From the recent developer blog:
We also want to acknowledge the growing conversation around Junkrat and Symmetra. Both heroes excelled as shield breakers, and the shift to a single tank composition as made both heroes feel slightly out of place in the emerging meta.
Junkrat continues to present interesting design questions. We’ve considered increasing Frag Launcher’s projectile speed; however, we found that by doing so, we risked making his signature weapon feel like more of a rocket launcher. Instead, we’re exploring ways to better reward direct hits as a form of skill expression
Ok. Let’s talk about Junkrat and what the devs could do to improve the value of direct hits with his primary fire in OW2.
Goal: Reward direct hits more, without changing projectile speed and while limiting spam potential resulting in a net buff to his primary fire.
Right now Junk gets a lot of value in lower tiers by spamming into chokes. However, lets lower its effectiveness even more.
What if we removed the splash/timed explosion damage from Junkrats nades almost entirely so missed shots won’t be causing massive team damage when they bounce around in the choke and will only cause high damage to one target instead of all clumped up teammates? Could we then reward his direct hits more and turn him into a high damage single target dps? It’s worth trying.
The changes
| Value | Current | Suggested |
|---|---|---|
| Impact damage | 40 | 110 |
| Splash damage | 80 | 30 |
| Total damage | 120 | 140 |
Before everyone screams, yes, 140 is a lot of damage. However, this is a big trade-off for Junk and a massive ult charge generation nerf for any Junk not consistently hitting directs. Spam will result in not having tire up much if ever. It relies on actually being consistent with directs which just isn’t something seen below masters.
It’s also worth mentioning that even with extra damage he won’t be blowing up tanks. In OW2 his damage vs armour is 84. With this change it’s still only 98 which is significantly less than on live.
Weaknesses:
- Junk loses a of ult charge from aoe.
- Choke/team spam will be significantly weaker.
- He still retains his range weakness.
What he gains:
- Better close-mid range duel potential. Building on his strengths.
- Better kill confirmation that relies on actually scoring direct hits instead of using mines.
- Better skill expression. With less aoe you either hit lots of directs or you don’t get kills and will never get tire due to hardly any aoe.
Overall I don’t see Junks total damage increasing all that much due to how much aoe damage he’ll lose. This should also keep the number of ults he generates the same. It does address kill consistency but only for players hitting consistent directs. Due to how the extra 10% movement speed impacts mines players escaping with 10-20hp after hitting a direct was a massive issue for me in the beta.
It’s a reward for aim while being a loss of value for spam and yes, a Junk consistently hitting directs should be getting far more reward than they currently do. As highlighted the by the devs.
Numbers obviously subject to tuning but that’s the idea. Much more impact damage but gut the aoe damage. Rewards aim, punishes choke spam.
I’m not actually convinced that this alone would even be enough for Junkrat to viable in OW2. He still needs things such as trap reverting/replacing. However it could be a good starting point for his changes. It also significantly raises his skill floor which would allow for more changes further down the line without making him a nightmare for low ranks.
Anyway that’s it 
Hopefully this can actually be a constructive thread with people throwing out ideas on how the devs can improve the value his primary fire brings when hitting directs.