Imo Zenyattas most powerful ability isn’t discord.

It’s charge volley.

Zenyatta has the highest burst damage output of any character (excluding ultimates and Bastion) in the game, and volley does not require zen to expose himself for any sustained amount of time.

Every fight my gameplan with zen is as follows:

Start of fight: throw harmony orb on tank/dive dps, charge volley, peek, spam tank with volley, apply discord to tank/dive dps, manage harmony if needed, jiggle peek/stand behind barrier to keep orb on tank, charge volley, repeat. Occasionally flank an angle and attempt to get a sneaky volley kill.

If your tank pushes up, follow tank and charge volley. Fire volley at close range dps and try to 1-shot them where volley acts closer to a hitscan weapon. If it doesn’t 1 shot I will go for single shots to try and kill while peeling to the support or tank. Imo this is the only way

You just constanty keep charging volley, even when you’re in the open. If a dps tries to dive you, spam your volley into them (except against genji because of deflect) and try to kill them while peeling to your other support/tank. If they’re low, apply discord and try to kill with left clicks. Use kick to setup shots. If you fail and have trans, you can pop that as a get out of jail free card, and usually since you’re with your tank it’s not a bad time to pop it anyway.

Volley does less sustained damage than standard left clicks, but that doesn’t matter. Sustained damage doesn’t win fights. 1shots and burst does. Zen is the only support who can do that from any range (and the only character besides widow/hanzo/soujourn), and has the highest burst potential at 480 before reductions/amp.

Supports can’t react to a dps getting bursted by volley. If you kill 1 hero with a volley you win the fight 85% of the time

Now, there’s a downside to this playstyle, which is you can’t apply discord while charging volley. This is where the discord change doesn’t matter as much. Discord isn’t central to playing this way. It’s a bonus. You just throw it on some other dps or support if it goes on cooldown on the tank after your next volley.

However, 225 hp vs 200 means you win the dps 1v1s if you hit part (2-3 bodyshots) of your volley at close range. I see myself living at 25 hp or less multiple times a game now. The change to harmony means you can get away with charge volley more since you would often lose harmony on your dps/tank/support before they changed the upkeep time from 3 to 5 seconds and couldn’t reapply it until you throw your current volley.

If you are playing zen at range and trying to hit left click plinks I honestly think you are playing the character wrong. You will never get a hero bursted down, you will get less value from current discord, and you will get dove and die.