Overwatch keeps trucking with its new cohesive seasonal storytelling with the launch of Season 4, Heroes of Busan. The Australian-based faction of chaos, the Junkers, has partnered with Talon to attack South Korea’s Busan. All a ruse to get the massive EMP weapon hidden in Busan’s MEKA base for who-knows-what reason. And with this, the second MEKA pilot, D.Mon, has joined the fray as Overwatch‘s newest tank hero.
Season 4 brings a shocking number of changes for a mid-year launch. Along with balancing and some map reworks, it comes with a revamp of the battle pass. Battle passes are now broken out into groups instead of one long eighty-level track. So players are able to select what skins they want to pursue first over others. That’s also with the ability to “hack” the battle pass and change out one of the end-of-track skins for one of a set of pre-selected skins.
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Overwatch gets the Halo Master Chief Collection feature of being able to work on an older battle pass whenever you want. Granted, there will be less rewards (like no Mythic Prisms, no titles, no Premium Coins). If someone bought the pass during that season, they should still get all that was available when purchased. Or given a coupon, some premium coins back (as a refund), something to make up for it. But that’s a topic for another day as we continue to learn more about this massive change.
Overwatch Season 4 introduces the newest tank hero.
The more substantial map reworks are also nice for some of the older maps, like Eichenwalde and Paraiso. Even as more generic updates are being added to these maps (jump pads, elevators), evolving a map that’s closely tied to the story, in this case, Busan, is a good way to tie gameplay more into the newer approach to seasonal storytelling.
Now, for the new hero, D.Mon. She is a Jack of All Trades hero who uses aspects of many other tanks. This ties closely with her personality. She’s the new leader of MEKA after D.Va’s departure. Yuna, the pilot, really acts like everyone’s older sister. She tries hard to fit into the hole D.Va left behind. But she also keeps trying to cover gaps in the remaining MEKA squad members, leading to what feels like a mishmash of a Hero that is tricky to understand.
If you’d go in expecting a sword and shield version of D.Va, you’d be sorely mistaken. The first major change is the boosters. D.Mon can dash around only horizontally. But her movement is omnidirectional. In other words, you can boost backward to get out of danger, strafe to maneuver around obstacles, or even forward to engage an over-extended enemy.
D.Mon arrives as the new leader of MEKA.
Plus with quick buffs, her boosters feel so much more intuitive. By the time you’ve landed a couple hits, you can quickly dash out with your shield up and back to safety. At launch, D.Mon was hardly inflicting substantial damage. Nowadays, she can easily cause some people to back off with a couple hits or finish people off quickly.
All of this is done with her two primary weapons: a gun and a sword. The gun is on a cooldown and is a quick couple-second hitscan, great for long distances. Basically the inverse of Rammatra. Her sword is her primary attack that has a good arc to its swing and can easily poke through shields. Speaking of shields, like Reinhardt, D.Mon also has a shield, but this one is much smaller. More built for personal protection or for people to stand directly behind her.
The shield pairs well with the boosters as with specific maneuvering, projectiles can quickly be blocked and you can shortly after move back into position. Also, it’s great for diving in. Pull up the shield, and be a giant wall rushing in.
Despite some fun action and fighting style, the latest addition is weaker outside of her mech.
Finally, there’s her in-mech ultimate, Limit Break. D.Mon does a big horizontal slash across the screen. For every person it hits, it restores some over health, deals damage, and applies a damage increase debuff to those in the way. Its only real limitations are the initial damage (it’s not a one-hit kill), and that jumping high enough can avoid all those effects from happening for that specific character. But the cast is VERY fast, and enemies may not have time to react if initiating properly.
But D.Mon has one very critical flaw. She is quite squishy for a 750 HP tank. Even with the shield, D.Mon just melts if targeted correctly. To be a competent D.Mon player, you must be on your toes. Always moving, and always being aware of where a healer is. Even being pocket healed can regularly not be enough to keep D.Mon up. Even with the talent that restores her shield with each hit with her sword, her Stalwart tank status doesn’t really fit with how quickly she can be taken out.
Like D.Va, D.Mon ejects when her MEKA gets destroyed. But instead of D.Va’s fast pistol, D.Mon picks up that arm gun from her mech and moves much more slowly. Also, her recharge to re-mech feels much slower compared to D.Va, with her weapon dealing much smaller damage, too. Then her re-mech animation is much slower, too. D.Mon’s re-mech doesn’t insta-kill; it deals some damage and pushes foes away. Yet the animation is long enough that D.Mon can be picked off pretty easily or slept out of it entirely.
Mech heroes might be weaker but once you’re in the groove they’re still a blast to play.
D.Mon’s entire out-of-mech experience is almost antithetical to her mech’d up, and even to her animations when on foot. Yuna comes off as confident and ready to take revenge. And for a weapon that did more damage when equipped to the mech, it does so little that it’s not much more than an annoyance. You have to play quite carefully to get back into the mech without dying.
Overwatch’s ethos for mech pilots, now that they’ve fixed the spaghetti code that D.Va was running on, may just be that Mech heroes are weaker. They have less risk than normal heroes since they have a second chance built into their kit. But boy, when you get in the groove of being nimble, annoying, and popping up all over the place, causing havoc, D.Mon is a blast to play.
Regardless, she does feel so much weaker than just about every other tank and come off as much more situational. Against the wrong team comp, or with the wrong healers, D.Mon will regularly be punished or taken out of the fight entirely.
Streamer and voice actress LilyPichu shines and displays a solid range.
But D.Mon is supported well by her voice actress, streamer LilyPichu. Lily has immense range, and it shines through in her portrayal of Yuna. As the hero, she comes across just like an older sister under immense stress. She has to be strong for the rest of the team and always has to keep her eye on the ball regardless if it impacts her own wellbeing. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, D.Mon as a character has personally shot up on the favorite heroes list story-wise.
D.Mon is a welcome, albeit weaker, addition to Overwatch‘s tank line-up. She has so many tools that each require mastering to control her well in fights. But any mistakes are quickly punished and easily abusable, with her health just melting so quickly. Season 4 overall continues the good direction Overwatch and Blizzard have been following, and further proves that the change from Overwatch 2 to Overwatch earlier this year was the right one.
