OverwatchOverwatch Zenyatta Guide and Overview

Zen disproves the myth that Supports are healers. Although he is a peace-seeking monk, he’s not above eliminating his enemies with huge bursts of damage. His kit is more damage-oriented than it is healing or sustain. Between spamming primary fire and charging up a volley of orbs, Zen outputs massive amounts of damage for a Support hero.

Don’t ignore his healing, however, as the ability to passively attach automatic healing on an ally enables them to play extremely aggressively. Generally, he’ll want to position himself at the back of his team where he can launch his orbs down the main paths. When the opportunity arises, he’s a deadly flanker who often gets easy picks on enemies who forget to watch out for this dangerous Support.

TLDR

Play As

• Charge secondary fire behind cover. Never charge out in the open where the enemy can attack you.
• Discord the enemy closest to your team. The more of your allies that can attack your Discord target, the more benefit you’ll gain. 
• Use Transcendence to counter enemy ultimates. Especially when the enemy has powerful ults like Dragonblade or Graviton Surge, save Trans to save your team when they use their ult. 

Play Against

• Zen can’t escape flank and dive attacks. Coordinate with at least one teammate and surprise attack him simultaneously for an easy kill.
• Cleanse Discord by breaking LoS before committing to your attack. You don’t want to move in deep just to get blown up by the extra Discord damage.
• If you don’t see Zen, assume he is charging up a volley. Get behind a barrier and watch your flank.

Strengths

High damage

He has the highest damage output of any Support. A fully charged volley can instantly delete most heroes, and neither of his attacks have damage falloff. This makes him an excellent choice when playing Support, and you feel your team is losing because of a lack of damage and pick potential.

Discord

Zen is the only hero who can constantly boost his entire team’s damage throughout the entire match. Discord can be a reliable means of killing enemy Tanks or quickly shutting down an enemy DPS during their ultimate.

Strong defensive ult

During Transcendence, anyone in the AoE is nearly unkillable, and Zen is literally invincible. The enemy team could invest three ultimates to kill your team, only to have them all negated by your one ult.

Weaknesses

Low healing

If you play Zen, be prepared to have your team ask for a swap to a, “main healer.” Other than his ult, his healing is extremely low and slow compared to the rest of the Supports. Because of this, he is difficult to make work if your other Support isn’t doing a ton of healing.

Glass cannon

Zen has no damage mitigation, self-healing, or escape tool. He relies on his damage to defend himself. He has a large hurtbox and is always being targeted by enemy dive comps. Generally, Zen is considered an easy kill.

Poor mobility

Overwatch is full of high mobility heroes in every role. Zen is very slow-moving and has no movement abilities. The minor Perk, Ascendance, does give him limited air movement, but doesn’t give any sort of increased speed, or invincibility. On large maps or in team comps with a lot of mobility, Zen wastes a lot of time trying to catch up with the fight.

Primary Fire: Orb of Destruction

Tips for Orb of Destruction

• Higher damage per second
• • Compared to always charging up secondary fire volleys, spamming primary fire has significantly higher overall damage. 
• Target the enemy backline
• • Even though they may be more difficult to hit, his high damage and infinite range allow Zen to have the advantage in most long-range fights. 
  • In most team comps, Zen can pressure the enemy backline better than anyone else on his team.
  • The only heroes he loses to are snipers like Widowmaker because hitscans are more consistent than projectile weapons.

Secondary Fire: Orb of Destruction (Charge)

Tips for Orb of Destruction (Charge)

• Charge behind cover
• • Charging in the open gives the enemy time to shoot you while you are doing zero damage to them.
  • Stay hidden, then pop out with just enough time to line up your shot, shoot, then get back to safety. 
• Don’t break Discord LoS
• • Even though you shouldn’t be exposing yourself while charging, you should also try not to cleanse Discord from your target by staying behind cover for too long. 
  • This is particularly true when the rest of your team is already targeting the Discorded enemy.
• Duck and release
• • Zen can manipulate his head hitbox by ducking and shooting the volley simultaneously. This places his head much lower than normal and is useful for dodging enemy sniper head shots. 

[SHIFT]: Orb of Harmony

Tips for Orb of Harmony

• Harmony your flankers
• • Anytime you have allies going on flanks or diving the enemy backline, you should give them Orb of Harmony before they go in. Even if they break LoS they’ll still have 5 seconds of healing to help them survive and fight longer.
• Harmony your other Support
• • In a typical Zen comp, the 2nd Support can handle healing the rest of the team. They don’t want to waste their abilities to heal themselves, however, so Zen should always be aware of the other Support's health. Anytime they start taking damage, give them Orb of Harmony.
• Tank duels
• • If the two tanks are having a sustain battle by standing in the open and seeing who will die first, then you should leave Harmony on your Tank.
  • They’ll need the extra healing, plus Discord damage in order to win the exchange. 

