Junkrat’s Rip-Tire

Competitive Discussion
1

So I stopped playing OW sometime back in 2018, and this ultimate is still the most trollish thing in the game. Junkrat already does insane amounts of burst damage which allows him to quickly build his ultimate. It’s even worse when your team doesn’t realize how detrimental it is to constantly take “chip” damage from him.

His kit is already fairly straight forward, which makes it easy for even the least mechanical of players to get worth out of the pick. If that wasn’t enough they give him an ultimate that’s even more linear than the rest of his kit.

I’ve lost countless games in the past to Rip-Tire. Countless games my team has, for the most part, outplayed the enemy team on every push they attempt; only to hear the sound of a dirt bike far off in the distance and a 2-4K play soon to follow. What happens? A team that was incapable of making a decent push suddenly pushes the payload to the next checkpoint because a single player on their team who has been spamming grenades across map for the entirety of the game, ran a Rip-Tire up a ******* wallside and dropped it on my team like a damn tactical nuke.

“Just shoot it”. In low elo this isn’t always an answer. A lot of the time teams will hear the ultimate, then spread like a damn wildfire to avoid being killed. As a support main I’m also not the first choice to focus a Rip-Tire. The times that I do, I’m more than likely on Baptise. If I can get rid of the tire, well cool that’s amazing, but I have to pray my team didn’t get decimated due tome focusing the tire rather than on healing. Immortality field works great (if it’s up), but this isn’t always an option either and sometimes you have enemy teams that will actually focus your lamp while the Tire is out.

Honestly if there isn’t a DPS on your team willing to take the responsibility upon themselves to get rid of the tire, there is a VERY good chance that you’ll end up with half your team in the spawn. This ultimate is just too free. I cannot believe that this ultimate is still untouched and considered “balanced” by the community lol.

2 Likes
2

The ult is powerful and straight forward to use but it is easily destroyed. Best bet is to try and jebait the rat into blowing it up into a shield (zarya, rein, etc) or get the team to focus the tire.

If you’re playing at lower elo a second or two of your attention to destroy tire won’t doom the team as the enemy team is also not as skilled (presumably).

Honestly the ultimate strat is just to counter pick into phara, zarya, or anyone else that can deal with rat. That way he won’t build ult as fast as he has to try and avoid his counters or he will switch off.

Junk seems to be in a good place. If anything his trap needs a buff imo. If he were really broken you’d say him played at higher elos, but at that level he just gets pooped on.

2 Likes
3

If your team spreads apart the tire should get 1 kill at most, which hurts but generally isn’t too bad most of the time. If the enemy is consistently getting big tires when using the Rip-Tire from a long distance away, your team just isn’t spreading out. It’s a different story when the enemy Junkrat is hiding near your team and sends a tire out at close range, giving your team almost no time to react to it.

4 Likes