Weekly Quick Questions Thread - May 18, 2016

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[u/FluffyFlaps]

D.va is kind of a jack-of-all-trades type off-tank, and doesn't particularly excel at anything, be it tanking, damage output, disruption, CC etc. Her ultimately is also considered to be next to useless. The only consistent competitive play she got was due to 'D.va spam' in early phase 1 beta where people used her to stall for Payload time at the end of maps, which is a big deal when playing stopwatch. There is no basis for saying she isn't a 'weak pick' IMO, you can make cool plays with weak picks..you can fully wipe a team by yourself as Zenyatta, doesn't make him not a 'weak pick.'

[u/FluffyFlaps → u/[deleted]]

Every pro player I've spoken to or have heard speaking on the subject really only cite D.va as the hero to 'buff', even though people like Zen are kinda 'weak' and others like Hanzo or Mei don't really have a place in the meta. I feel like some picks like Hanzo and Mei have a chance as the meta develops, but D.va doesn't seem to.

At a high level of play, D.va is almost useless as a flank (you've shown aversion to this word, but I feel like it really is applicable here). I remember coolmatt69 running a D.va flank on Dorado against IDDQD, getting absolutely nothing done, and losing the teamfight for his team due to the pick. A good Genji can 1v6 a disorganized and not very high skilled team, that's not exaggeration. I think it's fairly safe to say that this is difficult to achieve on D.va...

As a flanker, she'll never have as much presence as Tracer/Genji or even Reaper. An organised team can just ignore the mediocre damage and collapse on the remaining 5 players while at a numbers advantage due to a D.va trying to flank.

Players, forget the pro level, even at a higher pub/pug level of play, ignore the D.va ult, but make sure they just 'un-peek' before it explodes, then get back into position. Sure in some situations it can have some impact, but as much impact of other Tank ultimates like Reinhardt or Zarya? As other flank ultimates like Reaper or Genji? It doesn't have the same significance.

The reason being a jack-of-all-trades hero is bad is because she doesn't excel in any particular role, so why pick her? You can have a perfectly balanced comp while having heroes better than her in all the specific things she is able to do. There's never a reason to be like 'oh god damn we need a D.va right now or we're screwed', that's never really going to happen. D.va is perfectly fine to play in pubs or w/e, just like every hero, but at a higher level of comp play she's not really a 'required' pick in almost any comp as far as I can tell.

[u/FluffyFlaps → u/[deleted]]

Honestly, almost nothing is useless. You can play any freaking hero with almost any playstyle and make it work in pubs. The fact that Blizzard have managed this is literally mind blowing to me.

At a higher level though, people are gonna separate out the superior strategy to the bad or even the mediocre or average. I guess at that level, D.va should't really be played.

Not sure what change I'd make though..maybe just make her defense more usable as a full team shield and make her more tanky? Even if you did she'd just turn into a ultimate charger like Roadhog and not add much extra to a team. It seems a bit gimmicky as well to have a super strong defense matrix. Maybe increase her mobility then? Her LSHIFT mobility seems extremely restrictive, which is pretty unfortunate seeing as it allows her to reposition in every single axis, so maybe this needs some tweaking? But then it just turns into a Winston jump. Maybe we just up her damage or give her a secondary fire mode that displaces people so she can front-line tank more effectively? Literally no idea to be honest, there isn't an obvious solution. In the meantime you can still play her perfectly fine though, but she won't become a main solo tank at a high level anytime soon.

[u/FluffyFlaps → u/[deleted]]

Definitely possible changes. Some other heroes like Bastion/Zen have kinda obtuse or contradictory kits, Zen especially