D.Va

D.Va is a Tank hero in Overwatch.

Overview
D.Va’s mech, Tokki is nimble and powerful — its twin blast away with autofire at short range, and she can use its  to barrel over enemies and obstacles, or absorb attacks with her projectile-destroying.

Strategy
D.Va is a unique tank with some mobility. With very high health and, she can close a gap to the enemy with ease. She has high damage output at close-range, making her a strong fighter in a 1-on-1 match. Her is useful against all incoming projectiles, protecting her teammates from enemy fire. The deal high amount of damage when used in close range. She is a dangerous flanker in the Tank class, dealing consistent damage to the enemy. will wipe all opponents within the blast area. However, she doesn't have an extended barrier to properly protect her team like Reinhardt. She is also slow while firing, allowing the enemy to outrun her to disengage or move around her to distract her aiming. Both and  are ineffective against anything further than medium-range, meaning she can be outranged by the enemy before she even has a chance to close a gap with.

Weapons & Abilities

 * : D.Va's main weapons on the mech. Her mech can fire consistent shotgun-like bullets onto the targeted point. She can rapidly fire her bullets without needing to reload, but suffers from slow movement while firing.
 * While firing her, D.Va's movement speed is reduced by 40%, down to 3.3 m/s.
 * have 11 bullets per shot and large spreading; position yourself to the closest of the targets so that they won't be able to escape from you while firing.
 * Aiming for the upper-body is recommended due to the nature of spread in combination with infinite ammo.
 * Spraying the bullets at mid-to-long range has little to no effect, but it can pressure the enemy and sometimes interrupt some certain abilities when hit, like Mercy's self-healing and Sombra's.
 * The does not have damage falloff, and is actually more effective than the  at long range.


 * : D.Va's primary defensive ability. When activated, the targeting-array will pop up from the front of her mech. All incoming projectiles will be shot down mid-air when they come into range of this ability. D.Va cannot attack with her while using it.
 * While has infinite "health" and can block any number of projectiles, it only lasts for 2 seconds when used continuously, and requires 1 second before beginning a recharge. Try to use it as a quick-burst protection instead of as a main blocking tool like the barriers of Reinhardt or Sigma.
 * If some hero rushes into a group of enemies, use to cover your allies when needed. For example, cover Winston when he jumps in or cover Pharah when she is using her ultimate. You can protect your teammates with  without needing to be right next to them thanks to its long range. Keep its short duration in mind; try not to spend all of its charge and leaving yourself as the enemy's main target.
 * only blocks fire from the front, and cannot prevent incoming projectiles from other directions, making it ineffective against flankers and less viable when used as a barrier to protect her team or herself.
 * Keep playing a mind game; try to lure some heroes like Zarya or Mei into thinking that you have run out of so that you can use it to block their Ultimate. D.Va's  is very useful to erase a powerful ultimate if timed properly.
 * When retreating from a group of enemies, activating while moving backward will greatly help D.Va to survive a strong attack.


 * : When activated, D.Va's mech will launch into the air. She will move forward with faster movement speed and be able to adjust her momentum for 2 seconds. Deals damage and knockback to enemies when collided with. are available to use during Boosters.
 * The cooldown triggers after the ability ends.
 * Despite its small damage, it can still be used with a melee combo to guarantee a strong knockback and decent damage dealt.
 * Using in combination with  can guarantee a kill on injured enemies who are trying to retreat.
 * D.Va can activate during the flight to protect herself from enemy fire.
 * can be stopped mid-use by a melee attack or ' key again.


 * : When activated, D.Va's mech will launch a volley of missiles after a short cast time. The missiles will travel in a straight line and hit the first solid target. The ability can be activated in all actions and can't be stopped until D.Va is stunned or the mech is destroyed. The missiles can damage the D.Va who fired them.
 * Combining the ability with primary fire can ensure a kill on an isolated enemy. It is less effective when used on a group of enemies, but still provides a strong pressure and enough damage to gain a great amount of ultimate charge.
 * Since it can be activated at any time, consider using it when is activated. This will render the enemy's attack useless and hurt them with a bunch of missiles.
 * Try not to waste the ability on a hero with a stun attack, since a stun effect can interrupt the missiles immediately.
 * It's better not to use missiles apart from close range. The missiles travel at a slow speed and only deal small damage upon impact. Additionally, the enemy team can easily see it coming from afar and walk a step back to dodge it.


