- Darth Windu
- Mar 17, 2009
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by Smythe
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I can't believe I wrote this whole thing up but work was slow this morning and I hit Diamond rank last night so here goes.
How to play as Pharah effectively
Understand your movement
For those of us who played Tribes/Tribes 2/Tribes Ascend, Pharah's movement feels fairly familiar. Maybe you've played another game with similar jetpacks. If you haven't, the first thing to learn if you want to be more effective with Pharah is how to move.
There are a few keys to movement with Pharah:
- Hover optimization
If you are just holding down hover, you're doing it wrong. Work on getting a feel for on-off-on-off-on-off cycling of hovering. You'll get significantly more horizontal movement out of doing it this way: up, wait to start dipping down, up to cancel it out, repeat. This is also how you can keep in the air for a long, long time during big team fights. Mastering your hover ability will also change the way you move across maps. Combining good hovering with your jump jets will allow you to take the shortest route possible back to the fight in many cases, much faster than walking.
- Juking
If you're just moving smoothly in the air, you're a very easy target for hitscan characters (and Hanzo). Remember that you have 6 axis movement for juking in the air. You should be very hard to hit in close/medium range battles when you're in the air, and the only way to do this is to be jerking back and forth, allowing yourself to plummet suddenly, halting a plummet with hover, etc. The key is to be unpredictable. This takes a lot of practice, and your aim will need to also improve to compensate for it as you learn!
- Concussion rocket
I'll cover this more in abilities, but the concussion rocket is a very important movement ability. It is to your own horizontal movement what your jump jets are to vertical.
Understand your abilities
- Rocket launcher
Pharah's basic attack. Does 120 damage on a direct hit. Does not have a maximum or minimum range. Moves fast, but isn't hitscan. Will hit where you aim at when you fire (i.e. it does not get inherited velocity from your character velocity--this is especially important to note for those of you used to Spinfusors in Tribes). Has splash damage, but the radius is fairly small--reliably getting direct hits is very important to your overall combat effectiveness here. You need to learn predictive aim with the rocket launcher. This takes practice, practice, practice. Since the rockets will go exactly where you aim at, you'll need to learn to predict where an enemy will be when the rocket gets to them and lead the target. (if you played games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Freespace 2, any of the Mechwarrior games, etc, then you will be familiar with leading targets with rockets)
- Concussion Rocket
The concussion rocket is an incredibly versatile "weapon". It has a lot of uses, and deciding on when and how to use it can dramatically change how you play Pharah and how successful you are using her. This will take a lot of practice and trial-and-error to integrate into your playstyle. Please note the things that a concussion rocket will not have an effect on: heroes shielded by Zarya and Reinhardt with his shield up toward the concussion rocket effect. The concussion rocket has very little effect on D.Va. Winston is rarely worth using the concussion rocket on due to the short recharge on his jump. Roadhog seems to not always take as much of an effect from the concussion rocket that most of the other heroes do (but it's often still worth using on him due to his weapon range effectiveness)
Offensive use:
Many maps have ledges to throw enemies off of. It can take a while to get a feel for this, but there's little more satisfying than sending an enemy player off the ledge. Even better when it's more than one.
Defensive use:
The concussion rocket is a very powerful movement tool. As long as you're careful with how you aim it, pointing it near your feet and firing is an excellent "oh gently caress I need to get back into my team for heals" button. You move fast enough that it will throw off enemy aim as well.
Disruptive use:
Much like Mei's Ice Wall, the concussion rocket also excels at disrupting enemy team formations. From tossing them away from the capture point (basic use) to separating healers from their tanks (intermediate) to bouncing Reinhardt away from protecting his team (advanced), smart use of the concussion rocket can make enemy advances collapse or even just disrupt their healing long enough for you (or your teammates) to get a few kills.
- Jump Jets
Pharah's jump jets are what let her get around and, importantly, above. Two notes:
They make noise and alert the enemy team to your presence.
If you aren't paying attention to where you are in the map you'll smack into a ceiling and may well be trapped. Not a good look, and a quick way to die.
