Back when defense matrix was on a 10s cooldown, you could bait it out before using your grav, so you wouldn’t have to eliminate an entire tank with their full team by them just to not have your ult denied.
Back when her explosion damaged herself she couldn’t use the fact that any enemy in LOS of her mech had no option but to find cover to take ground and kill people with a pistol or remech, and she actually had to factor in self damage so as not to die in the process.
Back when the explosion delay on her ult was 4 seconds instead of 3, her placement and timing mattered a lot more since the enemy had time to react. These days if you’re ulting in a relatively open area during a teamfight you’re going to get exactly one or two kills on the heroes that don’t have luck in their favour or a counter, not counting the people that die from being forced to find cover and are killed by her teammates.
Back when Call Mech did 50 damage instead of the actual april fool’s update 500% damage buff, D.Va had one ultimate instead of 1.5, with the extra half being usable on the enemies cowering behind a lamppost just as they’re allowed to start playing the game again.
Back when boosters were on a 5 second cooldown, closer to Winston’s movement ability that also deals damage, D.Va couldn’t just mash shift again right after diving someone for immediate extra damage.
Back when the infinite-magazine fusion cannons couldn’t be fired while boosting, she couldn’t surpass Winston’s already more difficult but rewarding diving by holding left mouse.
Back before she had micro missiles, she had to choose firmly between defending and attacking, unable to attack while boosting or use defense matrix.
After all this iterative buffing to keep her in the meta alongside the power creep heroes, she’s become a hero that can kinda just press all her ability buttons at the same time on a support or hitscan to become nigh invulnerable, deal two abilities worth of damage, and close distance at the same time, while having a health pool and 2nd chance system that allow you to mitigate the consequences of diving someone that survives and de-mechs you.
Post Edit:
It would appear a lot of D.Va players are interpreting this as me calling for D.Va to be nerfed back to the initial release version. I’m not asking for that at all, I’m saying that they took a terrible hero from low tier to way-too-pickable-tier (i.e. no meta heroes that can that make her a bad pick in a match) with all the changes they’ve made since. I’d be happy with DM being on a cooldown again, even if that CD were smaller than the release version.
