#barrier guide

Our Buff, Pink Play of the Game Machine, Zarya, is, at least in my expert opinion, one of the best DPS heroes in the game. She's the only DPS hero capable of protecting her teammates and saving their lives, she's extremely bulky, and she happens to posess possibly the most game-changing ultimate.

But Mars, Zarya is a tank, you might be saying to your computer screen. You've been playing her for almost 800 hours and you don't know that?

...Well, she's both. She's what you call an offensive tank.

What is the function of a tank?

Tank heroes lead the team into battle and initiate fights while assisting their teammates. They often guard the objective and stay near or on it in defense, and their ultimates generally are meant to be combined with others.

There are two types of tanks in Overwatch - Offensive tanks, as I mentioned before, and Supportive tanks. Each tank has a different balance of offensive and supportive capabilities.

For example, Roadhog is a highly offensive tank that offers a type of support - his hook, and his ultimate - that is very situational. He can do a lot of damage, but isn't the best at protecting teammates unless he uses his body (which is something he's meant to do, because he can heal himself!). Using him alone isn't really a good idea as he'd die pretty often without the protection of a second tank's barriers.

Orisa, a newer tank, is more of a supportive tank. She does decent damage, but her main focus is to boost ally damage and protect them with her barriers, along with displacing enemies with her gravitons. Winston is also supportive, because he does very little damage but has a primary role of displacing and distracting enemies by diving into their defense. He's kind of like Tracer, meant to annoy and distract (but bigger and hairier).

Reinhardt, D.Va, and Zarya, are all fairly balanced in offense and support, and can be used in a lot of different situations as the team's only tank. (Yes, Zarya can solo tank.) Sometimes players who main these tanks can solo carry their teams - I do it all the time with Zarya.

Stay on topic, Mars, you're probably saying to yourself. How do you constantly beat Genji, Reaper and Soldier for gold damage and eliminations?

All right, all right, keep your Adidas tied.

The secret is.…energy.

That’s all! Just keep your energy high and aim that molten death ray right at their trunks, and watch them fry like ants under a magnifying glass. (because Zarya can’t do critical damage. I have a habit of aiming for heads anyway  cuz I like to melt their FACES OFF--cough)

BUT MARS, you’re yelling as you punch your monitor. I can never get as much energy as you! I’m not good enough!

First of all, yes you are. With practice and perseverance, you can have average energy of over 40% per game. You just have to know all the cool places you can get your charge from!

Second of all, refer to my point of advice about barriers to learn a bit about how they work, and the three ways I time my barriers. Practicing those methods, along with timing them and switching between them in fights, is one of the simplest ways I maintain energy.

What I didn’t really go into with that post is how these barriers turn damage into energy. They’re pretty simple, though, so I’ll just go over it real fast:

Bubbles and Damage-to-Energy Conversion

Zarya’s bubbles have 200 hp each, but deal with damage dealt to them in two ways. 

The first way is essentially giving yourself or your ally 200 extra hp for 2 seconds. If depleted of their hp with 200 damage during these two seconds, it is ensured not only that the barrier is destroyed, but that Zarya gets a full 40 charge for her energy reserve.

No matter what or how, if your barrier is destroyed (it will actually make a crumbling noise if you’re listening for it) you win 40 points of energy - and you probably just blocked a fatal shot for someone, so good job.

However, let’s say someone uses an ultimate that can do over 200 damage with one blow. Even if you’ve taken some damage to your barrier before that blow, you will absorb damage that transfers into energy, and negate any extra damage. 

Example: Pharah uses her Rocket Barrage on you. Each rocket does 40 damage, so when 5 rockets hit Zarya’s bubble, it pops.

Let’s say D.Va uses her ultimate. Instead of multiple small blows, it’s one large blast of 1000 damage. 

"Nerf this!”

Notice that the second D.Va tries to activate, she starts to shoot you. If she’s a good D.Va, she knows you wanna block the damage and she’s going to try to bust your bubble early - but even if she gets a shot or two off and damages the barrier slightly and does one damage, it will still absorb 199 damage and negate the other 801 damage from her self-destruct.

In other words, Zarya’s barrier is the biggest reason she’s considered a D.Va counter, because her ultimate is useless against them - and two well placed barriers can save your entire team from her ult’s blast.

“Consider it nerfed, bunny bitch.”

This works on anything that does more than 200 damage, as long as it does that damage with one hit. Keep that in mind and practice protecting teammates from D.Va and Reinhardt.

Sources of Energy

Symmetra and Torbjorn turrets Time your barriers and damage to turrets by letting them destroy your barriers, then blowing them up with their own juice. One well-placed shot of Zarya’s secondary fire, even with low or no energy, can clear a minimum of a 2 meter radius of Sym turrets.

Genji Deflect Ever see a Genji try to deflect at you as Zarya, when you’re using your primary fire? Consider tossing a grenade at him as you barrier yourself. -wink-

Dead Junkrat Bombs When I have bubbles and am about to finish Junkrat, I just stand over his body and activate them. I’ve saved allies who were too slow to react to such a situation as well. This gives a full 40 charge. Dragonstrike You can let the dragon consume you safely for 2 seconds - cross the area Hanzo’s trying to zone you away from in style

Molten Core Torbjorn’s ult can be a pain - but can be walked over with your bubbles and give you a nice charge.

Dynamite Ashe’s dynamite will burn what it hits over time - a simple bubble can cure you or a teammate of its effect. However, if you manage to use your bubble before the dynamite explodes, standing over it to cover it, you can protect everyone within its radius from its burning effect and get some charge from it. (Curing a burn post-explosion doesn’t give you energy.)

Dealing with Minefields When Wrecking Ball ults, you can take out and absorb damage from two bombs with your bubble before it breaks. You can also ask a teammate to clear two more of the bombs while bubbled for some free charge. If they’re not cleared right away by someone else, they usually stay in play long enough to do this twice. Dealing with Sombra’s EMP Sombra’s ultimate is special in that it depletes enemies with shield HP, like half of Zarya’s HP, in one shot. (Zarya’s shields will still regenerate naturally if she avoids damage while hacked)

The other thing it does is destroy Reinhardt, Orisa, and Winston’s barriers in one blow if they’re active. It also deactivates D.Va’s, and of course, Zarya’s... but only Zarya has a last ditch defense when EMP activates.

Sombra’s EMP doesn’t simply deactivate barriers - it in fact destroys barriers by depleting them of all of their HP, then deactivates your abilities. However, this instant depletion of HP counts as damage toward the barrier - which means if Zarya’s barriers are active before EMP activates, she has the opportunity to add up to 80 to her charge, giving her a strong self-defense while she’s hacked. 

Use that opportunity to distance yourself and try to do some tanking before you likely get wiped (because emp’s frickin’ devastating regardless if Zarya gets hacked and focused so good luck) 

(That’s it for now - If I think of more I will update, of course. Please reblog and share this around if you learned something!)