- Barrage (Ult)
Pharah's ultimate ability is Barrage, and it channels a whole bunch of rockets that fly out in a cone from you. At close range, it's an unstoppable wall of death. At long range, it's entirely possible to be aiming directly at someone and miss them entirely. When you use Barrage, you're held in place during the channel time, so you're exposed and very vulnerable. During this time you can be killed, stunned, or slept, but you aren't affected by any effects that push or move you (such as another Pharah concussion rocket, Lucio's boop, or a Zarya ult).
If you're accurate with your rockets, Barrage actually charges relatively quickly. Because of the way Barrage works, if you're facing a team that is often spread out, or a team with a very effective death-ball, you're better off blowing Barrage to force a kill on a tank or healer (preferably Mercy) than waiting around for a perfect time to try and catch 3+ enemies unaware. I regularly will use Barrage to kill just one enemy player if I don't have the time to try and kill them with individual rockets (or if I'm about to need to reload my weapon and they need to die right now).
The biggest mistake that most Pharah players make when using Barrage is using it at or near the apex of their rocket jump. Don't do this. Barrage should be used at medium-to-close range, not way high above the enemy team. The further away from your targets you are, the more time they have to react and the more your rocket barrage damage will spread out over an area. That damage needs to be concentrated as much as possible.
Barrage vs. tanks:
Reinhardt: Reinhardt's shield cannot withstand a full barrage. If a Rein has his shield up (and there aren't any of his allies to shoot you down while you ult), a full Barrage centered on him will destroy the shield and kill the Reinhardt.
Zarya: Zarya's shield will collapse under more than 200 dps. At medium/short range this is peanuts for Barrage and you will murder Zarya (or anybody she's shielded) with a brief focus on them.
Winston: Winston's shield is annoying, but also collapses under Barrage relatively quickly. Normally I avoid ulting through a Winston shield though--I'd prefer to get it collapsed (or mostly there) with rockets and my teammates fire before activating Barrage
D.Va: Don't use your ult against D.Va. Just don't. A good D.Va will immediately react by tossing their shield up and jetting directly at the ulting Pharah. All the rockets will disappear into the shield right up until the moment the D.Va mech comes into contact with Pharah, at which point she'll die to the explosions of her own rockets. If you need to use Barrage on a team with a close-in D.Va, make sure she's been using up her shield before you unleash the ult.
Roadhog: Don't ult around Roadhog until you've seen him use his hook. An ulting Pharah is probably the single easiest hook target in the game for Roadhog.
A word of warning vs. tanks: the easiest way to kill an ulting Pharah as a tank is to force the explosions to hit her be running toward her during the ult. Reinhardt can do this if you ult too close to his shield, and an ulting Winston can do this just by jumping at you.
Know the maps
It's really important to know each map fairly well. This means knowing flanking routes, where health packs are, where overhangs are, etc. But with Pharah, it's also important that you understand how to move across the map as quickly and smoothly as possible. This means both with and without using your jets or the concussion missile, depending on the situation you find yourself in. I strongly suggest opening up maps in Custom Games with no bots or anything and flying around with Pharah to get a feel for things.
Understand Pharah's role(s)
Most people think of Pharah as a flanking character. This is true, and she's very effective at it. But it isn't the only role you'll be taking during battles. Still, we'll talk about flanking first.
- Flanking
Learning to flank well takes practice, but also requires good situational awareness. The situation and your reading of the enemy team is going to determine whether you should be doing a proactive flanking or team support flanking.
In proactive flanking, the purpose of your flank attack isn't so much to kill the enemy (though obviously kills are a good bonus), but to distract them and pull them off of a coordinated charge.
In team support flanking, you'll actually wait out of sight hidden until your team begins engaging the enemy team, then you'll come in from behind to kill healers, blast exposed tanks (especially Reinhardt, and generally cause confusion.
Proactive Flanking Example:
On the attacking team on Eisenwald, opening up with a Pharah flank paves the path for a quick capture of the first point. While your team groups up near the initial choke point and begins keeping the enemy team busy, Pharah heads around to the right, over the cliff. (you'll have to use your jump pack as the hover can't get you around by itself). Going through the walls toward the point, and the capture point will be on your right with the enemy team to your left, facing away from you.
You might be tempted here to just get onto the point, but that isn't enough. If you just get onto the point, a competent team will have someone watching for that who will engage you, leaving their team to face off against yours at the chokepoint 5v5.
