Honestly, her current design is more of a specialist than a bruiser, as she’s almost entirely about Zoning (almost all of her power is put into her nuke and defensive matrix), and lacks the key traits of bruisers: namely the ability to BRUISE-- no sustain outside of her nuke swap and damage that most TANKS outdo, So she can’t really solo lane or take camps which bruisers are generally expected to do.
Do you think they should push her away from her zoning into more of a proper bruiser role, or double down on her supportive zoning role?
Her speed reduction is going to be only while shooting instead of always.
Big Shot is going to be a weaker baseline ability instead of a heroic.
Micro Missiles is becoming a new (Mech exclusive) heroic.
It sounds to me like they’re pushing Mech Mode to be a viable combat tool, with a damage-oriented heroic option and vastly improved mobility. Best case scenario is D.Va has build paths that let her focus on zoning or damage, both of which emphasize the Mech instead of the Pilot. That would make for the most healthy and varied gameplay.
Honesty, while nice, that doesn’t alleviate her biggest issue as a “bruiser”: Lack of sustain. It still leaves her with her sole sustain being to swap out with a nuke, and the nuke can only really be uses at specific times or its “wasted”.
I’d rather have rushdown baseline than removing her slow anyways: it would make her unique in being a character who’s pendelums in mobility between super mobile with her boosters and slow without them.
They should definitely push her in the direction of as versatile as possible, not try to pidgeonhole her into any of a single role as you seem to be suggesting.
Strong frontline mech build, strong pilot dps build, strong zoning build, strong bruiser dps build, depending your your choice of talents. That would be ideal, a versatile bruiser is rare (varian tries to be one but fails miserably)
I’d rather they go in with a distinct goal in mind for her than try and fail miserably (as you noted with Varian). The hots team more often than not can’t handle going in without a concrete goal or else they just splash around aimlessly (see the whitemane rework)
They also mentioned in the AMA that they’re going to be changing her Mech’s basic attacks.
Rimvee
Not really an important issue, but as a D.Va main across both games it always sort of bothered me how in Overwatch D.Va’s mech shoots alternating spread shots, like two shotguns, while in Heroes it is animated more like two chainguns, constantly firing projectiles rather than staccato bursts. Is there a technical / design / deliberate reason for this? Not a big problem, I’ve always just been curious.
Blizz_DWarner
That fantasy/mechanical mismatch is something we will be addressing in her upcoming rework
The entire point of D.Va is that she has an emergency bail instead of traditional sustain. She can “die” three times and still come out with full health at the end.
I’d like a distinct goal too, the distinct goal being a versatile character.
We have enough boring one-trick bruisers which only excel at one thing and are picked for that one reason (cough rexxar on braxis, cough artanis on BoE)
Doubt they will. As they want to retain her lore from OW. But we have enough assassins as is, so they’d need to find a way to make her pilot form more of a bruiser.
