Are harder heroes not worth to play?

Competitive Discussion
1

Hey guys I’m a tank main and I had these thoughts for a long time. I would like to know what you guys think of this topic. Maybe I’m getting something wrong here.

As everybody knows: In Overwatch you have some heroes which are easier to play and some which are harder to master. But when I started to play OW I thought that you can have more impact with the harder heroes when you get better with them compared to the easier ones. Which makes in some way sense: Why should you otherwise bother with harder heroes when there are easier ones.

But at the moment I don’t think that’s really the case. Let’s have a look on zarya. She is by the in game definition of overwatch the hardest tank. She is for sure not exactly like dva but in some way you can compare her with dva: Both of them have an ability to absorb damage. Both of them can assure an amount of damage.

For absorbing damage, I think dva has a better spot. Sure Zarya has two bubbles both with 2 seconds while dva has only one matrix for 2 seconds. But she can protect the whole team with that, while zarya can only protect one of her team and herself. Also zarya can only protect the amount of 200 damage with one bubble while dva has no damage limit with her matrix.

When it comes to protect the team against ultimates, for me dva has also a better spot. She can protect the whole team for 2 seconds against ultimates of: Reaper, Roadhog, Phara, McCree, Soldier, Bastion, Torbjörn and has also the ability to eat the ultimates of: Zarya, Tracer, Hanzo, Mei
While Zarya can only protect herself and one of her teammates at the same situation for the amount of only 200 damage and 2 seconds (Which doesn’t help much in an ultimate). The only ultimates where zarya has a better spot are: Tracer, Junkrat, Dva, Doomfist, Genji, Sombra, Reinhard

When it comes to damage, zarya has also not the best spot. A fully charged zarya shooting her left and right click combined in one second reaches a damage of 270 while a dva creates also 270 damage with boosters, fusion cannons and micro missiles in one second (without counting head shots). And keep in mind. Zarya needs for that a 100% charge while dva has only to wait for her cooldown (8 seconds for micro missiles) to be ready again. Zarya has a bit a better spot after 1,5 seconds because she has only to reload her gun (1.5s) while dva has to wait for her 8 seconds micro missiles to gain her maximum damage per second. But still dva can do a good amount of damage in near range and also has next to her matrix the ability to leave the place after 5 seconds.

Which leads us to the next point: Zarya has no mobility then walking around while dva can fly with her boosters. And in my view mobility is one of the best ability in the game which a hero can have.

When it comes to the ultimate, I think zarya has a better spot, but only if the communication is working in your team. And the problem here is, you can be the best zarya in the world, but when your teammates missed their ults in combination with your ultimate your ultimate is gonna be more or less worthless.

So in conclusion, zarya has less protection for her team, has just a bit more damage than dva (when 100% charged), has no mobility and needs also a good teammate for her ult to have a good impact. Why should you spent time getting better with zarya when there is a dva with the same good spot but is much easier to play?

Shouldn’t it be like this?:
A very good zarya player should have more impact then a very good dva player and a bad zarya player should have less impact then a bad dva player.

Here are some overbuff values:
Top 2% player average elemination: Zarya 35.17 – Dva 37.45
Top 2% player average damage: Zarya 16764 – Dva 18328
Top 2% player average damage blocked: Zarya 8077 – Dva 10200
Top 2% player average kill/death ratio: Zarya 5.52 – Dva 7.35

And I think ana (hard to play) is in a similar spot compared to other healers or harder dps compared to junkrat, but I’m not a main healer nor dps player and maybe I’m missing here a big point. What do you guys think about this topic?

[reopened from old forum. Sadly i can’t post the link here]

6 Likes
2

Dva is more meta overall right now and is better in a lot of situations, largely because of her mobility and ability to delete squishes. That said, Zarya is in a pretty good spot right now and is especially good on certain maps like King’s Row and Control Center on Lijiang Tower. She can hard carry on those maps in particular, but she has that potential on really any map if you’re having a good enough game. Her ultimate can single handedly win team fights.

I should also mention that Zarya is only “hard” because people do not know when to properly bubble and when to play aggressively. Even if you are not especially mechanically skilled, with good game sense you can do well with her.

3

I wouldn’t say Dva is easier to play. They both have their nuances. In certain maps Zarya dominates. In others Dva does. If you spend time getting proficient in both, then you as a player can dominate more maps. Practically every top Zarya player also flexes to Dva because they know she’s straight up better in some scenarios.

4

I think you may be on track to answer your own question here. Each hero has their own difficulty curve; that much is true. Overall, however, your analysis seems to just be the advantages and disadvantages between playing Dva or Zarya. As you’ve stated, they both have their time and place; it’s a matter of knowing when and where to make that switch.

To pitch in to your current line of thinking, Dva definitely has better uses as a defensive tank, keeping more vulnerable members of her team alive. Zarya is more of a utility tank, using her ability to shield teammates as a means of growing stronger in the fight. To answer your overarching question, I don’t think there’s any downside to playing harder tiered heroes besides a rougher learning curve. It’s good to expand your character base, especially when you need to understand how counters to your “comfort-zone” characters work.

