For whatever reason, her skins are always considered mid.
Maybe because of her visual design.
Rarely do people say “wow what a Zarya skin!”.
A similar phenomenon happens to Moira, albeit to a lesser degree.
Another possible reason is because she’s Russian, and being Russian is a crime in the past few years. (But I don’t think this is the actual reason)
So, cosmetics have nothing to do with how OG a character is or how impactful they are in-game.
I actually enjoy her gameplay a lot, specially in OW1 (or 6v6). Timing your bubbles to save a ulting genji is priceless.
Punishing the enemy team from just spamming damage mindlessly is also a very nice concept.
She’s russian. Just politics.
I think she could be a well designed character, but the charge mechanic is almost cosmetic. It matters at the start of your life and then ceases to be a factor until you die pretty much.
It probably needs to be easier to maintain in 5v5, but even in 6v6 it was like that. Once she’s high charge she stays high charge because you need to completely fizzle two bubbles to miss out on one bubble’s worth of charge. That’s dumb if you ask me.
Also I hate her ult, but there’s more counters to it these days at least.
Yeah I agree, I think the bubble’s health could be lower and the cool downs could be higher, but to what extent, I’m not sure.
I can definitely understand why, and you’re also not wrong, when you sit and think about her interactions with all the rest of the heroes, there really are a ton of ways to counter grav. Shoot, lifeweaver has two and he’s just one hero 
lol
Zarya and Venture competing for the title of “Most Neglected Hero” in the game
Yup, Lifeweaver was a very nice addition in regards to Zarya’s ult. She can usually throw it out without too much thought other than if an ult will save the enemy.
With Lifeweaver now, there is a character that can reliably(being the keyword) counter grav without an ultimate. Before, it was pretty much just D.va maybe being able to eat it and Genji/Orisa/Sigma having a low chance of stopping it.
And having a non-ult solution to ults is good because it punishes reckless usage of them
Even as biased as I am towards Zarya, I’ve always thought it would be cool if Sombra’s EMP deleted any charge Zarya has… maybe even hack? Though hack having that ability would probably be too much of a hard counter.
Honestly, that would be cool. Zarya could block the attempt to delete her charge with a bubble too, just losing the bubble instead.
Though, that would lead into the problem with Sombra’s ult and the fact you can’t react to it.
True, but a lot of people say that’s the worst part about Zarya’s ult as well, so it would kind of even out, right?
Zarya deserves to be forgotten because she is barely a step above mauga in complexity in 5v5 where she has no co tank and just bubbles herself for free charge and wm1s. Im saying this as someone who mained her in ow1. Solo tanking has dumbed her gameplay loop down so much that I dont play her at all.
That is also the primary issue with Zarya’s ult, yes
Sombra’s is the biggest offender though since she can come from anywhere
I wouldn’t go that far, I still bubble my team mates plenty through out the match. Though I get where you’re coming from as not all players play like that. For me, that’s always been one of the more fun parts of playing Zarya.
I still find her very fun in 5v5, though the context is I only play QP, so that might change things.
This situation isn’t Zarya’s fault, it’s the fact that the game is 5v5, which is already nonsense. Most off-tanks don’t have kits that are suitable for playing alone. Because of this, they can’t play freely.
Yes ofcourse if you see someone yolo dive your supports by all means bubble but in majority of cases youre the frontline as a solo tank so your bubbles are mostly used on yourself, weather you want to or not because youre taking the aggro.
I love zarya as a character and I love her gun, it feels so good to use at high charge. Im not saying this out of malice, I just really hate what 5v5 did to her.
lol it’s all good, I’m just passionate about her as I still (yeah, unbelievably, perhaps insanely) one trick her after all this time
If you’re talking about what you saw in the Season 15 promotional video, that person is not Zarya, it’s Venture. Many people have mixed them up.
Personally I hate Zarya and Orisa more than anything in this game
If you’re talking about the characters in the new season trailer, they are Doomfist and Venture.