When it comes to ultimates in Overwatch, it's hard to beat the effectiveness of a well-timed, well-placed Graviton Surge. A powerful ability that can hold your opponents in place for a few seconds, there's no better tool in the game to set the enemy team up to take a ton of damage. As a Zarya player, it's a matter of pride to land some juicy Gravs, which is why it's extra-disappointing when you barely get value out of one. As an off-tank player, I understand that feeling aplenty, and would like to share 4 key tips with all of you so that you can land the best Gravs possible. Let's begin.
1. Always have high energy when you Grav
A common mistake I see Zarya players make is throwing out Gravitons when they're low on energy. This is a poor decision on multiple levels, especially if you're not planning to combo the Grav with something.
First of all, if you're playing with randoms, there's no telling whether or not your Grav will be followed-up on, so if you just throw one out there and hope for the best, you'll probably have wasted the slowest-charging ultimate in the game.
Secondly, Zarya has a crazily-high damage output at high energy, so why wouldn't you want to spend a few extra seconds building up that damage before you press Q? A few right clicks into the Grav after that should be more than enough to spell doom for all the squishies caught in there.
2. Try to Grav smarter, not bigger
The main appeal of Graviton Surge comes from how big of a spectacle it can be if you catch multiple enemies in it and finish them off. However, some players tunnel-vision onto landing those fat Gravs, and end up holding their ult for way too long waiting for that perfect opportunity. Remember that if you can win a team fight off of the Grav alone, it's probably a good idea to use it provided you're not planning to combo it with something. It's also important to consider what kind of composition you're playing against. If you're trying to beat a Dive comp for instance, you probably won't get a chance to land fat Gravs anyway, in which case you'll have to wait for moments in which one or two of your opponents are vulnerable and Grav them; or maybe you save your ult to trap that pesky Genji when he blades (if you don't have a defensive ult that is). Sometimes, and I'm not specifically talking about Dive anymore, I go for cheeky flank-Gravs if the enemy frontline is too far forward and cannot peel for their backline. It's quite unexpected and works like a charm. What I'm trying to say is that there are many ways to use a Graviton Surge, and that the thought processes behind their use vary from player-to-player. Get creative and focus on getting the most value out of your Grav rather than the most kills, because all that really matters is winning the team fight.
3. Be disciplined if you're trying to land a combo
It's the greatest feeling in the world when you pull off a planned/coordinated play in Overwatch, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to combo your Graviton Surge with another ability/ultimate. That said, if you've decided to combo the Grav with something like a Dragonstrike, EMP, or even an Antinade, make sure you use your Grav exactly as planned. Remember that whomever is going to combo with you will be expecting you to Grav in such a way that they can easily follow up, so if you mess up your plan and fail, it could result in your ult economy being completely ruined.
4. Force out or nullify key cooldowns and ultimates before you Grav
When you finally land a good Grav, you want to make sure that your enemies are vulnerable to the damage that follows, which is why you should make sure that they don't have any tools that are strong enough to counter your ultimate or combo.
Generally, these are the abilities/ultimates you need to watch out for:
-Zenyatta's Transcendence
-Lucio's Sound Barrier
-Baptiste's Immortality Field
-Zarya's self and allied bubbles
-Rein, Orisa, Winston and Sigma's Barriers
-D.Va's Defence Matrix
-Sigma's Kinetic Grasp
These abilities can either block your follow-up damage, sustain your enemies through it, or eat your Grav entirely, so make sure that none of them can be a problem to you when you press Q. Naturally, not all types of Gravs or combos need to worry about all those abilities. For instance a Grav+Anti combo needn't worry about Transcendence, and a Grav+EMP combo needn't worry about Sound Barrier. However, you'll have to pay attention to some of the others based on the nature of your win condition.
In conclusion, there are a lot of intricacies about landing Gravs which not many Zarya players are aware of, so I hope this article was able to highlight some of them and break them down for you. Thanks a lot for reading, and there will be more content like this coming your way soon!
P.S. You can subscribe to this blog to get notified when I post more educational articles!
this was very helpful thank you!! <3
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot Kaatleyn! Be sure to subscribe!
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