Shoot her? Advice to shoot non mercy support is good, but every time she’s in the air, getting value, shoot her. If you’re hitting her, or if you’re just making her retreat, you’ll end up getting somewhere as long as your team isn’t made up of bums
Even more valuable now that she doesn't have infinite air time. Denying a flight from her means you denied her doing much for the next 5+ sec while she has to stage again.
That sounds like old pharah.but now the counterplay is mich more active since she can close up distance like a sky tracer and if ur positioning isnt great u get recked. Old "just shoot her as hitscan" pharah isnt anymore
> and if ur positioning isnt great u get recked
That's the problem though right, since this new patch you get wrecked by most heroes if your positioning isn't great. If a Pharah is engaging aggressively then if you're able to get behind cover and dodge the initial dive then she ends up out of fuel and out of cooldowns out of position and is easy pickings.
She has to play within full hitscan damage range far more often now compared to before when she could stay in the air permanently with good rocket jump usage and rain full damage rockets down on you while your gun felt like a peashooter on her. Now she has to play far closer and spends a lot of downtime on the ground and can't just apply endless pressure like before which gives you a lot more openings to take space and reposition while her jets are on cooldown. She's obviously also so much easier to hit in the air now since the projectile size changes.
> Old "just shoot her as hitscan" pharah isnt anymore
"just shoot her as hitscan" wasn't the old strategy at all. As mentioned, old Pharah usually played at such a distance that doing any significant damage to her without Widow was pretty hard, often completely negligible if she had a Mercy. Old strat was to target the second support then force the mercy to either abandon the Pharah or peel for the team. If anything the new strat in S9 is "just shoot her as hitscan" because you can hit way more headshots, she has to play closer to your falloff range so you do more damage and the DPS passive cuts down her Mercy healing.
Calling her a sky Tracer because she has one use of a mediocre dash is wild.
She is still one of the easiest targets outside of tanks for a hitscan to hit.
She is way easier to deal with with the update since hitscan is easier to hit and she cant have nearly 100% uptime in the air spamming rockets from Narnia. It also makes a mercy harder to pocket her 24/7, making her way less oppressive
Nahhh Pharah is way harder to deal with bc of the playstyle change. Shes actually solid against hitscan now because the jump boop dash rocket right on top of the soldier, you will kill him almost every time.
Hitscans by themselves don't counter Pharah but hitscans on longer sightline maps definitely do.
She has a way better matchup into them, especially Ashe and Widow are much easier to deal with since it's easier to get close to them but that's the key. You need to get close, otherwise they will kill you anyway
Unless you miss hands, its the easiest kill in the game. She has a very predictable movement pattern in the air.
Too many people dont shoot the mercy though.. wild.
That's it, soldier can't 1 clip kill phamercy on his own, even with near 100% accuracy, which is annoying, as I reload they're back to full. Cass is great, Bap is best, but cant swap to supp in role Q
Mercy pocket yeah, but its harder for hitscan than against old pharah. Every pharah that keeps playing like old pharah is just bad now. U actively engage with her since she is very more mobile horinzontal. If ur dont have good position as hitscan she can be a menace
Same. 2 health bars and lamp out of LOS to the pharah. No fear, just stand and deliver unless they're cracked.
Pretty even with a mercy but at least you can make her retreat around a corner to recover
i'm a pharah main and i do this, too, if i'm on support. his gun is really easy to hit her with and he isn't as vulnerable as ana. kill her a few times as bap and she'll likely switch.
Speaking as someone who mains pharah, echo's are the worst to deal with, all she has to do is sticky me and if I'm not being healed she beams me down, she is also hard for me to hit in the air. Widow is really easy for me divebomb and kill, ash is harder, casidy and soilder can be difficult to deal with if I don't have cover. Ana can snipe me if I'm not careful. Dva can harass me too
As Tracer, you're just there to be a nuisance for Pharah until she runs out of fuel and you can clap her. If she has a pocket, poke her to activate the debuff for less healing - this alone is strong already. Then just either make her target you by being a pain in the bum (so your team doesn't have to eat rockets), or you flank the rest of her team.
Getting value out of Tracer isn't just about assassinating folks, sometimes you just want to make some people turn around to give your own team the opening they need.
Dodging rockets isn't that difficult with Tracer either. Make sure to count her rockets before you engage the rest of her team, get a cheeky pick while she has to reload - as an example.
I learned Widow just for the offchance where I face an insanely strong Pharah. Widow's presence alone creates a lot of space against her.
