I love the DVa rework, but I’d say it’s one drawback is how weak pilot mode is now. I understand they want you to be in mech more, but now pilot mode feels like a Murky egg; just a death timer gimmick. I feel like this could be fixed with two simple talent swaps/tweaks.
Remove the “addition mech cooldown on attack” from Pro Moves, and instead add Torpedo Dash and Concussive Blast unlock there instead. By unlocking the pilot moves at level 1, this gives people the ability to play around in pilot mode right away. More importantly, this let’s you also take Pew Pew Pew; which then further combos with Headshot if you want to play a full pilot build.
Put the additional mech cooldown on Good To Go, as well as new functionality: “Upon mech being destroyed, gain 25 armor for 5 seconds. If Self-Destruct was used, gain both 25 armor and 25% more basic attack damage for 5 seconds.” I came up with this because if Pew Pew Pew is primarily for playing in pilot mode longer, this talent is conversely about getting back to mech faster. Plus I added the little extra damage on Self-Destruct as a way to encourage more aggressive plays.
Pew Pew Pew is actually for getting your mach back up faster. It isn’t instant like it used to be (full burst on two targets got your Mech instantly back) but it’s still a significant enough buff that unless you kill D.va at once she has her mach back within 10s. Actually you pick the other if you want to stay in Pilot Mode longer, even if by just half a minute. Dash is of course also useful to escape lockdowns while the Pulse can be used to push people into your self-destruct. So it has a lot of utility.
That being said I like the idea of giving her old armor talent back. I don’t think Pro Moves should give you all those abilities because that’d make it a must pick for certain players. I think just buffing the duration of Pro Moves would make it a pretty balanced talent for the tier. On the other hand level 13 only has 3 talents so there’s no reason to not just add a fourth.
Add Nanoweave Suit back, maybe combine it with the old GG WP. Now you have a talent which gives her 50 armor for 4 seconds and takedown refresh the Call Mech cooldown. Having one of her old instant mech options back with the survivability would make this a strong competitive fourth talent worthy of its place.
I wish they kept dva at 4 talents per tier instead of 3. They had some pretty cool ideas like gg wp and nanoweave suit that could have been a 4th choice at 16.
Also s they need to increase the range of her good to go torpedo dash, it’s barely moves her anymore and makes pilot dva mobility so limited and useless.
I dno but somehow I feel like despite big shot being made baseline, pilot dva feels even weaker then pre rework. Might just be the torpedo dash range honestly but I’m not sure why. Or maybe because old big shot was actually stronger
Pilot mode should be the ranged assassin equivalent of DVA but have to make sure her overall power budget isn’t too high. Her low hp would make sure she isn’t too strong in pilot form if even one person dives her
It didn’t work out like that. Pilot Form D.va has the highest untalented basic attack DPS in the game and GGWP added 50% more. This meant that previously you had 3.5 times the DPS while in Pilot Mode, not to mention using Big Shot off cooldown increased this further.
D.va’s Pilot Form didn’t actually get that much weaker. GGWP is no more and some aspects are weaker on her but no hard nerfs. Instead the reason she feels week is because Mech Mode is that much stronger than before. In terms of AA DPS the basic ratio is only 1.6 times the damage and even in early-mid game you could raise this up to 1.36. By level 16 (the point where you previously got GGWP) you actually get a talent which can potentially raise your DPS to be on par with Pilot Mode for a while. And that’s without mentioning how D.va now has a more offensive Boosters and two heroics that work in Mech Mode. It’s really the aspect which makes Mech Mode different than before. You can fight as a bruiser now instead of playing a game of chicken.
If she turns out to be under performing, it might be interesting to look at adding it back in.
But my experience now is that regular d.va players now do fine, and the good ones are drastically more annoying and aggravating than before. To a level where I don’t want to play QM because good D.va’s (like many people who are good with there heroes) are strong.
But her design and annoyance factor makes her strength incredible frustrating to play again. It isn’t like Hanzo, but it isn’t that far off for me.
Maybe i’ll adapt and learn better, and in part it is due to QM being QM. But given Mech is where she got buffed, losing a way to get ANOTHER free mech is a good thing. And getting it back would be a bad thing. Based on current statistics and my personal experience.
And even then, that just a wrong way to play her back then, you were suppose to use her ASAP to get back to mech, there are just few certain conditions where pilot would be more optimal and by that as a concept is nice.
but some people took it too literal and stayed in that position most of the time
It doesn’t. Big Shot used to reduce Mech cooldown by 8s which means Pew Pew Pew returned you Mech if you just landed all 3 shots on just 2 people. Now Big Shot recovers only 5s which means you’d 9 hits to recover your Mech instantly. Still doable but about twice as difficult.
Headshot only decreases cooldown and increases damage. It has no effect on Mech cooldown.