 * : (Ultimate): The ultimate of D.Va's mech. D.Va will eject from her mech, which will detonate after 3 seconds. It deals massive damage upon explosion in a very large area around it.
 * The mech will receive any momentum from if they were used prior to activating .  Use this to launch it in the right direction, and even to stall its travel around corners and catch enemies by surprise.
 * The blast creates a strong knockback effect on any opponents that survive, sometimes launching them into a pit or off a cliff.
 * Any cover will block the damage from entirely; even a light post that is large enough to cover the hero's size will allow them to survive the blast.
 * Succeeding in using 's explosion will fully charge D.Va's ability. However, if your mech is blown off a cliff while the countdown is still going, you will not gain any ultimate charge.
 * After her mech takes critical damage, there is a brief window between the damage being taken and her ejecting from the cockpit where an ultimate can be used to cause the mech to detonate rather than simply being destroyed. This will also give her a full ultimate charge.


 * : D.Va's main weapon after her mech is destroyed. The deals considerable damage with fast (but not hitscan) projectile bullets.
 * The weapon is very accurate at most ranges. D.Va can use while kiteing enemies and charge her ultimate meter to call a new mech.
 * With her small hitbox, D.Va can dance around and kite the enemy, using the weapon's projectile nature to cut off the enemy's escape routes. Keep in mind that you have low survivability and lack movement options in pilot form, though.
 * The does not have damage falloff, and is actually more effective than the  at long range.


 * : (Ultimate): D.Va can call a new mech after her previous one is destroyed.
 * The mech will deal considerable damage around it upon impact, killing any low health character. However, you must make sure that you can safely return to the mech.
 * The ability creates a strong knockback upon cast. It can launch the enemy to an environmental kill.
 * Both D.Va and her mech can be damaged or killed while she is entering the mech.
 * When not fully operating the mech, any damage being dealt to you will not transfer to ultimate charge for your enemies.

General Strategies

 * While D.Va is considered a Tank, a lot of successful D.Va players use her like Reaper. Flanking and harassing are some of D.Va's strong suits. Her high damage output at close range coupled with her movement ability makes it easy for her to get "shotgun-like" damage in and escape with ease.
 * is especially strong against most damage dealers. It can even negate a dangerous bullet from McCree's or even Pharah's.
 * You can close the gap on most heroes with, but you will be susceptible to enemy fire while airborne. can be used during , so activate it while flying towards a target that's shooting at you.
 * You need to prioritize protecting the team from flankers and snipers, potentially by rushing them down at close range. Snipers are your first target since they are vulnerable at close range followed by other damage dealers depending on the situation and their position.
 * It is not recommended to play D.Va without a shield tank on your team due to her own lack of shield and the short duration of . She can't offensively eliminate an entire enemy team by herself like a Damage hero, and she can't provide extended cover like a shield tank such as Reinhardt or Orisa, but she can alternate between the two roles in short, well-timed bursts.
 * Strategize where and when to place a mech. The 3 seconds countdown of  is long enough for your enemies to find cover or get behind a friendly Barrier. One effective tool is to use  before  to send the Ultimate out from a blind spot towards a place where there is less cover.
 * D.Va's high damage in her mech is useful against Tanks. Due to their large size and slow speed, the burst damage of and  can chew through a lot of health.
 * Even though will destroy all projectiles, it will not absorb beams such as Zarya's, Mei's , Moira's , or Symmetra's.
 * D.Va has a large critbox in front of her mech (the cockpit). You will receive critical damage easier than most heroes, so avoid turning your mech to face oncoming fire without active.
 * Ramming an enemy with deals damage in addition to mild knockback, which may be enough to finish off a low-health opponent.
 * If you melee attack an enemy player while D.Va's are active, you will deal greatly increased damage and knockback to the target, allowing easy environmental kills.
 * When out of the suit, D.Va's primary goal is to score as many headshots as possible, as fast as possible, to call her next mech. You may want to target a distant, large enemy such as Roadhog or an enemy D.Va to regain your ultimate charge.

Story


D.Va is a former professional gamer who now uses her skills to pilot a state-of-the-art mech in defense of her homeland. She is a very competitive individual, and coupled with her pro-gamer skills, this makes her an extremely effective mech pilot. Never backing down, D.Va always plays to win. While she projects a carefree, irreverant attitude, D.Va is burdened by the emotional cost of defending her homeland, and the facade the South Korean media projects on her.

In addition to skills as a mech pilot, D.Va is also a competent mechanic.

Early Life
"It's like how we used to stay up late, and work on your hoverbike. You mean the one you wrecked? Really? You're still mad about that? We won the race! Yeah! And you almost killed yourself!"