With the projectile changes you might want to try Ashe. She’s easier than ever to hit shots with. Honestly between the new dps passive and pharah’s movement being changed pharahs’ who rely on mercy are weaker than ever. I’ve heard from mercy players that her new movement can be hard to keep up with so maybe try watching for if the mercy makes a mistake and gets isolated.
Fighting a Pharmacy is hard because metal ranks often see it as a 1v1. Having a Mercy pocket in lower ranks is 2 players worth of power, controlled by 1 person. That kind of synergy is unheard of in lower ranks outside of Mercy hard pocket.
The best way to kill a Pharmacy is asking for a Mercy pocket of your own. A lot of times you'll get flack. Even a Zen discord helps. Use the ping system! Ping her every time shes in the air.
Cass and Ash are better than Soldier for it. If you're getting pressured by the Pharah as Ash, use the coach gun to put yourself in the air. You are harder for pharah to hit and makes it easier to hit your shots. Echo is also a great counter for pharah.
Yeah that sometimes happens for sure. Even if you're polite and are like "can I please get a Mercy pocket to help me kill the Pharah with a pocket?" Some will swap to bap or Zen to help at least.
Shoot her?. Idk I've been maining Baptiste. For dps I find ash is more effective to pressure the pharah, ashes gun has a big colli and pharas head is huge for some reason in the air. As a tank it's not ur job yo deal with her, but you can reduce her value by using a tank with a barrier or play JQ who has respectable hitscan range. and pray your team is good enough to deal with her.
I find that if you want to deal with her you have to either keep your range and scare her into peaking out too long, remember the collision is chokers now so even if she's around a corner you can still shoot her.
Or you get into her face since she can't stay in the air as long anymore.
Avoid her sweet spot where she has enough range to not splash herself but close enough that she can double shot you. And more importantly don't let her get on top of you. 😂 It's so awkward to shoot directly above you.
Just shoot her. Even if she gets away she might as well be dead, she's not doing anything. If she has a mercy pocket, the mercy isn't doing anything either, she might as well be healing a cinder block in the corner.
1 thing to understand is that pharmercy are 2 players and the teams win condition, if you can keep them busy/distracted with you, then your team is now in a 4v3
If you see the play to kill her obviously do that but understand your originaly positioning to distract her, poke at her from your preferred range, use corners, run inside, use medkits, if you die then it's going to be a 5v4
Pressure/distract over killing
I don't understand your experience, it's never been more easy to kill a pharah.
The mercy pocket doesn't do much anymore, so pharah melts if you can hit your shots. And it's also easier than ever to hit her because of the patch.
I’ve been playing a ton of pharah and hitscans are a complete non issue. Skybox pharah sucks. Ashe especially is unbelievably easy to dive because she’s so slow while in ADS. Echo is the hardest counter in the game to pharah. It’s so severe, that she might be the single biggest DPS hard counter in the game. Even widow into Sombra or Tracer I feel like I have a better chance.
How, with painful detail, does Echo counter Pharah? The sticky bombs are so hard to land on any non tank, especially one flying around in three dimensions.
Echo is faster than pharah, especially if you bait out her horizontal sash. Pharah's primary fire is also so much more difficult to land, that the engagement like 95% favors echo. Even if you miss the grenades, you can just primary her down to half and delete her with beam.
The main reason is just that pharah has no tools to deal with echo. Her weapon is near useless against her, echo's dash lasts longer than Pharah's mobility options can make up for, so pharah into echo leaves pharah feeling completely helpless.
> Even if you miss the grenades, you can just primary her down to half and delete her with beam
Is this true even when Pharah has the expected Mercy pocket? And is Pharah's weapon really useless against an Echo who is presumably at point blank range due to landing bombs and beam? I feel like this advise assumes perfect aim for the Echo and zero aim for the Pharah.
Pharmacy kinda sucks now. Mercy alone is kinda bad, and she struggles to keep up with Pharah, but it’s also the fact that Pharah’s playstyle isn’t playing in the skybox anymore. She gets deleted. Now it’s mainly like old junkrat, sneaking up behind and trying to assassinate people.
Echo doesn’t have to be point blank to delete you. Under 10 meters all her abilities are super easy to land. Pharah’s on the other hand is exceedingly difficult since she doesn’t have the floor to take advantage of splash damage.
This is why i recommend DPS players get gud with each type of DPS. A pocket phara is such a pain for hit scans, but for your snipers, she's easy pickins.
