How are beams and melee hits supposed to counter Dva if Dva can just fly out of their range?
TL:DR below, main points in bold
This is the one issue I have with people suggesting that Reinhardt, Zarya, Winston, Mei, or Symmetra act as Dva counters. If Dva is ever being pressured by any of these heroes, she can simply fly away. Even with a fully charged Zarya/Symm or a freeze from Mei, Dva has the health and shields to get some damage in and fly away.
Of the above characters:
- Zarya has no mobility options
- Reinhardt is limited to horizontal mobility while Dva can easily reach high ground
- Mei has vertical mobility with wall, but Dva can fly out of reach horizontally
- Symmetra might be able to chase with teleporter, but the Dva can fight back and burst down Symmetra with Micro Missiles
- Winston could chase with leap but can really only tickle Dva (especially if the Dva has armor left). Moreover, Winston's leap is on and 6 second cooldown while Dva's booster's are on a 5 second cooldown, so the Dva has access to more movement options over the same time period
You could say that Dva counters exist in CC preventing her escape (hook, flash bang, shield bash, hack, etc) but relying on CC to counter a character seems flawed as the opponent can exert excellent position to remain effective (and not be countered).
It's for these reasons that I think Dva is always in the meta. She's not oppressive, but she's never a bad pick because she can never be truly punished (she's always effective).
Although I'm not a game designer, I'd still like to offer suggestions to promote discussion. Below I have 3 possible fixes:
- Allow Beam/Melee heroes to more properly counter Dva: increase the cool down on boosters to 7s; slightly reduce the speed/range of boosters - It seems weird to me that Winston has a leap that locks him into a specific trajectory and arc on a 6 second cool down, while Dva can move in any trajectory on a 5 second cool down. Moreover Dva always has an on demand shield that allows her to shoot while shielding and moving. Drastically reducing Dva's mobility should allows beam heroes and melee characters to reliably deal with an out of position Dva like they're meant to. On a side note, Dva's ability to stall (yaaay...) is reduced
- Allow ranged heroes to more properly counter Dva: have Defense Matrix deplete 50% faster when absorbing damage - This allows Defense Matrix to remain a shield alternative, but now Dva players have to be more cautious when spamming defense Matrix. Moreover, while Dva remains strong against high burst damage heroes (widow, hanzo, ashe, hog, reaper), characters that continuously fire bullets or small pockets of damage (soldier, sombra, bastion, tracer, mecree, torb, genji) now have more incentive to shoot at Defense Matrix (introducing some counter play)
- Reduce her effectiveness: nerf the damage output of Fusion Cannons and Micro Missiles by 15%; increase the cool down of boosters to 6s - If you're gonna keep Dva without a true counter, then she can't be that mobile and effective. She fulfills multiple roles and even goes so far as outperforming other off tanks in their roles (ex: better than hog at peeling). Reducing damage and mobility will force the Dva to commit more time to a specific task (peel/aggression/damage absorption/chaos). This is my least favorite suggestions as I feel that it "waters down" Dva's game play experience
TL:DR - To summarize, Dva is not oppressive but she can never truly be punished, which is why her pick rate is so high. Blizzard stated beams as being a counter to Defense Matrix, but Dva's mobility allows her to ignore this. I offer suggestions to address her lack of counter play and/or effectiveness, but I'm not a game designer and am mostly using this post to highlight issues
Posted Dec 11, 2018, 2:38 AM UTC
You can’t compare the beam heroes to d.va in a 1v1 scenario. If you do then of course she will fly away.
In the middle of a fight a d.va might not have her boosters but all the beam heroes will still have their left click.
But with a 5 second cool down, I think her boosters are almost too quick to come off cool down. Sure you can't look at things in a vacuum, but most of my points come with the context that Dva's been widely picked for a long time now.
edit: I guess people don't want to explain why this is faulty thinking and would rather just downvote