- Dae-hyun and Hana



Hana Song grew up playing classic games with her father, himself a former professional gamer during his younger years. He was the one that introduced her to StarCraft, and her undeniable skill helped lay the foundation for her eventual e-sports victories in other games.

Song has been friends with Dae-hyun since childhood. They would stay up late working on his hoverbike. Hana took part in a race with it and won, albiet at the cost of the bike and nearly her own life.

Like her father before her, Song became a pro-gamer. She became a Mecha Guardian V player in high school, quickly ascending to the #1 rank, winning the world championship, surpassing her teammate Yuna Lee and rival Kyung-soo Hann. A fierce competitor, Song played to win at any cost, and gained a well-earned reputation for showing no mercy to her opponents.

MEKA
At home, however, not all was well, as MEKA struggled to maintain its defense against the Gwishin omnics that repeatedly attacked the nation. As the omnics continued to adapt, they eventually disrupted MEKA's drone-control networks, forcing the military to place pilots in the mechs. Scrambling to find suitable candidates, the government turned to the country's professional gamers, who possessed the necessary reflexes and instincts to operate the mechs' advanced weapons systems, in addition to standouts from other fields that required similar talents. Top stars were drafted, including the 19-year-old Song, along with Lee and Kyung-soo. She saw the new mission as a game, and an evolution of her own career. Without fear or hesitation, she abandoned the limelight of her pro-gamer career, and got an armored mech operator's licence. As a member of MEKA, she could put her reflexes to the ultimate test on a real battlefield, instead of a digital one. Her skills and intense competitive spirit made her an extremely effective pilot.

Song now fearlessly charges into battle alongside the rest of her MEKA unit, ready to spring to her nation's defense at a moment's notice. Recently, she has begun to stream combat operations to her adoring fans, and her growing following has turned her into a global icon. Sponsorship deals and her fanbase provided her with the means to customize her mech, such as Nano Cola.

At some point she also played one of the leading roles in the movie Hero of My Storm.

As an active member of the military, Song was no longer able to freely travel as she could've as a civilian. She became an avid reader of Mei's Adventures, the publicly-posted travel journal of climatologist Mei-Ling Zhou, fascinated with all the different places Mei has seen.

Shooting Star
"Oh man. This time off is great, isn't it? What's not to like? There's delicious food, and drinks... Yeah... And good friends. The kind that are always there for you-- when you need them most."

- Dae-hyun and Song after the Gwishin attack

As time went on, the cost of defending South Korea from the Gwishin began to take its toll on Song. In one battle in Busan during a thunder storm, the squad barely managed to defeat the omnics, but the other mechs were put out of commision due to serious damage and their pilots sustained some injuries; only Song came out of it relatively unscathed. While the rest of the squad went on leave and the media reporting that Song was celebrating the victory by schmoozing with celebrities, Song had actually chosen to remain on active duty and spent time over the next week fixing and fine-tuning her mech alongside Dae-hyun, who had also joined MEKA as her assigned mechanic. As she stated that the squad and the rest of Busan were counting on her to keep the city safe, and any mistakes on her part could cost them everything, Dae-hyun recognized the emotional weight Song was carrying. He tried to convince her that she needed a break and that it was okay to ask for help, not needing to bear it alone, but she assured him that she had things under control.

That didn't last long however, as five Gwishin omnics returned to attack Busan&mdash;while previous attacks were spaced between months, this one was just one week, which left the pair the only ones present to defend against the omnics. Song launched her mech to engage them. She took out two of the Gwishin, but the remaining three outmaneuvered her, damaging her mech and destroying one of the fusion cannons. Dae-hyun told her to get to cover and wait for reinforcements, but Song stated that they wouldn't get there in time. Performing a 180 on the pursuing omnics, she managed to destroy two of them, while the last Gwishin broke off and headed for Busan. Song pursued it, but it avoided her weapons fire and micro missile barrage before turning around and entangled her mech, tearing off the other cannon when she tried to fire on it. Left without any weapons, all her status readouts in the redline, and the city still in danger, she realized she could do nothing else and asked for her friend's help.

With Dae-hyun going over the mech's status, on the mention of the reactor becoming unstable Song remembered their earlier conversation of the destruction of his hovercycle, and suggested purposely overloading the mech's reactor. After some protest, Dae-hyun obliged, and as Song distracted the omnic to buy him some time he successfully triggered an overload that would destroy the reactor in sixty seconds. The omnic would reach Busan before that however, so Song ejected from the mech and used her light gun to shoot the exposed reactor from afar, destroying both the mech and the omnic. She fell into the sea, where she was recovered by a search-and-rescue team and taken for medical treatment, Dae-hyun accompanying her.

