Overwatch - Top 500 Zenyatta guide by Blowtorches

Hello,

My name is Blowtorches and I go by the Battletag, ItzAmm#2367. I am both a support and tank player who got top 500 rank 398 on my main account and on my alt I reached GM with a 70% win rate on Zenyatta. This is going to be an in-depth guide on everything related to Zenyatta that I can think of. This guide will be broken into sections: Job, synergies, when to pick zen, abilities, ult usage, positioning, and lastly aim.

This guide will be broken into sections: When to pick Zenyatta, Job, Synergies, Abilities, Ultimate Usage, Positioning, Aim, and Tips at the end

Zenyatta Information

• 200 Hitpoints
• 50 health
• 150 shield
• Primary fire: 46 damage body shot 92 head shot

When to pick Zenyatta

To start off, I will explain when you should pick zen. During mercy meta, for now, She is irreplaceable, so the Zenyatta takes place of the off healer which is either Lucio or Zenyatta. On maps with long lines of sight such as Junker Town's first point, Zenyatta works better than Lucio. However, on closer maps or 2cp Lucio works better because of speed boost. When you have slow tanks that can't get through the choke, Lucio is better than Zenyatta, and you should just swap off. However, if u have diving tanks and ur team does not need the speed boost (which is the only reason you pick Lucio) then take Zenyatta

Your job as Zenyatta:

Your job as Zenyatta is to give your team advantages through the use of discords and harmony orbs; also, hold your trance to negate combo ults or ults in general such as Grav Blade or Nano Tac. Remember that your Transcendence is healing, not shields If enough damage is done, your team can be killed through it. If they have pharah and Zarya ult up. DONT TRANCE. your team will die through trance healing and you would have wasted an important ultimate. In order to know this, you must keep a track of the enemy ults in order to find out whether or not u should trance

Abilities:

Zenyatta has three abilities

• Harmony orb
• Discord orb
• Transcendence

Harmony orb

• Single target
• 30 Healing per second
• 120 meters per second
• 40 meters maximum range
• Heals for 3 seconds out of LOS
• Tracks position out of LOS

Harmony priority

1. Healer in combat
2. flanker in combat
3. tank in combat
4. flanker poking
5. low hp target out of the fight
6. low hp tanks
7. anyone else

Harmony Usage

*Harmony Flankers to make them harder to kill *Harmony DPS to make them win 1v1's *Harmony healers to allow them to survive dives *Harmony tanks when the other two dont need it

Discord Orb

*Single target *30% increase in damage taken *120 meters per second *40 meters maximum range *Debuffs for 3 seconds out of LOS *Tracks position out of LOS

Discord usage:

Discord targets your team is focusing and always have someone discorded. To start it doesn't matter what, you should NEVER not have someone discorded if you can see them. Don't waste your abilities

Discord myth: you have to call out your discords

Truth: only call out important targets or else you flood voice comms

Discord priority

1. Enemy Ulting
2. Enemy engaging on you
3. healer your team is attacking
4. dps your team is attacking
5. tanks your team are hitting
6. anything else

Ult Info:

• 300 healing per second
• Movement increased to 11 meters per second
• 10-meter radius, so 20 meters total
• 6-second duration
• Immune to damage and stuns.
• Can be hooked, pushed, trapped, etc
• Requires 2075 points in order to use

List of ults trance can heal through:

• Genji blade
• Reaper death blossom
• Soldier 76 tactical visor
• Sombra EMP. (If u trance before the emp goes off you can win your team the fight BUT it's very risky as your team might not be able to kill as they enemy team can disengage and wait out your trance for a blade or grav. I wouldn't recommend trying this out)
• Hanzo dragon strike
• Mei blizzard
• Torbjorn molten core
• Orisa supercharger. (SOME HEROES CAN KILL WITH IT BUT NOT ALL, LOOK BELOW FOR DAMAGE BOOST COMBOS)
• Reinhardt earth shatter ( he can still kill with charge)
• Roadhog whole hog
• Winston primal rage
• Zarya graviton (no combo)