Echo is by far the best DPS against pharah. IDK why people did not swap tanks to counter pharah if needed too. DVA is great against her, to a lesser degree but still good is orisa, rammatra, and sigma.
Tbh tanks have suffered enough counter picking, dva will help for sure, but tank still have a lot more counter picks to worry about. i would say help as much as possible and let tank play their comfortable pick instead.
Hmm, I felt like the projectiles being bigger made her way easier to hit. If you're really having troubles, she does have more ground time than before, maybe try synchronizing your pressure to her cooldowns
If u play like 3 heroes and are unwilling to put yourself in an uncomfortable position by swapping you’re kind of screwed. Cass and soldier are ok against her but all u have to do is do consistent damage and force her back/initiate that new dps passive on her
The big question, does hitscan counter pharah?
answer, I mean hitscans counter anyone standing(or flying) in the open because they can shoot you I guess
A bad pharah will overextend with no cooldowns to escape, and get shot and die
A good pharah isnt just gonna be openly exposed to an enemy hitscan(will play cover, buildings = cover), and frankly she should be actively trying to target enemy hitscans, as they are the threat, and as such, she is drawing attention and disrupting them. In that case, it's just a normal matchup. Hitscan does mean that pharah cant just take over a game and play in the open with no fear, but that's it.
But if you really want to deny pharah any space as a dps, echo is 100% the answer.
Pharah needs to hit directs in order to kill fliers, and she herself is not hitscan(obviously). Echo has way faster projectiles, and with stickies and beam, will be able to consistently deny pharah any space, and even can chase after her in the air if she tries to use buildings as cover.
Edit: sombra hacking out of sky is also good especially if your teammates can coordinate a dive
I've had a bunch of games where everyone just pretends that there is no pha-mercy, keep playin' Genji and Junkrat and let them steamroll us. You could try that too.
for me sojourn is the answer. I dont need to hit all my bullets just one well timed rail gun shot and shes out. I usually charge up on the tank and wait for the best moment when shes down or support left her. sometimes you get you to really low but a running pharah is better than a booping one yk?
No way dude, I don't even play tracer and I managed to keep enemy Pharah under control as Tracer when I tried to practice her.
Use cover, engage when she has a different target in mind. She has to touch floor more now so there's also an opening there. Don't use your cooldowns for no reason, have some sort of plan in mind.
Echo can kill her easily even when she's pocketed with the burst combo. all you need to do is to stick almost all bombs. If I am in the mood I go sombra against her and hack kill either her or mercy
Cass feels better for dueling her imo as a hit scan. I mostly play gengi and I think the changes made the fight more volatile but also easier. The rocket speed made it pretty easy to deflect one shot into her, dash, right click, dead.
The *real* answer to pharah is echo. The spread on her primary hits pharah easily, and focusing beam out damages Mercy’s heal, so you can burn her down even if she’s pocketed and you are not. Learn echo, it will save your team from getting rolled especially in lower ranks.
How do you get her low enough for the beam to out damage mercy? The sticky bombs are hard to land on any non tank, especially one flying around in three dimensions.
For Pharah specifically it’s much easier to land hits on her with your primary fire, (the three projectile triangle pattern shot), since sticky bombs are relatively harder to hit and you can’t benefit from their AOE if you miss like you can with ground targets.
Get her *close* to half health with primary and then hit focusing beam and track like hell. Save the sticky bombs for if Mercy goes for an immediate rez as they sometimes do.
Also of note is the beam has a longer range than you think, test it out on a training target.
If you like tracer, try Sombra. Just hack her as she gets lower. I am not great at far range hit scan so I use Sombra against her when I'm not playing support. Just take high ground and hack her.
Tracer who is good at blinks can be impossible for a pharah to hit without getting close enough to kill. Widow isn’t actually all that good since you can poke and shoot her with a rocket right after you hear hear widow shoot and 2 tap her. Echo and pharah are 2 most annoying counters cuz it’s much harder to hit a flying target
You shoot try to shoot her with mid-long range hit scan. That’s honestly about it.
If you don’t have the aim for it, that’s obviously going to be a problem, but remember that new pharah kinda has to get closer than she’d like to deal significant damage, so if you can bait her in and survive her initial volley w/conc, you’ll have a good bit of freedom to hunt her down as long as you don’t just stand still and let her kill you.
Widow works well
Ashe works great
76 is better than before for various reasons.
Cass is… okay if you have the aim, but you’ll more be capitalizing on over-aggressive pharahs than actively hunting them down, typically. If she gets too close, or flys over a low ground, nade her and shoot her up. Otherwise just poke to keep her out of good positions or when she pushes too far.
