Without this, she’s literally unplayable 
On a more serious note, please look over your post and edit it, i’m pretty sure you wrote justifications for some buffs you didn’t actually write out, so the post is very confusing and seems incomplete.
The last part is more or less what I was trying to solve, but given that it happened in S3 as well, I’m not sure if buffing the midfight without some offensive drawback would be the way to go. I was initially considering a healing received passive, but I don’t think it will actually help the healers as much as it would just encourage a more aggressive playstyle, hence the disabling on ability/primary usage. I was hoping that the new ability would minimize poke to allow more engagements at full HP and make a low HP state less risky, while having a decently risky option to buy some time for a main tank and healer, without making her individual matchups too lopsided.
You are correct in that this is a substantial part of the proposed buffs, but it largely affects characters that can actually outrun dva, which usually aren’t the ones that are disadvantaged in the matchup. I do think about the Zen 1v1 in particular when trying to envision how balance would be and I think it’d be ok.
I looked it over and it has everything I wanted in it, is there a specific section that looks confusing? I wrote other posts about how I’d use the new ability, maybe that helps? Let me know if it does
Why isn’t this a thing?!?
It doesn’t ??? What the hell are you even talking about.
She melts from the sides because she lacks armor to compensate for her hitbox and her slow speed.
And her critbox is low risk/high reward. It’s been an issue since day one.
I think the issue is they overestimate how much value that small amount of shielding will actually have for D.va, being a massive target, and how much DPS is currently in the game.
Talking about “being able to cancel it” is hilarious. It’ll be cancelled for you VERY fast, I assure you. It really only creates a moment of time for the enemy to position better or close faster to kill you.
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I don’t know at what point shields become worth not having booster OR dm regen especially when you’re still not Cc immune but I assure you it’s well above 200
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i think it was just because you split them before AND after the quote blocks. i got confused. try to do quote then rest of text or text then quote next time, instead of text, quote, text.
Breaking News: D.Va players sacrifice dps and forgo primary fire to make sure they land MM final blows.
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Ball form hides the critbox and increases movement speed, but disables the primary. Meanwhile piledriver and grapple can’t finish a full health target, and leaving ball form to do so is very risky. These two modes are a large part of what inspired this thread.
Armor does little against things she has problems with. Honestly shotguns are the only real reason why the armor mechanic shouldn’t be removed entirely and be replaced with more HP.
Maybe, but I think that solving her vulnerability from the sides is a bigger issue. Walking backward while looking down to hide the critbox is part of standard Hog gameplay, and I think Dva would be ok if she could do the same.
It’s not intended to buy more than a few moments of time, while 200hp works quite well for the likes of Hammond and Zarya, at least in terms of being able to reposition under fire. Obviously ball can get different amounts and Zarya’s bubble is a proper barrier, but I’m concerned that making it stronger could easily used to force a reload, which affects a lot of her individual matchups. It’s not like she doesn’t also have DM.
That said, the ratio of CD regen pausing or the actual HP numbers or max duration are all variables. 250hp shields, 2 seconds max duration, and 50% regen could be an option, but such a short duration would encourage SHTF panic usage, and this is not designed to do well there. I am curious as to what people think a good shield value would be.
As for CC, this would do well outside CC range to eat up some poke on the approach, or it could be used to tank any followup if popped before the stun lands. Boops would still be a thing but the self slow removal should help with that a lot.
Ball form is where Hammond deals the most of his damage. His primary is only to finish off CC’d targets, and his critbox is one of the smallest compared to his overall size.
His real survivability comes from his shields, and he can get up to 700, for a total 1300 HP.
The biggest issues she has come from the critbox, which shouldn’t be as rewarding as it currently is.
Armor should compensate for her other artificial drawbacks, such as her move speed.
Her vulnerability from the sides should be kind of intended, since she can’t cover there with DM.
And I don’t see how your shields solve anything. Her vulnerability for the sides would be identical, and her front would be wide open. No DM, no offense.
i honestly miss this voiceline so much
Ball form does do most of the damage but rarely finishes targets, and Hammond overall rarely finishes targets because he won’t survive long enough to do so. The shields do help, but most of the time enemy teams aren’t clumped enough to get the full 700 anyway- it’s more like 200-300 normally. His real survivability comes from the ability to get in and out quickly. Remove the shields and he wouldn’t play that differently, he would just require a ton of healer attention, like current Dva.
