Zenyatta Needs More Changes and Buffs

General Discussion
1

Zenyatta has a lot a problems have either been a problem since launch or have recently brought to light with the introduction of new abilities and characters.

Everything I state in this post should be considered.

I will go over each problem with him at the moment and what changes should be implemented.

General Changes

Secondary Fire
Currently: Consumes ammo before shots are fired and when shots are cancelled with Melee.

Change: Secondary fire no longer consumes ammo while charging. Now consumes ammo after being released.

Reason: So many times will you be charging up a secondary Fire shot just for you to have to cancel it and use your discord or harmony orb, this change would allow him to keep his ammo up and not have to worry about having to reload.

Reload
Currently: You cannot reload and use discord and harmony orb.

Change: Zenyatta can now reload and apply Discord and Harmony orb on target simultaneously.

Reason: This helps Zenyattas pace and allows for more control of his abilities.

Buffs and Changes

Harmony
Currently: Heals for 30hps

Change: Heals for 35hps

Reason: This change would allow for Zenyatta to give a better healing output to keep up with other healers.

Primary Damage
Currently: Deals 48 damage.

Change: Deals 48.2 damage.

Reason: 48 damage against 250 health heroes is very inconsistent, when discord is used against a 250 health hero, if Zenyatta were to hit 2 headshots he would deal a total of 249.6 damage.
This means that they would be left with .4 health.
(Yes you can have a decimal point as health but the game rounds it up visually as 1 health) This change would keep his consistency.

Hurtbox
Currently: It looks like this right now: KarQ Video on Hitboxes - skip to 13:42 to see Zenyatta hitbox

Change: Bring his hitbox down to reasonable size, and also give gaps in-between his hands/arms and legs; or lower his head hitbox size to be more in line with how it actually is.

Reason: He can easily take unnecessary damage and get destroyed by spread damage heroes.

Movement
Currently: All characters walk/move backwards at a slower pace.

Change: Zenyatta should be allowed to move in all directions at the same speed.

Reason: It will help with his movement issues and allow for better defensive play while keeping an eye on his target.

These are the things I think will help Zenyatta play Zenyatta better, it will help him survive a bit longer, and keep him up along with other supports.

7 Likes
2

Crazy idea: Unlimited ammo. It would increase his DPM, without changing any damage numbers, and also would mean he wouldnā€™t be as vulnerable, because he would never be caught off guard while reloading.

3

Heā€™s fine for dmg, I think.

The only change I would make, is if he hasnā€™t got Harmony on anyone, itā€™s on him.

4

No. That is a TERRIBLE idea. I cannot stress that enough. Zenā€™s damage is already arguably broken. The ONLY thing that holds it back is its reload. Most of the times I die, is because of the reload. Which, while it may frustrate you, if you actually look at the bigger picture, itā€™s really fair enough. Because Iā€™d otherwise be killing literally everything that comes at me.

1 Like
5

That would be cool, but he would honestly obliterate shields, and never have to worry about flankers catching him off guard and having to reload, now I also think he should get a increase to 30 shots.

1 Like
6

Well people do complain heā€™s too vulnerable. Would help alleviate that while staying true to his core kit.

7

I do alright as Zeny and I understand its hard to balance someone with an ability like discord orb. Iā€™m just worried they will do what they do with many other characters where they buff them too much and then end up doing a series of nerfs that makes the character worse off.

What I really want is a Zeny cinematic trailer.

1 Like
8

I would love some Zen lore, I canā€™t wait to see what Zen looks like in Overwatch 2.

As for zen being op, I donā€™t think they should all be implemented, just mix and match, they should really be tuned to make it work.

2 Likes
9

Thatā€™s not a problem. Remove it and youā€™ll be obliged to pre-charge and cancel spam constantly.

Just look at Symā€™s Secondary Fire. This is the norm. So why do you think this is some problematic outlier? The gameplay youā€™d be stuck with is far more annoying (for yourself and your team) than an outlying exception-to-the-rule advantage like this would be worth.

