Thought dump is a regular series where I post my unedited thoughts and musings about Overwatch that don’t merit a real article.

I tweeted it, so I’m here to deliver.

Ever since her rework D.Va has been in a strange place in the meta. On one hand, she hasn’t left the meta. On the other, her place in the meta is not fully understood yet.

It’s a fact that D.Va is no longer the stalwart defensive tool she once was. The days of D.Vas protecting their Zenyatta from Tracers for years with just DM are, thankfully, past us.

The situations in which DM are powerful haven’t changed. What has changed is how long DM is available, which forces D.Va players to be more selective on their usage.

But the mechanics of using DM haven’t changed, and seasoned D.Vas only had to adjust their priorities.

But that doesn’t mean D.Va can no longer defend her backline, or aid a Winston in a dive. She just aids in a different, far more offensive, way.

DM is still good, but her missiles are where she has to derive much of her power from these days. The way I see it, very few D.Vas are using her missiles correctly. So without further ado, the three situations in which using her missiles makes sense.

First, an obvious use, breaking barriers. Your 76 wants to go for a visor? Help break that Rein shield. Widow can’t beat our Orisa barrier? Blow it up.

It’s a utility usage, in which you know you’re not going to find kills yourself. Instead you’re setting up your DPS to get kills of their own. Because of the relative static-ness of barriers in Overwatch, this can be done at almost any range. And due to the missiles having no damage fall-off, you can expect a full 162 damage added in.

To put that into perspective, it’s basically the same damage Soldier 76 would deal in one second if he was within 30 meters. It’s not a massive amount of damage, but against Orisa barrier it is 17.8% of the shields health. Against Winston bubble, 162 is 26.7% of its health.

That additional burst of damage can catch players off guard, and set your DPS to find kills during the gap shielding. But it still isn’t the best use of her missiles, because it leaves them on cooldown for not much gain.

Honestly, it’s a toss-up between the next two uses for which is best, because each is so situational. But in their situations they are excellent. Both center around the same thing, however. Killing the player of your choosing.

This is either done offensively with a burst combo, or defensively to peel.

The best instance of when missiles are used defensively is against Winston, but even against an enemy D.Va it can be effective.