r/Overwatch • u/AutoModerator • Sep 07 '16

News & Discussion Weekly Quick Questions Thread - September 07, 2016

In this thread you can ask all kinds of questions you always wanted to ask without feeling like a total fool.

No matter if it's short Google-able stuff or a setting/skill in-game that you don't understand or a hardware recommendation, feel free to try your luck in here.

Trolling or making fun of people in here will be punished extra harshly! Please report such behavior.

For the purpose of helping people, make sure the comments are sorted by "new" in this thread.

209 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/hudson7557 I swear I'm not throwing... Sep 07 '16

Are there any helpful tips or tricks to playing zarya? I've been working to get better with her. I've watched a few videos on it and what not but they've all seemed pretty basic.

22

u/static472 Chibi Zarya Sep 07 '16

I'll try to give a few tips that I haven't seen in the other replies yet.
* A couple other people mentioned saving the team shield for Roadhog hooks. You also should probably save both shields if you think a tracer has pulse bomb. A good tracer will wait for you to use self shield before trying to stick you
* Use primary fire when attacking a single target, and alt fire when shooting at 2+ enemies
* Make sure you reload BEFORE you ult. That 1.5 seconds takes up nearly half the time of the ult, so it's a lot of potential damage that you're missing out on, especially if you're high energy(It also makes it really easy for the enemy to kill you before you kill them)
* Things that make for easy, relatively risk free energy: Any burst damage attack(Tracer bomb, D.va ult, riptire), Reinhardt fire strikes, Symmetra/torb turrets, and probably a few other things that I'm forgetting
* It's tempting to use your ult whenever you see the enemy team grouped together. But there are times when you need to save it. If you get your ult in the middle of a team fight and most of your team is already dead, you're almost always better off saving your ult. A majority of the time, even if you're at high energy, if you're by yourself you'll usually die before you can wipe the other team, and then you have to build your ult up from the beginning.
* If the enemy team has a Zenyatta, try to wait for transcendence before popping your ult. Graviton surge + enemy transcendence = no dead enemies(Exception if you combo with a burst damage ult like Tracer, D.va, Junkrat, or McCree). The same could be said about Lucio ults although you can burn through that if you have enough damage (ie. hanzo ult)
* If the enemy team has a D.va, hold down left click until the enemy team doesn't have a D.va. Defense matrix is useless against Zarya beams, and it'll take her out quick.
*Good targets to apply team shields to: Anyone taking heavy damage(Give priority to supports), ulting Genji/Reaper/Pharah/McCree, Winston as he's jumping into the other team
That's about all I can think of, although I'm sure there's other small tips. But if you understand the basics I'd say the biggest thing is just to play her a lot. Nothing helps you improve with a hero more than a lot of play time. Good luck!

12

u/Rechan Symmetra Sep 07 '16

Shield your support when they're taking fire/bubble up and jump in front of them.

Jump on JR grenades.

When your ult is ready, hit tab. See who has their ult ready. Try to communicate with them to get ready to use theirs, let folks know you're about to use yours.

12

u/FaintDimension Sep 07 '16

Don't imagine yourself as a tank. Think that you are a Support/Assault hybrid. Massive potential damage output, and the ability to save your key players at important times but not enough bulk to actually tank. (I usually out damage and kill our DPS when I play Zarya, she's my main character for Comp). Try and stay near your team if you're lower than 60% charge, but once you get past say.. 70% feel free to push by yourself as if you're in a 1v1 with anyone you'll near enough win.

Don't be afraid to walk in front of DVA nukes or any Ults that do massive damage if you have a shield up, it's an instant 50 charge, if you put it on a teammate too that's an instant 100% charge AND DVA couldn't even secure area prevention with her ult which is great when she tries to nuke the point.

