He was ridiculously strong in OW1, his primary issue was having to sustain two tanks and the constant demand for peel.
Going down to one tank has not only increased his viability due to less need for sustain, but has also removed the frequency of Barriers thus increasing the uptime of Discord.
He enables teams to actually burn tanks like Hog & Orisa thanks to Discord, and any player mechanically and positionally good enough will tell you that his need for peel is not that important anymore.
I again accredit this to the fact that he doesn’t have to deal with a secondary tank Diving him all match (think Ball in OW1).
To further the argument for Zen, he has the capability to one shot every squishy in the game, a unique feature for him vs every other support. What this ultimately means is if you’re good enough with the hero you do not need dependency on any allies for creating picks or peeling you. This is a far cry from literally every other support because they cannot simply delete a problem.
Discord truly does feel as strong as ever in the current state of the game where tanks believe they are invincible, and DPS believe they have free roam of the universe. The ability to make targets die faster than they anticipate is “unadaptable” for most players. Their habits and behaviors are too established to actually slow down and evade, or get hyper-aggressive and jump you as Zen.
Zen isn’t easy to play by any means, requiring intellectual positioning, high awareness of surroundings, and strong mechanics. But if a player can marry the three together he is the best support in the game.
Here’s my ratings of Zen+Other Supports:
S Tier
Bap Brig
A Tier
Mercy Kiri
B Tier
Ana
C Tier
D Tier
Lucio
F Tier
Moira
Hopefully this knowledge will assist you all on “When to Play Zen”!
Zen is good but squishy and is terrible pick for push maps due to how big they are, how many flank routes there are and how much time each death costs you. Even good Zen requires support from his team if enemies have strong flankers or especially Sojourns running around.
Bap on the other hand feels like a more versatile Zen. Vertical mobility and two self-peel tools while having around the same dps (150 Zen on discorded target vs 127 Bap if I remember correctly. But Bap has hitscan weapon so you land more shots and it evens out outside of close range where Zen deletes people). Zen has major weaknesses that you can try to mitigate with positioning, but at the end of the day - D.Va will delete you if you don’t get help. It’s not the same with other supports.
But if enemies play slow comp, then I definitely can see Zen pop off. Discord is strong tool, ultimate is strong as well + you can snipe people, especially immobile ones.
KOTH and now Push have always stood as weaknesses for Zen. The tighter the map, the more sightlines there are, the harder Zen is to play.
As far as as Push is concerned it’s not different than playing Ana.
You should never be on the Bot. You must position prior to engagements, then spend your down time repositioning. I’ve found spots on just about every map now that I know I want to take and hold and move between. There’s a ton of foresight in positioning with that hero.
At the end of the day, will you get rolled if the enemy commits to Dive? Probably. But Dive is the hardest comp to play correctly and the rarest on ladder to face.
Koth maps are perfectly playable for Zen imo, only push map truly sucks. Koth maps aren’t that big and there is often nice spot for you to sit and spam. With push maps teamfights constantly take place somewhere else and there are a ton of flank routes and open spaces where you just can’t avoid confrontation if people play multiple angles (like on New Queen Street - there is no good spot for Zen to sit and spam + if you play long range you don’t deal much damage).
Ana at least has hitscan weapon + self peel tools. You are not as easy pray as Zen, but yes, coming back from spawn sucks on anything without horizontal mobility. Bap isn’t different here, he is just better than Zen because it’s harder to kill him.
Heroes with strong mobility will chase you no matter where you position yourself on those maps though. On old maps like let’s say King’s Row, it’s not easy to isolate Zen, since if he plays far back, there will be someone else to help him and flank routes are limited. On New Queen Street or Esparanca people can come from couple spots no matter where bot is and they will get you eventually or force you to play so safe, that you aren’t doing much favor for your team.
They don’t have to play coordinated dive to kill Zen, tanks nowadays are extremely powerful and all it takes is D.Va flying into you with rockets and matrix or Doom with empowered punch ready. Map dependant though, if there is a roof to protect you from jumping from above it’s usually easier to survive. Against Sojourns though… good luck really. Zen can’t outrun her and has easy to hit hitbox, she deletes you in like one second
Sojourn is dominating everyone, that isn’t a Zen exclusive.
But as for everyone else, there’s a bevy of high ground positions every map where Zen must be playing. Helps if a DPS will play alongside you there, but on every Push map if you’re not on some form of high ground that will force some odd rotation or burn their mobility, then you’re going to get folded.
Has the advantage? Sure. But on Zen you are free pick when on Kiriko, Bap, Mercy or even Moira you have tools to sustain yourself or avoid confrontation much better. Zen is giant circle hitbox that Sojourn obliterates sadly.
Question is if it’s harder for Zen to position there and keep up with team or is it for mobile heroes. If you want Zen on highground, again - why not Bap? If enemies are close to you, you will die if they jump on you. If enemies are far away, then your projectile weapon rarely hits. If they are mid range, then they are playing into your cards and should just move around the map and go after you forcing to drop.
Like on New Queen Street - do you think highground train in the middle of the map is safe? Any flanker can come after you and bully you out. Or long range hitscans like Soldier just poke you out of there. Highground on the side of the map? Open and not a lot of cover.
Zen has major weaknesses that people can exploit, that’s all. It requires a lot of peel to make Zen work on bad maps or vs bad matchups. If you play into Orisa or Hog - Zen pretty good. If you play into Sojourn Tracer or on push maps - value you provide on Zen is probably not worth the effort of keeping you alive. Even smart players die there, because smart opponents pick something that destroys you. That isn’t the case on old maps which are better designed. At least that’s my opinion since I played Zen a lot in the past and try to make him work nowadays as well.
I would say that it’s a hero that’s great to have in your hero pool, but bad to one trick. He is pretty strong quite often but has matchups that require switching or you will play respawn simulator or play so passive that it’s not worth picking him.