Overwatch’s D.va has been a meta pick for much of the game’s competitive life dating back to the playoffs of Apex Season 1 in Seoul, South Korea. While some nerfs to her Defense Matrix may have lessened her pick rate, the hero’s new booster buffs seem to have made her great again, maybe even too much so.
Back on January 16, an Overwatch patch went live that lowered the cooldown on D.va’s boosters from five seconds to three. While this may seem like a minor buff, it has drastically changed the hero, who not only is able to traverse the map faster but is also able to deny space and chase down anything in her path.
Washington Justice pro Elliot ‘ELLIVOTE’ Vaneryd posted a video on his Twitter demonstrating just how powerful the off-tank has become at shutting down snipers thanks to the booster buffs.
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Simply captioned “what it’s like playing Widow vs the new D.va,” the video shows an attacking Widowmaker player attempting to grapple to the high ground on Temple of Anubis.
While Widowmaker’s grapple is on a 12-second cooldown, the enemy mech is able to quickly hone in on the sniper. In fact, the tank comes seemingly out of nowhere to assassinate the player.
Because of the off-tank’s 600 HP, the Widowmaker is in a duel that she cannot ever win and is promptly eliminated.
What it's like playing widow vs the new Dva. pic.twitter.com/gNDaF0FP1g
— Elliot Vaneryd (@ELLIVOTE) February 4, 2020
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The process continues several more times, with the Talon operative never being able to get in a favorable position to land shots. Instead, she constantly gets chased back to spawn or is outright killed with ease.
Popular streamer and Contenders star Sam ‘Samito’ Dawahare called the video “proof as to why three-second thrusters need to be reverted.”
He added that he believes D.va was fine without the buffs and that the changes were unnecessary.
Video proof as to why 3 sec thrusters needs to be reverted ???
On the real I think dva was fine where she was, this change has her too good https://t.co/b3YI1Bp2Yx
— Sammy D (@SamitoFPS) February 4, 2020
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Keep in mind that D.va’s boosters themselves deal 10 damage on impact and are often combined with a melee for a quick 40, so these buffs also benefited her ultimate charge rate. That’s something that the developers may evaluate in the future as well.
With Blizzard promising faster balance patches, the Overwatch community should be on the lookout for some changes to everyone’s favorite mech pilot, potentially an increase to the booster cooldown by one second.
Until then, snipers in Overwatch are in for a rough time, but at least D.va mains can take advantage of their hero’s incredible mobility.