What you really want to do is target their healers here. A few well-aimed rockets should easily take care of their Mercy, Zenyatta, or Ana. (you'll notice I don't mention Lucio here, more about that on target values later).
Toss a few rockets into the back of their grouped up team, focusing on their primary healer, but do not fully engage. Instead, once you've gotten their attention, then head to the capture point. The combination of damage (plus hopefully a kill) and the point getting captured should really get their attention. At this point, all but the most disciplined, organized teams will start either falling back to the point, or collapse into total chaos with half their team going after you, leaving the choke point 5v3 or so in your team's favor. (This tactic works, and works well--we used it to great effect on multiple occasions during my ranking up to diamond over the past few days.)
Team Support Flanking Example:
Watch one of the videos I posted recently and you'll see me get my biggest sets of kills doing exactly this. The trick is to wait until the enemy team is occupied. But the key here is to understand the situational awareness of the other team. At lower ranks, most players aren't going to have very high situational awareness, and even if they do, often they won't communicate it to teammates. But as you move up you need to rely on stealth more and more. This means don't use your jets immediately before a flanking attack if at all possible. You should be dropping from above them. Using your jets makes a very loud sound and alerts the other team to your presence. Advanced tactic: use your hover ability to keep your feet off the ground when you are on fire. Be aware of how loud your steps are when you're on fire. Using your hover during your final approach on a flanking route can mean the difference between being noticed and being a complete surprise.
A word of warning about flanking:
It is very easy to overextend yourself while flanking. It is almost always better to retreat from a fight back to your team to get healed than to die way behind enemy lines (I say almost, because while there may be rare situations where it's better to keep the enemy occupied far from the fight, it's pretty rare that this is the case). If you feel like you keep dying while flanking, stop it and use one of the other techniques here.
- Bombardment
Most people are immediately going to think of Junkrat when I talk about bombardment, but Pharah is very effective here too, just in a different way. Where Junkrat excels at bouncing grenades around corners and arcing them over things, Pharah excels at long-range straight-line bombardment.
You'll see less experienced Pharah players standing on ledges firing away. Normally this is pretty ineffective, because Pharah is exposed and easy for a sniper, McCree, or another Pharah to kill! The key to bombarding with Pharah is understanding how her rockets work. Since they're fire-and-forget, and go directly toward where you aimed, you can be dodging in and out of cover, each time out only long enough to fire a rocket, and not leaving yourself exposed or your location obvious. Here, range is your friend. The further back you are, the harder you are to hit, and a constant line of exploding rockets from an inaccessible Pharah is actually a pretty good psychological weapon that can help keep less experienced teams from charging at all.
I should note here that, far from a waste of rockets, it's a really good idea to use the long-range bombardment technique against Reinhardt players on either side of a chokepoint. Teams that keep up the pressure to keep the enemy Reinhardt shield low/down are simply going to win more often than teams whose players see a Reinhardt shield and start looking for other targets. When the enemy team is forming up for a coordinated push, you should be sending rockets toward the lower edges of the shield. More often than not you'll hit the shield, which is good, but with all the confusion and movement, you're going to also hit enemy players and sometimes kill them outright (it's especially fun to kill a Mercy or Zenyatta with this, as normally that delays their push, or if they push without their primary healer... well, you can predict what will happen)
Same with any map with a long hallway that enemies will come down. Much like Junkrat, if you've got nothing else to shoot at, just keep sending rockets in a stream toward where enemy players might push through. If you wait until you see them, they can also see you and take preventative measures against being hit by rockets. But if you're just flinging rockets down a hallway, that first (and maybe the second!) rocket are just going to hit them out of nowhere.
Bombardment example, defense:
The folks that play with me often may have noticed that on defense maps, at the very beginning I like to sit on a perch and just fling rockets in a straight line. This is actually a reliable technique that can slow down the enemy advance and once in a while even get you a random pick kill. The trick is to look for very tight openings in the path that enemy players will be walking toward whatever the first choke-point is. Once you've chosen your spot, wait for the starting buzzer, and, depending on the map, start firing. On escort-only maps like King's Row and Gibraltar, I usually start firing when the countdown timer hits 1 or 0. On checkpoint or hybrid maps, I wait for the round to start and then count to 5, then begin firing. (Here I should commend Blizzard's consistent map design: on nearly every map it takes approx 4-7 seconds for the Attackers to move from the spawn point to turning a corner and being visible from the first chokepoint).