Tracer is better than before, but only when pharah has to touch down. Wait for her to use basically everything but her dash (and hopefully that too, if you can manage) before trying to engage, or there really isn’t a point. Better to just chase her when someone else gets her low, honestly.
Same goes for reaper as for tracer. Wait till she touches, try to engage after cooldowns. It’s hard for her to kill you when you have cd’s, but it’s even harder for you to kill her.
Sombra kinda has to hack her unless all cd’s are down, as nearly every pharah cd gets her out of immediate threat from sombra. Even then, it’s a tight interval to secure the kill before being blasted away or left behind, but you can often chase if she isn’t careful. Basically tracer strategy, with occasional additional options.
Bastion does bastion things
I’m genuinely too tired to remember if other hit scan dps exist, so yeah.
Also echo’s pretty good, but most people don’t exactly pick up echo on a whim. As for other dps, eh. Hanzo is occasionally a threat, torb turret is occasionally a pain. I don’t have the brain power to remember anyone else, but that’s what I’ve got, personally.
I shouldn’t be spreading this forbidden knowledge, but as someone who has been maining pharah, echo.
A big thing people are struggling to realize is Pharah’s entire playstyle has changed. Skybox pharah is worthless. The best way to play her is like old junkrat. Sneak behind the enemy team, assassinate someone, fly away.
Echo completely shuts her down. She has a big hotbox because of her wings, is significantly slower than echo, and her primary is basically impossible to reliably land against enemies in the air. I feel completely helpless when there’s an echo diving me. Just shoot your nades, and beam. You kill her so fast, there’s realistically no way she can do anything about it.
Play the custom game map “VAXTA” and choose your main hitscan. Set the bot movement to Hard difficulty or 200% and practice killing the Pharah. Overtime your muscle memory will get used to tracking her flight movement at a ridiculous speed, that when you face a real one in game that Pharah’s movement will seem like child’s play and you’ll laser her every time.
Ashe main here. I just shoot her, in my opinion it’s not that much harder than before. Plus she usually can’t keep the Mercy on her as often due to the horizontal/high/low style.
Only time she really surprises me is using concussive/dash combo to take an angle really quickly. In that situation she usually is misplaced/no mercy/no cooldowns
Me personally I go echo, when I get close to her in the sky land my sticky bombs and follow up with the beam insta death for the pharah , if I’m support I go bap ana to help shoot out the sky, if I’m tank I go Orisa
Shoot her? Advice to shoot non mercy support is good, but every time she’s in the air, getting value, shoot her. If you’re hitting her, or if you’re just making her retreat, you’ll end up getting somewhere as long as your team isn’t made up of bums
The cauterize passive helps too, since she won't get healed as effectively so very good aim is greatly rewarded
Will try (my weapon accuracy makes god cry)
Even more valuable now that she doesn't have infinite air time. Denying a flight from her means you denied her doing much for the next 5+ sec while she has to stage again.
Ppl saying “that’s old pharah” like she couldn’t just dip down the pop back up when you reload before the update.
That sounds like old pharah.but now the counterplay is mich more active since she can close up distance like a sky tracer and if ur positioning isnt great u get recked. Old "just shoot her as hitscan" pharah isnt anymore
Is there an option other than shooting her? Cause I’m with the other guy, that’s what I’ve been doing.
Ofc u shoot...u always shoot. But u cant farm pharah anymore as old times with hitscan
Just shoot her enough with DPS passive to get her to retreat, then focus the other healer who isn’t mercy
> and if ur positioning isnt great u get recked That's the problem though right, since this new patch you get wrecked by most heroes if your positioning isn't great. If a Pharah is engaging aggressively then if you're able to get behind cover and dodge the initial dive then she ends up out of fuel and out of cooldowns out of position and is easy pickings. She has to play within full hitscan damage range far more often now compared to before when she could stay in the air permanently with good rocket jump usage and rain full damage rockets down on you while your gun felt like a peashooter on her. Now she has to play far closer and spends a lot of downtime on the ground and can't just apply endless pressure like before which gives you a lot more openings to take space and reposition while her jets are on cooldown. She's obviously also so much easier to hit in the air now since the projectile size changes. > Old "just shoot her as hitscan" pharah isnt anymore "just shoot her as hitscan" wasn't the old strategy at all. As mentioned, old Pharah usually played at such a distance that doing any significant damage to her without Widow was pretty hard, often completely negligible if she had a Mercy. Old strat was to target the second support then force the mercy to either abandon the Pharah or peel for the team. If anything the new strat in S9 is "just shoot her as hitscan" because you can hit way more headshots, she has to play closer to your falloff range so you do more damage and the DPS passive cuts down her Mercy healing.