That’s why I proposed removing self slows entirely. The ability doesn’t really make sense if this isn’t factored in.
I’m not sure it works for a dive tank, jumping in would likely mean getting shot from multiple directions, and from what I’ve seen, this is how Dva gets shredded so easily, even with 4 second DM back in the day. Meanwhile you have Winston and his spherical bubble.
It would take one or two hard hits, and could then be cancelled. I expect it to be cancelled in most instances since it’s not supposed to be used any longer than necessary.
Like say you’re preparing to dive a target but eat a Hanzo arrow and have to choose between boosting+DMing in at a good bit less than full HP or letting a healer patch you up first, and likely needing to hide from further fire while that happens, which wastes a lot of time. Popping the ability before peeking and boosting gives some buffer room.
Similarly, when you’re boosting out of an area, you may need a little extra to get to a healer or cover, and this would give you just that bit extra to stop you from getting demeched by a stray shot.
Mid combat it isn’t supposed to do much since she’s already quite strong there, and the firing movement buff already does a lot. Rather, it’s intended to make her start the fight with more HP, and survive exiting the fight with less. Still, there’s no way to make an ability usable only in those situations, but here it offers a decent, risky sidegrade esque option that’s a lot stronger with main tank and healer support, but doesn’t affect her matchups with isolated targets all that much.
Remove the shields and he wouldn’t be a Dive tank, like D.Va currently, because his survivability would be trash.
Not enough, she still has the biggest hitbox in the game.
Let’s be realistic, D.Va’s job isn’t to dive in the middle of the enemy team and keep the space. That’s Winston and Hammonds’s job, they’re main tanks.
Hammond is a master at creating space with CC, and can get up to 700 shields, and Winston has a 700HP shield and AoE attack. What does D.Va have to effectively create space in the enemy team ?
D.Va is the tank that should follow them, but she can’t. She also should be able to dive isolated targets, which again she can’t.
There’s no point in an ability you don’t use fully.
Being trash wouldn’t change his optimal playstyle. Still, think about the inverse- adding shields to Dva to make her viable.
All the tanks are pretty big; Dva’s might be bigger, but not substantially so. Shots that would hit are gonna hit, and there needs to be something else to help mitigate the damage.
That’s why the ability isn’t stronger. As for following and diving isolated targets, she’s already really good at this, if at full HP. The problem is that she’s never at full HP, which is why I initially concluded that some ability of some sort was necessary.
This would be no different than rocket punch being cancelled or used before full charge.
Being trash changes the playstyle to not being played.
And giving D.Va shields won’t magically make her viable, because they don’t suit her. She’s slow (even with no move penalty), big, has no CC, low damage (none with the shields) and a huge target on her front.
D.Va’s hitbox is 10% bigger than Hammond who is the next biggest (in non-ball form). But Hammond’s critbox is half D.Va’s, and much harder to hit.
D.Va has a hitbox that is 27% bigger than Roadhog’s and 70% bigger than Winston, the two tanks with bigger critboxes.
That’s why the ability isn’t needed in the first place. Getting meager shields at the cost of everything won’t magically make her good.
If that’s true, why is she trash tier ? Because it isn’t true.
Rocket Punch isn’t intended to be “cancelled in most instances.”
I really love re-work ideas and some of the ideas here could be quite useful like crouching. I am just going to plug this here, but my suggestions for a dva rework (note the HOTS bias): Forget dva buffs, just rework her
neat lore bits!
as for the changes… I think the fusion drivers could have their slow reduced but removed is a bit overkill, tanks are supposed to be slow and while some of that has been shed away, they still have at least 25% penalty, Dva could use a reduction of it but again, not a complete removal, specially since she has boosters and is the second most agile tank in the roster
the rest… I don’t think it’s needed, there is one thing that everyone loves to ignore and it’s the fact that Dva might no be the most resilient tank but she’s the only hero who has a 450 hp heal on herself when recalling her mech, she’s the only hero whom after dying you still gotta keep them in check or you risk having a potential bomb in your face
Dva might no be the tankiest tank but boy the things she does with her current kit makes her one of the most valuable tanks out there