This initial bombardment will cause Reinhardt players to toss their shield up early (early than they normally would) and thus walk slower toward the chokepoint. Less experienced Zarya and Winston players may also use their shields too early as well.
After the initial bombardment, get off your perch. You're now a easy, annoying target, especially for Roadhog or a sniper. Get back behind your team's defensive formation.
Now start tossing rockets through the chokepoint from long range. Don't stop firing, but also don't lose your situational awareness--as an extremely mobile character, it's also your job to deal with flankers. This is why you're sitting near the back and not getting killed!
Bombardment example, offense:
Using bombardment during offense is much the same, but you'll be combining it with movement and keeping a careful eye out for snipers and turrets. An inexperience Torb will place turrets in a location where you are able to simply out-range the turret with your rockets, for example, while an inexperienced sniper will be standing on a narrow perch fairly still and present a good target (and often a rocket will bounce them right off their perch). Again, the key with bombardment is to stay alive by staying in the back lines of your team, preferably behind a tank and near the healers. The real trick to offensive bombardment is knowing when to stop and help your team push, either by going with the team or by flanking. (constant bombardment can also provide you with good "cover" for a quick flank, since the enemies will assume you're playing Pharah conservatively in the back lines)
- Disruption
While flanking often causes disruption, it's not the only way to do it. The key to disrupting enemy teams with Pharah is two-fold: having deadly aim with the rocket launcher, and knowing how to use the concussion rocket effectively.
Healer picking: against teams that don't have a really good hitscan (or Hanzo, or Roadhog in tighter sections of maps), you should be a terror on their healers. Jump behind lines, hit healers with rockets (kills are great but not always required), then get back out to your lines. On some maps this may mean knocking those healers off ledges to their deaths (Zenyatta and Ana are the most susceptible to this). Mercy should almost always be your #1 target.
Tank disruption: if a team is relying on their Reinhardt for protection, suddenly bouncing him away from them is extremely disruptive and often unexpected. Since you can't knock him back while his shield is up, you can either knock him to the side or forward. I actually recommend bouncing him forward, toward your team. This very often results in the very quick death of the enemy Reinhardt, either because he panics and drops his shield to attack and run back (or charge!) or because he's then that much closer to your team and they can pour that much more damage into his shield. When you do this, wait until his shield starts getting low before you bounce him. I've seen the other team do a number of things here: sometimes they think he's charging forward and charge in with him, other times they hang back (and the healers that you've hopefully bounced backwards desperately try (and often fail) to keep him alive, and more often half the team does the one, the other half does the other.
Ult disruption: with proper positioning and by paying attention, Pharah is quite capable of shutting down most enemy ults. I'll get into specifics when I breakdown Pharah vs. each character, but most often this is done with the concussion rocket (unless it's an ult that allows for an easy rocket kill)
Pharah vs. other heroes
While there is obviously an enormous amount of room here for individual player skill, there are still a number of generalizations and techniques to be used against various heroes.
Ana: Ana is probably the most dangerous healer for Pharah to go after. A well-positioned (that is, far to the rear) Ana with good zoomed aim is going to cause you a lot of problems. Either get the jump on her from behind (by flanking) or use bombardment from partial cover to knock her back and pick her off. I have found that Ana is most vulnerable after she uses her ult on an ally--at this point she and her team will be moving in behind the ally with an ult and supporting them, and the Ana will be so focused on healing her team that she'll be paying less attention to taking care of herself. A few well-placed rockets can then take her out of the fight. Ultimate: ignore the hero Ana powered up unless you can use a concussion rocket to knock them off the map. Instead, focus on Ana and any other healers/support around her.
Bastion: An equally-skilled Bastion is going to wreck your day if you attempt to take him head-on. Either hit him (with direct hits, this is very important) from behind/to the sides and hope his reflexes aren't fast, or preferably hit him from extreme range while he's firing on your teammates. At long enough range, even if he does zero in on you, he's got a lot lower chance of killing you. As long as you can get two direct hits he'll have to redeploy somewhere to repair to avoid dying unless he's got a pocket healer. Be wary of engaging a skilled Bastion indoors while he's in recon mode. Most will die to you quickly if your aim is better, but a Bastion player who also plays a lot of Soldier 76 has a good chance of winning that fight. Ultimate: Bastion actually becomes an easier target for Pharah during his ult. Stay at medium-to-long range so you aren't an easy pick for him.