South Korean media later made an update on the attack, reporting that authorities had stated that she had emerged without a scratch. In reality, she came out of the ordeal with a broken leg and arm, along with other more minor injuries. That didn't stop her from using her time off by assisting Dae-hyun with assembling her new mech. She thanked him for being there for her when she'd needed him.

Trivia

 * : In line with D.Va's ultimate voice line, "Nerf this!", which can be interpreted as a challenge to the developers to nerf her ultimate, as of May 17, 2021, has never been nerfed.
 * Her name is a play on the word "Diva", meaning a female celebrity.
 * The stylization of her name is reminiscent of Korean pop idols, who often adopt pseudonyms to stand out. In the Korean version of the game, D.Va's name is the only name not in Hangul, reflective of the romanization of these idols' names. This makes sense considering D.Va is a Korean idol through her fame as a pro-gamer.
 * The way her name has a prefix "D." is reminiscent of the way esports players have an abbreviated team tag before their names. This is supported by how she and D.Mon played on the same team.
 * D.Va's given name Hana (하나) is the same as the Korean number 1. This parallels her personality, as she is a world champion and self-proclaimed "Number One."
 * D.Va's jersey number when she was a pro player was also the number 1.
 * D.Va's suit has sponsors all over it, which is a reference to the same advertising style of sponsors in Korean esports.
 * D.Va's mech is named Tokki (토끼), which means rabbit.
 * Hana is a fan of Lúcio's music, and has apparently bought his album. He in turn also knows enough of the pro-gaming scene to be a fan of hers.
 * D.Va is the youngest launch hero, and was the youngest hero overall until Orisa was introduced. D.Va is sometimes teased by others because of her age, such as when Widowmaker mockingly says, "This is no place for children."
 * D.Va is the fifth playable Overwatch character in Heroes of the Storm.
 * D.Va is a purchasable announcer in Heroes of the Storm, along with Genji.
 * has D.Va manually shoot down incoming projectiles, counting towards her APM. In-game, D.Va is able to reach an APM of 84,480 in a best-case scenario by blocking the combined 1,408 pellets per second of simultaneous s.
 * D.Va is the first hero to use randomized "Quick Melee" attacks with both arms (in mech mode). Outside of her mech, she uses her right hand for "Quick Melee" attacks.
 * D.Va is used as the symbol for the National D.Va Association, now called FAMERz, a progressive feminist movement composed of Overwatch fans. The group achieved international notability after a photograph of their flag&mdash;featuring D.Va's bunny-ears logo&mdash;was photographed in a news report for an international Women's March event in Seoul on January 21st, 2017. Based in South Korea, the group chose D.Va as its symbol owing to an earlier incident where professional teenage Overwatch player Geguri was accused of cheating owing to an eighty percent win rate; which some believed was "impossible" for girls to achieve. The group distributes stickers of D.Va's bunny logo, among other paraphernalia. It plans on finding new ways to use Overwatch as a tool for spreading its message.
 * Charlet Chung, who is D.Va's English voice actor, has commented positively on her character, commenting "in terms of representation of Asian-American characters in video games, particularly women, they might be over-sexualized - and I don't know if I'm being too candid here - I feel like D.Va is more of a real person. She happens to have some sex appeal, but that's not why she's in the game. She's not there to be an exotic lotus."

Development
D.Va was first announced through the official PlayOverwatch Twitter account, which linked to a mock-up page on the official StarCraft II World Championship site. She had previously been depicted in posters in the attacking team's starting area in Hanamura. Her StarCraft page was later taken down and the link instead redirects to the StarCraft II home page.

The StarCraft WCS web page first introduced D.Va as a former professional StarCraft player. Michael Chu later clarified on February 1, 2018 that this was not intended to be canon and was just a fun way to tease the character. He also explained that the unnamed game that she was best known for in her career was one that best matched the skills needed to pilot her mech.

D.Va's design and kit seems to take inspiration from Brit, one of the hero concepts created for the Overwatch pitch meeting.

Merchandise

 * A StarCraft II portrait and announcer for D.Va was available for those who attended BlizzCon 2016 or bought a Virtual Ticket for the event. The announcer has since been made available for regular purchase.


 * A D.Va statue is available.


 * A Funko Pop D.Va statue is available for purchase from the Blizzard Store.


 * A D.Va-themed hoodie is available from JINX.


 * A Figma D.Va statue is available.


 * D.Va will appear in LEGO Overwatch, as part of a set shared with Genji.