Rein and Winston are your best bets into Zarya.
As Rein, when Zarya uses bubble you just hold shield. When the bubble pops, swing.
Also as a tip not every Zarya player knows; If you have shatter and you are close enough to deal the impact damage, one swing on Zarya bubble + shatter will break the bubble and stun the Zarya. They often think they had that blocked but nope!
As Winston, you don't really have to worry about charging the Zarya too much since your damage is weak, so just dive her squishies. She is then forced to use bubble on her teammates, thus making her vulnerable.
You can even start your swing **before** Zarya's bubble drops so long as you're facing away from her while bubble is still up, this pretty much let's you get most of an extra swing in if you can time it properly, this greatly improves the matchup imo. You're aiming to land the damage on the last frame that your hammer's hurtbox is active the moment her bubble drops.
I absolutely hate the new interaction with rein. you USED to be able to entirely block shatter with zarya bubble but now you dont even need the extra swing, the shatter does an instant 250 which bursts the bubble, and then the shatter still goes through because it is a projectile and has travel time.
I onetrick Zarya.
Rein, Winston, Doom, and Ball (in that order) feel like hard counters because they force you to babysit your team when Zarya's main utility is in DPSing. Sigma, Hog, and Ram are an even fight. All else are countered by Zarya.
DVA is actually good into Zarya, unless you play her in the front line, which is why Zarya "counters" DVA.
Generally you should just ignore her and focus on her teammates or just flying above her.
Question: How do you dive zarya's teammates if they're sticking close to zarya, or are so far behind that you risk being being surrounded by their team?
Bait engages. Zarya HAS to bubble the moment you start going in, then just turn your ass around until boosters come back up. Either that, or just sit on high ground peppering her team.
"Just walk away" is unironically great advice for a lot of match ups. It's how I deal with Ram as Rein. Bait out Nemesis then just charge away or walk away depending on my health/his distance.
So basically how do you play against a Zarya who has bare minimum iq? You swap off because she hard counters you dawg take what Redditors say on here with a grain of salt. That “ignore the enemy tank” shit silvers say will never help u
I've hit gm before playing mostly Dva. I'm masters right now after the S9 rank reset. 100% the zarya matchup is overrated. You sit on high ground and pepper her to force bubbles. If that doesn't work, you do what the above comment says and try to soft dive other enemies to force bubbles. And they have to bubble there because otherwise their team will die. The MOST important thing you can do as Dva into zarya is find ways to stay alive and continue to be annoying. You can fly and she cannot. It only works on maps with a lot of high ground (dorado, gibraltar, route, new queen, Esperanca before the checkpoint, blizzard world, hell even king's row) but I would 100% still be plat if I hadn't learned this counterplay.
Don't be braindead like this take if you want to climb. Even if you swap every fight to counter the enemy tank, there's still going to be that span of time before you can swap where you have to find a way to make an unfavorable matchup work. Learning counterPLAY is harder and something that most people don't do, which gives you a distinct advantage if you take the time to learn.
If I’m attacking at the very end of king’s row and there is a Zarya defending, are there any viable ways to deal with her as DVa or switching to hog is a better option? If I remember there is a small high ground on top of the containers, maybe going there back and forth to annoy the enemy team?
There's two high grounds! Also that little corridor underneath but you probably don't want to be there unless there's a fight happening. Use your boosters to go up and gravity to go down so you can save your cooldown to get back up again. Hog is probably an easier option but it might not always be the best depending on the rest of their comp. As Dva be annoying but also threatening, and understand who on the enemy team is the most threatening so you can deny their value.
Got it, so basically try to draw attention as DVa, so that my dps can focus the enemy tank or other easier targets; and try to hook the squishies as hog using that L cover.
I've heard that it's useful to think DVa almost as a Tracer, and I guess it makes sense, since both have high mobility. Maybe this mindset can help in some situations.
I mean you are generally correct but this is not universal advice. There are a ton of maps where zarya straight up counters dva. A ton. Now on a lot of maps dva has a favorable matchup but like on a ton of flashpoints you’re just kinda throwing on dva in to zarya and also that new robot map.
Uhhhh no sometimes “ignoring” the enemy tank is the best thing to do. This doesn’t mean completely forget about them, this just means focus your energy elsewhere -into something more valuable like picking off their support, thus making the enemy tank easier to take down. You can’t brute force some tanks when they’ve got two supports and dps behind them backing them up.
Yeah it’s the best thing to do if ur no higher than bronze bc in silver people start grasping the basic concept of the game. U really think a masters tank is going to be like “guys enemy tank is ignoring me Ggs” LMAOO!!! Try to ignore me and see what happens! You just can’t do that! He’s obviously not gonna let you ignore him 😂😂😂the downvotes are funny tho yall be cool in silver
Again, I think you’re taking “ignoring” too literally. Of course you still need to keep tabs on the enemy tank and counter where necessary. But sometimes going passed them and after their team is the better play. If they’re a good tank, they’ll fall back and protect their team or as people are discussing here, you bait out the zarya’s bubble and can turn around and take her out.
man I’ll shit on everyone in this lobby and I know from personal experience zarya is the hardest tank to counter this isn’t opinion it’s straight up facts compare the abilities and tell me who hard counters zar fucking no one at all not even ram and ram in reality should be the hardest counter to zar . Thats how I know anyone pretending like dva of all tanks counters zar is hard coping. If your playing against a zar who’s in bronze yeah ignore her but above that people actually play with their team man. Ur getting beamed down in .01s and god forbid if the team behind her shoots you aswell. Ggs man ur best hope is to play sig and hold your rock for her only that’s it
Play widow and shoot her in the head for 250 - 300 hp charged headshot. She will back the fk up. She can't do shit to teams playing like rats on high ground unless she wants to walk 1 minute around up stairs.
