I really like Zarya but the more I play her the more I feel she needs buffs. You have to have perfect aim to be effective with the laser and the worst part is that getting her power to higher levels rarely feels like I'm actually doing significantly more damage. I get it up to 99 sometimes and with how hard it is to get to that point and how fast it drops off I expect to really shred through enemies, but nope I still need sustained laser in the enemy for a good long while. She's not strong enough in HP to really "tank" that much damage to justify you having to be at point-blank range for as long as you have to in order to get a kill. The barrier lasts a fraction of a second which means even if you time it perfectly to absorb a lot of damage, when it expires you're still being shot at and are likely to die super soon. The alt-fire does slightly more damage but with the tint splash damage radius despite the projectile still being a low arc severely limits its usability not to mention you only get 4 alt fires before you have to reload.
Her Ult still lets the enemies fire back at you as you're trying to kill them, and since I said before it takes a shitton of time to kill an enemy you once again have to hold a laser right in front of their face while 3 or 4 enemies stuck in the black hole sare free to shoot you in the face. You have to rely on some other character to do the bulk of the damage.
Gah, she's such a frustrating character. I liked her before but as I get better with other characters I have less and less reason to go back to her. Playing her feels like you have to work twice has hard to get half the results some other character gets, like say, Mei. Just compare the two Ults. Both Ults are AoEs that incapacitate enemies, except Mei's is actually good in that all frozen enemies can't fight back, and once all caught enemies are frozen it's headshot city and you get at least a couple of guaranteed kills. Zara's Ult is basically the same function but worse.
I can understand the frustration of picking up Zarya since she's definitely a character that requires a certain playstyle to work, but she's far from underpowered. Right now I would say she's probably the third strongest tank behind Reinhardt and Winston. A couple things to keep in mind...
First, your shield doesn't make you invincible. It only absorbs up to 200 damage, then it goes away regardless of how long it was. The trick is to put yourself enough in danger that you take a bunch of damage, but not enough that you get killed. Thanks to her 200 hp shields you have a bit of a cushion in terms of going over without really being too penalized but overall you need to have a good idea how much you can take without dying. In all honesty you should get in a habit of using your self-shield almost off CD unless you have a reason to keep it available.
Second, Symmetras, Junkrats, and Reinhardts are your best friend. They generally spam chokepoints with highly damaging slow moving projectiles that you can intentionally get hit by for an easy 50% charge.
Third, you should really try to get another tank on your team. All the other tanks generally make great damage sponges and will appreciate the effective 400 bonus health you provide while you'll enjoy the easy 50% charge. Their naturally large hitboxes makes them easy targets and therefore reliable sources of charge.
Fourth, watch out for ulting teammates or enemies. Zarya's barrier can make a good missile barrage into an insane one, and can help shut down Soldier or Reinhardt ults. Her barrier just naturally counters people getting bursted down, which makes it great to pair with or use against ults.
And a last tip is to make sure you have around 50% charge if you're going for an ult that you expect to deal most the damage on and to have self barrier up. Generally you should always try to have your barrer up when ulting as it helps you make sure they don't kill you first. Plus their fire will give you an easy 50% charge.
Overall Zarya's not an easy character. She really requires a specific playstyle that is unique to her in order to really maximize your dps and potential. Best of luck to you
