D.Va has been tearing up ranked play thanks to her new Call Mech buff that deals 250 damage to nearby enemies, but it may not be working exactly as the Overwatch developers have intended it to.
Originally a mock buff in the April Fools Day patch, the Call Mech change was so popular that the devs decided to bring it back into the game, albeit with a bit less power. Instead of dealing 600 damage in the April 1 update, it was changed to 250.
Being able to deal 250 damage to any enemy with a single ability is a big deal in Overwatch, as it’s enough to eliminate the majority of the cast. With the exception of tanks and certain 250 HP heroes with armor or damage mitigation passives such as Torbjorn, every other hero can instantly die to D.Va’s Call Mech.
According to the devs, this change was made because Baby D.Va is often the last hero to be killed in a fight and be staggered for a long time.
In higher levels, keeping Baby D.Va alive for awhile before killing her can drain precious time off the clock, and most teams are too smart to attack 5v6 as they wait for D.a to respawn.
“D.Va’s respawn is often intentionally delayed by the enemy team if she is the last player alive from her team and without her mech,” the devs wrote in the patch notes back on April 22. “This change will make it more dangerous to be near the Call Mech arrival area for low health heroes.”
Be that as it may, this buff may actually hurt D.Va players who try to take advantage of it. As seen in the Overwatch League match between the Shanghai Dragons and Hangzhou Spark, using Call Mech didn’t work out in their favor.
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After Se-won ‘BERNAR’ Shin was demeched by Dragons, Shanghai proceeded to body block him in order to keep the tank from jumping off the map on Numbani.
In the process, they allowed BERNAR to earn enough ultimate charge that he could activate Call Mech and used it to kill Jae-won ‘LIP’ Lee.
While this may seem like a good thing, BERNAR’s team was still nowhere around and as a result, he ended up feeding an additional 600 HP to the Dragons with Pan-seung ‘Fate’ Koo earning a Primal Rage.
To make matters worse, LIP just ended up being resurrected, so it’s not even like Spark could take the fight 5v5.
It’s definitely something to keep in mind when you’re playing D.Va – don’t fixate on the possibility of getting a Remech kill when you could just end up making things even more difficult for your team.