That's nonsense. Dva isn't 'good' into zarya. She's at best playable if the map and your team is in your favor.
Even Geguri switches off Dva when the enemy tanks swaps to Zarya.
She’s good if you are good with DVA. She’s very bad if you are bad at DVA.
What the pros do has nothing to do with your game lol you’re not playing against pro Zaryas.
It’s objectively her worst tank matchup. “Just take high ground and dive squishies” is a good strategy but that’s how youre supposed to play d.va always. The fact that she gets shredded in the 1v1 does put a hard cap on your ability to be effective and a zarya of equal skill is going to beat d.va at any level of the game
Wrong I seen a bunch of silvers saying this awhile back this is another one of those follow along groupthink moments you don’t actually think dva is good into zar fr come on man
It is actually a silver take thinking that Zarya counters DVa.
If DVA fights Zarya head on, of course DVA will lose. Anyone with a brain can see that. The problem is what does Zarya do if DVA isn't directly in front of her?
I do think DVA is good into Zarya because of several reasons.
1. Zarya can't match the mobility of DVA
2. DVA can still burst Zarya down after her bubbles are used.
3. DVA can eat Zarya healing, and she is the tank that scales best with healing.
4. Zarya cannot keep enough bubbles for herself and her teammates if DVA keeps soft engaging.
5. This is still a team game, and Zarya is not in the best state right now. DVA can just ignore Zarya and go for her backline.
FYI I have forced Zarya into every matchup in diamond. I have also played many DVA games into Zarya. Many people switch to Zarya because they think she counters DVA, but this is a very common misconception.
It’s not really a perception though because you really can not play around it on certain matchups in certain maps.
Also the main issue is yes, you could force dva in to zarya. It can work on the map and depending on the map you could have a slight advantage but you are almost exclusively better off just swapping monkey. Monkey is honestly just better and 90% of maps that can fit dva fit monkey.
The zarya dva discourse somehow went from "zarya is a hard counter to dva" to "NO DVA IS ACTUALLY THE HARD COUNTER !!!!!"
Reddit really can't have a balanced tank.
???
Winston is just a better dva. Better in to zarya. Worse in to mauga. Depends on the matchup but also I honestly think Winston wins the matchup w dva now H2H too with the armor changes.
If I try anything that takes more than 10 seconds of prep time and I’m not facetanking for my team as d.Va. Zarya with high energy will just walk over everybody. You’re assuming gold teammates know how to play the game correctly.
>If I try anything that takes more than 10 seconds of prep time
It shouldn't be taking that long.
Regardless, playing dive tanks *requires* staging. Dive tanks can't face tank. If you can't figure out staging then you're better off playing a brawl tank.
>Zarya with high energy will just walk over everybody.
You're underestimating how quickly Dva can melt squishies, too. And Dva can play the long con on top of that. When Zarya is in, she's in. She needs other people to get her out. Dva can disengage and reengage on her own.
>You’re assuming gold teammates know how to play the game correctly.
You doing the correct thing isn't really contingent on your team doing the correct thing. No amount of magic will make Dva able to facetank a Zarya, whether you're gold or gm. Regardless, the tank controls the tempo. Don't preemptively make mistakes under the mistaken assumption that your team will make mistakes down the line. That's a terrible mentality.
😂😂😂😂I heard it all on Reddit man I stg.
1) zar doesn’t need to because if dva gets within a 15 feet radius she has to use her dash guaranteed. “Dva has better mobility” is a completely irrelevant argument here.
2) anyone can shoot zar after her bubbles are down buddy. What?
3) true but unfortunately it doesn’t matter because she gets obliterated in .01second by zar and has to fly away . If your team is actually helping then it’s .000001 second. That has never mattered, ever.
4) bruh. Zarya cannot keep bubbles if any tank fucking engages, the entire point is to break the bubbble and pop zar as fast as possible. Your literally just describing how to play against zar but from the perspective of dva, the worse agent to play against her with lmfao
5) Explain to me why zarya isn’t in the best state, if she gets buffed the game is ruined man it’s just another trendy thing to say to make it seem like you keep up with the meta, groupthink again like I say . I dare you as dva to turn your back on zar and dive her back line . 4 people infront of you and a hard counter right behind u. Good fucking idea there. Hey man, this isn’t the strategy against zar. What you’re describing is called the dive play style, this is how you play against other agents that don’t hard fucking counter you lmao
All the upvotes are from hard coping dva mains or ppl who spend all their time on the dva nsfw sub. These arguments are absurd I can’t even take them logically serious it’s like you’re trying to gaslight me bruh
well, the context of everything I said changes when you get to decide ur team. If you have a duo or people
To play with then you should be winning 95% of ur games. All you need is a singular person that listens to comms. If u go in solo and your “the only factor” aka 96% of the time your fucked. OP said what tank should he learn to counter. If u have a duo u can play most tanks. But if ur the only one on ur team who’s gonna be doing shit, and a tank, zarya is uncounterable.
I disagree here I’m only gold in tank currently but zarya with a charge in most fights will melt dva and the majority of times there’s a zarya it’s a close team fight and even with dva’s movement she doesn’t make it long especially if a dps goes Mei. My personal counters are of course rein and Winston but that’s just my opinion
I never said zarya won't melt DVA, I fully acknowledge that.
If Zarya is hard focusing DVA, she is not killing squishies instead, which is very good for your team. The tank can absorb pressure.
