The 1.7 update for Overwatch went live on the game's Public Test Realm last week, bringing with it several controversial changes.
Overwatch's new hero, Sombra, received a buff that improved her Hack skill, but Roadhog, Ana, and D.Va received nerfs. Roadhog's Chain Hook was reworked and Ana's Biotic Grenade was weakened, but it can be said that the nerfs affected D.Va the most.
It is pretty ironic that a character known for her voice line of "nerf this!" receives such massive nerfs.
Overwatch Patch 1.7 Nerf On D.Va
In the changelog for Patch 1.7 for Overwatch, it was revealed that D.Va will be getting a health increase from 200 to 400, but her armor will be decreased from 400 to 200. D.Va will also be seeing her Fusion Cannons primary weapon rolled back, with bullet damage going down to two from three but getting the number of bullets per shot increased from eight to 11.
In Overwatch, armor works by taking five damage off each hit that deals over 10 damage, but for hits that deal less than 10 damage, the damage is halved. As such, armor is very little help against damaging single-shot attacks, as only five damage will be blocked from such a hit.
However, it is great against weapons and skills that fire a massive amount of projectiles that are low in damage, such as the pellet-spraying shotgun of Reaper and the pulse pistols of Tracer, as armor essentially halves the damage that is taken by the character.
As explained by Overwatch principal designer Geoff Goodman, the lower armor for D.Va was made because she is intended to be weaker to the shotguns and faster-firing weapons of Reaper and Tracer. Without the nerf, Goodman said that players were having trouble in taking down D.Va, but with the reversed numbers for armor and health, there are now more legitimate counters to her among the game's characters.
Goodman added that the change in D.Va's damage is intended to be a small nerf, as the lower bullet damage but higher number of bullets fired per shot results in more consistent damage per shot.
D.Va Players Not Happy With The Changes
After Goodman's explanation, players jumped at the chance to ask what role the Overwatch development team thinks D.Va should have in the game. At her current state, as described in the opening post of the feedback thread on the D.Va nerf, she is now very fragile in point blank range, which is a problem as D.Va is mostly used by players as a tank that dives straight into enemy lines.
The change in damage also made it unrewarding to aim for the heads of opponents, has made D.Va an easy target for armored enemies, and has cut off her effectiveness when nearer than 10 meters to opponents.
Goodman said that D.Va's role remains the same, which is a tank that is still stronger compared to back when she had stats of 400 armor and 100 health. She only becomes weaker to certain enemies, but her Defense Matrix skill is still one of the best ways to counter certain ultimates such as those of McCree, Roadhog, and Soldier: 76.
Goodman did promise that if D.Va turned out to be too weak overall after the changes, then she would be given a buff in future patches. However, some players replying in the feedback thread are claiming that complaining D.Va users are only using the character wrong, and should change their playstyle to fit with her skills.