10

Yes, thatā€™s intentional, to make Zen more fraggy and less of an assassin.

Any time TTK falls just short of some breakpoint, it tends to be at the benefit of further overall DPS via attack rate, and its TTK isnā€™t much affected by enemy healing. Any time it hits some breakpoint exactly, it tends to be at the cost to that attack rate and a single point of healing may screw it over.

And this is how you get power creep while devaluing the unique advantages of a given hero.

Falling just short of a breakpoint is what allows for consistency. Even if the enemy is healed for, in this case, up to 61.8 HP over the time youā€™re firing into them, your TTK is unchanged.

Change it to hitting 250 HP exactly, and now you can one-shot RMB even Bastion without headshots but even 12 HP healed over the .55 seconds the volley lands (i.e. receiving even just Inspire) will deny you the kill. Inconsistent.

11

I like this, seems reasonable enough

12

Make Zen Wallclimbā€¦

13

He can kill anything that attacks him.

14

Not if he runs out of ammoā€¦

15

He cannot even hurt a Genji when he gets the jump on himā€¦

16

I kind of love all of these changes, but Im worried about contributing further to damage creep by upping his damage further.

I think thereā€™s a reason they buffed his damage while keeping him unable to 2shot headshot 250hp heroes.

17

The are fine QOL changesā€¦

This is a bad idea, Iā€™ll explain later.

Iā€™d rather the inconsistancy be fixed with Discord Orb itself (internally making it so that increased damage is rounded up, instead of left as a hanging point), but this is fine. I guess.

Fine I guess, but Zenā€™s damage output is balanced around his low survivability. I wouldnā€™t do much except for maybe shrink the head hitbox a bit, but this change is also arguably fine.

NO NO NO NO NO! NOOO!

Ok let me explain why Iā€™m against the movement and the orb of harmony change.

As I mentioned earlier, Zenā€™s damage is balanced around his incredible vulnerability. If a Zen isnā€™t getting silver damage, they are playing Zen wrong and should switch. Anyways, this damage output is so high that the reliable healing of Orb of Harmony should be somewhat low. Orb ALWAYS heals 30hps, heals through barriers and LOS for several seconds, and combined with Discord allows Zen to enable Dive characters in a way thatā€™s VERY powerful. If you increase this healing this does a multitude of things.

  • Breaking LOS with Zen still allows over 100 hitpoints to be restored before Orb of Harmony breaks.
  • Healing a 200 health target from critical to full happens from 5 seconds to 4.25 seconds. This is critical since damage happens VERY quickly in Overwatch

This would break the character combined with a lot of the other changes here. Iā€™d be fine with 35hps Zen if he didnā€™t have other utility/survivability buffs in this hypothetical buff.

But by far the worst offender is the movement buff. Zenā€™s main inhibiting weakness is his movement. He gets dove upon easily and dies quickly.

Zen must have this weakness or heā€™s unstoppable.

Think about it this way, due to the lack of movement acceleration in Overwatch, zen with no move slow on any type of linear movement means you can avoid most attacks with simple [a ā†’ w ā†’ d ā†’ s] spam. Thatā€™s crazy.

18

Is it really that difficult to press ā€˜rā€™ every once and a while? If you run out of ammo mid fight, tough luck. Itā€™s called balance. Everyone with infinite ammo has some kind of tradeoff to balance it. Like weird physics, or low damage. Zen has neither of those. Zen has tonnes of damage, headshots, and fairly easy projectiles to aim. The tradeoff? 20 ammo, and a significant reload.

19

Zen and McCree really need to have their hitboxes adjusted. People now have very good hardware and Overwatch is a game with easy aiming anyway. These heroes are just too easy to kill at 200hp.

20

I really am a fan of the change to his movement. Itā€™s a subtle change but itā€™s arguably the most impactful of the changes you suggest.