If you have watched a competitive Overwatch match lately, you have likely seen a Zarya on the victory screen. In fact, it has become increasingly rare that at least one team isn't running the black hole throwing menace. Quite a number of recent matches between the highest caliber teams have been decided by clutch Zarya play. And while Zarya is effective elsewhere and frequently played by the average player, her level of success by the average player doesn't even compare to her outstanding performance in professional play.
But why is this the case? Unlike Reinhardt and Mercy, who see almost 100 percent playrate in pro leagues, the reasoning behind what advantages Zarya brings is a little more complicated. There are likely several reasons why Zarya excels in a professional team much more so than the typical pub and casual environment and why she probably won't be disappearing from the professional scene anytime soon, even if she sees nerfs.
The first reason why Zarya is so effective in competitive play is her ability to completely negate plays by the enemy with her barriers. Because the barrier will prevent damage and disables entirely until it is popped or expires, it can prevent instant death things such as snipers or RIP tires. However because the barriers have a short duration and a long cooldown, it can be quite difficult to effectively deny damage. At the professional level, players have the reflexes to shield teammates as they see projectiles in the air as well as the game knowledge to know when an ally will be focused by the enemy. Professional players also tend to have the communication skills to use the Zarya shield to be aggressive. One example of this is the increasingly popular Lucio/Zarya/Reaper combo, where Lucio speeds up Reaper with Zarya's shield on Reaper to set up the normally risky Death Blossom. The shield also has the ability to protect the ever present Mercy until she gets Resurrect off. A well played Zarya can force the enemy team to resort to Widowmaker sniping or similar unpredictable instant kills to remove the Mercy.
Zarya's self shield also compensates for her lower hp than her counterparts in the tank class.Good timing of her aggression can be nearly impossible to take down. In duels with Zarya, professional players are much less likely to waste her self shield cooldown. Traditionally strong duelists like Genji or Soldier can get completely negated if their burst is caught by the shield, and disablers like Mcree and Roadhog can get their stuns negated with fast reflexes. Where as a less skilled player may get killed after their shield runs out or bursted down before they can even get their self barrier off.
Zarya's methods of damaging the enemy set her apart from the other members of her class. Her secondary fire is a lobbed projectile, making her the only tank with a source of long ranged damage.. Zarya has incredibly safe poke that is relatively easy to land, as well as shoot over obstacles and hit multiple targets. Because of the lobbing nature of the projectile, combined with Zarya's regenerating shield and barrier, it is impossible to stop Zarya from poking with anything short of concentrated fire from a Bastion. What really sets a skilled Zarya apart from the rest is the player's ability to track targets with her primary fire, a laser stream that fires at the cursor. This beam is very narrow, and keeping it on a fast moving target at close range can be difficult. The maximum range is also visually deceptive, which means part of mastering its use means learning how much space between Zarya and the target that this attack is still effective. Yet even though these weapons are strong on their own, the energy mechanic attached to them is what allows Zarya to do offense class levels of damage. Energy increases damage by 1 percent per point of energy, up two 100 percent extra damage at maximum charge. The explosion radius of her lobbing attack is also increased. Energy gained by using her barriers to their maximum effectiveness that is typical of professional players can cause Zarya to hover at high energy for unusually long periods of time. This makes her extremely dangerous, as the small amount of poke turns into Junkrat-like bombs that take of a third of a characters health and turn her laser that normally takes a few seconds to kill Genji into a death ray that can melt a Roadhog in frightening speed. Like the defensive and play enabling properties of good barrier use, the ability to maintain high energy makes Zarya much more dangerous in the professional environment.
Another difference between the average Zarya and the pro scene is use of Zarya's ultimate. Zarya is similar to Reinhardt in that her ultimate must be supported by her teammates to get the maximum effectiveness. Unlike the disorganization that casual or even weaker teams in the scene have, proper followup damage to the Gravition Surge almost always results in a victorious fight. Luminosity for example almost always capitalize properly on this ability by quickly positioning their players to fire into the clumped up enemies provided by this ultimate. This is accomplished tactics like saving their other ultimates to use at the same time or by getting angles to fire behind a shielding Reinhardt caught in the surge. Another tactic used by highly skilled teams that is almost never used elsewhere is timing the Gravition Surge duration and using Reinhardt's Earthshatter as the pulling effect ends, creating an even longer disable that ensures no retaliation from the opposing team. Zarya's ultimate has one more difference that makes pros many times more effective on this character. Because Graviton Surge has a longer cooldown that most other ultimates, pro level matches see many more surges than games most players in casual games do. This happens because pros can play much more aggressive and know how to avoid getting punished while doing so. Combined with their superior aim, causes the surge to charge much more quickly. Average first ult timings on Zarya in pro matches are getting more and more impressive, sometimes seeing the Gravition Surge ready during the first couple of minutes, with the next charge in a fight soon after the first use.
Finally, all of these traits come together to complete a very versatile character. Unlike most of Overwatch's lineup, Zarya doesn't specialize in anything. She has some of the team defending abilities of a support, some of health and durability of a tank, a portion of the poke and choke point control of a defense, and a small portion of the ability to rush forward and do a lot of damage like an offense class. This makes her fit in any lineup, as she has no glaring weaknesses. While she doesn't function well as a main tank, source of damage, area denial, or mobile damage, the fact that she has a little of everything allows her supplement a team that likely already has filled all of those roles nicely. Combine that with her incredibly powerful yet team coordination dependent ultimate make the reasons behind her competitive success more clear. All characters are obviously much better in the hands of a pro. However, the difference of Zarya's impact in casual to competitive situation is much more drastic than perhaps the entire rest of the cast. Even if she were to ever receive nerfs at some point, as long as the mechanics of her abilities remain the same expect Zarya to remain a mainstay of tournament play.
No comments:
Post a Comment