Zarya is one of the facilitator tanks in Overwatch 2 Stadium, and she is amazing at protecting her teammates while having a sustainability option for herself to tank damage at the frontline.
She’s versatile at what she does in Overwatch and has access to high damage, making her a good pick in Stadium. However, her glaring weakness is her lack of mobility options that makes her a sitting duck in teamfights. She gets easily countered by dive heroes like Genji, and needs to amplify her abilities using the right set of powers and items to help her team succeed.
Best Zarya build in Overwatch 2 Stadium
Every Overwatch Stadium has one tank, and Zarya is that ace up your sleeve. Understanding the match tempo is critical to succeed with her because you’ll need to use your swap efficiently and score objectives. Unlike other tanks whose role relies heavily on frontlining for the team, you need to sometimes let your team take the lead with the bubbles on them and use your alternate fire to deal heavy damage from the backline.
As the bubbles are versatile, they’re good for dive heroes as well, and you can save a lot of low-health allies to help them escape or finish up their job. Either way, it’s a great way of helping your team secure objectives while also staying alive for longer by eliminating your counters on the enemy team.
Powers
You can take four powers in Overwatch Stadium, but you can’t get them all at once. You are free to choose one at a time in the odd-numbered rounds, which are one, three, five and seven. These powers give you solid advantages, and choosing the right one according to your playstyle is critical to boost your existing abilities. Here is a table of what powers you can select:
| Powers | Description |
|---|---|
Voltaic Vitality 
|
Gain lifesteal equal to 15 percent of Energy lifesteal has a 25 percent bonus effectiveness on shield health. |
Lifelift
|
While the Particle Barrier is active, Hero and Barrier size increase by 50 percent. Increase Barrier Health by 50 percent of Max Life. |
Barrier Benefits
|
When Barriers expire, grant Overhealth equal to 40 percent of remaining Barrier Health to the target for three seconds. |
Graviton Anomaly 
|
25 percent Ultimate cost reduction, Graviton Surge’s base damage is increased to 30 and increased by Energy, but has a 50 percent reduced duration. |
Voltaic Vitality can be your first power purchase as it allows you to gain lifesteal, improving your shield health to make you tanky. As your bubble shields play a crucial role in shaping your gameplay, Lifelift becomes the next must-have power because it increases barrier health by half, so players can have more HP to get through bad fights and still win them. Once you get many shields, Barrier Benefits becomes that cherry on top in your power build, as it gives overhealth when the barrier survives. It has great synergy with Lifelift power, making sure your shield always has value on players, even when the enemies try to avoid damaging your shielded allies.
Lastly, you are only going to take Graviton Anomaly if your matches are super close and you want the last power in your arsenal to give you an edge. It makes your ultimate recharge faster and increases its damage at the cost duration, which is a great trade-off, especially to wrap up matches and make decisive plays on the map with your team.
Items
You earn credits by claiming bounties on enemies, winning rounds, and many other ways. But it’s trickier with a tank as there is no clear way of earning more credits, so helping your team is the best way to amass credits so you can purchase items.
| Items | Description |
|---|---|
Armoured Vest 
|
25 armor |
Shady Spectacles 
|
10 percent ability lifesteal (Graviton Surge) |
Beyond Barrier
|
10 percent ability power (Graviton Surge, Particle Barrier, Projected Barrier), 20 percent Projected Barrier range. |
Junker Whatchamajig
|
25 percent starting ultimate charge |
Superconductor
|
25 Health, 15 percent ability power (Graviton Surge, Particle Barrier, Projected Barrier), 40 percent barrier duration. |
Lynx’s Datadrive 
|
25 Health, 10 percent ability power, using Projected Barrier on an ally refunds 25 percent of cooldown. |
Let’s get the green items out of the way—the Armoured Vest, which gives extra shields, and Shady Spectacles, which allows you to have 10 percent ability lifesteal on your ultimate. Talking about the blue ones, Junker Whatchamajig helps you get that starting boost for your ultimate recharge each round, and Beyond Barrier makes your shields and ultimate stronger while also giving you extra range, which is amazing to reach distant allies.
In terms of the purple ones, you have a bunch of strong items to take. Ideally, you want to sell off green ones and get more purple ones, but we’ll suggest two that we think are great for this build. Superconductor makes Zarya tougher, more powerful, and better at sustaining pressure with longer-lasting barriers and a stronger ultimate. Lynx’s Datadrive, on the other hand, gives a significant cooldown refund on shields, along with ability enhancement and bonus health. Feel free to experiment with other purple ones based on your playstyle.
Next up, you can read our guides on the best Mercy Stadium build and learn about our Overwatch 2 Stadium tier list.
