Equipped with an arsenal of orbs, Zenyatta can bring tranquility to his allies and rain damage upon his foes in his pursuit of transcendence. With high damage and utility, Zenyatta is an offensive support with a versatile set of abilities.

Playstyle

Due to his lack of mobility and vulnerability to flanking and snipers, Zenyatta is best at poking from afar and positioning in the backlines. With your Harmony and Discord orbs, you’ll be frequently shifting targets with your orbs to heal and focus targets accordingly, which requires a high level of situational awareness and fast decision making.

Zenyatta is unique from Mercy in the way that he can heal a chosen ally while also pelting enemies with damage. Between attacking with your Orbs of Destruction, you’ll be flicking Harmony and Discord about to passively heal and debuff while fighting. Through building up ultimate charge by damaging your enemies, you’ll prepare Transcendence, which will support your teams’ pushes and retaliate to enemy engages accordingly.

While he’s an effective healer, his heals are relatively low compared to other supports and he will likely not suffice as a sole healer for a team. He’s more efficient as a secondary support alongside Lucio, who also helps remedy Zenyatta’s lack of mobility.

Pros

High long-range damage

Can heal allies at a distance

Ultimate can sustain allies through most damage

Cons

Lacks mobility

Easily killed

Insufficient as core healer

Ability Breakdown

Orb of Destruction (Primary Fire)

46 Damage

3 orbs per second

Linear, fast-moving projectile

20 ammo

Headshot capable

Zenyatta’s primary fire is relatively powerful for a support-category hero. While his orbs lack any drop-off, they’re tricky to aim due to their fast but not instant speed. It’s easy to over-predict and lead his shots too far. Maintaining decent accuracy with Zenyatta will take practice, since his orbs behave unlike any other heroes’ weapons.

When battling enemies at close quarters, you hardly need to lead your shots at all. Be sure to weave melee strikes between your shots to maximize your damage output.

Orb of Destruction (Alternate Fire)

46 Damage per Orb, up to 5 orbs (230 damage)

Fires a barrage of orbs in quick succession

Channeled for up to 2.5 seconds

Max damage reached at 2 seconds

Consumes up to 5 ammo

Orb of Destruction’s alternate fire is a slow, channeled ability that can deliver a huge burst of damage. It’s a situational tool that should be used mostly for two purposes: peeking around corners, and anticipating a target.

Opening with a flurry of orbs as you emerge from a corner is an effective way to burst a foe. Be aware that you can only hold onto this channel for 2.5 seconds; if you think you began the channel too early in your approach, you can cancel it with a melee strike before beginning it again (noting that ammo consumed is not refunded). Peeking with your alternate fire is particularly effective against stationary targets such as Torbjorn’s turrets and Bastion.

When there’s no enemies to target with your primary fire, it’s a good idea to channel your alternate fire to prepare for enemies emerging from cover. Focus on choke points and locations you expect enemies to appear from. You should take this approach against heroes such as Mei while she’s in Cryo-Freeze, or to burst a Zarya down once her Particle Barrier expires.

It should be known that if you have less than 5 ammo remaining, you can still generate a fully-charged shot as long as you have at least 1 ammo available to begin the channel.

Orb of Harmony

Ally-targeted, single-target

30 health restored per second

No cooldown

40 metre range

Removed upon death or if line-of-sight is broken for 3 seconds

While Orb of Harmony heals less than Mercy’s Healing Beam, it’s much more versatile and enables Zenyatta to dish out heals from a distance. You’re able to switch your healing target near-instantaneously, so you’ll be wanting to keep an eye on your allies’ health bars to redirect your orb as needed.

When it comes to Harmony Orb priorities, there’s a number of factors to take into account, including:

How much health do your allies have?

How close are they to danger?

Do they have inherent damage mitigation (Shields, self-heals)?

Can they access other heals (health kits or a backline Mercy) easily?

Which allies are most prone to being targeted or focused down?

Typically, you’ll be wanting to use your healing orbs on your frontline allies (close-quarters offense heroes, tanks) as they’ll benefit the most from the regeneration and are more likely to be targeted. The orb can be placed upon full-health allies, so it can be a good idea to place it on a Reaper or Genji before they start fighting to remedy some damage. Keeping your team-fighting offense heroes healthy will sustain them throughout fights, and should be a top priority.

