•Junkrat Nerfs - Where Are We Going?•

JUNKRAT NERFS - WHERE ARE WE GOING?

So, A couple seasons ago, Junkrat got a very needed buff to his mobility. It was a great decision. Junkrat had a fighting chance to escape attackers, or make a hail marry against an agressive opponent. It actually gave him a fighting chance against Phara in a 1v1… barely, but it was a risk the more skilled players were willing to take.

Since then, Junkrat has seen immediate nerfs:

  • A once reliable mine is now vaguely effective even at close range.
    • It's even less effective against one of the classes that was meant to at least be careful around him, Flankers.

  • On top of that, the mobility update in December has made it easier for everyone to recover from an already meandering push from Junkrat's mines, allowing them to basically land right back where they started.

  • Mines and Grenades have been failing to deal damage even on successful hits at random intervals, registering Zero.
    • With no fix in sight or even the problem being acknowledged in an official manner theres question as to weither or not this was intended
    • Even Traps seem to allow characters to simply hop over them...

  • The Tire has continued to get slowed since its innitial buff, making it more mobile than its old self, but now just as predictable.

  • New characters and other character buffs have simply made it more difficult for higher tier Junkrat play in general. When this game started there was a fraction as many shield characters and battle supports.

  • The latest example a 66% reduction in the size of Junkrats primary fire. For a character with such a low success rate in skill shots, the introduction of this change was understandably confusing:

    Junk Maths

    That… does not add up.

    Its an intresting statement, because it very clearly hurts the players who attempt to lead shots , rather than the ones who spam.

    For a character who’s accuracy is notably abysmal, and dodge able at 10-15 meters, it doesn’t make much apparent sense to point out Junkrats will have to " aim a bit more carefully" when it specifically effects the people who already have to deal with aiming carefully the most, and the uncaring spamming players the least…

    The grenade is now 1/3 its volume it once was, meaning those sliver of a chance collisions with tracer are going to be all the more unlikely.

    So , that brings us to now. The patch will likely go live by next season as per the usual, and Junkrat is one of the only characters in the latest roundup to not be even mentioned in talks for reversion or adjustment despite the clear problems experienced on PTR, and all we have to ask is…

    What are we, the community of players, going to see the devs doing with Junkrat as this trend continues? I surely would like to know from them what to expect in season 10 , 11, and beyond…

    44 Likes

    To be honest, I’m gonna have to see it myself to get a feel for the difference.

    2 Likes

    Like he didn’t need nerfs? Season 8 was basically “Fire in the Hole!!!” The game.

    30 Likes

    Junkrat needs nerfs. The two Concussion Mines gave him MASSIVE burst damage and thus he could murder pretty much any squishy. Plus, his Ultimate is pretty fast-charging and nasty, so they needed to change it. Of course, several of THESE nerfs aren’t great; the Concussion Mine one is a bit unpredictable, the Frag Grenade change is ok but may not help out in the right way, and the RIP-Tyre one isn’t the one most believe it needs (namely, longer charge time; similar problem with Tracer’s Pulse Bomb).

    7 Likes

    I’m still an advocate of simply nerfing Junkrat’s ult charge instead of doing multiple nerfs all at once.

    14 Likes

    And most junkmains agreed, But, giving it falloff down to 30dmg at its maximum radius meant he couldn’t deal with fast moving flankers or guarantee a good hit at 15+ meters on anyone for that matter. People righly suggested a flat 80dmg, but unlike most classes, there aren’t enough Junkmains to make a large enough vocal impact.

    Its relatively easy to destroy and had an average of 4.5 kills a game…

    Yes as stated above, it literally doesn’t
    address the problem they are trying to fix…

    And for the most part, Junkmains were fine with that, it made Sense. And considering how few kills the riptire got. “fine” was about as much as we could say, because as we still see now, people want More nerfs. They want blood from a stone.

    8 Likes

    Should Junkrat deal with flankers outside of traps?

    In what way is he dealing with flankers Now?

    1 Like

    Same can be said about junk’s control of mobility in the air, so it wasnt a nerf

    Then again, same can be said about any hero. Ping is the problem and not the character balance. If you have a good ping 99.9% of the times it wont happen.

