Blizzard Says D.Va Nerf Gives Her "More Legitimate Counters"

[Eclipse Dragon]

I think I found the hunter. RIP 7.1.5.

I could be a ret pally or a fire mage or a shadow priest, hunters wearn't the only class that got nerfed.

(But you're right, I was a hunter)

 

[The Enquirer]

When a D.Va (A tank) can make a Roadhog shit his pants in a close quarters 1v1 fight you know your character needs some work. The nerf is too extreme but a nerf needed to happen. She's a better Reaper (higher heath and better escape) and Winston (better damage) and is hard as shit to kill to even heroes like reaper or roadhog. Her ult is a "you may die to this and I get my hearth back" button. and even heroes like mei who are supposed to "counter" her, she can just nope out of there pretty easily. I would have just nerf her damage and have the nuke kill her again. Hopefully they look at her like they looked at Roadhog's hook and we will be rework her changes in the ptr.

I would of thought Winston would of been a good D.VA counter, due to his weapon being energy based like Zarya's and being able to get past her Matrix.

Good to see Blizz are keeping up with the buffs and nerfs where (generally) they are needed *Glares at Riot games >.> * it's weird cause Overwatch seems to have some of the best balance out there, when i started playing (about 6 months ago) i thought everyone was very well balanced. Surprised to see so many buffs and nerfs all of a sudden.

Actually this is very true, Winston is a fantastic D.Va counter for two reasons. First, yes, you ignore her defense matrix, but second and more importantly is the bubble shield. Since D.Va moves at a snails pace when she's firing, you drop the bubble forcing her to either burn through it very veeeeeery slowly, or stop firing and move in at which point you just switch out and she's in the same position, all while damaging her.
A good D.Va can handle it of course, but not without tons of free damage at which point Winston can just fuck off with the jetpack if he feels he's losing.

It's the other way around...at least, it is for now.

Winston actually has a very, very hard time doing any amount of damage to a D.Va, thanks to how armor works. Armor reduces incoming damage by 50%, but an attack can lose no more than five damage to armor. Long and short, this means that attacks that deal more damage per shot are more effective at piercing armor, while rapid-fire weapons are considerably less effective. This means that Winston only deals 1.5 points of damage per point of ammo to D.Va's armor, instead of the usual 3. D.Va will be able to shoot a Winston down much, much faster than Winston can kill her mech.

Right now, Zarya is still the best counter, if only because her weapon is bugged and deals more damage to armor than it should.

Winston being able to ignore armor would make him pretty viable

Coming from a part time Winston main, he doesn't need any buffs. He absolutely destroys squishy characters and wrecks healers like we saw in the World Cup. The problem is it's such a tank heavy meta right now, and Winston is not really effective against tanks.

The only thing they maybe could do with him is a slight reduction on his shield CD but even then I'd be worried about him getting nerfed.

 

[Irridium]

Wait they think D.Va has no weaknesses? Fucking what? What about her critbox which is basically the entire front of her body? Roadhog's chain goes through her matrix and can shred her in like 2 shots. Reaper just eats her. Yes she can run away... but that's kind of what she does. Jump in, skirmish, flee. The armor helps with this. Now she just folds so easily there's really no point. She'll need a dedicated healer (or two) just to not die in an initial skirmish.

Also watch, after her nerf Soldier will be picked a lot because he's always been very strong, but that's been handled by D.Va. With her massive nerf... he'll dominate. I'd put money down on him being the next one they nerf because of this.

 

[RJ 17]

Good to see Blizz are keeping up with the buffs and nerfs where (generally) they are needed *Glares at Riot games >.> *

Hey now, they reduced the duration of Camille's shield, that's worth something...right? :^)

Good to know Blizzard's issues with character balancing extend to franchises other than just WoW.

Blizzard's main issue is that they haven't been able to properly balance a game since Brood Wars.

But that would mean that only one character could do anything about D.va. that can cause a stale meta,

We're already in a stale meta, and that meta is called "Tanks For Days". Most every comp is 4 tanks (most usually Hookhog, Reinhardt, D.Va, Zarya), an Ana, and one random dick-nugget that gets to play whoever they want (though it's usually a healer).

The reason being that tanks deal plenty enough damage as it is, there's no true need for anyone to play a DPS character. Why bother playing someone who's squishy and deals a lot of damage when you can play someone who's tanky and deals a lot of damage? IMO: this game doesn't have tanks (with the exception of Winston) as they've been traditionally defined...what this game has is "bruisers". Tanks are meant to be damage sponges for the rest of their team, keeping the healers and DPSers safe while not doing much damage themselves. If you ask me, the tanks in this game (again, with the exception of Winston), need a damage nerf across the board.

"But these characters are meant to be the front line fighters! If they don't pose a serious threat, then the enemy will just run right past them and kill the squishies! It's not like they have taunting abilities like in an MMO!" I hear you typing, and to that I say "That's why the tanks in this game have plenty of utility/defensive options to peel for their squishies." Rein has his shield, ultimate, and charge. Zarya has her ultimate and bubble. Hog has his hook and ult. D.Va has her matrix and dash. As it is, most of these are being used in an offensive manner, where-as if these characters were actually "tanks" then these abilities would be reserved for more defensive purposes.