Tanks such as Reinhardt and Zarya are high priorities too, as they are large frontliners who can continue to position aggressively and push into the enemy team with a Harmony Orb backing them up. Heroes like McCree and Pharah are good targets, as they’re vulnerable and lack any form of self-sustain. While flankers like Tracer benefit decently from Harmony Orb, line-of-sight is easily broken and you shouldn’t overcommit to allies who will require you to position yourself too closely to danger. Keep aware of the fact that your biggest downfall is your lack of mobility.

Get used to paying attention to the Harmony Orb’s healing sound, which raises in pitch as allies get closer to maximum health, and goes silent once they’re at full health. It’s a useful audio cue that will keep you updated on the state of your allies.

If there is an ally obstructing another ally who you want to place Harmony Orb on, you can transfer it with a swift double-tap to cycle it to the second target. This occurs because Harmony Orb’s targeting reticle ignores allies who currently have it on them.

Orb of Discord

Enemy-targeted, single-target

Amplifies all damage taken by 30%

No cooldown

40 metre range

Removed upon death or if line-of-sight broken for 3 seconds

Enemies are untargetable through barriers

Orb of Discord is Zenyatta’s most potent ability, and enables you to whittle down targets much faster than usual. It behaves the same as Harmony, except it’s enemy-targeted and serves a debuff function instead.

It’s a good idea to communicate to your team who you’re placing Discord Orb on so that you can focus down individual heroes effectively. Although allies should naturally direct fire towards targets with Discord Orb on them, it can be hard for them to identify these heroes in the midst of a match. Call out your targets on your mic to raise Discord Orb’s potential and evoke a systematic approach to skirmishing.

Discord Orb will remain on targets for 3 seconds without line of sight, and discorded targets will have a red indicator above their heads (only visible to you), even through walls. Use this information to keep track of enemies while they’re behind obstacles and anticipate where they’re heading.

Also note that certain protective abilities, namely Zarya’s Particle Barrier and Mei’s Cryo-Freeze, will remove Discord Orb.

Transcendence (Ultimate)

Zenyatta becomes immune to all damage

Movement speed doubles

Creates 10-metre healing aura, healing 300 health per second

Lasts 6 seconds

Cannot be cancelled

Transcendence allows you to rapidly heal allies around you and position extremely aggressively. Typically, the best way to use Zenyatta’s ultimate is to either hold a point, fortify a push or to retaliate against enemy ultimates.

It’s important to know that barriers such as Reinhardt’s Barrier Field and Winston’s Barrier Projector will block your healing aura, acting as walls. Be sure to reposition around these accordingly while transcended.

Defensively, Transcendence is effective against area-of-effect ultimates such as Zarya’s Graviton Surge or Reaper’s Death Blossom. Since you’ll die quickly to these abilities, be ready to respond quickly if you’re caught at the forefront of one of these ultimates. It’s much better to position further behind your team when anticipating these ultimates so that you’re not caught off-guard and can move forward and heal your team once they’ve been engaged on.

Be sure to not waste Transcendence on bursty ultimates that will out-damage Zenyatta’s health restoration, namely D-va’s Self Destruct or Junkrat’s RIP-Tire. Furthermore, when it comes to using Transcendence to save yourself, evaluate whether or not it’s worth the usage. Enemy flankers may try to bait it from you to create an advantage. Try to save it as a final resort in personal near-death situations, like a Tracer or Winston flank.

Transcendence also enables you to body-block enemy projectiles and ultimates. You may choose to align yourself in front of an ally to block a Roadhog’s hook or any other projectiles, which will displace but not harm you while invulnerable. You can also block enemy projectiles from the source, such as positioning yourself directly in front of a McCree during Deadeye to tank the shots or prevent his targeting. Be sure to also capitalize on Zenyatta's insane speed buff, which'll enable you to dive in and save your allies from danger. Pay close attention to the radius of your heal so that you can constantly reposition to keep scattered allies alive as you effectively poke them with your aura.

General Tips

Thanks to Zenyatta’s levitation, he produces no footstep noise. Situationally, this may help you stealthily burst a target with your alternate fire!

While it may be tempting to poke at snipers with your Orbs of Destruction thanks to their linearity and accuracy, know that you’re an easy target for a Hanzo or Widowmaker.

Due to your lack for mobility, keep aware of the potential angles that enemies can attack you from. If an opponent attempts to flank you, be prepared to move into cover at a moment’s notice or collapse behind your teammates for safety.

Zenyatta is a unique support who can keep his team alive while marking individual opponents for death. Through well-placed orbs, careful positioning and thoughtful target selection, Zenyatta can transcend beyond his opponents and attain victory!

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