D.Va: D.Va is, after Genji, probably the most difficult matchup for Pharah. The trick to beating D.Va is range--keep her at long range, and lob rockets at her until she's exhausted her shields. The real trick to beating D.Va is to avoid fighting her directly. Instead, shoot her from above or behind while she's fighting your teammates, then be ready to kill Lil'D.Va when she pops out of the mech. Keep in mind with her jets she can very quickly close the gap to you, and with her shields she can negate your concussion blast. Fighting a D.Va at close range will end with you dead, as her weapons chew through 200hp hero health very quickly and medium-close and closer range. Ultimate: get out of the way of course, but try and track down the Lil'D.va and kill her before she summons her mech again.
Genji: Genji is a tough fight. A really good Genji is going to kick your rear end most of the time; the much more common mediocre-to-bad Genji won't be too much of a problem as long as you're careful. Like Bastion vs. Genji, the key to a Pharah vs. Genji fight is managing the enemy Genji's reflection. Remember that your rockets do 120 damage on a direct hit, so all Genji needs to do is hit you with a reflected rocket and then finish you off with a shuriken and a charge. You'll be dead before you know what happened. To avoid this, learn the timing on his reflect, and make sure you get the jump on him whenever possible so that you control the flow of the fight by forcing him to use his reflect (at the very least get splash damage on him to start the fight). Keep him engaged at long range. He's very difficult to hit, but if you're moving fast at long range only the best of Genjis will be able to hit you their primary attack. Less skilled Genjis will move fairly predictably and are easier to hit. Ultimate: stay at long range, preferably as vertical as possible. Rain down rockets as he attacks your team and hope you hit him.
Hanzo: Generally I don't have much issue fighting Hanzo aside from the rare occurrences when I encounter a particularly good one. The key to Hanzo is keeping him moving as you're moving by bouncing him around with your rockets and concussion rocket. Keep him off-balance so he has trouble aiming at you and you'll have much better time fighting him. If the Hanzo you're playing against is particularly good you may have a tough time here, depending on the map and flanking routes. Ultimate: get out of the way. Hanzo is usually vulnerable when he launches his ult and makes for a stationary target briefly.
Junkrat: The vast majority of Junkrat players are easy picking for a competent Pharah. Engage at medium-to-long range and move with erratic juking. At close range you're much more susceptible to a grenade + explosive pack combo, though most players aren't going to be able to pull that off against a flying Pharah, even at close range. Be careful of his death grenades especially when engaging him indoors (avoid this!) or otherwise at close range. Ultimate: one direct Pharah rocket hit will destroy the tire. It's hard to hit while moving, but if you see a Junkrat start his ult, often a direct hit in the face with a rocket will destroy the tire and drop him to half health. If his tire is nowhere to be seen, he's a very easy target, and two direct hits will kill him.
Lucio: Lucio is generally not much of a threat (except sometimes at close range), but between his movement and regenerating health he can be tough to kill. The trick here is keeping the engagement at a moderate distance: close enough to reliable get direct rocket hits on him (and for the majority of your shots to at least do splash damage to counter his regenerative healing), but far enough that his rapid movement doesn't make aiming impossible. Obviously as a healer he's an important target, however, and getting a Lucio to burn his ult to keep himself alive (rather than using it for his team on a push) is absolutely worth doing. If he does this, just leave him and go fight someone else. He wasted his ult, and killing him becomes quickly less important for the moment. Ultimate: if Lucio uses his ult on his team, the best thing to do is launch your concussion rocket into the fray to scatter them. Otherwise, don't waste your rockets for a few seconds and wait for those shields to start going away.
McCree: A good McCree is going to be your biggest challenge as Pharah. You need to continually force them onto the defensive with well-aimed rockets to beat them, and juking in the air becomes even more important. Engage McCree at either long range or relatively short range--his biggest advantage over you will be at medium ranges. At short ranges, especially indoors, his stun grenade will mean nearly instant death, but with proper movement, map awareness, and concussion rocket use, you can ensure that if you do drop from the stun grenade he won't have a good shot at you. Ultimate: stay out of LoS and if possible hit him with a direct rocket hit (well, two) from behind since he's moving slowly. Alternately use your concussion rocket to knock him sideways so he loses LoS on your team.