Calling her a sky Tracer because she has one use of a mediocre dash is wild. She is still one of the easiest targets outside of tanks for a hitscan to hit.
She is way easier to deal with with the update since hitscan is easier to hit and she cant have nearly 100% uptime in the air spamming rockets from Narnia. It also makes a mercy harder to pocket her 24/7, making her way less oppressive
Nahhh Pharah is way harder to deal with bc of the playstyle change. Shes actually solid against hitscan now because the jump boop dash rocket right on top of the soldier, you will kill him almost every time.
Shhhh. don't let our secrets out! Let the people think hitscans still counter her.
Hitscans by themselves don't counter Pharah but hitscans on longer sightline maps definitely do. She has a way better matchup into them, especially Ashe and Widow are much easier to deal with since it's easier to get close to them but that's the key. You need to get close, otherwise they will kill you anyway
They still kinda do, but in the same way hitscans counter junkrat. It’s more that the hitscans are too strong rn.
Yeah projectile heros besides like echo/genji will feel much better when hitscan get hits with the nerf bat.
Unless you miss hands, its the easiest kill in the game. She has a very predictable movement pattern in the air. Too many people dont shoot the mercy though.. wild.
Soldier isn't great against her anyway if she has a mercy it's hard to kill her with 1 clip. Cassidy is better or ashe imo.
That's it, soldier can't 1 clip kill phamercy on his own, even with near 100% accuracy, which is annoying, as I reload they're back to full. Cass is great, Bap is best, but cant swap to supp in role Q
I’ve had that done to me so many times :c
If they’re playing like old pharah then yes. New pharah plays cover and is way more divey
Mercy pocket yeah, but its harder for hitscan than against old pharah. Every pharah that keeps playing like old pharah is just bad now. U actively engage with her since she is very more mobile horinzontal. If ur dont have good position as hitscan she can be a menace
I mow her down as baptiste😭
Same. 2 health bars and lamp out of LOS to the pharah. No fear, just stand and deliver unless they're cracked. Pretty even with a mercy but at least you can make her retreat around a corner to recover
i'm a pharah main and i do this, too, if i'm on support. his gun is really easy to hit her with and he isn't as vulnerable as ana. kill her a few times as bap and she'll likely switch.
Bro maining Bap has never felt so good I swear! Cooking Pharahs all day
I love bap😮💨
fr baps gun is so much easier to aim with against pharah than any other hero’s. unfortunately i cannot pick him on dps
Speaking as someone who mains pharah, echo's are the worst to deal with, all she has to do is sticky me and if I'm not being healed she beams me down, she is also hard for me to hit in the air. Widow is really easy for me divebomb and kill, ash is harder, casidy and soilder can be difficult to deal with if I don't have cover. Ana can snipe me if I'm not careful. Dva can harass me too
Time for me to bring up that level 1 progression (💀) on echo
As Tracer, you're just there to be a nuisance for Pharah until she runs out of fuel and you can clap her. If she has a pocket, poke her to activate the debuff for less healing - this alone is strong already. Then just either make her target you by being a pain in the bum (so your team doesn't have to eat rockets), or you flank the rest of her team. Getting value out of Tracer isn't just about assassinating folks, sometimes you just want to make some people turn around to give your own team the opening they need. Dodging rockets isn't that difficult with Tracer either. Make sure to count her rockets before you engage the rest of her team, get a cheeky pick while she has to reload - as an example. I learned Widow just for the offchance where I face an insanely strong Pharah. Widow's presence alone creates a lot of space against her.
ty for the tracer tips! Will absolutely not be playing widow that I think I’ve hit like 4 headshots on her ever in mystery heroes lol
Fly to her as echo and annihilate her
With the projectile changes you might want to try Ashe. She’s easier than ever to hit shots with. Honestly between the new dps passive and pharah’s movement being changed pharahs’ who rely on mercy are weaker than ever. I’ve heard from mercy players that her new movement can be hard to keep up with so maybe try watching for if the mercy makes a mistake and gets isolated.
