuned for more!