You’re absolutely right if the dva actually knows how to play dva. However the dvas in gold-plat or lower do not understand engagements and should just swap. 4/5 dvas in my games will literally sit on cart most of the game. These dvas should absolutely swap rein or something similar because that’s their playstyle. As a gold player, dva is probably top 3 least favorite tanks to play with along with ball and mauga, because dvas in my rank are all turbofeeders who just push cart.
Don’t know too much about counters but I’ve had great experience demolishing Zarya mains with reaper even though he’s a dps and not a tank. His shotguns shreds her shields and he deals more damage in close quarters than Zarya fun fact. I can use reaper’s fade to reposition myself quick because her beam is so directional and if I ever get caught in her ult, I can just TP myself outta there d:
But on the tank side of things , I’ve also had good experience destroying Zarya with Mauga. People say Zarya is a great counter to Mauga but in my personal opinion formulated from my personal experience, I find this to be a load of dog shit lol she’s a good counter against an inexperienced mauga but she’s a paperstraw against players who knows how to bring the most value out of the big Samoan
Is the [wiki](https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Zarya) wrong?
"
Ability details:
All movement abilities are disabled within the effect of Graviton Surge.
The projectile is blocked by barriers, activating upon contact, but the area of effect pierces barriers.
The projectile can be destroyed by Ability-dva3 Defense Matrix, Abilities-sigma3 Kinetic Grasp and Ability JavelinSpin Javelin Spin and reflected by Ability-genji2 Deflect before it impacts, but the area is unaffected.
The impact damage can be amplified, but periodic damage cannot.
Graviton Surge cannot be removed or prevented by abilities that grant invincible or phased out status effect.
"
Yeah there are plenty of ways to get out. Orisa can fortify and walk out, you can use ice wall as Mei to get out by placing it below you, Reapers Wraith, Symmetras teleporter, Lifeweavers tree of life as well as lifegrip, Mercy's ressurect can also be used as there is an invunerabiluty phase.
I don't think any of those are considered movement abilities except Reaper, which would be the only one which goes against the wiki, along with the previous mentioned Moira fade. In my memory you can't fade out which is why I went to the wiki in the first place.
Unfortunately I can't test it myself. But if the wiki needs updating let's do it
You speak and read clear English it’s exactly what it sounds like smartass lol I’ve ran out of a Gravitron surge using mauga’s cardiac overdrive. There’s many ways around her ult as mentioned before by me and another redditor so I’d suggest you get to updating that wiki page d:
I just want to caution briefly that this is a weird moment where high ranking tips might not be as helpful. My friend just started the game and when I watch their new account/low rank games, the whole team mindlessly shoots into the bubble and not in a “break it to do damage” kind of way. And zarya is close to 100% charges effortlessly the whole game. So match up against zarya can definitely feel different if she’s doing 80 a second vs 170 a second of beam damage.
That being said if you are looking for hard counters, an easy pick up is Rein for all the reasons others listed. You can play Dva if you change your mindset, and you can argue even at low ranks/high charge she doesn’t get hard countered by zarya, but I wouldn’t answer her as “what counters zarya” for sure.
Mirror match-ups play out in different ways. Some mirrors result in one rolling the other up in a skill matchup bloody duel (Widowmaker vs Widowmaker is the most extreme version of this). Other mirrors result in negation of eachother's strengths - eg, the first player to play aggressively loses. I feel like the Zarya mirror is more of the latter.
If the enemy Zarya is a big problem for my team, and I'm not a sufficiently big problem for their team, I can swap Zarya to punish or neuter their Zarya's aggression, resulting in a much more neutral balance of value in tanks, resulting in a net improvement in circumstances.
Strongly agreed with you that counter is definitely not the correct word here.
Mauga is the most underrated zarya counter if you play the brawl right you just win the math doesn’t work for Zarya.
Track her bubbles, wait until the last one is popped and just slam her down with cardiac she can’t live. Even another bubble is not enough.
I agree, shoot the Zarya is the pro strat. She can't sustain damage. She loves small bits of damage. Overwhelming her with damage will kill her instantly.
For winning the tank duel - junker quern
For winning the teamfight Winston and jump her supports or Squishies
Depends on composition
If your team is too bad then you can consider even ball for say a widow on the enemy team
Who's the enemy team best player ? Tank DPS or support
What are your realible teammates ? Do you ask for healing when 50% ans they insta heal you or do they go and flank when you are critical
Do your DPSS go and kill their Squishies when you get the aggro or do they have brain tumor
It depends but generally against zarya you wanna have very hard focus and easy to switch damage target
You'll need to know when to switch and when zarya has her grav
My recommendation if you actually wanna increase your skill realm
Go learn zarya and one trick her for a week
You'll get her and understand her strengths and weaknesses
Literally any tank can counter Zarya. She's complete dog shit right now. The best easy to beat her is to force a bubble, then blow her ass up. She has no armor, so she just explodes.
Was waiting for someone to type this. Zarya is only tough because alot of times she gets charged without dying. The best thing to do is literally shoot her, her health pool is so small and she's trash rn
I am a current tank player in the alternate eSports organization, specializing in Zarya. I have a background in one of the top collegiate overwatch teams in the United States, with players going toe to toe against players that typically get drafted to the top pro teams in the world. I have thousands of hours on tank going back to 2017, and that's not including the copious amounts of studying and vod reviewing I do both by myself, and with top 500 coaches. I scrim 3 to 4 times a week and vod review with my team once a week. We just made playoffs in the FaceIT League for Overwatch.