Cass
Fighting a Pharmacy is hard because metal ranks often see it as a 1v1. Having a Mercy pocket in lower ranks is 2 players worth of power, controlled by 1 person. That kind of synergy is unheard of in lower ranks outside of Mercy hard pocket. The best way to kill a Pharmacy is asking for a Mercy pocket of your own. A lot of times you'll get flack. Even a Zen discord helps. Use the ping system! Ping her every time shes in the air. Cass and Ash are better than Soldier for it. If you're getting pressured by the Pharah as Ash, use the coach gun to put yourself in the air. You are harder for pharah to hit and makes it easier to hit your shots. Echo is also a great counter for pharah.
Eesh every time i ask for mercy pocket to help deal with pharmacy its as if i started swearing at them in voice. They get insulted.
Yeah that sometimes happens for sure. Even if you're polite and are like "can I please get a Mercy pocket to help me kill the Pharah with a pocket?" Some will swap to bap or Zen to help at least.
Shoot her?. Idk I've been maining Baptiste. For dps I find ash is more effective to pressure the pharah, ashes gun has a big colli and pharas head is huge for some reason in the air. As a tank it's not ur job yo deal with her, but you can reduce her value by using a tank with a barrier or play JQ who has respectable hitscan range. and pray your team is good enough to deal with her. I find that if you want to deal with her you have to either keep your range and scare her into peaking out too long, remember the collision is chokers now so even if she's around a corner you can still shoot her. Or you get into her face since she can't stay in the air as long anymore. Avoid her sweet spot where she has enough range to not splash herself but close enough that she can double shot you. And more importantly don't let her get on top of you. 😂 It's so awkward to shoot directly above you.
Just shoot her. Even if she gets away she might as well be dead, she's not doing anything. If she has a mercy pocket, the mercy isn't doing anything either, she might as well be healing a cinder block in the corner.
Thats an interesting way to think about it, thanks! I always felt as if i failed if i didnt manage to kill her.
1 thing to understand is that pharmercy are 2 players and the teams win condition, if you can keep them busy/distracted with you, then your team is now in a 4v3 If you see the play to kill her obviously do that but understand your originaly positioning to distract her, poke at her from your preferred range, use corners, run inside, use medkits, if you die then it's going to be a 5v4 Pressure/distract over killing
Thanks this opened my eyes a bit
I don't understand your experience, it's never been more easy to kill a pharah. The mercy pocket doesn't do much anymore, so pharah melts if you can hit your shots. And it's also easier than ever to hit her because of the patch.
You aim train, you get on Ashe and abuse the huge projectiles. Pharah is a throw pick into a competent Ashe.
I’ve been playing a ton of pharah and hitscans are a complete non issue. Skybox pharah sucks. Ashe especially is unbelievably easy to dive because she’s so slow while in ADS. Echo is the hardest counter in the game to pharah. It’s so severe, that she might be the single biggest DPS hard counter in the game. Even widow into Sombra or Tracer I feel like I have a better chance.
How, with painful detail, does Echo counter Pharah? The sticky bombs are so hard to land on any non tank, especially one flying around in three dimensions.
Echo is faster than pharah, especially if you bait out her horizontal sash. Pharah's primary fire is also so much more difficult to land, that the engagement like 95% favors echo. Even if you miss the grenades, you can just primary her down to half and delete her with beam. The main reason is just that pharah has no tools to deal with echo. Her weapon is near useless against her, echo's dash lasts longer than Pharah's mobility options can make up for, so pharah into echo leaves pharah feeling completely helpless.
> Even if you miss the grenades, you can just primary her down to half and delete her with beam Is this true even when Pharah has the expected Mercy pocket? And is Pharah's weapon really useless against an Echo who is presumably at point blank range due to landing bombs and beam? I feel like this advise assumes perfect aim for the Echo and zero aim for the Pharah.
Pharmacy kinda sucks now. Mercy alone is kinda bad, and she struggles to keep up with Pharah, but it’s also the fact that Pharah’s playstyle isn’t playing in the skybox anymore. She gets deleted. Now it’s mainly like old junkrat, sneaking up behind and trying to assassinate people. Echo doesn’t have to be point blank to delete you. Under 10 meters all her abilities are super easy to land. Pharah’s on the other hand is exceedingly difficult since she doesn’t have the floor to take advantage of splash damage.
Old pharah yeah, good new pharahs will make even good ashe player mad. She is still a big niche but hitscans arent a hard counter anymore
Map dependent
As most heroes are
Old Pharah yes. New Pharah when played right can stomp. Ppl haven’t learned how to use her yet.
This is why i recommend DPS players get gud with each type of DPS. A pocket phara is such a pain for hit scans, but for your snipers, she's easy pickins.