Mei: Mei is tough but the trick is range and timing. Never engage Mei at close range as Pharah. Ever. Keep her at medium-to-long range, lobbing rockets at her while she engages your teammates. Once she uses her ice block, use this time to reload your gun! Once you understand her ice block timing well enough, depending on your range you can then fire a rocket at her ice block that should hit the moment she comes out of it. Usually (if her cooldowns allow) she'll immediately throw up an ice wall to attempt to survive--you should be high enough in the air to not care, and one more direct rocket hit will then usually do the trick.
Advanced anti-Mei tactics: use your concussion missile to help your teammates survive Mei, whether she's freezing them with M1 or with her ult. You can bounce her away before she's done freezing them, or bounce her away before she is able to headshot with M2. There can be other creative uses for the concussion rocket against her, but they're all very situational and depend on how she is using her ice wall. Ultimate: stay out of it, and use your concussion rocket to try and put distance between Mei (and her teammates) and your team.
Mercy: As Pharah, Mercy on your team is your best friend and Mercy on the enemy team is Target #1. The trick of course against Mercy is good predictive aim with your rockets and understanding how her movement works. I strongly suggest that you play Mercy yourself to fully understand how she moves. It'll make a big difference when you're trying to kill her! Very good Mercy players will pull their pistol out if you have them 1v1 separated from their group. At this point your predictive aim with rockets becomes even more important, as her pistol can and will kill you if she has the better aim, and especially if you're engaging her indoors or otherwise at close range. (why should Mercy be your primary target? Besides her now-improved healing, her Resurrection ultimate ability is very good at erasing any kills you make! Kill her either with your ult or before you use your ult) Ultimate: kill her before she can use it.
Pharah: Pharah vs Pharah duels are very, very similar to spinfusor duels in Tribes. I could write an entire post about how to duel other Pharah players but I'll keep it short here: the Pharah with the better predictive aiming (for air-rocketing) and who uses their jump jets second is usually going to be the winner of a duel (ignoring of course the influence of teammates). When you're fighting another Pharah of similar skill level to you, reserve your concussion rocket for movement to get away from the fight if you start losing (or simply to dodge rockets if you're stuck on the ground), and use geometry around the map for cover between using your jump-jets. Always let the other Pharah use their jump jets to look for you first, then use yours. Ultimate: Pharah is now a static target. Hit her with a pair of rockets.
Reaper: Fighting Reaper is very much like fighting Mei, actually. Don't engage at anything closer than medium range (with a preference for longer range), and use the time during his wraith form to reload your gun. If he heads into a building in that form, do not chase him unless you know for a fact that he's at low health and there isn't a health pack inside. If you understand the timing properly, you can pop him with a rocket as he emerges from wraith form. Ultimate: stay very far away. If you're far enough away, try and hit him with rockets, or if it's safe, bounce him away from your team with concussion rocket.
Reinhardt: Pharah is excellently suited to killing Reinhardt. Use your ability to get up and over them to rain rockets down on their head, get behind them and hit 'em in the back, whatever. Hitting the shield is fine as long as you have allies around--a Reinhardt that faces his shield up to defend against your rockets is a Reinhardt about to die to your team nearby. If he doesn't do it, he'll die to your rockets. Keep your distance. Reinhardt's hammer will make VERY short work of you as Pharah, and he can hit you while you're close by even if you're flying around. His flamestrike hurts a lot, but only the best Reinhardt players will be able to even occasionally hit you with it when you're in the air. If a Reinhardt is at (very) low health and is sitting in a corner with his shield up waiting for a healer, punch him to death (yes, through the shield). You might be surprised at how often I get Reinhardt kills by finishing them off with a punch they don't expect. Ultimate: try not to get hit. Use your concussion rocket to bounce him and his teammates away from any of your teammates that did get hit. If he's low health when he uses it, use his aggressiveness to hit him with rockets and kill him.
