Zarya feels so terrible to me

General Discussion
1

I don’t want to judge too soon and say she’s crap because it may be because I can’t use her well.

But it feels like she’s really not very useful outside of cheese hypercarry comps (e.g. auriel zarya valla)

Her kit looks like she shouldn’t be a niche hero. After all, shields prevent damage and grenades do damage. A kit that prevents and does damage is about as versatile as it gets in theory (since every game involves doing damage and has damage to prevent).

When I read about zarya advice though everyone says she is “niche” and has to “be drafted in the right comps”. What I’ve learnt over the years is when people say a hero is “niche” and you look at their kit and there’s nothing “niche” about it, it actually just means the hero is crap. People said Li-ming was “niche” too back when she was crap half a year ago.

So what am I missing about zarya? For such an easy hero to play, how come she has a lower winrate than alarak?

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She’s there to enable dive heroes, which she does decently. That makes her niche, because she’s setup to work with a fairly small team setup.

The reason why she only really works well enabling divers is because her shields pretty obvious and ignoring it isn’t too hard normally since its pretty short, and without her energy gauge being filled up her damage is neglible. And without her shields, her health is pretty low and she has no sustain or mobility, meaning once her shield’s popped she’s pretty vulnerable.
However, if you’re shielding a diver, it forces the enemy’s hand since its not really something that can be ignored since they’ll shred the squishies unless stopped, and one of diver’s weaknesses is their relative fragility.

The reason that she’s going to be kept in her current place is not because of her per say but because of the people she enables-- If you buff zarya then you’re indirectly buffing the diver’s that she synergizes with as well, since part of her “Cost” the team pays for making them stronger is her personal weakness, like how healers are there for supporting others.

They’d need to rework her a bit to eliminate this, so that there’s other talent options that lower her ability to support in exchange for buffing her. Currently about the only real other option for her is anti-melee, which is likewise very niche. However, they’re most likely scared of doing this because of the past when she WAS personally powerful and wrecked crap.

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Tank/assassin hybrids became known as bruisers.
People like to play them because they can do damage, and are durable enough to survive long enough to do it.

People often don’t like playing tank, or support, but even less so tank/support hybrids (paladins)
Zarya, Yrel, Tyreal, not particularly popular heroes. I’m surprised Uther sees as much use as he does.

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Don’t really find her that niche. She’s really all just about shield management. That’s the hardest thing about her. People will shield targets that don’t need shielding, or won’t be aggressive with forward positioning to soak damage, or stay in too long not realizing shield duration should be taken into account with retreating in mind. Once you sort of get the rhythm of cycling shield CDs with your own positioning, you just get so much value and sustain.

She will work in pretty much any comp. I’ve even solo “tanked” with her. She does have counters though. EMP and displacements really screw her up.

5

Wrong fourms bud :laughing:

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what you’re missing about Zarya is simply you don’t know what she can do so you don’t know how to make her bring that value.

She’s not especially a hyppercarry enabler, she’s also very strong when you need extra protection (vs butcher like team for example) and can simply be strong on her own as a melee bulkwark

and she can dish out a ton of dmg if you know when to go in-n-out of fights with proper shields timing

basically draft her as the bruiser or a 3rd melee

grenade build is pretty poor, don’t use it if u want my advice, rest is very adaptative to situations.

usually you use the grenade as finishers, obj poking or waveclear if you’re ~full energy

7

imo it’s actually good vs. Sgt. Hammer if you have like a Zarya + Sonya team or something on Shrines. Once you get the 7 with full energy every grenade is pretty much 20-25% of Hammer’s HP.

Zarya is… like most heroes in this game, not necessarily niche, they just have a lot of drafting considerations. You can pick Zarya in a ton of situations, but you want to make sure your comp and the enemy team’s comps work with a Zarya. Like Volun said displacement will really mess you up since Zarya’s shields aren’t medivh-strength, a lot of her value comes from her damage, so you want to enable her to turret as much as possible, meaning getting a support that can tunnel heals into you and meaning you build Maximum Charge or Feel the Heat at level 1, grenades against Hammer if you have like a Sonya or something to get on her repeatedly and can really mess up a backline with a little extra sustain.