Not only would nerfing tank damage foster a necessity for having more DPSers on your team (thus opening the game to more team comp variety), it would also foster more teamwork since the tanks actually have to start tanking for their team instead of being damage-dealing meat-shields.

That or implement a draft system complete with picks'n'bans. I mean, they've already obliterated the core philosophy of "play who you want when you want" with the exception of Arcade mode, so it's not like there's anything sacred or unique in terms of game philosophy to keep clinging to in Competitive.

But this is all just the opinion of some random slap-dick on the internet, so it's probably a stupid idea. :^)

 

[Fappy]

I think I found the hunter. RIP 7.1.5.

I could be a ret pally or a fire mage or a shadow priest, hunters wearn't the only class that got nerfed.

(But you're right, I was a hunter)

None of those three other specs got nerfed XD

Ret and Shadow are top dps atm and Fire is doing great. (I main Fire btw)

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Wait they think D.Va has no weaknesses? Fucking what? What about her critbox which is basically the entire front of her body? Roadhog's chain goes through her matrix and can shred her in like 2 shots. Reaper just eats her. Yes she can run away... but that's kind of what she does. Jump in, skirmish, flee. The armor helps with this. Now she just folds so easily there's really no point. She'll need a dedicated healer (or two) just to not die in an initial skirmish.

Also watch, after her nerf Soldier will be picked a lot because he's always been very strong, but that's been handled by D.Va. With her massive nerf... he'll dominate. I'd put money down on him being the next one they nerf because of this.

I've been playing roadhog for a while, he does not counter her at the moment, I wouldn't say she counters him but with her defense Matrix you pretty much get only one shot in before she nopes out and she has chased me and killed me so many times in competitive recently it's getting to get ridiculous. I also stated up top no one plays with Reaper because she's a better Reaper (and Winston), she has more health plus resistance, she has a better escape, better engage and her Ultimate not only kill you but it can restore her to full health. the only thing she lacks is damage and Soldier pretty much feel that in. I don't think she should have been nerf to this extreme but i think see needs to be nerfed in some way

/

Honestly even though I've been saying D.va should have been Nerf the thing that's Powering the tank meta is Ana, plain and simple. she just heals too damn ridiculously thanks to her damn grenade. luckily they're nerfing that in this patch.

 

[IceForce]

and even heroes like mei who are supposed to "counter" her, she can just nope out of there pretty easily.

A decent Mei can counter D.Va without much difficulty. Just put a wall behind the D.Va so she can't run away, and then freeze her and kill her (it helps to have at least one teammate with you, so you can both focus-fire her while she's frozen).
This works extremely well in CQC and at chokepoints, but obviously doesn't work so well in wide open spaces (where the wall becomes useless). But in wide open areas you just shoot at D.Va from a distance and from multiple angles (teammate help needed here again) - she's a big target and she can only block damage from one direction at a time.

 

[IceForce]

If you ask me, the tanks in this game (again, with the exception of Winston), need a damage nerf across the board.

Tank damage isn't the reason for the current tank-heavy meta. (In fact, all the tanks deal minimal damage at anything beyond close range.) Ana is the reason, and her fucking ridiculously overpowered healing.

Deal 200 damage to an enemy tank, and the enemy Ana just heals it all up again in about a second or two. Ana effectively gives the tanks on her team 'god mode', essentially. They become pretty much impossible to kill without killing the Ana first.
(Ana's healing isn't quite so overpowered towards squishies, because if you deal 200 damage to a squishy, they're dead, healing be dammed. That's how this whole 'tank meta' started - because of Ana.)

Thankfully, they're nerfing Ana's grenade, but I don't think it's going to be enough.
If you look at Mercy's damage boost and Zen's discord, both of these abilities give a 30% damage boost. But Ana's grenade gives a 100% healing boost, which is COMPLETELY unbalanced. It means that, even with in-game damage boosts, it's still imposssible to damage through the insane levels of Ana's healing.


For the game to be remotely balanced, there needs to be parity between the supports. And currently, there's parity between Mercy and Zen, but not Ana.
Ana's grenade should give a healing boost of 30%, and then I reckon she might finally be balanced. The next patch will make her healing boost 50% (instead of the current 100%), it's a good start, but as I say, I still don't think that's enough of a nerf.

 

[fractal_butterfly]

Why is nobody talking about the completely broken Symmetra? Is it too obvious or is she a nightmare only for noobs like me?

 

[Bobular]

I think they should have kept her with a lot of armour but make another character able to more easily damage armour, making it so D.Va has her counter but Reaper isn't a counter to all tanks.