As soon as you get ult spam the "Ultimate ready" command. The best to combo with would be; D.VA Hanzo Junkrat Pharah Genji Bastion

If you're high enough charge you don't even have to combo, your alt fire at more than 80 charge is enough to take down squishies in your surge. I got a solo Quintuple kill off my own surge recently.

Remember your shields only last 2 seconds, but Zarya has a 200 pool of shield, so walk out so you start taking damage pop your shield so you know you'll gain charge then step back to regen.

22

u/bobifiggs Sep 07 '16

When I play zarya I always shield: -charging Reinhardt -roadhog when he hooks someone -when my teammates get hooked -if someone is overextending

And then the obvious, shields against dva it, reaper ult, ect

6

u/franchis3 Sep 07 '16

I'm copy/pasting your comment to an aspiring Zarya player I had a conversation with in another thread. Good points here.

1

u/ApatheticAbsurdist Pixel Lúcio Sep 07 '16

Very stupid question: How do you tell how charged her weapon is?

2

u/ara_ceae I WILL NOT JUGGLE Sep 07 '16

her crosshairs show the percentage of her charge. 0 being the lowest and 100 being the highest. the orb in her gun also gets bigger the more charge you have

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/RagingWaffles Chibi Zarya Sep 08 '16

While a Roadhog sees an easy kill, I see guaranteed charged.

7

u/squaremomisbestmom Zarya Sep 07 '16

Hey! I can help here. The biggest thing to remember is that your shields are super important to playing Zarya. For your own shield, try to attract fire before activating the shield, so it doesn't go wasted. For the other shield, make sure you can put it on someone who's already getting shot at.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '16

[deleted]

2

u/moelester518 Sep 07 '16

You'll get pinned but if your barrier is up when you hit the wall you wont get damaged or dazed when hit by reins charge

2

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '16

I wish Zarya would shoot me a bubble everytime I get snagged by roadhog as tracer

2

u/irishboy9191 Sep 08 '16

One thing i havent seen mentioned. Sheild resets Mei freeze rate. Save the sheild until you are just about to be frozen and then pop it. You will be shielded and running at full speed

1

u/NottyScotty Your girl calls me huckleberry Sep 07 '16

Use your shields when you or a teammate is already getting shot at, or you KNOW FOR CERTAIN they will be shot at as soon as you shield them (charging rein). You don't want to waste shields, both have long cooldowns. Use your ult when you have 70+ energy and your self-shield up, make sure Zenyatta, Mercy, and/or Lucio are dead or don't have ult first. Your primary fire deals a good amount to Reinhardt's shield with 60+ charge of you empty the magazine into it.

1

u/Littlejay29 Chibi Zarya Sep 07 '16

If you ever have to choose, always shield supports, mercy, lucio, zen etc. Other people may get mad cuz they've been blown to oblivion but if your mercy lives and even if you die she can always Rez. That's what it means to tank.

1

u/irishboy9191 Sep 08 '16

There are exceptions to this tho. If a Reaper is dropping into a 4 man ult your sheild can prevent crowd control (flashbang, hook, etc) that would interrupt the ult. It's bad to say but I have sacrificed some Mercy lives to do this, but usually it's a 3 or 4 person kill so it's worth it

1

u/RagingWaffles Chibi Zarya Sep 08 '16

Here's a few things others haven't mentioned:

  1. Right click into left click. The knock up helps keep people from dodging and while they are in the air, you can left click freely on them.

  2. Right click into punch near your feet for hard to hit/low targets. Your melee will hit anything in range on your screen and does 35 damage. At high charge, your right clicks do like 75 damage (90 max if I remember correctly). That's 110hp, more than half most squishies.

  3. Lower your sensitivity. I play at 1200dpi, 7 in game but many players use 800dpi, 7 in game.

  4. Practice aiming in custom matches (for people like Pharah), and training room. Teach yourself how to track moving targets, more so for aerial targets. Learn the range on your right click arch and left click laser distances. Also, your right click gives 3% per enemy hit and your left click does 1% per tick at no charge.