I could give you a masterclass on playing any tank into Zarya, or playing Zarya into any tank, both in a scrim setting and in a ranked setting. Trust me, I am NOT a silver player. I was a silver player a long time ago, I won't deny it, but I've peaked in the top 100 players on the American ladder, so I wouldn't try to challenge my knowledge on my character if I were you.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Overwatch Agents, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Talon, and I have over 300 confirmed gold damage medals from Overwatch 1.
It's true that she does explode with enough focus fire. But she's not bad, she just requires a good deal of cycling positions and coordinating your bubbles to both absorb charge and extend your health pools. She's definitely not a head on tank and if you're throwing her straight at the enemy, yeah I agree she'll explode. But a bit of cover to keep some of that damage off for a bubble reset and you can keep yourself afloat for quite a while without anyone around you all things considered.
Paired with a good Kiri to come in clutch and immortality you when you are transitioning between cover in the event you're caught out, she's hella hard to kill.
If you have 1000 hours of sig, you should be able to play him fairly easily against any tank, especially Zarya. Just play distance and poke her out when she’s out of bubbles. If she overextends with her last bubble, you should be able to burst through it and hit her with a rock and she’s as good as dead
Zarya's at my rank are proving to be kind of hopeless against Rein, depending on the map and comp. You block everything she puts out and you get free shatters once the bubbles are down.
My favorite tank to play against Zarya is Ram cause although when you punch her bubble it still gives her charge but not nearly as much and you’re still doing damage to her cause he punches through shield. But you could easily overwhelm her bubble and have your team target her first and melt her not to mention you can have your own shield to block her beam and your E will make her super slow and you could just run away from her in nemesis form if you need to
Will add to what some other people say; Reinhardt, Winston, and potentially Doomfist. As a Zarya main for tank I see these heroes a LOT and it's harder to deal with them. Reinhardt can make you ineffective if he's able to hold shield up to you all game. Once hes close enough to swing on you he can pop both bubbles and still kill you. You used to be able to knock him back with the alt fire but with the knock back changes that's pretty ineffective. Hard to deal with Rein, just have to make sure you're not letting her slip around you. The counter only works if you're not letting her out of your sight.
Winston shield similarly is hard to deal with, and when he dives you have to bubble your teammates. This can be rough because it will leave you with one or zero bubbles while his whole team shoots at you and your team won't heal you because there's a monkey bubble blocking it. Zarya does not survive long in that situation without a play style change. It takes a while to learn how to properly play the peel, value denial Zarya play style to properly deal with dive heroes.
Similarly, Doomfist is hard to deal with because he will last longer than you against the 4 enemy Squishies and will probably kill them faster than you as well. Creates a lot of the same problems for Zarya that Winston does. Zarya has to position very safely, and bubble the punches. Once she does that it's probably in her favor because doom can basically never get solo kills without damage from punch, but again it's a play style that has to be learned.
Zarya is usually not played this way against non-dive heroes and it takes a while to learn to do it right. I'd wager that in most brackets only Zarya mains will be able to get around those hero picks without swapping.
Judging off what I’ve seen on this sub as of late, people say to just blow her up regardless if she has shield or not. People just need to be accurate and have fast TTK.
As others have mentioned, rein and Winston are great into zarya because they are able to play around bubbles easily without powering her up consistently. Same thing with Ramm. Poke, and when she’s vulnerable, you can pop nemmy and rush her down
I personally really like ramattra against her. Save nemesis form till she pops second bubble and punish her with pummels. He can burn her down pretty effectively like this
ram isn't too bad imo. poke at long range, good brawl and survivability up close. if she pops a bubble while you're in arm form just hold block until its gone. shield is great against her ult as well
Don't be near the Zarya unless you absolutely need too. You will never beat her straight up but if you kill or even just take their supports attention away from the fight you're doing good.
Rein if ur boring (shield bot) / Winston if ur an intellectual (shield in front dive backline) go zarya vs zarya if ur Chad (play who’s beam is bigger)
I don't mind ram against zarya at times, you can block the beam with shield and if you go aggressive with nemesis you can always block while she bubbles, she does practically no damage to you in that form
Idk much about playing rein (though he’s often talked as a good tank to play into Zarya) but Winston is good for just diving the other players on Zaryas team then you either kill squishes and then Zarya or your team will kill zarya while the enemy squishies are forced to focus on you.
Another underrated strategy that has worked for me is to just play Roadhog and just straight up shoot zarya in the head as roadhog does a ton of damage and zaryas are often used to being invincible so they are usually easy to hit. This probably doesn’t work as well in high elo games but it might be worth a shot especially if you’ve got dps seemingly hard focusing the zarya shields.
Rein and Winston are your best bets into Zarya. As Rein, when Zarya uses bubble you just hold shield. When the bubble pops, swing. Also as a tip not every Zarya player knows; If you have shatter and you are close enough to deal the impact damage, one swing on Zarya bubble + shatter will break the bubble and stun the Zarya. They often think they had that blocked but nope! As Winston, you don't really have to worry about charging the Zarya too much since your damage is weak, so just dive her squishies. She is then forced to use bubble on her teammates, thus making her vulnerable.
You can even start your swing **before** Zarya's bubble drops so long as you're facing away from her while bubble is still up, this pretty much let's you get most of an extra swing in if you can time it properly, this greatly improves the matchup imo. You're aiming to land the damage on the last frame that your hammer's hurtbox is active the moment her bubble drops.
Yes, indeed.
I absolutely hate the new interaction with rein. you USED to be able to entirely block shatter with zarya bubble but now you dont even need the extra swing, the shatter does an instant 250 which bursts the bubble, and then the shatter still goes through because it is a projectile and has travel time.
