Introduction and Backstory

Hana Song AKA, D.Va was a professional Starcraft player from South Korea. She was so good in fact that the South Korean Army enlisted her to pilot their MEKA units against a considerable force known as the 'Omnic'. She started to stream the combat operations to her fans and is growing in popularity around the globe. D.Va is a Tank class hero but like no other. Not usually one to sit on the objective and capture it, you'll need to be moving and removing foes from the battlefield from behind their lines. The playstyle of D.Va is hard to master as it requires precision and quick decision making to utilise her to the fullest. Within this guide I will be informing you of her abilities with information on where and when to use them. D.Va is a strategic pick and doesn't work on some maps, I will start with introducing her abilities and work my way to introducing when to pick her.

Abilities

Unlike any other Hero, D.Va has two ultimate abilities. Both of the ultimate abilities are to do with her mech with the first one requiring some skill to master. Her first ultimate is called 'Self-Destruct'. This ability is very self-explanatory. D.Va will jump out of her mech, and it will explode after 4 seconds of charging up. This requires you to hit the timing perfectly on the enemy team. This ultimate ability deals 1000 damage, and if it doesn't kill the enemy it will knock them far back. If you are in the mech suit and end up taking too much damage, it will be destroyed and D.Va will be catapulted out of it while it breaks down. After this you are left with D.Va sitting at a measly 150 HP and with a completely different weapon titled the 'Light Gun'. No fear though, you can still do damage and help your teammates out with the objective but you will need to be a lot more wary of your surroundings as you will die a lot faster. Her 'Light Gun' has a slow rate of fire at 6.66 rps but it does 14 damage per shot with 20 rounds in the magazine. This provides you with enough damage to build up her second ultimate, 'Call Mech'. As the title states, she can call another mech to jump into and you can return to the original, aggressive nature of D.Va. Don't worry about your in-mech ultimate percentage as that will stay the same as before it was destroyed.

D.Va ability showcase from Blizzard

D.Va's primary weapon are her 'Fusion Cannons'. These fusion cannons fire 8 pellets per click, almost like a shotgun but with a high fire rate of 7rps. Another positive to her weapons is that you never have to reload as it has unlimited ammo. This is partly due to the fact that she has low DPS unless you are in the enemy's face. Close range her damage is 3 per pellet and from a distance she has 0.5 per pellet. This calculates to 24 damage per click as as long as you hit every single pellet on an enemy at close range and 4 damage from long range if you hit every pellet. Because of this D.Va's playstyle as a tank is very different and I will explain this later. Another of her abilities is called 'Defence Matrix' which blocks incoming projectiles in an arc in front of her. Similar to Reinhardt's shield it blocks most projectiles but it's not as big, you have to aim the 'Defence Matrix' toward enemy fire in order to counter it. The 'Defence Matrix' lasts about 3 seconds and has a cooldown of 10 seconds.

D.Va's final ability, titled 'Boosters' provides D.Va with the ability of flight which lasts 2 seconds. Her booster ability can also knock back enemies when hit, this is useful to gain aggro from enemies and push them away from teammates. While using 'Boosters' you can also use other abilities in a combo-like fashion. You can activate her ultimate 'Self Destruct' to push her mech towards enemy players which can knock them back into the ultimate. You can also activate 'Defence Matrix' while in air to deflect incoming damage while flying.

Picking and utilising D.Va

Playing D.Va can be difficult to get correct, you need to keep a steady distance from the enemies while retaining aggro and doing damage. Being the most annoying player in the world is what you're going to have to do in order to use her to her full potential. The majority of the time you play D.Va you're going to want to pick her while attacking on Escort maps. From my experience, you might as well be AFK because she isn't very useful on other maps. You can always pick her on Hybrid maps, though she won't be very good for the first phase. The best way to have her in a team is if you have another tank that's pushing the payload while you're distracting and receiving all of the aggro from the players allowing your team to move forward. Using the 'Booster' ability you want to fly around the map so the enemy can't see you, go around tight corners and on some maps you can fly around areas that are otherwise unreachable. Once behind the enemy boost into them and push them into your team, the art of surprise is always a plus. Once in the enemy's face, or back in this case just unload the pellets from the 'Fusion Cannons' into them and keep firing, the unlimited ammo helps here. You should be able to sustain a lot of damage seeing as D.Va has 500HP. However, just because 500HP seems like a lot doesn't mean it is, a whole team shooting at you is going to remove that HP in no time.

Dorado, a map in which D.Va can execute flanks well on

Utilise the boosters to their full advantage, if you're starting to get too much focus on you boost away to get healed by a teammate or find a health pack that's hidden around the map. Then do the same thing as before and get behind the enemies and keep shooting. D.Va is very good against low HP targets and manoeuvring yourself to get behind them means they can get picked off in no time from the 'Fusion Cannons'. If an enemy Widow is picking off your teammate you can always find out where she is and fly into her, distracting her from shooting at people on the payload is one of the best thing you can do. Junkrat is also prone to D.Va's attacks. If a Junkrat is set up somewhere shooting his grenades at your team you can fly behind him and distract him while dealing enough damage to make him retreat or take him out, just avoid his traps and he is easy pickings. At close range D.Va can outshoot a Roadhog because of his large hitbox you can land every pellet onto him with ease, however he is normally surrounded with teammates and a healer so taking him on in a 1v1 is very rare. Pick your targets wisely though. If you are up close and personal D.Va can win a firefight most of the time but taking on multiple different enemies alone is always risky even though she has high health. Try to avoid Mei at all costs if you have no boost because the 'Defence Matrix' cannot block Mei's main attack and you will be removed from your mech in no time, even when the mech is destroyed if Mei is still attacking there's no way for you to escape.

Using your ultimate is another tricky task that requires the act of surprising your enemies and keeping them distracted while the ultimate charges up. The best way to use her ultimate is to first initiate the 'Booster' ability then fly the mech up into the air while maintaining a forward motion toward the enemy players. If you time this just right you will be able to fly the mech with the ultimate charging into the enemy from above which will catch them off guard and take a few of them out. The ability is very loud and easy to look out for as the enemies receive a notification of where the mech is going to go off and the charge up sound is loud enough for them to hear when it's going to explode. Try to shoot at them with your blaster and catch their attention while it's charging, or better yet if you are communicating with your team get them to distract the enemy team by pushing forward and gaining traction while it charges. The enemy will push into your teammates and get caught between the ultimate and your team. The best time to use the ultimate is when you need to clear an area of enemies. If the payload is entering a capture point and the enemies have a solid defence then using the ultimate will clear them of their positions and might even take a few down giving your team an easy way to push the objective forward and capture or win the game.

A D.Va play that takes out the whole enemy team

Final thoughts

D.Va is one of the most aggressive heroes in Overwatch which is surprising considering she's under the Tank class. However, if you utilise her correctly and get up close and personal she can deal massive damage while taking out enemy defensive positions. Her ultimate is easy to see but if placed correctly it can devastate the enemy team and win games. She can be hard to learn but fun when you get her right.

Thanks for reading this small informative guide on D.Va and good luck in-game!

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