Common combo ults you can heal through:

• Nano visor
• Nano reinhardt
• Nano whole hog
• Grav blade
• Grav hanzo strike
• Grav blossom
• Nano Death Blossom

Ultimate Combos, Ultimates, and other stuff you can't heal through with trance:

• Graviton Surge + whole hog (if he is point blank range he can kill)
• Graviton Surge + nano whole hog (graviton keeps them close so he will rip ur team to shreds)
• Nano Boost + Dragonblade
• Reinhardt's Charge
• D.va Self Destruct
• Tracer Pulse bomb
• Junkrat Rip Tire
• Pharah barrage
• Ana's biotic grenade
• Nano hanzo strike does exact amount of healing so it negates it.
• Widow headshot charged
• Hanzo headshot charged
• Hanzo Scatter
• Bastion: Configuration Tank's direct shot
• Doomfist Rocket Punch
• Doomfist Meteor Strike
• Junkrat's one shot combo
• Junkrat Trap + mine or grenade (if done fast enough)
• Mcree Highnoon
• Reaper point blank headshot
• Road Hog hook combo + damage boost
• Genji's right-click dash combo
• Genji right click + damage boost
• Environmental kills obviously

For 150hp heroes

• All of the above
• Mccree headshot + dmg boost
• Mei icicle headshot
• Pharah direct shot
• Soldier 76 Helix Rockets
• Road Hog left or right click
• Symmetra right click + dmg boost
• All of Junkrat's kit when damage boosted

Rule of Thumb

If the damage is burst damage then it will kill through your transcendence if the damage comes out in chunks that do damage > target's max hp in like half a second then it will not kill through transcendence.

Most important thing to note:

Check if they have an Ana. If they have an Ana, make sure she does not have her Biotic Grenade. If she does and you pop transcendence she can stop the healing, thus, making your ult useless.

Aggressive uses of trance:

• Trance in order to initiate a fight. If they have a Zenyatta, the person who ults 2nd wins.
• In order to touch a point to proc overtime
• Trance in reaction to enemy trance
• To save your life when getting dove. (I would not always throw away my ult, but if I think I can win the fight if I trance instead of dying a tracer I would use it)
• Transcendence + Blade

Ultimate Usage:

Zenyatta's ult offers an insane amount of healing, use this to negate enemy ultimates. If you know that an enemy has a tactical visor or blade, position yourself to react towards it and avoid dying while its up. Also, you can use your ultimate in order win fights through its healing by popping it at the start of the fight.

Positioning: There are two different types of positioning

• far away from your team and enemy team

First of all, let me explain when you stay far away from the battle. In general, you should always be far away. Zenyatta has no drop off on his healing, discord, or harmony so there is no point of staying close to the battle. Instead, take high grounds away that give you long sight lines of the fight in order to stay safe and do your job. For example, on points like Defense Numbani, the capture point, you can stay top left. This allows you to spot flankers coming in from main, top left and far right all while staying safe and being able to land shots.

On maps that you can't accomplish this go to number 2 if you are being Dove go to number 2 as well

• close to your team away from enemy team

this allows you to protect yourself from dives; however, you will be prone to more damage than the first form of positioning. Generally speaking, you want to be 5-10 meters from your team and never hug them, to avoid splash damage.

TARGET PRIO AND AIM

As Zenyatta, your target priorities is very situational and takes some thought.

First of all, there isn't one set order for priorities. Instead, you should focus the highest priority target without putting your life at risk. Focus healers, DPS, then tanks but don't put your life at risk. If you can choose to hit mercy or a Rein shield, choose the one that does not put your life at risk; if neither of them do, chose mercy.

Aim: aim is broken into two parts your primary fire and alternative fire

Primary fire:

When poking spam spam spam spam spam When fighting, Take your time with shots in combat in order to land them. There is no point in firing off 10000 shots if only 1 of them land.