That’s how I see it.

5

regardless of team comp Kingsrow is the only map i default insta lock zarya. On other maps i only play her to counter. But imo overall Roadhog and and dva are the best picks right now for soloQ

6

I don’t know what this means? If you’re referring to the number of difficulty stars the game recommends then you’d be right. But then you’d also have to wonder why the game does not recommend Ana and Widowmaker to be on the same team.

In terms of actual difficulty, Zarya is one of the easier tanks to play. Dva and Winston are the harder heroes to play right now in this state of the game because of the impact they have.

7

In some sense, but if you look at lower ELO players, they will literally throw games all the time with Zarya, whereas they can at least do something with Winston or Dva.

8

I think you are struggling with the basics of the game of Overwatch here. Hero picks should always be situational. Dva and Zarya are picked in completely different situations(which is why Dva/Zarya tank combo is probably the worst tank comp, except in maybe triple or quad tank). Dva is almost always a strong pick alongside another dive tank like Winston(mobility) or Shield tank like Rein/Orisa(peel, picks). Zarya is a strong pick alongside any shield tank or to synergize with flankers like Genji/Reaper.

So, when would you want to pick Zarya over Dva? Let’s say you’re running a not-so-mobile defense. The Dva wouldn’t be useless, but she also wouldn’t really be playing to her strengths. 2 Sec of DM is really only useful in emergency situations or to build ult charge. The Zarya on the other hand would find many opportunities to build charge with her bubbles. Zarya also has the advantage of hard countering both Dva and Genji. Zarya’s beam cannot be deflected or absorbed. The Dva’s mobility wouldn’t be as useful here either as her team is more than likely going to be fairly grouped together.

Another situation where taking a Zarya may be a good idea is on a flank-heavy attack. A Genji with harmony orb and Zarya bubble is nigh unstoppable.

Or maybe you’re running a Pharah. Graviton with Barrage is probably one of the best ult combos possible.

When would you want to pick Dva instead? If you’re running Winston, Tracer, Genji, Zen, Moira; Dva would be a much better choice as she will be able to assist the Winston on his dives and peel for the healers if they get themselves in trouble. She can play fast and move around the map quickly.

So, it’s not that playing Dva over Zarya is always the best choice. It’s really dependent on the map, your team comp, the enemy team comp, and the situation. I would say that in the current meta Dva generally fits into more situations than Zarya does. However, the gap isn’t as large as you make it out to be.

9

It’s really not good to compare those two heroes like that. Theres something wrong wrong.

It really depends what you want to play. If you aim to score solo kills pick dva. If you are a true team player and can put pride aside to belive you are stronger together just pick Zarya and everyone will love you. It’s more often Zarya who protect you from damage than dva who’s feel like flanking.

10

Maaaaaaaaan you guys in the forums really need to do a TLDR version of these books you guys write. All I read was the first couple of sentences and saw your profile.

I’m assuming that you’re talking about Zarya? Mah boi, those type of heroes are extremely situational. Zarya is amazing on kings row but anything else it depends. Majority of the time its gonna be Hog+Orisa, Winston+D.va, or Rein+D.va.

11

That is true, that zarya has her places where she can shine. But there are not many of them. Usually you have many situations where you can choose between zarya or dva and mostly dva would be the better pick. I wouldn’t say that it is completely wrong that a hero is only better on some small numbers of maps. But those heroes shouldn’t be hard to play. Otherwise it is more or less not worth to invest time to get better with them only for like 2 maps when you can play your main hero (like dva) which is also doing ok on those maps.

I don’t say dva is easy to play. One of her hardest part is the combination of flying, rockets and shooting on one target to get them down. But as a main tank player, I would say that zarya is by far harder to play. A misplace personal bubble can lead to a loss of a fight. Her only protection is the 10 second cool down bubble while dva can use her 2 second matrix and has only to wait 3 seconds to fly away. And she is out of the dangerous place while zarya is after her 2 second bubble still there walking backwards.

Because of the constant energy decreasing, Zarya is also always under pressure, which leads a lot of players in bad positioning.

If you have the feeling that your dva player is doing much more less damage protection than a zarya player, maybe your dva player is doing something wrong in that situation.

In my view a dva player should also use her matrix to protect her team and not only focus on killing some enemies. I would say protecting your team against damage with a dva can prevent more deaths than with a zarya.

Also you shouldn’t view only zarya as a team player. Every hero in the game has the purpose to serve the team, which has much more impact than doing solo missions.

12

In general, there is no good logical reason to play harder heroes over easier ones. Easy to use heroes are as powerful (or often stronger) and require much less effort to get value out of them.

Obviously if you like playstyle or aesthetics you can play a harder hero just fine.

1 Like
13

Here are the stats from Jeff Kaplan about the top 10 most played heroes. The interesting part is at grandmaster where dva is still number 1 picked hero. Zarya is never mentioned in any tiers.

I really hope zarya gets a better place with brigitte, otherwise it is not worth to play her.