Roadhog: As with Genji and D.Va, a good Roadhog is going to be very difficult to deal with as Pharah. Once again the key is to keep your distance. Never get anywhere close to the front of a Roadhog, especially if you haven't just seen him use his hook. Roadhog is a big target, so you should be able to (while flying and juking) reliably hit him with direct hits from long range. Flanking him (and any supporting healers) while they engage your team is a much more reliable way to kill him, but you really need to focus his healers down (or at least disrupt them away from healing him) first. Ultimate: hide, or use your concussion rocket to bounce him around a corner or off a ledge.
Soldier 76: Soldier is mostly a problem at medium-range, and should be avoided at those ranges. At long range, he can't put out enough DPS to kill you (barring a lucky hit with his helix rockets), and at short range unless the person playing him has particularly fast, steady aim, your rockets will be bouncing him around enough that he'll miss you a lot. While his heal can become a problem, you can negate it either through consistent direct hits or simply by bouncing him out of the healing radius with either your rockets or your concussion rocket. His Ult, however, is something that will kill you super fast. I recommend simply hiding around a corner when you hear him activate his ult unless you know you are both behind him and he's unaware of your presence. Even then, you'll want to wait until his ult is almost over, or on a map near a ledge, bump him off the ledge while he ults. Ultimate: hide or bounce him off a ledge.
Symmetra: Symmetra's main defense against Pharah is being slender and having regenerating heals. She's not really a threat to you up until fairly close range, at which point she's very dangerous. Keep your distance and engage from the air outdoors, and a few direct hits will make short work of her. As a Pharah player the biggest issue you'll normally have with Symmetra is well-placed turrets. Once you know she's on the other team, be very careful about ducking inside buildings for healthpacks and you should be mostly fine.
Widowmaker: Widowmaker is mainly a problem when the person playing her has particularly good aim. Otherwise, engage her at medium-to-close range, and as long as you've got good predictive aim, she'll fall quickly. Note that Widow tends to bounce quite a lot from your rockets, but if she's zoomed in, her aim doesn't bounce much, so don't depend on your rockets preventing her from nailing you at long range. Keep outdoors when fighting her to avoid her venom mine. Ultimate: stop flanking and stick with bombardment tactics for 10 seconds when you hear her ult go off.
Winston: Winston can be tough with Pharah, as he's a good counter to her. Use your rockets to help your team bust his shield early, and keep your distance from Winston. He's big, and thus easy to hit, but during his ult he's also very fast moving, which makes it harder. Never engage him close range--his lightning gun will make quick work of you and your normal escape strategies won't work against him due to the short cooldown on his leap ability. If a Winston is coming after you, make a beeline for your team. Don't try to face him down. Ultimate: keep your distance and just keep hitting him with rockets. Better yet, just focus on his team instead.
Zarya: Your biggest danger fighting Zarya as Pharah isn't to yourself, but to your team. Time your rockets to avoid hitting her shields when they are up so you aren't feeding her charge. If you're good with direct hits, she'll drop fairly quickly if she doesn't have support. The caveat to this of course is when she's at or near full charge--in this state, her beam will melt you quickly at close-to-medium range. Use your concussion rocket to bounce her away (while keeping in mind if her shield is up she won't bounce!) and then send some more rockets toward her face. Ultimate: if you get caught in it, use your concussion rocket to bounce the enemy team away from you.
Zenyatta: Skilled (at aiming) Zenyattas are dangerous targets for you as Pharah, while the majority of Zenyatta players are less of a worry. The biggest danger when fighting most Zenyatta players is the rest of their team when you've got discord orb on you. Otherwise, two direct hits or a direct hit and two near-splashes are usually enough to kill Zen (as long as they're rapid enough to not allow his shields time to recharge). if you get a discord orb on you, hide behind your team (or indoors if your team isn't nearby) and wait for it to go off you. Keep in mind that while discord orb is on you the enemy team knows where you are, so if you're going to begin a flanking maneuver, wait to start that movement toward your flanking location until after discord orb has left you. Ultimate: Zenyatta is very easy to bounce around with concussion rocket when he is doing his ultimate. Use this to force his teammates out of range of his healing, or to send Zenyatta off a cliff.
Reread this post today and won some pharah games and wanted to thank, if anyone wants to play pharah then read this
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Oct 2, 2016 01:46