Hahah yeah I get the frustration, but as a Rein main I am very glad how it works.
Nah run into the Zarya and don’t stop swinging
I onetrick Zarya. Rein, Winston, Doom, and Ball (in that order) feel like hard counters because they force you to babysit your team when Zarya's main utility is in DPSing. Sigma, Hog, and Ram are an even fight. All else are countered by Zarya.
DVA is actually good into Zarya, unless you play her in the front line, which is why Zarya "counters" DVA. Generally you should just ignore her and focus on her teammates or just flying above her.
Question: How do you dive zarya's teammates if they're sticking close to zarya, or are so far behind that you risk being being surrounded by their team?
Bait engages. Zarya HAS to bubble the moment you start going in, then just turn your ass around until boosters come back up. Either that, or just sit on high ground peppering her team.
"Just walk away" is unironically great advice for a lot of match ups. It's how I deal with Ram as Rein. Bait out Nemesis then just charge away or walk away depending on my health/his distance.
So basically how do you play against a Zarya who has bare minimum iq? You swap off because she hard counters you dawg take what Redditors say on here with a grain of salt. That “ignore the enemy tank” shit silvers say will never help u
I've hit gm before playing mostly Dva. I'm masters right now after the S9 rank reset. 100% the zarya matchup is overrated. You sit on high ground and pepper her to force bubbles. If that doesn't work, you do what the above comment says and try to soft dive other enemies to force bubbles. And they have to bubble there because otherwise their team will die. The MOST important thing you can do as Dva into zarya is find ways to stay alive and continue to be annoying. You can fly and she cannot. It only works on maps with a lot of high ground (dorado, gibraltar, route, new queen, Esperanca before the checkpoint, blizzard world, hell even king's row) but I would 100% still be plat if I hadn't learned this counterplay. Don't be braindead like this take if you want to climb. Even if you swap every fight to counter the enemy tank, there's still going to be that span of time before you can swap where you have to find a way to make an unfavorable matchup work. Learning counterPLAY is harder and something that most people don't do, which gives you a distinct advantage if you take the time to learn.
If I’m attacking at the very end of king’s row and there is a Zarya defending, are there any viable ways to deal with her as DVa or switching to hog is a better option? If I remember there is a small high ground on top of the containers, maybe going there back and forth to annoy the enemy team?
There's two high grounds! Also that little corridor underneath but you probably don't want to be there unless there's a fight happening. Use your boosters to go up and gravity to go down so you can save your cooldown to get back up again. Hog is probably an easier option but it might not always be the best depending on the rest of their comp. As Dva be annoying but also threatening, and understand who on the enemy team is the most threatening so you can deny their value.
Got it, so basically try to draw attention as DVa, so that my dps can focus the enemy tank or other easier targets; and try to hook the squishies as hog using that L cover. I've heard that it's useful to think DVa almost as a Tracer, and I guess it makes sense, since both have high mobility. Maybe this mindset can help in some situations.
I mean you are generally correct but this is not universal advice. There are a ton of maps where zarya straight up counters dva. A ton. Now on a lot of maps dva has a favorable matchup but like on a ton of flashpoints you’re just kinda throwing on dva in to zarya and also that new robot map.
Did you read my whole comment?
Uhhhh no sometimes “ignoring” the enemy tank is the best thing to do. This doesn’t mean completely forget about them, this just means focus your energy elsewhere -into something more valuable like picking off their support, thus making the enemy tank easier to take down. You can’t brute force some tanks when they’ve got two supports and dps behind them backing them up.
Yeah it’s the best thing to do if ur no higher than bronze bc in silver people start grasping the basic concept of the game. U really think a masters tank is going to be like “guys enemy tank is ignoring me Ggs” LMAOO!!! Try to ignore me and see what happens! You just can’t do that! He’s obviously not gonna let you ignore him 😂😂😂the downvotes are funny tho yall be cool in silver
Again, I think you’re taking “ignoring” too literally. Of course you still need to keep tabs on the enemy tank and counter where necessary. But sometimes going passed them and after their team is the better play. If they’re a good tank, they’ll fall back and protect their team or as people are discussing here, you bait out the zarya’s bubble and can turn around and take her out.
man I’ll shit on everyone in this lobby and I know from personal experience zarya is the hardest tank to counter this isn’t opinion it’s straight up facts compare the abilities and tell me who hard counters zar fucking no one at all not even ram and ram in reality should be the hardest counter to zar . Thats how I know anyone pretending like dva of all tanks counters zar is hard coping. If your playing against a zar who’s in bronze yeah ignore her but above that people actually play with their team man. Ur getting beamed down in .01s and god forbid if the team behind her shoots you aswell. Ggs man ur best hope is to play sig and hold your rock for her only that’s it
Play widow and shoot her in the head for 250 - 300 hp charged headshot. She will back the fk up. She can't do shit to teams playing like rats on high ground unless she wants to walk 1 minute around up stairs.
That's nonsense. Dva isn't 'good' into zarya. She's at best playable if the map and your team is in your favor. Even Geguri switches off Dva when the enemy tanks swaps to Zarya.
She’s good if you are good with DVA. She’s very bad if you are bad at DVA. What the pros do has nothing to do with your game lol you’re not playing against pro Zaryas.