Alternative fire:

When poking charge your right click at corners or doors so that it can hit people, aim at necks so that you have a higher chance of landing headshots

When peeking corners ALWAYS charge your right-click; if they are just walking around, it will kill them.

Zenyatta Synergies

• Genji. He works well with him because genji is a flanker so he benefits from the orbs more than others
• Tracer. she works well with him because she is a flanker so she benefits more from the orbs than others
• Sombra. she works well with him because she is a flanker so she benefits more from the orbs than others
• DoomFist. The harmony orb allows him to go more Rambo while being healed at the same time
• D.Va. discord allows her to properly assassinate targets with her e + left click
• Lucio. provides proper peel for him from flankers with boop.
• Mccree. provides peel from divers with flash
• Pharah. harmony allows her to survive more against hitscan. Discord allows her to one shot anything thats 150 hp
• Reaper. (lucio works better) harmony and discord allows him to rip the enemy team to shreds if he isnt being focused down
• Winston. discords allow his gun to actually do some damage
• Mercy. valk + harmony orb = immortal mercy
• Soldier. the biotic field allows you to survive more against flankers

Zenyatta sucks with...

• Ana. Both supports need peel cause they lack mobility
• Bastion. Bastion needs peel, zen can't offer that
• Hanzo. when he gets picks, the lack of speed boost makes it hard to initiate and benefit from the picks. on defense its good tho.
• Junkrat. Lucio works better.
• Mei. lucio works better so that you can abuse her ice block and stall potential.
• Orisa. too immobile, needs Lucio to be useful.
• Reinhardt. same as orisa.
• Road Hog. speed boost allows road hog to do more than discords.
• Symmetra. speed boost allows her to do more than discords because it makes her VERY hard to hit. plus you want to run sym plus 1 heal only.
• Torbjorn, takes spot of healer so zen sux cause he cant solo heal.
• Widowmaker. even though it makes it easier to get kills, lucio speed boost does more for her.
• Zarya. Speed boost when she is 100 charge allows her to do ALOT OF WORK.

** Zenyatta does good against**

• Bastion. no fall off so he rips bastion to spread
• Dva (rips D.va's mech to shreds if she is not diving you)
• Doomfist. discord him and force him to play passive.
• Pharah. makes her more vulnerable to hitscan
• Soldier. discord in ult and he is one dead soldier
• Mcree. Discord him, allows divers to deal with him properly

Zenyatta does bad against

• Tracer. Can easily one clip you. Very hard to kill her unless you are really good.
• Genji. Deflect can make you instakill yourself and he can easily kill you.
• Winston. if he isn't careful, he will insta die when he jumps in
• D.va ( boosters + missiles + left click and you are one dead omnic)
• Reaper ( close range you stand no chance) shot gun rips u apart.
• Symmetra. no way for you to peel yourself other than trance.

How to deal with bad match-ups

• Tracer: discord, headshot + melee one shots her. Stay VERY far away so that she has to dedicate to kill you. If you cant stay away from her, stay next to Mcree.
• Sombra: If she EMP's you die. Nothing I can think of other than healing.
• Genji: DO NOT RIGHT CLICK AT HIM IF YOU DID NOT SEE HIM DEFLECT. Same thing as tracer
• Winston: stay out of his leap range or next to your team so that they can peel for you
• D.va: Stay out of boosters range or next to your team so that they can peel for you
• Reaper: STAY AWAY
• Symmetra: If she latches on to you, discord and call out for your team to kill her. No healing in the game can save you. Mcree does well to peel you with flash + fan the hammer

Edit: Tips and layout more incoming

Tip

• If you are not shooting charge your right click especially when peeking corners
• If you get hit, hide behind corners so that your hp can regen
• HAVE FUN

SPECIAL THANKS TO /u/CarnationsPls for the layout guide :) Also Thanks to /u/hoilori for the addon

SOURCE