Dev interview by Heather Newman

I still one-trick D.Va, and play her almost exclusively with close friends who know me and my playstyle well. I have played her in almost every situation. She is not good, let alone great, all all. You must build a comp around D.Va and coordinate closely with her for her to be any good. Thanks to her last several nerfs, you haven’t been able to “just throw her in” any comp and expect her to manage, let alone excel, for some time now—and that was before they introduced Baptiste to hard counter her yolo-dives and especially her bombs.

Currently, against anything remotely serious (even in QP), if you want to run D.Va, either you run her in Goats, or else you will need to accommodate her with:

  1. A main shield tank (i.e., Winston, Reinhardt, or Orisa, in that order. Hammond+D.Va is a joke: D.Va dives in with him and protects him and shoots at what he's shooting at; he doesn't reciprocate, but instead zips out in the next moment, leaving her to die). Running D.Va with only another off tank usually results in both tanks falling back and feeding, even D.Va+Zarya.
  2. A Sombra (preferrably) to counter shield spam comps, and especially Baptiste when he throws his Immortality Field up when you use Self-destruct. Failing a Sombra, you could fall back on using an aggressive Mei for her wide-area CC, and sic her on Baptiste when you want to ult. If there is no shield spam and no Baptiste, this spot can be opened up as flex position (the EMP/Bomb doesn't work well against mobility or spread out DPS-heavy comps).
  3. A main healer, and one who is willing to keep a close eye on D.Va, if not outright pocket her (and pocketing any hero is bad healer play).
  4. (Optional) A second healer. You will very likely need this healer to help the main healer, who is often easily overwhelmed. Without a second healer, D.Va will often either end up dying (and thus be unable to be there to ult-counter all the additional ultimates caused by her feeding) all game or be forced to stand back doing little more than shooting shields and tickle damage from afar.

That is a minimum of three—realistically four—team spots occupied just to support D.Va, leaving just one free to be played typically as a “flex DPS.” In my experience, that is usually too much cooperation to ask of a team of randomly paired-together people. I find it sad how D.Va is becoming like Bastion. Just like him, you need to build a comp around her to succeed. At least she isn’t at the point where she is only usable in niche situations on certain maps like he is (yet).

Sorry, that’s hardly “great in almost every situation.”

At least it goes with 2-2-2.

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