Armour would help massively with this. I used to be able to turn my critbox away from damage when I was out of DM, this was a huge part of how to play D.Va. They deleted that in keeping with the tradition of blaming D.Va for every meta, in an attempt to delete triple tank all the way back in season 3.
Nerfs to offtanks to discourage picking them over a dps over the years were an abject failure. Triple tank continued, and thrived, because it became better to pick two offtanks next to your main tank instead of one. They widened the gap between rein and the other tanks and the result was more and more triple tank to support Rein. When they finally did 2-2-2, which tank mains begged for as the only way to discourage triple tank without making all tanks individually unfun, they completely refused to take the logical step of undoing all those nerfs one way or another and bringing offtanks back up to the same power level as main tanks.
Then double barrier happened, and again instead of changing course they refused, doubled down, and nerfed all the shield tanks until barrier tanks became offtanks. Meanwhile offtanks remained super weak, and now with Rein weaker they could no longer synergize with him to cover his weaknesses, a second barrier became more necessary. They became the offtanks, and the real offtanks became literally unplayable except for Zarya.
I’m hoping the D.Va buffs mean they’re starting to realize, but the timidness of the buffs tells me they don’t realize the crisis the tank role is in, how dead the role feels, and how many people have either left, dropped tank queue, or just reduced their playtime massively as a result.
Still waiting on the 2-2-2 tank rebalance we all were desperately hoping for. Instead of experimenting with this they experimented with 1-2-3. Plz blizz, we need an experimental card where offtanks are main tanks too, but for 2-2-2. Save D.Va 2020.
It’s not trolling, it’s relevant to the discussion, you provided an extensive reply, I said I’m not reading it. If you felt it didn’t matter you didn’t need to respond further.
Anyways, here’s hoping tuesday’s patch contains buffs to the offtanks including D.Va. Double Barrier meta needs to die. And if they keep trying to kill it by making solo barriers inadequate and therefore making double barrier more necessary, I don’t see anything ever improving.
She was a problem in dive too. Specifically, in both triple tank, and immediately post rework, her problem was that she could more or less charge at certain characters and get a massively favorable matchup if not immediately interrupted by an enemy teammate. Zen is the poster child of this but there were plenty others, most of which aren’t doing that well to begin with. The fact that people actively want facetanking Dva back is scary, because it absolutely sucked to see Dva boosting from 15m away and know right then and there, that there’s no escaping a oneway to the respawn room.
While I’m at it, pre rework dive Dva was also a problem, but that was because she could sit on an ally or enemy and drown them in DM for far too long.
I don’t oppose turning offtanks into maintanks, but a faster TTK that makes double barrier meaningless would favor a more aggressive tank lineup. Giving Hog a passive to break barriers faster could be enough.
Except it is?
Dive was driven by Winston, Dva, and Tracer, yet Genji gets nearly all the blame.
Triple tank was driven primarily by Ana and Hog, with significant involvement from Dva, and Ana takes nearly all the heat for that.
For Goats, people still want Brig deleted. Sure she was overpowered, but the reasons people actually state still refer to a meta we haven’t had in ages.
If anything, I’d say that Dva isn’t getting enough flak, at least from the community. The devs idk what they’re doing.
Quick question, out of the following tanks, which one would Zen survive a 1v1 against if nobody peels for him;
Rein?
Winston?
Zarya?
Sigma?
Orisa?
Hammond?
Hog?
Follow up question, is it healthy for the game that D.Va is the only tank you’re likely to win a 1v1 against? Has this improved the game? Making D.Va a joke you don’t run away from? This is a team game, your team is supposed to peel for you. How is it ok if no one is afraid of facing this tank alone? Be unbiased here and you’ll realize that she’s received special treatment in being the only non-threatening tank because she melts faster than a DPS due to her massive hitbox that is literally the largest in the game but without the tankiness to go along with it.
Perhaps you’re right that 400 armour might be too much, then give her 300 I don’t know, it can be tested. And if zen has his own issue maybe, then he can have his own changes. Perhaps he can be granted slightly faster movement seeing as he floats or something, this isn’t a thread about the state of zen. But either way, D.Va deserves to be a tank again and the game is suffering for it. Hell I’d even be fine with testing 100hp and 400 armour, just to make sure it’s not too much. I just want her to actually be a tank again. If they don’t want to grant her armour they can at least make her hitbox match her character model. That wouldn’t make her tankier against those she’s right in front of, but it would make her hitbox not so forgiving on beam tracking or far away spam projectile or hitscan misses that count as hits cause her legs are surrounded by massive cylinder hitboxes. I don’t know, I’m spitballing here. She needs something and she can’t stay like this just to please her haters. It’s killing the game.
If their goal is to approach and kill you, as opposed to holding ground from your intrusion, a lot of these are actually very winnable depending on terrain and distance. More often than not it comes down to skill.
But Dva’s interaction is generally very polar- depending on the patch and it’s state of balance you either bring the mech down to 25-100hp and die nearly every single time, or demech most of the time, then you have to win a duel against the gremlin with around 35-50 hp. It’s not a particularly nuanced or fair interaction like it is with other tanks, in the sense that you only need to not mess up, and there’s not much outplay potential either way. You more or less know what will happen when the boosters go off.
No, for the reason stated above. The issue here isn’t that everyone has a lopsided matchup against Dva, it’s that Dva always has a lopsided matchup one way or another against low mobility targets.
FWIW I complained about her being a massive heal sink during peak OG triple tank. This is why I think she needs a second defensive ability. The only difference then is that she won most of her matchups instead of losing them.
Armor as a mechanic only worsens the balance of things in the game, as burst is already stronger than sustain, and armor doesn’t do all that much against the things that give Dva trouble. I don’t see it doing anything good for the game.
My concern is that if we make Dva strong through armor reverts and not more creative means, it makes it hard for supports to survive, while putting a giant heal sink on the team that can never be kept at full but still requires constant babysitting and attention, especially with the current state of heals. I legitimately don’t think the game can handle that.
DPS balance is obviously also going to be hurt, but not in a way that threatens the game as a whole.
Edit: I don’t particularly oppose hitbox reductions, but I don’t think they will help either. No one who threatens Dva is gonna be missing much at typical engagement distances.
She’s balanced, but that balance considers the OWL scene too which means that the amount of coordination that goes into tournament play is considered in her realistic potential. In other words she’s very strong in the pro scene, but not in high tier ladder because she requires so much coordination and the correct comp built around her to achieve that level while playing comps like Rein/Sigma requires the 2 just not be complete Pepegas to get a nice amount of value out of them. This difference in how easy it is to get value out of the heroes’ kits is what differentiates the meta between Top 500 ladder and the pro scene right now and is why they’re hesitant to buff D.va and nerf Sigma
.