5 Tips to Charge Up Your Zarya Play!

5 Aug 20

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DUchance

5 Tips to Charge Up Your Zarya Play!

Gain the upper hand in your ranked games by utilizing these 5 Zarya tips!

Zarya has historically been a strong pick in rush compositions when paired with Reinhardt. But, more recently, she has seen lots of play in dive compositions with either a Wrecking Ball or Winston. The impact that a good Zarya can have on a game is nothing short of a carry. During my time playing on both the ladder and semi-pro environments, there are a few aspects I noticed in great Zarya players. In this guide, I will discuss five tips to improve your Zarya play that I personally used in my climb to Grandmaster.

1. Conserve Energy After a Team Fight

Maintaining high charge as Zarya is critical to controlling the flow of the game and building an ultimate fast. Often times Zaryas will not retreat from a fight, instead opting to die on the objective or are trying to farm more ultimate charge. While these are good fundamentals to play by, it creates a significant disadvantage for your team in the next fight. If you have high charge and are able to retreat from a losing fight, do it. Entering the ensuing team fight with high charge will allow you to output significant damage without using your barriers.

Proper utilization of this tip does require a high level of game sense, though. You need to be able to recognize when a team fight is lost and has no chance whatsoever to be turned. Additionally, knowing where to retreat to is important. Always have a retreat path in the back of your mind before each fight occurs. Ideally, this retreat path would have lots of natural cover and at least one health pack.


2. Maximize Ammo Efficiency

Ammo is a resource just as health and cooldowns are. If you’re trying to climb the ladder, you need to get into this mindset. You wouldn’t enter a fight with low health or no cooldowns, so treat ammo no different. Hard engaging a team fight with low ammo is drastically lowering your elimination potential and damage output.

Poking in the pre-fight while your team stages positioning is fine. It builds your ultimate and applies pressure on the enemy team. But, if you’re poking seconds before an engagement happens, you’re taking a fight at an inherent disadvantage. Try to time reloads for the brief opportunities when you can truly do nothing, such as when an enemy breaks line of sight. If your team is fighting but not hard engaging the enemy, reload before fully committing to the fight or when you kite the enemy.

3. Rocket Jumping

By shooting Zarya’s alternate fire at your feet and jumping simultaneously, you gain additional momentum upward. Although this skill may not be very practical in every game, it does have its use cases. It ever so slightly increases Zarya’s movement speed, so it is useful to get back to the objective or retreat. If you do decide to rocket jump, make sure you’re damaging your shield health, so it regenerates before the next engagement.

Rocket jumping can also be used to gain access to high ground or other vantage points. In the pre-fight, Zarya can access high ground and poke from unusual angles. This helps control space by denying enemies access to the high ground and gives your team more map control. Mid-fight, Zarya can jump through windows and over ledges to engage. This is most commonly done to hit a Graviton Surge on the unsuspecting enemy team, eliminating the risk factor of it being eaten by Defense Matrix.


4. Keep Tab of Ultimates

Zarya’s Projected Barrier enables any teammate’s ultimate and prevents shutdowns via Sleep Dart or other forms of CC. Press tab often and note your teammate’s ultimates and what ultimates are likely to be used next fight. If Genji has Dragonblade or Pharah has Rocket Barrage, save that Projected Barrier like your life depends on it. Blocking any CC while your teammate uses their ultimate drastically increases your odds of winning the team fight.

If you are looking to use Graviton Surge, conserve both your Particle Barrier and Projected Barrier. This will allow you to play aggressive and get lots of follow up damage with the Graviton Surge. Additionally, you will enable your main tank to play aggressive with the Projected Barrier and gain ultimate charge. Remember, enemies can and will kill you when the Graviton Surge traps them, so make sure your cooldown usage respects the threat.


5. Combo Melee and Alternate Fire

Combining the damage of Zarya’s alternate fire with a melee is a high burst damage attack. Zarya’s alternate fire deals anywhere from 47 damage (at 0% charge) to 99 damage (at 100% charge), while melee deals a consistent 30 damage. There is virtually no gap between firing Zarya's Particle Cannon and the melee's activation, so the damage is dealt near instantaneously. Proper utilization of this combo will result in higher damage output, more confirmed kills, and greater conservation of ammo.

This combo is best used in 1v1 scenarios or to finish off a low health target. When fighting a high health target, it is better to reload and continue shooting than attempting this burst combo. Try to gauge if reloading or utilizing the combo will net you more kills and higher damage output. The more you play Zarya, the more familiar you will get with the combo's use cases and mechanics.

Closing Notes

This guide was a quick look into some of the more advanced techniques that any Zarya player can incorporate into their gameplay. She is an incredibly powerful hero when played correctly, and these five tips addressed game aspects that Zarya players are not utilizing. Just remember, above all else, the best way to improve at the game is to play. Thanks for reading, and good luck on the ladder!

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