Hanzo and Widow can reach up to 500 and 600 damage if they headshot respectively through a baptiste ult, and isn’t hampered by distance or travel time as much as Junkrat. Nevermind that other heroes abilities can also allow them to one-shot others like Reinhard firestrike which have piercing properties as well.
For all that the threat he present, a lot of people tend to forget it’s also the slowest projectile in the game. It’s not exactly difficult to avoid his attacks, and very rarely will he get the full benefit of Baptiste/Ana boost since those are served better for other heroes (Imagine new deadeye + Baptiste ult, or Hanzo/Pharah/Widow. Even Ashe/Soldier benefits more and gets more mileage from boost than Junkrat.).
If it’s concerning on his ult charge, then put an additional 5-10%. I’ll sooner take that as a 140 primary allows Junkrat to do a much better work in shield busting/confirming kills than 130 which is near negligible and don’t solve anything in giving him a unique niche.
A plat Widow main is getting nowhere close to T5. Pretty obvious troll though; clearly knows nothing about Junkrat, and mains Brig this comp season. Speaking of hero ‘skills’ out of place, any one-shot kills are terrible for this game unless (and probably even if) they reduce head hitboxes.
Personally I’d prefer being able to better control frag launcher’s damage instead of just getting more damage layered on top of it. Also, you didn’t really address my point about Junkrat’s potential damage output even when he misses. This is the main reason why he has such a low skill floor and perception of Junkrat by the community as a “braindead spam character” is the way it is. You simply addressed Junkrat’s weaknesses to his primary fire. (all of which I agree with) This is why I would be more than willing to trade some of Junk’s area carpeting ability (his niche strength) for more direct shot capability (the thing he lacks). It would make him less niche, though I would speculate people would still piss their pants and cry “SpAm!” regardless.
The potential output he has is kind of still circumvented that it’s not really gonna do massive damage if it doesn’t hit anyone.
If you’re talking the lingering effects, that’s because it’s his design to deny areas. It’s also one of the reason why we put up with such slow projectile speed, because it trades that for damage, bounces and capability to linger around. Hell, it’s the only reason why people would even pick him and requires Baptiste to get that value comp off (And assuming the enemy don’t have their own baptiste who also circumvents this with drone, or Dva to solve the issue completely by eating it up.).
Can it one-shot? Yes, and so can projectiles heroes like Pharah/Hanzo as well. The potential output is terrifying on paper since it’s 280 per shot, and at one full clip, is maybe 1400 total?
But Pharah, with 240, can still output 1440 like since she has 6 shots, Hanzo can plink out 250, 840, and another 250, bring it to a close 1340. That’s just body shot alone, if we put in headshot, it doubles that to 2680.
Frankly, being able to bounce and make bank shots is one of the reason I like playing Junkrat and one of the niche he has in denying area. Having a 140 for direct hits instead of AOE explosion rewards him for hitting directs as well and solves the consistency issue of the mines since the extra 20 damage means there’s more wiggle room for the mines to do 60 damage at most instead of 80 to kill confirm a target.
Eitherways, at this point, whatever buff Junkrat gets, he’ll still get flak. Might as well just take what we got, and the 140 was a good idea until people complained about it more.
We’re sort of agreeing with each other, I do like the “ricochet” mechanic (It’s not always luck to you critics out there) of Junkrat and his whole kit of area denial is integral to him and what makes him a unique hero. My personal suggestion is trade one bounce for a little bit faster grenade. He still can retain bounce shots and carpeting areas, but not as strongly as before and in addition he has a little more bite when being confronted outside of point-blank range. It allows for more advanced techniques like airshotting and the like to be more consistent and would give him a little more of a sporting chance against high mobility heroes, and lastly would make him still a threat without reliance on spam, provided your aim is decent.
While I’m also on the point of faster grenades, it’ll still run into the issue, why not just run pharah then?
Will a faster nade be good? Yes, I tested it out on custom servers and AI, tweaking the speed of the projectile and it was fantastic (Going from 20-25%, then outright maxing it 500% which made it almost hitscan.).
Problem is, Pharah is still better and fulfill that role much more better than Junkrat. The 140 at least gives Junkrat an identity and role in absolutely being the few high primary and shield buster role.
That’s just my view on the matter though, the best suggestion for me is either the 140, or just consistent mines at a lower damage.
Parabolic trajectory (useful for safer shots from high ground), ricochets, doesn’t have to expose oneself to snipers and hitscans as often to be effective, also because I prefer playing Junkrat instead of Pharah. Regardless of projectile speed, they’re still very different heroes with different strengths and weaknesses. I would almost go out on a limb and say that Pharah is inherently a riskier pick than Junk since the main thing holding Junkrat back is his lack of consistency, whereas what holds back Pharah is that basically every remotely competent hitscan counters her.
Their big problem with him being 140 was just that the +50% damage boosts would one-shot 200s. So that’s why they went to 130. I kinda agree with them on that because even 135 does the same thing, but I hope they’re looking at him more closely this next patch like they said they would. A somewhat faster projectile speed would not be game-breaking and lowering the bounce explode to 2 instead of 3 would be better for some people’s perception of Junkrat.