[E]: Orb of Discord

Tips for Orb of Discord

• Discord target prioritization: While target prioritization is rather nuanced, here are a few guiding principles to help you maximize Discord’s power:
• • 1. Discord the most threatening enemy. Whichever enemy has the highest possibility of killing you or a teammate should be your first priority in Discord targets.
  • 2. Discord the most aggressive enemy. Most of the time, this will be the enemy pushed up the farthest into your team. 
  • 3. Discord in duels. If you end up in a 1v1, always start by getting Discord on them. 
  • 4. Discord channelling ultimates. Heroes who have a channelled ultimate like Sojourn and Genji should always get a Discord Orb as soon as you hear their voiceline. 
• Wait for the enemy Tank to push up
• • If you Discord the enemy Tank too early, they can easily hide for a second and cleanse Discord. Then you won’t be able to reapply for 6 seconds. That’s a big window in Overwatch time!
• Watch for flankers
• • As soon as you see an enemy flanking you or another ally, put Discord on them. They’ll either retreat, or they’ll be forced to deal with the extra damage and threat to their life.

(Melee): Snap Kick

Tips for Snap Kick

• Get off me!
• • Ever since Zen was given a knockback melee, his survivability has gone up. Snap Kick is very useful to keep some distance between you and your attacker.
• Combos
• • The damage plus brief movement lock from the knockback gives Zen a nice little combo: Kick + body shot deals 110 damage, and Kick + headshot deals 160 damage!
  • In small rooms or near walls, you can Kick, shoot, shoot, repeat until the enemy dies. 
• Understand the enemy's strengths. 
• • If the enemy deals more damage at close range, try to stay far enough away to never have to Snap Kick them.
  • Example: Rein or Reaper are attacking you. Don’t walk up to kick them. Keep walking backwards and only Kick them if they forcefully get into your range. 

Ultimate: Transcendence

Tips for Transcendence

• Counter ult
• • Use Transcendence to counter enemy ultimates. Especially when the enemy has powerful ults like Dragon Blade or Graviton Surge, save it to save your team when they use their ult.
• Blocked by LoS and barriers
• • Rein’s shield, Winston’s bubble and all other barriers cut off Transcendence’s healing. If you see one ally blocked by a structure or barrier, try to get around to keep them alive.
• Second chance at life
• • The most important thing in OW2 is being alive. If you’re definitely going to die, it’s worth it to use Transcendence to save yourself if the rest of your team is alive. 
  • Zen takes a long time to get back to the fight so the strategy of saving Transcendence doesn’t work out in the end. 
  • If it’s just you and one other teammate alive versus 5 enemies, then let yourself die because you’ll waste Transcendence and die as soon as it is over.
• Go forward, then retreat
• • Zen should push way up during Transcendence so his team can be in optimal range to attack during the healing ult. 
  • Just don’t forget to get back to safety before Transcendence’s duration runs out, or you will die as soon as it's over.

Minor Perks

Zenith Kick

• Better against dive comps
• • The extra knockback distance will come in handy the most when the enemy team is running dive. Keeping your distance and setting up follow-up primary fire shots is Zen’s best defense.
• Both the speed and distance of the knockback are increased.

Ascendance

• Better overall
• New positioning possibilities
• • Instead of just increasing one of Zen’s abilities, Ascendance gives him a completely new power that opens up a lot of new playmaking opportunities. 
• Hover between high ground
• • Maps with lots of high ground are usually difficult for Zen, but with Ascendance, he can keep the high ground once he has it. 
  • Example: Numbani opening capture point. Zen can use staircases to get to any of the high ground areas. Afterwards, he uses Ascendance to float between high ground to reposition for either defensive protection or an offensive attack.
• Shoot over walls and barriers
• • Charge up a secondary fire, then double jump above a wall or a barrier and attack from an angle not possible without hover.
• Find new flank spots
• • Zen loves flanking and looking to delete an unsuspecting foe with a fully charged right-click. Many maps have perimeter paths that Zen can only traverse with Ascendance. Be on the lookout and experiment.

Major Perks

Focused Destruction

• Better Major Perk
• • Increased offensive threat
  • One-shot 300HP heroes
  • • Normally, a fully charged volley will kill the standard 250 HP hero. With Focused Destruction, Zen now eliminates all heroes up to 300HP like Mei and Reaper.
  • One-Shot Roadhog
  • • A fully charged volley of all headshots on a discorded Roadhog will deal exactly 750 damage, which is Hog’s entire health pool. 
  • You can spam secondary fire more often because of the faster charge speed, but the same tips and principles apply from Orb of Destruction (Charge) tips above.

Duality

• Good in non-shield Tank matchups
• • In a Mauga mirror, for example, both Tanks stand in the open blasting each other. The extra sustain your Tank will be receiving from Duality can help them win the duel.
  • Against Barrier Tanks, you’ll be dealing less overall discord damage, and the extra sustain will be less consistent and less impactful.

The best maps for Zen allow him to abuse his superior ranged poke damage. Long sight lines and plenty of corners to peek around make it easier for Zen to perform well. Because he has poor mobility, maps with very tall high ground either leave him at a disadvantage on the floor or force him to waste time finding a long walking path up. Small maps can also prove challenging to Zen since he wants to keep his distance and has trouble dealing with flankers. Game modes with payloads give him a natural moving cover to always play around. Additionally, his team benefits from Zen sitting on cart, since it allows the rest of them to push up.

Best Maps

• Junker Town
• New Queen Street
• Midtown

Worst Maps

• Busan
• Oasis
• Dorado

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!