Overwatch Hero Guide – How to Play Zenyatta

Overwatch has some interesting support characters, and this hero guide will offer a few tips for playing as Zenyatta. This unique support hero dies with relative ease. With one of the lowest health pools in the game, Zenyatta can’t take much incoming fire, but he makes up for this weakness with the ability to heal, increase the damage of his allies (by making his enemies vulnerable) and even mount a bit of offense that some of the other support heroes can’t match.

Orb of Destruction

Zenyatta’s basic attack ability is more powerful than what you might expect from a support hero. In addition, he can charge the attack to fire them all at once (at maximum charge) to inflict a significant amount of damage. When you pair this with the Orb of Discord, Zenyatta can quickly take down an enemy, so long as he doesn’t get shot in the process.

The trick here is to stay in the back lines or behind the tank hero in your party. You want to have clear vision of all heroes on your team while inflicting damage on opposing heroes and still being able to stay away from their attacks. If you’re too far forward you will die almost instantly, but if you’re too far back you may have difficulty attacking at all. You need to find the perfect balance of when to attack and when to hang back.

Orb of Discord

You can target any enemy hero with the Orb of Discord, which increases the damage they take from your team by 50 percent. That’s a significant damage boost, but it’s balanced by the fact that Zenyatta can only target one enemy hero at a time with the Orb of Discord. Luckily you can tag an enemy hero from any distance. As long as you have a line of sight on them you can lock an Orb of Discord on the enemy and move on. It will remain on the enemy until Zenyatta dies, the enemy dies, or you move the ability to a different enemy.

It’s best to always have an Orb of Discord on an enemy. While you generally want it on the enemy your team is currently focused on, it’s better to have it on any enemy rather than not have it active at all. Let your teammates know who you’ve tagged so they can focus that enemy down and move on to the next foe. Communication with your team and moving the Orb of Discord quickly when an enemy goes down is key to using this ability well.

Orb of Harmony

The Orb of Harmony is the exact opposite of the Orb of Discord. You can target an allied party member and the Orb of Harmony will gradually heal them over time. You can target your teammates from any distance so long as you have a line of sight, but you can only heal one party member at a time. This is why you need to have a good line of sight with your entire party so you can quickly move the Orb of Harmony around as your various teammates need healing.

Just like with the Orb of Discord, you always want the Orb of Harmony to be active on a teammate. Even if that teammate has full health, it’s better to have it active on an ally rather than not using it at all. Just make sure you’re ready to move the Orb of Harmony to a teammate in need should someone else on your team take damage.

Transcendence

While Zenyatta’s ultimate ability won’t bring anyone back to life, it does make Zenyatta invincible for a short period of time, and it heals any allies within range. This is best used when your team needs to make an offensive push. Zenyatta activates Transcendence and your team moves forward getting healed as they go. Zenyatta can’t perform any actions other than movement while Transcendence is active, so use it only to push forward or heal your entire team if they’re all taking damage at once and the Orb of Harmony isn’t cutting it.

Zenyatta is not an easy support hero to play as, but he can be the most effective to your team if you’re moving around your orbs well. In addition, as an offensive support he can take down enemy heroes, providing offense that many of the other supports simply don’t have. With that said, he is one of the more difficult support heroes to play as, so you may want to check out Mercy if you’re having difficulty keeping your team alive with Zenyatta.