Even at 140, we go from “inconsistent damage” to “extra inconsistent damage”. People who can’t avoid spam die faster, and still complain. As fun as 140 was, It was only a matter of time. Hell, whatever Blizz cooks up next patch I’m sure will be met with more Forum Junkrat.
Pharah gains from shorter flight time and instant collision however. SO she can corner bash enemies all day while mercy boosts and heals.
I too prefer Junkrat, just trying t make the counterpoints clear here.
Also most CP’s don’t have any save place to guard it while enemy is on attack, So junkrat has to expose himself to get good shots in.
She also gets a more reliable boop. Air controll is not regained as easily from hers as it is from junks. : /
But on average thats 40+ dmg , per clip based on junkrats universal average hit rate.
Thats… basically nothing. The most would be 100+ more dmg per clip on shields or +200 behind a baptiste wall at best. Every other time in game he would be useless, as we’ve seen in GM and G comps right now. Junkrat has a 60+ winrate… because he’s used .3% of the time. He’s basically the last-chance defender setup when the enemy has pushed the payload too close and only then when paired up with a LOT of tank and heals.
I still am not sure if more damage is the solution to Junk even if he’s made to be more consistent. While he has a lot of weaknesses, he does have strengths that should not be ignored, lest we end up in a whole new crappy meta. I would almost say making the projectile/“specialist” heroes should have been 250 HP on release , but that’s unlikely to happen, especially to Pharah who would be even harder to kill on low ranks.
Thankyou for putting into words something I’ve been trying to vocalize for a while: Faster grenades step on pharah’s toes.
A possible change I’ve been thinking about is a minimum arming distance for his grenades.
So, under 7m distance, his grenades would not explode on contact. Instead they will deal impact damage only, with headshot crits enabled, and then bounce at a semi-natural angle (the impact buff would be nice here. Maybe even increase it a bit when under 7m so he’s not totally defenseless up close).
Past 7m they will arm and explode on contact as normal. This would enforce a medium-long range without letting him become a massive fragger at close range.
In exchange (because this would be an absolutely massive beyond massive nerf), increase his grenade radius to 0.3 or even 3.25, increase the loiter time a bit, and investigate other possible buffs to his area denial kit.
I don’t want a close-range, frag-happy Junkrat. I want a big-brain, strategic thinking required, area denial hero. And the smaller grenades aren’t doing it for me.
Junk won’t invalidate Pharah with faster nades as she has a completely different movement system and kit as well as one extra projectile in her clip. Even if junkrat’s grenade speed is buffed, nowhere does it have to be identical to or faster than Pharah’s speed. Even if he did it wouldn’t matter, as other than the fact that their projectiles explode, their projectiles are nothing alike. One ricochets three times before exploding(or contacts an enemy) and is affected by gravity, and the other’s goes in a straight line until it hits something. The AOE is the only commonality they share. One can bypass barriers by bouncing around or over shields, and the other by being physically above it, invalidating it entirely. That’s like saying Ashe steps on Widow’s toes because they both are hitscan snipers.
Also, an arming distance would hurt his consistency even more and add more needless layers to him. I like complexity, but this just seems like it would lead to more issues of damage consistency. Hitting projectiles with junk is tricky, let alone getting consistent headshots, even within closer ranges. And while I like a hero that controls areas, I’d trade a little bit of that for being able to put a grenade where I want outside of point-blank range. Everyone who doesn’t play junk hates the bigger nades, and we have to accept the fact that 0.3 nades aren’t coming back. (Especially because blizzard doesn’t make mistakes. /s)
Pharah problems is that she’s very reliant on healers sticking to her as a support. However, this creates a problem that the enemy has to respond equally in dedicating either 1 or more (Dependant on skill.) in simply trying to halt a pharah.
Despite that however, we still see Pharahs being run on certain maps even on the OWL because Pharah toolkits. You would be lucky to see Junkrat being ran, even then, rarely, does picking Junkrat work out. Pharah can at least, still outplay hitscans to a certain degree.
Frankly, a faster projectile speed buff isn’t so much stepping on Pharah’s toes but rather, why pick Junkrat when Pharah is still the superior one? (Or Hanzo for the matter, who can do everything but better.).
Frankly, from my experience, rarely does the 50% boost ult works out on Junkrat and at most, only helps against shields and tanks. The capability of oneshotting is still hampered by the downsides of it (Slow, not as large, and getting off one clip at most.), and the only way Junkrat is gonna get effective is at close range (Which is where he supposed to excels in.)
The downgrade from 140 to 130 seems more like a reactionary kneejerk, and 140 isn’t as gamebreaking as one would think considering that Junkrat still has all of his weaknesses (Pharah, Dva, being weak at long/mid range).
I’m also very jaded at this point where you cannot change the perception of Junkrat, and you’re better spending time in making Junkrat do his role better (Which I believe, either the 140 or a consistent mine buff would make him a lot better.).
Some of it does come down to preference. I do agree that hanzo in particular is one of the strongest DPSes currently (whatever thats worth) but making niche heroes even better at their niche still makes them useless outside of their niche. Niche heroes are bad because why pick a hero that only gets value out of one situation or play style. Either blizzard has to make all heroes specialists and fully commit to hard counters and more dynamic swapping, or at least bring up specialists to a level where they can compete in a general setting with niches still existing but being more of a secondary flair. I’m for the latter, personally.