But that would mean that only one character could do anything about D.va. that can cause a stale meta, since if the enemy has a d.va for example, you HAVE to have the exact character to counter her, without any leg room. Other offense can do Reaper's job too, Soldier: 76, Bastion, even a good Torbjorn, but the thing is that all of those characters I mentioned can only do tank-busting secondarily, with exceptions to Bastion, but he can't move while doing so. Reaper is the only high mobility character in the game with a purely dedicated tank-busting loadout, but if he can't take down tanks, then what's his purpose?

Adding another character that does Reaper's job, but better just makes him more redundant in comp picks. This is what happened with Winston, when D.va was buffed to high heaven, she usurped Winston as the squishy hunter, meaning Winston had a very low pick rate in competitive.

But that just means we always see Reaper in every game, when we have people pick a DPS that isn't Reaper I always see people telling them to pick Reaper for Tanks. I prefer to see variety, there are a load of characters but you always see Reaper, Reinhardt and Lucio in every game on both teams and usually see Soldier, Roadhog and Ana fill the other three slots

Also I don't think she's usurped Winston, I've never been scared of Winston as any class, unless he's got his ult he's an easy kill. His range is too short and his shield makes him stationary so after his first jump you can just back up and shoot from out of range.

To me the thing that made D.Va unique was her massive armour and rather than take that away I would much rather see the armour feature be better utilised among the characters, have Reaper be a good counter for the less armoured tanks, have another that can rip through armour and a third that can go through shields and you've got yourself a bunch of characters that all have uses but wont necessarily be seen every single game.

 

[lionsprey]

so instead of having D'va countered by symmetra mei and zarya shes now countered by... everyone yeah thats balanced.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I think I found the hunter. RIP 7.1.5.

I could be a ret pally or a fire mage or a shadow priest, hunters wearn't the only class that got nerfed.

(But you're right, I was a hunter)

None of those three other specs got nerfed XD

Ret and Shadow are top dps atm and Fire is doing great. (I main Fire btw)

I recall a good number of people complaining on the PTR forum about nerfs on those particular classes. I guess Blizzard really just does hate hunters. (I rerolled to a death knight, who I like a lot but I still have a fondness for my hunter and hope one day I can bring her out of retirement) also pssst Fappy, we need to be battle.net friends and play together sometime.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Snap.

I still say that Ana's only half the problem. Nerf her all you want, it'll still make sense to go with a group of tanks with a couple healers because - as IceForce put it - if you deal 200 damage to a tank, it's no big deal, deal 200 damage to a squishy and they're dead. As I mentioned: if tanks take a damage nerf across the board, it'll necessitate the need for the squishy high damage dealers. Tanks might not do as much as, say, Reaper or Soldier, but they still do plenty enough to make it viable to cut the higher DPS character in exchange for having more survivability on your squad.

So a tank damage nerf combined with an Ana nerf (I mentioned her in my first post, but should have made it clear that I do think she needs to be nerfed too) would break this tank meta and get us back to more variety in team comps.

 

[Spider RedNight]

I'm not gonna say I'm not glad she's getting nerfed again already but there are a couple other things I'd rather see first. Liiike taking Hanzo out the game orrrr giving Junkrat's RIP-tire an extra 50-100 health so that it can be used as an actual Ultimate and not a lazy distraction for people to one-hit while another team member finds my completely immobile body and murder that, too.

But whatever, Blizz, keep working on the same few characters instead of tweaking ALL the characters so people can play who they want and they're viable instead of "well we don't like this tank-heavy meta so we'll keep working on D.Va!" crap. Y'know what I miss? When her Ult could kill her. That seemed fair since you can't destroy the thing and its blast radius is insane, not to mention what was already said and she just gets all her tank health back immediately after using it.

Also you guys are monsters, please change Symmetra's range back to what it was OR make it so her auto-aim gun doesn't charge based on who she hits and happens to kill while running forward keeping a finger on the key/button. Or you could make it so that Mei can't out-snipe the sniper with her bullshit icicles that don't have an arc, nerf Ana's heal grenade just a little more, fix McCree's "huckleberry" voice line, make ALL the tanks do less damage.... orrrrr you can keep working on D.Va, that's cool.

I also wouldn't be opposed to the idea of her infinite guns having a heat limit so people have to stop shooting now and then. BUT I'm not a D.Va main so what do I know about what she needs or doesn't need.

 

[Fappy]

I think I found the hunter. RIP 7.1.5.

I could be a ret pally or a fire mage or a shadow priest, hunters wearn't the only class that got nerfed.

(But you're right, I was a hunter)

None of those three other specs got nerfed XD

Ret and Shadow are top dps atm and Fire is doing great. (I main Fire btw)

I recall a good number of people complaining on the PTR forum about nerfs on those particular classes. I guess Blizzard really just does hate hunters. (I rerolled to a death knight, who I like a lot but I still have a fondness for my hunter and hope one day I can bring her out of retirement) also pssst Fappy, we need to be battle.net friends and play together sometime.

There was a lot of complaining during the ptr but things worked out. Fire actually does struggle without the BiS legendaries, but I got lucky (I have helm, bracers, and belt). Still, they are better off than Hunters because even without legendaries their aoe is top tier.

And yeah, my btag is Fappy#1883 if you want to add me.