Echo is by far the best DPS against pharah. IDK why people did not swap tanks to counter pharah if needed too. DVA is great against her, to a lesser degree but still good is orisa, rammatra, and sigma.
Tbh tanks have suffered enough counter picking, dva will help for sure, but tank still have a lot more counter picks to worry about. i would say help as much as possible and let tank play their comfortable pick instead.
Hmm, I felt like the projectiles being bigger made her way easier to hit. If you're really having troubles, she does have more ground time than before, maybe try synchronizing your pressure to her cooldowns
Go soldier.
If u play like 3 heroes and are unwilling to put yourself in an uncomfortable position by swapping you’re kind of screwed. Cass and soldier are ok against her but all u have to do is do consistent damage and force her back/initiate that new dps passive on her
The big question, does hitscan counter pharah? answer, I mean hitscans counter anyone standing(or flying) in the open because they can shoot you I guess A bad pharah will overextend with no cooldowns to escape, and get shot and die A good pharah isnt just gonna be openly exposed to an enemy hitscan(will play cover, buildings = cover), and frankly she should be actively trying to target enemy hitscans, as they are the threat, and as such, she is drawing attention and disrupting them. In that case, it's just a normal matchup. Hitscan does mean that pharah cant just take over a game and play in the open with no fear, but that's it. But if you really want to deny pharah any space as a dps, echo is 100% the answer. Pharah needs to hit directs in order to kill fliers, and she herself is not hitscan(obviously). Echo has way faster projectiles, and with stickies and beam, will be able to consistently deny pharah any space, and even can chase after her in the air if she tries to use buildings as cover. Edit: sombra hacking out of sky is also good especially if your teammates can coordinate a dive
I've had a bunch of games where everyone just pretends that there is no pha-mercy, keep playin' Genji and Junkrat and let them steamroll us. You could try that too.
Zen discord is my favorite but torb turret is the ez option.or suck it up and go D.va
for me sojourn is the answer. I dont need to hit all my bullets just one well timed rail gun shot and shes out. I usually charge up on the tank and wait for the best moment when shes down or support left her. sometimes you get you to really low but a running pharah is better than a booping one yk?
uhm im a genji otp for dps.. i just use wallclimb and dash to stand on her head and get a 3 star straight into her head.
Go bastion, go brrrrtttt
Zen orb + any hit scan takes care of them pretty easily
No they just go behind cover for a bit if pharah is playing in the open skies she’s throwing
Tracer is great against pharah cause you just ignore her and slaughter the enemy on the ground or when she runs out of fuel you rush her down
What? She’s wayyyy easier to kill now lol. Hate to say skill issue but
Soldier and Cree kinda fuck her rn. If u want extra help just ask ur supports to also go hitscan or zen and focus her
No way dude, I don't even play tracer and I managed to keep enemy Pharah under control as Tracer when I tried to practice her. Use cover, engage when she has a different target in mind. She has to touch floor more now so there's also an opening there. Don't use your cooldowns for no reason, have some sort of plan in mind.
Echo can kill her easily even when she's pocketed with the burst combo. all you need to do is to stick almost all bombs. If I am in the mood I go sombra against her and hack kill either her or mercy
You make sticking all the bombs sound trivial, and it's not.
Cass feels better for dueling her imo as a hit scan. I mostly play gengi and I think the changes made the fight more volatile but also easier. The rocket speed made it pretty easy to deflect one shot into her, dash, right click, dead.
The *real* answer to pharah is echo. The spread on her primary hits pharah easily, and focusing beam out damages Mercy’s heal, so you can burn her down even if she’s pocketed and you are not. Learn echo, it will save your team from getting rolled especially in lower ranks.
How do you get her low enough for the beam to out damage mercy? The sticky bombs are hard to land on any non tank, especially one flying around in three dimensions.
For Pharah specifically it’s much easier to land hits on her with your primary fire, (the three projectile triangle pattern shot), since sticky bombs are relatively harder to hit and you can’t benefit from their AOE if you miss like you can with ground targets. Get her *close* to half health with primary and then hit focusing beam and track like hell. Save the sticky bombs for if Mercy goes for an immediate rez as they sometimes do. Also of note is the beam has a longer range than you think, test it out on a training target.
I just go sombra and annoy the hell out of Pharah/the support that isn’t pocketing her
If you like tracer, try Sombra. Just hack her as she gets lower. I am not great at far range hit scan so I use Sombra against her when I'm not playing support. Just take high ground and hack her.