You also just need to make sure you have kill pressure. Some teams can’t do anything if they can’t just jump on you, Zarya counters a lot of those teams. Zarya makes life really hard for Abathur because she pushes SO HARD earlygame when Abathur teams can’t really do anything to stop her destroying a fort in the first couple of minutes. Some enemy teams, you have to catch with either a tank with catch, or an assassin with catch, like Maiev or Kerrigan, Blaze, E.T.C., Diablo, Garrosh and Mura kinda alongside Jo post-10, Mal’ganis is one of those heroes you can use to just straight-up outsustain an enemy team, or he can setup really hard if they don’t have easy cc on him/your team has a lot of kill pressure while people are sleeping, but a Zul’jin will be able to easily stack off of Zarya+Malganis without a lot of threat unless you have like a Jaina/KT/Z and a Stukov/Malf/Deckard to followup really hard since Mal’ganis and Zarya don’t outright have a crapton of lockdown on a kill target by themselves.

Auriel is one of the heroes you can draft with her if you can just outsustain the enemy team, or if you can pick Cassia into a zul’jin from them and you have a tank who can setup probably a little more than a Mal’ganis can, Cassia with Auriel+Zarya against ranged AA is basically a win condition because shields get 40% more value on her (armor), she explodes Auriel’s energy bar on cd and that enables Zarya to turret like mad as long as there’s not Diablo/Garrosh/Junkrat/BarrelChen on enemy team just waiting to pick your Zarya off and maybe your Auriel can’t successfully save her with aegis or res or something since she’s pretty much completely immobile

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I prefer trait build, I think grenade build is a trap. 20 energy per globe helps sustain energy and gives you a little boost when you are building it up, plus the payout for quest completion gives you good dmg at max energy.

I see a lot of zaryas that don’t take advantage of free energy. Meeting the minion wave and tanking all the minion aggro is like 1/3rd an energy bar with trait talent at 7, and 3 tower shots with 7 trait talent is about 3/4ths of an energy bar.

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better to take a different 7, pretty much any of the other 3 are better and give you really strong options vs. dive, vs. anyone behind your aa target, or just stronger finishing/poke power in exchange for just needing to make sure you use your shields well, which will always keep you topped off on energy without relying on energy gain talents. If you’re alone in a lane and you know you’re safe to blow your shield against a minion wave, may as well just walk up to the towers and blow up a shield that way and get way more energy + have a damaging level 7 talent. You can also get ~20% of your energy from the minion wave if you time your shield right as the first autoattacks are about to hit Zarya, flying through the air.

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She is great vs mages
I took her yesterday in ranked and got 2 compliments.

Antigrav ult to get free camps and kills. Just when doing kills aim a bit far behind them.
Q build is awesome vs a squichy backline
You can walk into towers with your shield to get your energy high. Just pull out after 2 shots

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Her cannon feels underwhelming. Low damage, slow travel time, not able to fire the shots fast after each other. Should be more like Junkrat‘s grenades.

Whenever I see a Zarya on my team (or Yrel) I feel that we are at disadvantage. There was never a single match where I thought we need a Zarya to have a chance (at least not after they nerfed her after the completely insane panic buffs she has received after her release when her energy faded so slowly that she basically could stay above 75% energy the whole match).

Her talents are also weak and I never felt that they made a big difference. The only good one is when you deal more damage in close range. Her trait talents are crap because now everyone knows to not attack her while shielded. Energy drops too fast again, too.

The whole hero is so niche, that there is 0 justification to play her but for some change in QM.

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Zarya is drafted into the “flex” slot. She works best on 2-lane maps, but if you have enough waveclear she is fine on any map.

The reason people say she is niche is that she is drafted for the 50% run speed buff at level 4. You don’t have to play her for this talent, but other heroes do all her other roles better and the speed boost is OP.

Combo her with Arthas or Garrosh. Speed buffing them is amazing. She also works very well with any hard auto-attack heroes (Greymane, Zuljin, Valla, Tracer, so forth) as she allows them to be very aggressive. She actually works well with “protect the hammer” comps too.

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Alright, so here’s my view of how to slightly rework her to be more independent. Like I stated in my post above, I feel she’s fairly strong for certain comps, so I don’t feel that any buffs can really be done to her without also slightly nerfing her supportive capabilities-- Hence this rework tones back her focus on Shield ally and puts a little more focus on HER herself.
It also gives her another ability to make her a little more dynamic-- she has two shield abilities, and this makes her kit feel a little boring IMO. she basically just has her grenades, ult and AA for her offense.

Health: Increased from 2292 to 2360, a 3% increase.
Health regen increased to 5.25, a 10% increase. (I increased her HP regen more than her max health as I feel her lack of sustain outside of her shields is more of an issue than her health pool in general. its still a pretty small health regen but don’t want to go overboard.

