Zenyatta’s overall gameplay design is very well thought out. He’s a threat that must be dealt with, lest your team gets ravaged by a damage dealer or tank with Orb of Harmony, shredded by his Orb of Discord, and destroyed by his excellent long range DPS. To counterbalance this, his death removes his Orbs, he only has a total health pool of 150, and he lacks any movement or escape options, making him a pretty easy kill if an enemy can manage to get in range - and Zenyatta tends to play as far back as he possibly can.
However, there are options available to patch up Zenyatta’s one weakness, which is his survivability, and he is an overbearing influence on matches without it. The most obvious way is with Symmetra’s shield buff. This puts Zenyatta at 200hp, and this makes him and other 150hp heroes so much stronger that teams have been running attack Symmetra purely to buff them. Indeed, the most dominant attack team composition for the last few weeks has always involved double Zenyatta+a Symmetra, with the other slots fluctuating between Genji, Tracer, Lucio, and the occasional tank.
The other way is simply to be organized. In competitive matches, it’s completely possible to flank and kill Zenyatta – but the odds aren’t in the flankers favor. Getting in, killing Zenyatta, and getting out can be a tough task when Zenyatta is well positioned and his team is ready to protect him at a moment’s notice. Zenyatta is also perfectly capable of punishing flankers by his lonesome, killing them in just 3 hits of his primary fire, or 2 with a headshot. While he should lose a 1v1 where both players hit all of their shots, he harshly punishes a single mistake. In addition, his Orb of Discord grants him a “wall hack,” showing him where the affected enemy is at all times. If Zenyatta catches sight of an enemy flanker and Discords them, it makes it virtually impossible for them to get the jump on him, and this is compounded by communication, which effectively grants the wall hack to his entire team.
When competitive player Coolmatt69 was asked about Zenyatta, he said that “The big problems with him are that his projectile-based, high damage primary fire with no damage falloff allows him to deal damage on par with DPS classes at all ranges. Those factors, along with his huge magazine size, make him a great spammer, and spam is very important in competitive gameplay. Discord gives too much of a damage boost, and the wall hack tied to it makes it too hard to flank him. And while he’s doing all of this, he’s passively healing his team with Orb of Harmony.”
It seems that Zenyatta may simply be doing too much, too well. While Orb of Harmony has excellent synergy with other heroes such as Genji and Tracer, and was probably the focus for Zenyatta complaints just a month ago, his kit in general might just be a bit too strong. He deals excellent damage at all ranges, and that might be too much when combined with everything else he offers his team.
TviQ/Pluppie offers solid input, with foresight that covers the possible consequences of some common suggestions: "Blizzard is reluctant to add damage falloff to projectiles, so if they wanted to change his damage, they could instead lower the speed of his projectiles. This would nerf his long range damage, without hurting his short-mid range damage too much. Even if they gave him falloff or slower projectile speed, he'd still be fine with 150hp. But his damage is what makes him fun to play, so it shouldn't be nerfed too hard. However, I agree with people when they say that Zenyatta has a kind of orb-and-forget playstyle - his orbs are too strong right now, and they could stand to be changed to give him a more active playstyle. If orbs were changed to force him out of position more often, he might need more than 150hp to be viable."
Keeping Zenyatta's ability to dish out decent damage should certainly be a consideration. Lucio's damage was only recently nerfed into oblivion, which made him a lot less fun to play while significantly lowering his skill cap. It would be a shame if Blizzard went overboard with changes to Zenyatta's damage as well.
Those factors, along with his huge magazine size, make him a great spammer, and spam is very important in competitive gameplay.
If I was to suggest changes to Zenyatta, I would try to retain the delicate balance that enables his current playstyle, first and foremost, rather than nerf him into irrelevance. That means not making “trades,” ie: a nerf here for a buff to his survivability, as that would alter his unique playstyle, but the reality is that such changes may be neccessary, as his present playstyle may be impossible to keep balanced.
Some notable suggestions are:
- A slight (around 5 second) cooldown on Orb of Discord, a nerf to 33% extra damage taken instead of 50%, and removal of the "wall hack." The cooldown would make Zarya’s new “cleanse” with her Projected Barrier an effective counter to Orb of Discord. The nerf to Discord's overall power is necessary to bring it more in line with Mercy's damage boost and make it less of a hard counter to tanks, while the removal of the "wall hack" makes Zenyatta more vulnerable to flanks, as he should be.
- Long-range damage falloff and/or lowered projectile speed on his primary fire. His long range damage/spam is too effective when combined with everything else he offers his team.
- A nerf to his magazine size. 20 shots is just far too much, and his present magazine size was clearly implemented with his alternate fire in mind, but his primary fire has turned out to be used far more often. It could be halved to 10 without significantly reducing his power.
- Change the way his orbs work to give him a more active playstyle, for example giving them limited duration to force him to re-apply them often.
Whatever happens, it’s clear that something should be done, whether it's to Zenyatta or the heroes he synergizes with, as Zenyatta simply dominates competitive play. Blizzard has been busy balancing and re-balancing Genji, but Zenyatta has always been Genji’s great enabler. It remains to be seen if they’ll move their gaze to robo-monk anytime soon.
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