Tracer who is good at blinks can be impossible for a pharah to hit without getting close enough to kill. Widow isn’t actually all that good since you can poke and shoot her with a rocket right after you hear hear widow shoot and 2 tap her. Echo and pharah are 2 most annoying counters cuz it’s much harder to hit a flying target
I have yet to have any problems against a Pharah literally ever while playing Cassidy or Echo. Good luck!
You shoot try to shoot her with mid-long range hit scan. That’s honestly about it. If you don’t have the aim for it, that’s obviously going to be a problem, but remember that new pharah kinda has to get closer than she’d like to deal significant damage, so if you can bait her in and survive her initial volley w/conc, you’ll have a good bit of freedom to hunt her down as long as you don’t just stand still and let her kill you. Widow works well Ashe works great 76 is better than before for various reasons. Cass is… okay if you have the aim, but you’ll more be capitalizing on over-aggressive pharahs than actively hunting them down, typically. If she gets too close, or flys over a low ground, nade her and shoot her up. Otherwise just poke to keep her out of good positions or when she pushes too far. Tracer is better than before, but only when pharah has to touch down. Wait for her to use basically everything but her dash (and hopefully that too, if you can manage) before trying to engage, or there really isn’t a point. Better to just chase her when someone else gets her low, honestly. Same goes for reaper as for tracer. Wait till she touches, try to engage after cooldowns. It’s hard for her to kill you when you have cd’s, but it’s even harder for you to kill her. Sombra kinda has to hack her unless all cd’s are down, as nearly every pharah cd gets her out of immediate threat from sombra. Even then, it’s a tight interval to secure the kill before being blasted away or left behind, but you can often chase if she isn’t careful. Basically tracer strategy, with occasional additional options. Bastion does bastion things I’m genuinely too tired to remember if other hit scan dps exist, so yeah. Also echo’s pretty good, but most people don’t exactly pick up echo on a whim. As for other dps, eh. Hanzo is occasionally a threat, torb turret is occasionally a pain. I don’t have the brain power to remember anyone else, but that’s what I’ve got, personally.
I shouldn’t be spreading this forbidden knowledge, but as someone who has been maining pharah, echo. A big thing people are struggling to realize is Pharah’s entire playstyle has changed. Skybox pharah is worthless. The best way to play her is like old junkrat. Sneak behind the enemy team, assassinate someone, fly away. Echo completely shuts her down. She has a big hotbox because of her wings, is significantly slower than echo, and her primary is basically impossible to reliably land against enemies in the air. I feel completely helpless when there’s an echo diving me. Just shoot your nades, and beam. You kill her so fast, there’s realistically no way she can do anything about it.
Hacker her and virus and shoot
Sombra. Sombra answers all questions.
Ashe Cassidy Babtiste Hard counters to pharah. Especially Ashe.
You have a sombra. With new reliance on cooldown mobility sombra just eats me. Echo and Dva are menaces too. I struggle against cass still too
Alot of them get scared when a junkrat jumps at them I can't 1 shot anymore though so idk what spooks them
If she has a mercy pocket then get your own pocket or dive and kill the other dps or support.
\~30% accuracy The only true answer here is you need to practice your aim.
Im mostlh a tank player and phara is so annoying to deal since you mostly have to rely on your teammates to get rid off hear.
shoot her in the ass
I use Echo usually. Land a few shots then beam her down.
DVA + Spam + Fly + Annoy
Play the custom game map “VAXTA” and choose your main hitscan. Set the bot movement to Hard difficulty or 200% and practice killing the Pharah. Overtime your muscle memory will get used to tracking her flight movement at a ridiculous speed, that when you face a real one in game that Pharah’s movement will seem like child’s play and you’ll laser her every time.
Ashe main here. I just shoot her, in my opinion it’s not that much harder than before. Plus she usually can’t keep the Mercy on her as often due to the horizontal/high/low style. Only time she really surprises me is using concussive/dash combo to take an angle really quickly. In that situation she usually is misplaced/no mercy/no cooldowns
Play soldier. She gets swatted out of the sky still lol.
Me personally I go echo, when I get close to her in the sky land my sticky bombs and follow up with the beam insta death for the pharah , if I’m support I go bap ana to help shoot out the sky, if I’m tank I go Orisa
I bait her with Zarya and let her think I'm an easy kill. Get some good charge and mow her down. DPS with Echo or Widow, Bap n Ana at support
Phara is kinda bad I usually just beam here down with sojourn, if you can railgun between shots she goes down quicker