Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
Mercy was heavily nerfed at the beginning of 2018. The instant speed resurrections were toned down, and Valkyrie was made to be much less…ridiculous. This led to her usage dropping quite a bit. Mercy was still seeing a ton of play, but she wasn’t super omnipresent. In fact, Lucio was back above her in usage for a time, but neither of them could hold a candle to Zenyatta’s sky rocketing pick rates.
No, the best hero in this meta was D.Va, of all things. D.Va had cemented herself as the face of dive at this point, and for good reason. Her mobility was important, sure, but Defense Matrix was what really pushed her over the edge for these teams. Defense Matrix allowed her to play offense and defense at the same time.
Using D. Matrix allowed D.Va to approach and pick off key targets on the opposing team with her surprisingly high close ranged damage output. She could also use Defense Matrix to shield her teammates as they went in on dives in order to protect them as they went on the attack. D.Va was also one of the go to heroes for “peeling” the act of protecting your teammates (usually supports) from incoming damage. Her high mobility and access to Defense Matrix made her ideal for the role.
Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
Huge changes to Sombra were the next patch headliner. Her hack received a huge buff at the cost of some ultimate charge rate. This was a relatively small price to pay for her newfound ability to hard counter Lucio as well as a couple of other passive dependent heroes. Lucio fell way out of favor, not only because of this but also because people realized Mercy was still really good.
The dive meta stuck around for a while longer. Eventually Blizzard decided to really force the issue and introduce the ultimate anti-dive hero. Enter Brigitte, with a kit specifically designed to counter dive! With a set of stuns and disruption abilities, Brigitte was ready to stop dive in its tracks.
At least, she was until people realized that dive was still pretty good.
It wasn’t all bad; Reinhardt started to see consistent play for the first time in ages, and a huge resurgence in heroes like Pharah, Junkrat and a Widowmaker who was spiking in usage kept things somewhat interesting. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. Brigitte hadn’t stopped dive, and she was frustrating to play against to boot. Something needed to be done about it…and fortunately, things changed.
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