    Also you cant jump over junk’s trap

    1 Like

    For the intended purpose of pushing people away… yes… it was.

    Its been noticed more regularly since the mine update, on both mines AND grenades, on steady connections that haven’t changed suddenly coinciding with an overwatch update…

    And yet, we see it happen…
    I believe what you meant to say was " The developers did not indend for people to jump over Junkrats trap" to which you would have been correct.

    1 Like

    I agree, but the PTR nerf reduces his grenade size by 33%, making them 2/3 to what they were.

    You may want to fix those numbers in the original post.

    1 Like

    Go in to the live servers and show me how you can jump over it, and if you cant its not an issue, because its still a ground trap and not a get caught in mid air trap like grav is

    You complain about this? Maybe just aim your projectiles better??? smh x2
    its every hero in the game. Junkrat is not special

    One if the purposes of it. Same can be said about boop, rocket punch, winstons knockback in ult etc.
    Junkrat is not special, and he still has 2 mines

    You just sound salty because your main gets nerfed

    With the help of discord or damage boost, Junkrat does 156 damage to a Tracer with his grenades, or direct hit mine.

    When have you ever heard someone say: “Why are you playing ‘SoAndSoHero’ vs. against their Junkrat? Junkrat HARD COUNTERS YOU?”

    But let me tell you how often I hear the complete opposite: “Why are you playing Junkrat? ‘SoAndSoHero’ hard counters you! I’m reporting you for trolling!”

    I hear it every, single day. 250+ hours played as Junkrat in Competitive, and there’s always someone complaining about it. Not once have I ever heard: "We need a Junkrat to counter their blahblah." He’s not OP; you people just want to complain about a playstyle that’s frustrating to you because you refuse to adjust yourselves.

    Or this one:

    “We need a hitscan to deal with that Pharah. JUNKRAT YOU NEED TO SWITCH TO HITSCAN OR I’M REPORTING YOU!”

    This is my favorite: “UH, guys. We need two tanks JUNKRAT YOU NEED TO SWITCH RIGHT NOW!” (Meanwhile: we’ve got a shield tank, two actual healers (Moira, Lucio), and Symmetra)

    Face it, people. The Junkrat nerfing and hate is completely unfounded. People who are frustrated with having to face off vs. Junkrats, after spending months and months laughing at his uselessness, are now demanding the game be changed to fit THEIR vision of how to play. They want to go back to constantly complaining about the Junkrats on their own team, rather than currently complaining about the Junkrats on the enemy team and dealing with them appropriately.

    I put the majority of my time into JR before he got buffed. I had to play with chat off most of the time due to the constant harassment I received from teammates for picking him. Ya’ll can go straight to H.E.-double-hockey-sticks.

    15 Likes

    Just so we all know, nerfing him outside of his ultimate is an indirect buff to Brig. Just throwing that out there.

    Absolutely. I put 20 hours into her on QP already, and this is the biggest glaring issue with all of it. It boggles my mind at how people are complaining about Brigitte, while also wanting to see JR nerfed into uselessness again. It’s like they want Pharah to remain “the elephant in the room”, with her rockets which are far more dangerous than a Junkrat mine or projectile.

    4 Likes

    prob more nerfs until he’s a niche pick again. a hero designed so poorly and requiring such little skill should not be mandatory on any map.

    80 flat damage on mines no fall off.
    120 damage on trapped targets or increase trap damage to compensate.
    Increase ult charge to same as Pharah
    Revert the recent grenade launcher nerf.

    WHY IS IT SO HARD -_-

    Hes so inconsistent now, hes EVEN WORSE than he was pre-mine buff in my opinion…sigh

    6 Likes

    Please list which heroes, as per Blizzard’s own designation coding system, are mandatory picks…specific map or no specific map. I’m curious which ones Blizzard has assigned such codes to. I’ve never seen the list, but it sounds like you’re aware of one existing that labels certain heroes as “Mandatory”, and others not.

    Also, nobody is fooled by your “Junkrat” forum avi, clearly selected to jump into JR discussions to make others think you know what you’re talking about. You’re a Genji main, with 15 minutes career played on JR.

    3 Likes

    Dva.
    20 chracters…