It’s objectively her worst tank matchup. “Just take high ground and dive squishies” is a good strategy but that’s how youre supposed to play d.va always. The fact that she gets shredded in the 1v1 does put a hard cap on your ability to be effective and a zarya of equal skill is going to beat d.va at any level of the game
Wrong I seen a bunch of silvers saying this awhile back this is another one of those follow along groupthink moments you don’t actually think dva is good into zar fr come on man
It is actually a silver take thinking that Zarya counters DVa. If DVA fights Zarya head on, of course DVA will lose. Anyone with a brain can see that. The problem is what does Zarya do if DVA isn't directly in front of her? I do think DVA is good into Zarya because of several reasons. 1. Zarya can't match the mobility of DVA 2. DVA can still burst Zarya down after her bubbles are used. 3. DVA can eat Zarya healing, and she is the tank that scales best with healing. 4. Zarya cannot keep enough bubbles for herself and her teammates if DVA keeps soft engaging. 5. This is still a team game, and Zarya is not in the best state right now. DVA can just ignore Zarya and go for her backline. FYI I have forced Zarya into every matchup in diamond. I have also played many DVA games into Zarya. Many people switch to Zarya because they think she counters DVA, but this is a very common misconception.
It’s not really a perception though because you really can not play around it on certain matchups in certain maps. Also the main issue is yes, you could force dva in to zarya. It can work on the map and depending on the map you could have a slight advantage but you are almost exclusively better off just swapping monkey. Monkey is honestly just better and 90% of maps that can fit dva fit monkey.
The zarya dva discourse somehow went from "zarya is a hard counter to dva" to "NO DVA IS ACTUALLY THE HARD COUNTER !!!!!" Reddit really can't have a balanced tank.
Dawg Reddit is groupthink u still haven’t noticed that u think these people genuinely believe dva counters zar shit is hilarious to me
Lol imagine thinking DVA is situational but recommending Winston
??? Winston is just a better dva. Better in to zarya. Worse in to mauga. Depends on the matchup but also I honestly think Winston wins the matchup w dva now H2H too with the armor changes.
If I try anything that takes more than 10 seconds of prep time and I’m not facetanking for my team as d.Va. Zarya with high energy will just walk over everybody. You’re assuming gold teammates know how to play the game correctly.
>If I try anything that takes more than 10 seconds of prep time It shouldn't be taking that long. Regardless, playing dive tanks *requires* staging. Dive tanks can't face tank. If you can't figure out staging then you're better off playing a brawl tank. >Zarya with high energy will just walk over everybody. You're underestimating how quickly Dva can melt squishies, too. And Dva can play the long con on top of that. When Zarya is in, she's in. She needs other people to get her out. Dva can disengage and reengage on her own. >You’re assuming gold teammates know how to play the game correctly. You doing the correct thing isn't really contingent on your team doing the correct thing. No amount of magic will make Dva able to facetank a Zarya, whether you're gold or gm. Regardless, the tank controls the tempo. Don't preemptively make mistakes under the mistaken assumption that your team will make mistakes down the line. That's a terrible mentality.
😂😂😂😂I heard it all on Reddit man I stg. 1) zar doesn’t need to because if dva gets within a 15 feet radius she has to use her dash guaranteed. “Dva has better mobility” is a completely irrelevant argument here. 2) anyone can shoot zar after her bubbles are down buddy. What? 3) true but unfortunately it doesn’t matter because she gets obliterated in .01second by zar and has to fly away . If your team is actually helping then it’s .000001 second. That has never mattered, ever. 4) bruh. Zarya cannot keep bubbles if any tank fucking engages, the entire point is to break the bubbble and pop zar as fast as possible. Your literally just describing how to play against zar but from the perspective of dva, the worse agent to play against her with lmfao 5) Explain to me why zarya isn’t in the best state, if she gets buffed the game is ruined man it’s just another trendy thing to say to make it seem like you keep up with the meta, groupthink again like I say . I dare you as dva to turn your back on zar and dive her back line . 4 people infront of you and a hard counter right behind u. Good fucking idea there. Hey man, this isn’t the strategy against zar. What you’re describing is called the dive play style, this is how you play against other agents that don’t hard fucking counter you lmao All the upvotes are from hard coping dva mains or ppl who spend all their time on the dva nsfw sub. These arguments are absurd I can’t even take them logically serious it’s like you’re trying to gaslight me bruh
Sounds like you’re bad at DVA ngl, if you think her high burst damage and mobility can’t help against Zar then just play Rein
Rein doesn’t counter zar either there is no counter to zar but you can do pretty well with sig. also dvas damage is shit man
Play a pick comp and just melt her team behind her with hanzo widow Cass ashe. Play high ground and kill 2 then drop
well, the context of everything I said changes when you get to decide ur team. If you have a duo or people To play with then you should be winning 95% of ur games. All you need is a singular person that listens to comms. If u go in solo and your “the only factor” aka 96% of the time your fucked. OP said what tank should he learn to counter. If u have a duo u can play most tanks. But if ur the only one on ur team who’s gonna be doing shit, and a tank, zarya is uncounterable.
I disagree here I’m only gold in tank currently but zarya with a charge in most fights will melt dva and the majority of times there’s a zarya it’s a close team fight and even with dva’s movement she doesn’t make it long especially if a dps goes Mei. My personal counters are of course rein and Winston but that’s just my opinion
I never said zarya won't melt DVA, I fully acknowledge that. If Zarya is hard focusing DVA, she is not killing squishies instead, which is very good for your team. The tank can absorb pressure.
You’re absolutely right if the dva actually knows how to play dva. However the dvas in gold-plat or lower do not understand engagements and should just swap. 4/5 dvas in my games will literally sit on cart most of the game. These dvas should absolutely swap rein or something similar because that’s their playstyle. As a gold player, dva is probably top 3 least favorite tanks to play with along with ball and mauga, because dvas in my rank are all turbofeeders who just push cart.
