Overwatch Character Guide: D.Va, Soldier: 76 and Lucio

If you’re looking to dive into the world of being a tank but don’t necessarily want to just absorb damage or worry about only fighting at close range, then D.Va is the character for you. What makes this particular hero unique is that she’s an absolute beast when inside of her mech, but once its health reaches zero, D.Va essentially gets a second life as a light glass cannon. While D.Va is inside of her mech, her main weapons are her Fusion Cannons, which allow her to fire unlimited ammo at short range. Despite the fact that these weapons function like machine guns, they shouldn’t be thought of in the same manner as, say, Bastion’s Recon weapon, as their range is considerably shorter than one would expect. Still, if you’re looking to cause more damage than anyone else on your team, then you could do a lot worse than peppering your foes with D.Va’s Fusion Cannons. A small note, D.Va loses a great deal of her movement speed when using these weapons, so you’re not going to want to just permanently hold down the fire button.

D.Va’s first ability, her Boosters, allow her to rapidly fly in whichever direction the reticle is facing for a handful of seconds. Not only is this a wonderful method for getting to an objective or getting out of trouble, but it also allows her to cause a bit of damage whenever she comes in contact with an enemy. In addition to the Boosters, D.Va also has access to the Defense Matrix, which functions as a smaller version of Reinhardt’s shield (essentially absorbing all incoming fire).

The thing is, playing nearly one-thousand hours of Modern Warfare 2 during my freshman year of college (sorry mom) burned me out on multiplayer games for a long time. Make no mistake, I’ve loved a great deal of multiplayer games over the years, but they always seem to either only stick with me during the first couple of weeks or fade out of my consciousness after I submit a review. Granted, this is partially due to the perils of being a multi-platform gamer with single-platform friends, yet there hasn’t really been a multiplayer game since 2009 that has burrowed into my brain quite like Infinity Ward’s last great game.

Solider: 76 is the standard first-person shooter character in Overwatch. Still, despite being a fairly normal, by-the-books character, his normalcy not only stands out in this zany cast of heroes, but it also allows him to be one of the most accessible heroes of the entire group. Equipped with the Heavy Pulse Rifle, a fully automatic assault rifle that excels at medium range, Soldier: 76 is outstanding at sitting back behind tanks and dealing massive amounts of damage. In addition to the standard firing mode, which is also super successful when shot in bursts, the Heavy Pulse Rifle also allows Solider: 76 to fire Helix Rockets, a triple-headed set of explosives that fire without an arc. Unfortunately, for as powerful as the Helix Rockets are, they have a pretty massive cooldown, so make sure that you use them only when advantageous, as you risk letting your foes know that you’re without your most powerful weapon.

Overwatch is easily the goofiest of Blizzard’s main franchises, and as such there’s a big amount of tongue-in-cheek humor snuck into the game. One map features an arcade with nods to Starcraft and Heroes of the Storm . One of the game’s playable characters, mech pilot D.Va, is a competitive Starcraft 2 player. Swedish cyborg dwarf Torbjörn’s ultimate ability, Molten Core, shares a name with an infamous raid from World of Warcraft (one so famous that it might even appear in a sequel to the Warcraft movie. ) The Hollywood map features even more obscure references, with the names of characters from Blizzard’s Lost Vikings appearing as Hollywood St

At the time that I’m writing this, I’ve completed 101 matches in Overwatch 2 Winston Guide‘s current beta. It’s affected my normally rigorous workout schedule, my level of contact with friends and family and the number of hours of sleep that I’ve gotten. When I booted up Overwatch to pull that statistic from my Career Profile, I had to consciously force myself to exit the application in order to finish this article. Yes, I have a genuine Overwatch problem, and it’s kind of the greatest thing ever.

It’s kind of interesting, since the way you phrased the question almost makes it seem like we were driving towards making an eSports-caliber game, and that actually wasn’t the case! We just wanted to make it great, but it’s awesome now that it’s there. The big thing that we need to do is make sure that it’s balanced between all heroes. We need to make sure that all maps are as balanced as possible, and we do a ton of work on that. I think what sets [Overwatch] apart from other games, and where the true competitive magic really happens, is the interaction between all the heroes on the field and the way that you coordinate with your team. It’s a team-based game, so as long as you’re coordinating with your team and you guys are picking the right heroes to not only accomplish your objective, but also to counter the enemy team’s composition, then you’re kind of playing it the right way.