I may get drawn and quartered by my fellow D.Va mains for saying this, but I think Zarya is fine. I don’t think she’s OP. It’s honestly the team comps that build around her that are frustrating. I can play D.Va into Zarya on a lot of maps. I can’t play D.Va into Zarya + Bastion + Mei or throw a Sym in there instead of Mei or Bastion. Those types of comps become untenable.
But honestly, I don’t think Zarya is the problem in those comps. I actually blame the DPS hero picks.
Respectfully, I think Zarya is the problem. That might be my “bad at the game mindset” I have, but she makes a lot of tanks simply… Miserable. Imo, Ram punches should penetrate her bubbles like they do other barriers. That would make it possible to play through, instead of simply around. Yes, you can wait for her bubbles to drop, but that’s rather inconsistent when your whole team is IDIOTS and won’t stop FEEDING HERRRRRRRR
That’s just a personal gripe though, mixed in with my genuine take.
Zarya bubbles aren’t barriers. I do not think this would be an OK or good change. I play Ram also and don’t think the current interaction there is unfair. I actually beat a Zarya last night as Ram pretty thoroughly. The matchup between them slightly favors the Ram IMO.
With Ram, it’s situational of course, but a lot of times I just burst through the bubble and kill her. If my team is going to feed her anyway I join in and she dies quite often from that. You have to see how far she’s pushed up and if she’ll be able to escape or not. But if she’s not in a great position you can just go ham. Sometimes the right play is just to shoot the bubbles, not always of course but sometimes it is.
Aye. The thing is, to do anything to her you have to bully her into a corner,being in the open is a death sentence.
Also, I didn’t know bubbles weren’t barriers. How so? Are they just a different “attribute”, or are they simply barriers+, because they perform similarly to barriers. (Sorry if this is rude, I am genuinely curious.)
Zarya is meta not because she’s OP, she’s one of two tanks that can survive the rest of the meta. Zarya and Orisa counters will pop before they even get to point
This is true period though regardless of who the other tank is. If you are in the open you are going to get blown up by Bastion, maybe a Solder or Hanzo, probably a Bap or Illari too. Everyone will focus you and you will just melt. You cannot play out in the open of the middle as a tank like the old days.
Yeah they are a completely different thing. They aren’t a barrier or a Matrix. They also cleanse status effects and prevent knockback and slows from happening to you. They are effectively Suzu but with a health bar.
i dont think zarya is a problem either, i think its more of the change to 5v5 that made the zarya vs dva matchup particularly skewed… bc in 6v6 you could like rein/dva against a rein/zar and do just fine if your team was doing enough damage, bc the dva never had to 1v1 the zarya ever but now thats like all you do aside from dive supports and out of position dps
Agree, but I still think that D.Va is OK against Zarya on the right map. It can’t be too closed off because then you are stuck with the Zarya. And it helps to have high ground. D.Va can kite the Zarya around and kill her team until she’s vulnerable in those situations. But if you don’t have high ground, cover, and some places to run to, then yeah it’s over. But if her whole team is the beam team then that is when even those situations become impossible. And that isn’t the Zarya’s fault, it’s the fact that you can have a whole team of heroes that counter D.Va at the same time.
Doesnt even need to be beam heroes, they nerfed dva’s range, so zarya being able to zone her out makes any mid-range hero devastating for dva. She is forced to just be a DM bot, and nobody likes playing that way.
I wouldn’t mind a tighter spread as D.Va, not gonna lie.
Ew, absolutely not. She already gets stomped by Rein, who wins the most matches at low ranks, don’t think she needs Ram to make her unplayable.
In metal ranks zarya is basically unkillable because no one can deal with her ( including myself) so any time there is a zarya in a game it just becomes 1 person has fun( zarya) and the rest are just human sacrifices to her
I didn’t know that, to be fair. How does Rein counter her? I’m always up for learning new things about this game.
She can’t poke at the backline with her ranged attacks because of his shield, which is her whole gameplan…poke at backline gaining charge and burning up their resources, then walk through the tank and kill the squishies before she gets punished. She can’t walk through his shield because his unmissable damage is scary, she’ll lose access to healing, and he can always pin her away. His shield makes approaching Rein’s team costly, while they don’t have to burn nearly as many cooldowns. Also Shatter is crazy effective against enemies without a shield, meanwhile Rein’s shield invalidates most Gravs. Plus they share the same weakness, lack of mobility and highground access, so she can’t even exploit that.
TLDR: Zarya wants to avoid the enemy tank and walk into their squishies, Rein is really good at keeping himself between them and the scary buff lady…. also his shield invalidates half her kit and hammer goes whack.
And against her. If you do not play hitscans or phar mercy into what counters dva, well, it is not Zarya’s issue then. Players do not want to accet the game’s main concept and play it casually w/o choosing the right tools from hero roster.
I agree actually. It’s a lot harder when you can’t really hang out in the frontline but the backline is tanky or there’s a Sym there. You can’t dive anyone with burst but you can’t play patient looking for an opening or else Zarya will beam you down. Add a map without verticality into the mix and it’s rough.
Zarya on her own though doesn’t give me problems for the most part. Usually the issue is my team dies to her instead of me feeding her ult and getting demeched constantly. What’s annoying are the Zaryas that tunnel vision on you. In those cases you need your team to take advantage of the space that makes so if your dps are poop then you will be too.
Man I wish dva had the dps to do this. It’s so annoying to watch tanks overextend and not be able to punish them.
Does his hammer go through her bubbles? I’ve worked on the assumption that it just feeds her more
She is the hero that punishes mistakes hard and that mistake may be comming from your own team. You can put 0 damage into her bubbles and wonder how the hell did she get full charge again.
But overall she is fine imo. Good damage but poor damage mitigation and 0 mobility. She is the answer for all the cancer CC in the game and she prays on spam comps which is option needed in this game. I think I would quit tank entirely if I couldn’t swap to Zarya in some games. Blame Ana for me not wanting to play Ramattra.
Zarya is one of those original heroes with clear strengths and weaknesses. She might only feel unkillable in ow2 because they had to give her the ability to double bubble herself in order for her to be a viable solo tank. Solo tank Zarya with no double bubble would make getting charge very difficult. And her dps feels op but that is supposed to be balanced because she is squishy and has low mobility, so if she has poor bubble management then she gets punished fast.
Well she was originally designed this way, but in OW2 and her double bubble shenanigans I can see people not liking her. She obliterates people once she gets her charge. Easily the most snowbally tank in the entire game. If you win the teamfight and stay high charge you’re in for a good time (or pain for the enemy). Welcome now the unkillable god with 170 dps fairly easy to track with beam that bypasses many defensive options like Matrix etc.
In OW1 she could only have one bubble for herself and had less hp so she was much more burstable.