Is the matchup really just go Zarya vs. Zarya?
barrier tank and dont anger her when she has the shiny circle around her
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Dive past her and kill her supports.
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Zarya vs Zarya often doesnāt end well with teams that lack target priority. I would say the go-to would be Winston. Either dive her backline, or cut her off from her supports.
Stop playing Diva into her?
But what others have saidā¦donāt shoot her shieldā¦and go for her teammates instead, forcing her to ignore you, or turn her back to the enemy team. Win-win.
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Zarya wants to play slow and build up energy. Thatās why sheās very strong against poke. The way to beat her is end the fight early by getting picks when her beam is a wet noodle.
Even DVA can do this effectively. Donāt engage the zarya. Dive her squishies.
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Rein can work he can block beams with shieldā¦
Winston, Rein, Ram if you want to meet her head on.
Winston, Ball, DF if you want to ignore her and dive her supports directly.
Really, Zarya is fine, the DPS players are currently too braindead to not shoot her.
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Track her bubble usage. If she uses both bubbles, she has minimal self defense and can fall over pretty quickly, even at full charge, so watch for when her bubbles come out. If she overextends with her last bubble, you can break it to focus her down faster, but Iād be careful in a pub lobby as focusing Zarya down is a team effort, and having only one or two people doing so will just feed her charge.
Playing high ground against her and pressuring her supports is also super useful, if you are playing a Tank who can do so easily.
Alright valid responses. I know people are saying Winston and dive, but the enemy team has a Sombra and Reaper and thatās not veryā¦ viable.
I go shield and now Sombra is in the backline and I just feel helpless throwing my shield around.
Do you play Queen? Thatās my go to for zarya. Most zaryaās donāt play zarya and it shows. Itās incredibly easy to bait out her bubbles on queen. Soon as you do itās commanding shout and go in.
This^
I would add Sigma too. Basically you want to have a way to block or avoid her damage.
Which tank works best is going to depend on the map and what the rest of her team looks like. For example Winston on Gibraltar. But maybe not if her DPS are Reaper and Bastion.
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Sig, Ram, Rein, Jq, WINSTON, Dva is ok, DF is good, Ball is meh, Hog is meh. All the other tanks are either even matchups or at a disadvantage.
Zarya is fairly bad at higher ranks and the easiest tank in the game to soft counter if you are good.
If youāre a low ranked playerā¦ GG
If your really having this hard of a time countering Zarya then get coaching or watch some vod reviews.
Or lock Zarya too, but as you climb higher in ranks that stops working fyi and you need to learn her counters unless you are a Zar specialist like the others.
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Thing about these suggestions is that Winston and Rein are such trash tanks in low levels. Even if they do counter zarya, they get dumpstered by the new dps passive. Especially poor rein. Also the main tanks take a lot of experience to play effectively. They arenāt easy heroās to pick up. Play whatever you are good at. General rule is to play fast and ignore her. Itās the Hammond rule. Ignore it and kill to squishies
There are better matchups, but yeah I usually mirror 
The problem with the mirror is that you have to get energy quick because the charge decay is so ungodly slow (I think this should be nerfed at some point tbh!!!) that the enemy zarya will usually have an advantage out the gate.
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I almost always play Winston into Zarya and usually force a swap. How you do it is situational with what the other team is playing for dps and supports. If backline is playing far back dive the backline is a decent play. If they are playing deathball/brawl your gonna have to drop in from high ground and cleave, drop bubble, and save jump pack cd to jump away if things get too hot. If backline is playing mid distance bubble the zarya to cut off heals as much as possible and have team just burst focus down the Zarya.
It also depends on what your team is playing - sometimes u just break the Zarya bubbles and burst her down sometimes you donāt have the right burst damage on your team for that. Usually tho, Winston is the play imho.
You pick rein and mash L1
Your effectiveness as tank is almost always decided what the rest of your team plays. Pray you have a good team that supports you
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not this season u donātā¦ not unless u like to suffer
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sufferings is a tankās second nature.
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