Damage increased to 21.

Energy has the following change: Every 12 points of damage absorbed by personal barrier, Shield ally or counter shield (new ability) increase her energy by 1.
Energy does not begin to decay until 1 second after she has stopped gaining energy, up from .5 second.
Energy decays at a rate of 2.25 per second
Her energy now charges up 20% slower than before (was 1 energy for every 10 damage); However, it takes significantly longer to decay as well, not decaying until 1 second after she stops gaining energy and 25% slower (2.25 instead of 3 per second). this means she ramps up slower, but should have far more sustained damage in combat.

Shield ally: Reduced from 420 to 357, a 15% decrease baseline. This is, in combination with her other baseline buffs and talent adjustments, meant to break her from being so supportive focused. That being said, some talents were buffed to make her able to reach her old level.

Particle Grenade: damage increased from 75 to 77.
Deals 25% more damage to enemies at the center of the blast baseline; Pinpoint accuracy talent removed.

New Skill: Counter shield (1 key)
Range: 10
Envelopes the targeted enemy in a shield that absorbs up to 286 auto-attack damage dealt by them for 3 seconds. Counter shield and Shield ally share Cooldowns.
Basically an alternative use for personal shield-- instead of putting it on an ally, you can put it on an ENEMY, making it so that enemy either has to stop attacking for that three seconds or burst through your shield and give you energy. Its weaker than Shield ally for the reason that its utility is stronger since it either makes you stronger or puts the enemy out of the damage equation for those 3 seconds.
This should give Zarya more flexibility without allies, in that if she’s ambushed alone she can cast this on an enemy for either dueling them or fleeing.
If too strong, its duration could also be tweaked down to either 2.5 or 2 seconds.
If one is confused about its CD, its cooldown is 12 seconds the same as shield ally as they share a cd.

Talent adjustments:
I am the strongest: in addition to increasing personal shield also has a quest tagged on.
Quest addition: absorb 2000 damage with personal shield.
Reward: Personal shield lasts an additional .5 seconds

Give me twenty: each regen orb increases it by 17, up to a maximum of 340. (this is to give the option to compensate for the nerf to Shield ally if thats your focus)

Speed barrier: also removes slows when used.

Pinpoint accuracy: removed. Plasma shock moved down to level 7 in its place

Hit me: Also increases maximum energy by 10 as a passive bonus.

To the limit: Also increases Base attack damage by 10%.

Third heroic added on:
Overcharge: zarya begins channeling for .5 seconds and then unleashes a blast of energy from her gun in a cone (30 degree arc, radius of 3) for a base damage of 30. Every point of energy that Zarya has is expended by this skill, increasing its damage by 4% per point and radius and range of the cone by 10% per point.
zarya is silenced for 5 seconds after casting this skill.
Cooldown: 60 seconds
For adding a more offensive option to her heroics, especially since her two feel so bland; Yes, the vast majority of heroes have 2, but there are some exceptions (Varian for example).

Level 16: Since Plasma shock is now a lower tier, a new skill in its place:
Hurrah!: Hitting an enemy with the center of particle grenade grants Zarya 3 energy and increases her movement speed by 20% for 1.5 seconds
For helping zarya chase down a fleeing enemy with her particle grenade to finish off stragglers.

Level 20:
new talent for overcharge
Overcapacity charge: Lowers the cooldown of Overcharge by 15 seconds.
Passive: Maximum energy increased by 10

These changes are intended to open up a couple more options for her-- Grenade builds should be stronger due to both them being stronger baseline and another talent for them being added in, and close combat bruiser builds should likewise be stronger. There’s more ability to play around with focusing on a high energy at all times build as well due to multiple talents that increase maximum energy and the overcharge heroic (as well as Energy lasting longer)

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How bout, play with a healer that can enable zarya, and then, shield when needed.

If Yrel is the bruiser to play when you’re in need of a tiny bit of support on a meaty body, Zarya is a support to play when you’re in need of meat. Eh bad analogy.

Ok just try some auriel zarya, morales zarya, or even malf zarya. She really takes off when paired with a healer.

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Zarya is a mix of conflicting elements, so she tends to get played poorly, not used with allies to compliment her strengths, and takes up a team slot usually reserved for a different role.

For Zarya to deal damage, she has to shield damage. For her to take damage, usually she has to be in range of a threat, so she could get isolated and focused. (try soaking tower shots against an enemy Diablo or Garrosh) If she’s not in range of a threat, then she could be ignored, become reliant on shielding an ally, who, commonly, isn’t a hero that would necessarily take damage.