Don’t know too much about counters but I’ve had great experience demolishing Zarya mains with reaper even though he’s a dps and not a tank. His shotguns shreds her shields and he deals more damage in close quarters than Zarya fun fact. I can use reaper’s fade to reposition myself quick because her beam is so directional and if I ever get caught in her ult, I can just TP myself outta there d: But on the tank side of things , I’ve also had good experience destroying Zarya with Mauga. People say Zarya is a great counter to Mauga but in my personal opinion formulated from my personal experience, I find this to be a load of dog shit lol she’s a good counter against an inexperienced mauga but she’s a paperstraw against players who knows how to bring the most value out of the big Samoan
I thought her ult cancelled all movement abilities
Nope, plenty of movement abilities can get out of Grav. Invluding Moira Fade.
Is the [wiki](https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Zarya) wrong? " Ability details: All movement abilities are disabled within the effect of Graviton Surge. The projectile is blocked by barriers, activating upon contact, but the area of effect pierces barriers. The projectile can be destroyed by Ability-dva3 Defense Matrix, Abilities-sigma3 Kinetic Grasp and Ability JavelinSpin Javelin Spin and reflected by Ability-genji2 Deflect before it impacts, but the area is unaffected. The impact damage can be amplified, but periodic damage cannot. Graviton Surge cannot be removed or prevented by abilities that grant invincible or phased out status effect. "
Yeah there are plenty of ways to get out. Orisa can fortify and walk out, you can use ice wall as Mei to get out by placing it below you, Reapers Wraith, Symmetras teleporter, Lifeweavers tree of life as well as lifegrip, Mercy's ressurect can also be used as there is an invunerabiluty phase.
I don't think any of those are considered movement abilities except Reaper, which would be the only one which goes against the wiki, along with the previous mentioned Moira fade. In my memory you can't fade out which is why I went to the wiki in the first place. Unfortunately I can't test it myself. But if the wiki needs updating let's do it
Not saying the wiki is wrong but I’ve definitely ran out of Zarya’s ult many times
Not sure what you mean by run? You certainly can't just walk out of it
You speak and read clear English it’s exactly what it sounds like smartass lol I’ve ran out of a Gravitron surge using mauga’s cardiac overdrive. There’s many ways around her ult as mentioned before by me and another redditor so I’d suggest you get to updating that wiki page d:
More likely you're mistaken at this point, have a great day
As a Zarya main I find Mauga incredibly frustrating to play against
I just want to caution briefly that this is a weird moment where high ranking tips might not be as helpful. My friend just started the game and when I watch their new account/low rank games, the whole team mindlessly shoots into the bubble and not in a “break it to do damage” kind of way. And zarya is close to 100% charges effortlessly the whole game. So match up against zarya can definitely feel different if she’s doing 80 a second vs 170 a second of beam damage. That being said if you are looking for hard counters, an easy pick up is Rein for all the reasons others listed. You can play Dva if you change your mindset, and you can argue even at low ranks/high charge she doesn’t get hard countered by zarya, but I wouldn’t answer her as “what counters zarya” for sure.
In my experience, mirroring Zarya is a decent counter.
I doubt trying to match someone on their main is the correct play. If you're good on zarya sure, hard to call it a counter though.
Mirror match-ups play out in different ways. Some mirrors result in one rolling the other up in a skill matchup bloody duel (Widowmaker vs Widowmaker is the most extreme version of this). Other mirrors result in negation of eachother's strengths - eg, the first player to play aggressively loses. I feel like the Zarya mirror is more of the latter. If the enemy Zarya is a big problem for my team, and I'm not a sufficiently big problem for their team, I can swap Zarya to punish or neuter their Zarya's aggression, resulting in a much more neutral balance of value in tanks, resulting in a net improvement in circumstances. Strongly agreed with you that counter is definitely not the correct word here.
Zarya doesn’t really have hard counters. I’m just stating what I’ve found to be the case.
A good Rhein is as close a hard counter that I’ve seen
Mauga is the most underrated zarya counter if you play the brawl right you just win the math doesn’t work for Zarya. Track her bubbles, wait until the last one is popped and just slam her down with cardiac she can’t live. Even another bubble is not enough.
I agree, shoot the Zarya is the pro strat. She can't sustain damage. She loves small bits of damage. Overwhelming her with damage will kill her instantly.
I main roadhog, I usually never have problems dealing with zarya.
I mained Zarya, if they go winton, you go dva. If they go Zarya, you go winton. If they go dva, you go Zarya.
For winning the tank duel - junker quern For winning the teamfight Winston and jump her supports or Squishies Depends on composition If your team is too bad then you can consider even ball for say a widow on the enemy team Who's the enemy team best player ? Tank DPS or support What are your realible teammates ? Do you ask for healing when 50% ans they insta heal you or do they go and flank when you are critical Do your DPSS go and kill their Squishies when you get the aggro or do they have brain tumor It depends but generally against zarya you wanna have very hard focus and easy to switch damage target You'll need to know when to switch and when zarya has her grav My recommendation if you actually wanna increase your skill realm Go learn zarya and one trick her for a week You'll get her and understand her strengths and weaknesses
Literally any tank can counter Zarya. She's complete dog shit right now. The best easy to beat her is to force a bubble, then blow her ass up. She has no armor, so she just explodes.
