Much like Roadhog, D.Va is one of those heroes that is incredibly difficult to balance. While she might not be as durable as her gigantic mech would suggest, her ability to delete just about any ultimate with the single flick of a button has made her an invaluable part of pretty much every single team composition for the past few months. To be perfectly honest I don't consider the current D.Va to be overpowered, but I do have to admit that both playing as or against her is a bit of a slog, so I'm very glad to say that Blizzard has now announced a rather major rework.

First and foremost, her Defense Matrix uptime has been nerfed by 50% which should be a significant hit against dive teams that rely heavily on its protection. In order to compensate D.Va has been given a new Micro Misses ability that lets her launch a salvo of small missiles that explode on impact and deal area-of-effect damage in a small radius. Most interestingly, these missiles can be used at any time - even while D.Va is holding Defense Matrix or flying around!

Here's the full announcement from the developers explaining what exactly they're trying to achieve with these changes:

"Actually, we've made some significant changes to D.Va internally and have been testing them for a while now. Here are the changes we've made:

Defense Matrix: Energy drain increased by 2x. This means her effective uptime for this ability has been reduced by 50%.

Boosters: D.Va can now use her Fusion Cannons while flying.

New ability - Micro Missiles: D.Va launches a long salvo of small missiles that explode on impact, dealing damage in a small radius around them. This ability can be used while using her other abilities or firing her Fusion Cannons.

The combination of these changes allow her to play more aggressively and deal more damage, at the cost of being able to Defense Matrix as often as before. Defense Matrix still remains an extremely powerful tool when timed correctly, but the reduced uptime means D.Va won't be able to use it nearly as often overall.

Her new Micro Missiles ability in combination with her ability to fire while flying allow for some more aggressive play, as well as opening up some new options versus heroes such as Pharah.

Overall the goal here is to reduce her reliance on Defense Matrix and make her more fun to play. As far as balancing goes, we want to nerf Defense Matrix as an ability, not D.Va as a hero.

She has been a ton of fun to play with these changes, and we're looking forward you letting you guys play with them as well. "

As someone that plays both hitscan DPS and D.Va I am quite happy with these changes. Even though its going to take a lot more skill to use it properly, Defense Matrix still remains one of the most powerful abilities in the entire game, which combined with her new offensive capabilities should give D.Va her bruiser playstyle back without sacrificing too much in return. She's not going to be as ridiculously powerful as she was during Season 3, but she is certainly going to be much more proactive and interesting to play since you won't have to spend half the match having a staring contest with the enemy DPS.

You can expect these changes to arrive on the PTR in the near future, mostly likely alongside the new map. Speaking of which, if you would like to learn more about Junkertown, or just check out the newly posted animated short, you'll find what you seek over here. Enjoy!