So if she is taking damage, she may need an out soon, but if she isn’t taking damage, then she’s not threatening enough to worry about.

Similarly, she usually take up a spot for the bruiser/solo lane, but she any time she’d shield herself, the enemy solo will just wait, starve her for energy, and leave her unable to contest the lane. She also doesn’t do well on taking merc camps on her own, so the usual team compositions don’t suit zarya for being a ‘bruiser’ replacement.

Lastly, a lot of players take terrible talents. More often than not, they take grenades because being able to stand further back keeps her from getting isolated, and she has the range that most bruisers don’t. However, players tend to cycle abilities (esp those without mana costs) on cooldown, so her positioning gets very predictable; if she’s going to run in, she’s going to shield herself to try to soak damage, and then back off to grenade. That sort of pattern is easy to work around, leaves zarya starved of energy, and then the grenades (taken on every tier -,-) end up as fluff damage.

Players then conclude she’s “niche” or terrible, and don’t bother trying anything different. They don’t take talents to bolster her resource stability, spend most the game starved for energy, and call it quits.

As others have suggested, her trait talent at 1 really offsets some of her resource management; getting energy from globes frees up some of the use of her shields, so she’s not as predictable to deny additional energy. Once she has energy, she can clear waves, get more globes, and sustain her high energy keeping her a relevant threat.

Together we are Strong offsets most of her energy weakness, but makes her very reliant on a battery-type hero, ala Auriel and Feel the Heat is a fantastic bump in damage, but is generally better for objectives & siege so stuff can’t just walk away from her as she doesn’t stutter-step too well.

Her extra shield at 13 (soaks up her energy) tends to be neglected because players don’t realize “oh hey, its a shield, it can be used to generate the energy it lost” and it lasts long-enough to cycle regular shield, talent shield, then regular shield again. Add on the lvl 20 shield refresh, and she’ll have shields for days. Shields for Days!

At 20, a 0 energy zarya does like 44 damage a tick; with full energy and Feel the Heat, she’s rocking like 196 damage a tick. She’s a very hit & miss character on her performance.

While regular play can seem lackluster, she’s a supestar on brawls. There’ so much incidental damage to not hit Zarya that it becomes cake to keep her energy topped off, and with lots of enemies and globes around, any sort of quest is cake to finish. Being able to shield/armor/cleanse allies is a super boon, so if there’s ever a time to give her a go, its def with an -aram pick.

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16

Uther is almost a support/tank/assassin. Focusing on a stun build he can almost solo squishier assassins, and make everyone else an easier target.

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Except for her big achille’s heel.

She isn’t that good at anything beyond those two things. Zarya can’t really stutterstep, and her CC outside of her ult is nonexistant.

The reason she’s a niche pick is that her own damage is unreliable, and works best when she can expend her shield meaningfully early on. Which is why she’s paired with dive characters that gurantee that shield being put to good use. Her own damage is good, but limited by her mobility and inability to stutter.

Pick Zarya in situations where you don’t care about her downsides (no CC outside of ult, poor damage reliability) but you do have heroes you know are about to take damage (dive, anti-dive).

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18

I’ve always found cluncky that 2 out of 3 skill are just the same sheild, one on herself and one on a target ally: it seems such a lazy design to me.

Aside of that she has no CC outside of her ulti, she need to stand still to inflict sustain damage, she has no movement boost. Zarya offer mitigation and is a wombo combo enabler, that is her only top perk but it’s so powerful that can be game winning by itself.

Even at her release she’s always seemed pretty boring to play and I for sure would like a complete rework of her base kit to make her more interesting and maybe shift her from Support to Tank/Bruiser.

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19

Its mostly due to his heavy cc. He has soo much cc that its insane. With e build its cd is extremely low, it can be casted twice due to benediction and he has good aoe stun.

He also supports other healers with armor that also makes him more tanky since the other supp can keep his hp up more ez. He also always has self heal and has best single target instant heal to keep a target alive if he is nuked.

All in all he buffs your team in all aspects except dmg. And most teams do like that.

20

Agreed, her self-shield and target shield should be one ability that requires an alt-click to self-cast. Or it should be setup like Garrosh’s friendly-toss. They could give her a basic ability where she would fire up her fire-laser-gun-thing for an instant to blind a target enemy. That might make her a little better as a support-tank.