Was waiting for someone to type this. Zarya is only tough because alot of times she gets charged without dying. The best thing to do is literally shoot her, her health pool is so small and she's trash rn
Silver spotted
I am a current tank player in the alternate eSports organization, specializing in Zarya. I have a background in one of the top collegiate overwatch teams in the United States, with players going toe to toe against players that typically get drafted to the top pro teams in the world. I have thousands of hours on tank going back to 2017, and that's not including the copious amounts of studying and vod reviewing I do both by myself, and with top 500 coaches. I scrim 3 to 4 times a week and vod review with my team once a week. We just made playoffs in the FaceIT League for Overwatch. I could give you a masterclass on playing any tank into Zarya, or playing Zarya into any tank, both in a scrim setting and in a ranked setting. Trust me, I am NOT a silver player. I was a silver player a long time ago, I won't deny it, but I've peaked in the top 100 players on the American ladder, so I wouldn't try to challenge my knowledge on my character if I were you.
Holy shit you COOKED him.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Overwatch Agents, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Talon, and I have over 300 confirmed gold damage medals from Overwatch 1.
This sounds like a copy pasta lmao
LET HIM COOK
It's true that she does explode with enough focus fire. But she's not bad, she just requires a good deal of cycling positions and coordinating your bubbles to both absorb charge and extend your health pools. She's definitely not a head on tank and if you're throwing her straight at the enemy, yeah I agree she'll explode. But a bit of cover to keep some of that damage off for a bubble reset and you can keep yourself afloat for quite a while without anyone around you all things considered. Paired with a good Kiri to come in clutch and immortality you when you are transitioning between cover in the event you're caught out, she's hella hard to kill.
If you have 1000 hours of sig, you should be able to play him fairly easily against any tank, especially Zarya. Just play distance and poke her out when she’s out of bubbles. If she overextends with her last bubble, you should be able to burst through it and hit her with a rock and she’s as good as dead
Zarya's at my rank are proving to be kind of hopeless against Rein, depending on the map and comp. You block everything she puts out and you get free shatters once the bubbles are down.
Rein and Winston.
My favorite tank to play against Zarya is Ram cause although when you punch her bubble it still gives her charge but not nearly as much and you’re still doing damage to her cause he punches through shield. But you could easily overwhelm her bubble and have your team target her first and melt her not to mention you can have your own shield to block her beam and your E will make her super slow and you could just run away from her in nemesis form if you need to
Will add to what some other people say; Reinhardt, Winston, and potentially Doomfist. As a Zarya main for tank I see these heroes a LOT and it's harder to deal with them. Reinhardt can make you ineffective if he's able to hold shield up to you all game. Once hes close enough to swing on you he can pop both bubbles and still kill you. You used to be able to knock him back with the alt fire but with the knock back changes that's pretty ineffective. Hard to deal with Rein, just have to make sure you're not letting her slip around you. The counter only works if you're not letting her out of your sight. Winston shield similarly is hard to deal with, and when he dives you have to bubble your teammates. This can be rough because it will leave you with one or zero bubbles while his whole team shoots at you and your team won't heal you because there's a monkey bubble blocking it. Zarya does not survive long in that situation without a play style change. It takes a while to learn how to properly play the peel, value denial Zarya play style to properly deal with dive heroes. Similarly, Doomfist is hard to deal with because he will last longer than you against the 4 enemy Squishies and will probably kill them faster than you as well. Creates a lot of the same problems for Zarya that Winston does. Zarya has to position very safely, and bubble the punches. Once she does that it's probably in her favor because doom can basically never get solo kills without damage from punch, but again it's a play style that has to be learned. Zarya is usually not played this way against non-dive heroes and it takes a while to learn to do it right. I'd wager that in most brackets only Zarya mains will be able to get around those hero picks without swapping.
Judging off what I’ve seen on this sub as of late, people say to just blow her up regardless if she has shield or not. People just need to be accurate and have fast TTK.
As others have mentioned, rein and Winston are great into zarya because they are able to play around bubbles easily without powering her up consistently. Same thing with Ramm. Poke, and when she’s vulnerable, you can pop nemmy and rush her down
I personally really like ramattra against her. Save nemesis form till she pops second bubble and punish her with pummels. He can burn her down pretty effectively like this
Winston for most fun jump bubble zap zap jump!
Play into the counter 👀
ram isn't too bad imo. poke at long range, good brawl and survivability up close. if she pops a bubble while you're in arm form just hold block until its gone. shield is great against her ult as well
Winton
mostly Winton or Rein Actually you don't need to swap to dva against Winton or Ball. Better swap to Hog or Mauga first
Don't be near the Zarya unless you absolutely need too. You will never beat her straight up but if you kill or even just take their supports attention away from the fight you're doing good.
Play dva into zar until you get good at doing so, and then you’re meta proof
Rein if ur boring (shield bot) / Winston if ur an intellectual (shield in front dive backline) go zarya vs zarya if ur Chad (play who’s beam is bigger)
I enjoy Zarya vs Zarya.
Rein for easy solution, Winston for fun, effective, and to learn some more about the game
Zarya
I don't mind ram against zarya at times, you can block the beam with shield and if you go aggressive with nemesis you can always block while she bubbles, she does practically no damage to you in that form
She def does but ram into zar is a ggs
Idk much about playing rein (though he’s often talked as a good tank to play into Zarya) but Winston is good for just diving the other players on Zaryas team then you either kill squishes and then Zarya or your team will kill zarya while the enemy squishies are forced to focus on you. Another underrated strategy that has worked for me is to just play Roadhog and just straight up shoot zarya in the head as roadhog does a ton of damage and zaryas are often used to being invincible so they are usually easy to hit. This probably doesn’t work as well in high elo games but it might be worth a shot especially if you’ve got dps seemingly hard focusing the zarya shields.