Best Zola Counters

TotemCorruption

So I think we're going to be seeing a lot of Zolas in BG (and AW) at this point.
Who is everyone's favorite counter?

For me, Punk is the easiest counter since he has access to easy heavies and dots on his SP2 that just melt Zola.



Bastion can also do it, but he's kinda slow and not ideal for BGs (I don't think he's ideal for BGs in general honestly).



And I don't really understand why Juggs works since his SP2 does like no damage to Zola, but I saw an opponent do it:



So I tried it myself and same results. Maybe Zola has low health/armor and Juggs's basics do more damage than normal?

13579rebel_

6 star Zola Vs 7 star Zola to answer your Juggs question

TotemCorruption

13579rebel_ said:

6 star Zola Vs 7 star Zola to answer your Juggs question

But look at the last screenshot; I tried Juggs against the 7 star Zola and it worked too.

Almccarthy

Apart from the obvious deathless thanos, starky has been the quickest for me

TheUglyone123

Angela can parry non-contact attacks, and so can SIM if you can sneak a heavy in somehow

713_o_f1673r

TheUglyone123 said:

Angela can parry non-contact attacks, and so can SIM if you can sneak a heavy in somehow

Plus Angela mostly does damage through basics so the cowardice aren't a problem, you can throw specials whenever you need due to the sleep timer since your specials will always be readily available from mostly only using basics, and her DOT duration reduction helps with the disintegration

EdisonLaw

Superior Iron Man

ItsClobberinTime

BRB, his heavy reach is good enough it lets you punish Zola's own heavy, and for some reason his bursts ignore the damage cap even though others like Galan's don't. He won't be the fastest but he can easily do the fight in about 55 secs full health. Great if you're punching a rank above as well.

Skyfaw

Guardian, Photon, Thanos and Overseer are some of my go to.

Nescio

Scream is my favorite Zola counter.

TotemCorruption

Nescio said:

Scream is my favorite Zola counter.

The autoblock is nice to get the stun and land the heavies, but does her non-bleed damage do enough for a quick BG finish?
What's the rotation you use?

Squidopus

Vox can do alright, one degen cycle can finish off Zola pretty quickly. You are reliant on reparries and a compliant AI (or a striker) to land heavies and control his sleep though, but Vox’s degens get the job done pretty fast if you manage to set up.

I don’t have a pic of it but I also think I had a decent fight or two with Gladiator before I benched him once I reached the GC last season. Building confidence can be a bit awkward since you have to hit Zola’s block and feed him some ESP charges, but the fact you can easily combo into heavy to remove them offsets that. Once you’re at ultra confidence his burst damage cleans up shop, helped by the fact that Zola’s specials are decently long.

The best counter by far though is probably just Deathless Thanos.

Wolf911

TotemCorruption said:

Bastion can also do it, but he's kinda slow and not ideal for BGs (I don't think he's ideal for BGs in general honestly).

That was me 🤣

If only I had drafted ironheart...

by the way she is also good zola counter

dr2ws

Easily beta ray bill

The unstoppable heavy helps if you just wanna heavy knock him. And his dot can go nuts especially with the class bonus.

Azdef

Okoye is great as well

Cloudddey_bro

Almccarthy said:

Apart from the obvious deathless thanos, starky has been the quickest for me

How do you land heavy? or you just kill him before 20 hits I assume

Glassback

Cloudddey_bro said:

Almccarthy said:

Apart from the obvious deathless thanos, starky has been the quickest for me

How do you land heavy? or you just kill him before 20 hits I assume

Sp1 stun I assume?

Cloudddey_bro

Glassback said:

Cloudddey_bro said:

Almccarthy said:

Apart from the obvious deathless thanos, starky has been the quickest for me

How do you land heavy? or you just kill him before 20 hits I assume

Sp1 stun I assume?

If opponent runs max limber (which several high tier bgs players do) can confirm you won’t get enough time to heavy without getting smacked in the face. Maybe unless you sp1 in corner or something

Cloudddey_bro

ItsClobberinTime said:

BRB, his heavy reach is good enough it lets you punish Zola's own heavy, and for some reason his bursts ignore the damage cap even though others like Galan's don't. He won't be the fastest but he can easily do the fight in about 55 secs full health. Great if you're punching a rank above as well.

I think it’s because of his XL champ dash back that’s why he can punish the heavy

Ragnaruk5178

I’ve used Adam against him before I did the sp2 so he was in the pod and barely took any disintegration damage from zola’s sp2

Ragnaruk5178

Oh yeah gladiator should obliterate zola

PickL1e89

Kingpin and she hulk. Hulk and hulkbuster also work

Emilia90

I’ve seen tons of videos of bastion taking BG health pools fast. He’s just not ideal for Zola

JhonST33

Kate bishop since her damage comes form coldsnap and this is not affected for cowardice, also scream is a great counter.

CesarSV7

Tigra

Masquirade

Superior Ironman can parry non-contact attacks and he doesn't have to *land* a heavy attack to do it, he just needs to start a heavy attack. Once he starts the heavy he gets a buff that will trigger an autoblock whether he's mid animation, misses, intercepted, whatever, it's a massive safety net.

Venompool also takes him very comfortably for me. I think I'm correct in saying XL champs cover more ground when they jump backwards, so you get out of the range of his heavy, plus Venompool's own heavy covers some really good ground. This and Venompool's specials deal Degen, rather than Bleed, to robot champs. Direct damage does very well into high defence champs. VP isn't great if there's a time constraint (eg BG's) but he's not reliant on stunning Zola at all, he's been a go to for me in war.

Scream is some kind of combination of both of the above, she gets the ability to Parry non-contacts through charging her heavy too, AND deal massive direct damage through her SP2. I'm not always confident playing mine into trickier matchups but I can't see many other champions outdoing her for speed.