It’s no secret that Junkrat is really struggling right now and he’s largely accepted as the worst dps in the game. It’s also no secret that fixing him without breaking things especially in low-mid ranks is difficult so lets brainstorm some ideas.
Yes this is a long post. People with short attention spans, you have been warned.
The problems he faces
Primary fire
He has the most inconsistent primary fire in the game. His nade speed is 25 m/s, half the speed of the next slowest projectile. This allows players to step out of the way of his nades beyond close range. It’s also got a heavy arc which means he is range capped on how far he can fire. This makes him very vulnerable on high ground maps and against fliers.
His clip size is only 5 and his reload speed is 1.5 seconds. This makes his inconsistency more punishing as a target frequently has low hp but Junk is forced to reload.
His nades do 120 damage so he must hit 3 to kill a target. Unless he’s at super close range this means that with travel time his time to kill is significantly slower than almost every other dps and that’s with 100% accuracy, which is unrealistic. Even at close range with primary alone his time to kill is quite slow.
Mines
Mines have the same throw speed as his primary fire at 25 m/s and due to this suffer from the same inconsistency related to players being able to move out of the way. The fall off compounds this as moving just a little results in a large drop in damage.
Mines boop targets into the air so not killing the target with them means the Junkrat must then hit a follow up air shot. For almost the entire ladder, this is unrealistically difficult.
His mines max damage are 120 with minimum being 55.
He must choose between mobility and damage yet the damage aspect is inconsistent. No other hero needs to make this choice.
Mines only have 25hp and are often broken by random aoe despite nobody aiming at them. This puts his mobility on cooldown.
Mines have a blinking light allowing players to see any pre-set mines and easily break them. This hard denies Junks ability to engage with a mine and forces him to wait another 7 seconds, which is far too long in a teamfight situation.
Rip tire
His tire health was not buffed in line with the projectile size increases. This means that not only is tire now much more easy to hit, it must also get closer to targets since they all have extra health. This extra inconsistency has turned tire from one of the best parts of his kit into a very mediocre ult. In high ranks tire tends to kill nobody.
Hard counters
Junk is arguably the easiest hero to counterpick in the entire game and can be completely shut down with little to no counterplay beyond swapping off Junk. When he had his combo he could deal with fliers by killing them if they were overconfident and got too close or flanking the fliers backline for a quick kill. Without the combo neither is possible and he is hard countered. Even if he doesn’t die his team will be severely disadvantaged as he can’t help pressure the flier.
The same situation applies on hitscan/sniper maps. His lack of ability to consistently get a kill if he does somehow get into close range has made his weakness on these maps even worse.
He’s even struggles against almost every dive hero. There are very few favourable or neutral matchups for the hero now and that’s only when we’re looking at the dps roster.
Being vulnerable to counters is itself fine but he must bring major strengths to the table to make the risk worth it.
The passive
He is arguably the worst dps at applying the passive due to his inconsistent and range limited primary fire. This is absolutely massive and is not offset by him having strengths in other areas. If he can’t reliably apply the passive he needs to be strong at solo killing targets instead.
Summary
He lacks the ability to consistently kill anything beyond close range due to the nature of his primary, lack of breakpoints and mines working against his primary fire.
He lacks the ability to survive at close range because he lacks a defensive cooldown like other close range dps but he must get into close-mid range for consistency.
His ult was not compensated with projectile size changes.
His extreme vulnerability to hard counters combined with the lack of his strengths on almost every map makes him never worth picking. The upsides do not outweigh the risk.
How can he be fixed
There are a few things we need to address here before discussing fixes.
- Until recently he’s generally been too strong in bronze-diamond while being too weak in masters-top 500.
- Blizzard don’t want too much burst damage.
- Junkrat needs some consistency when it comes to killing other squishies. As it stands he cannot hold space vs other dps or challenge them.
- He’s annoying on maps with corridors due to spam and nobody likes dying to it.
- We need to avoid just turning him into ground Pharah.
Everything is up for discussion. Below are ideas thrown at the wall and he would obviously not get or need all of them. It depends which direction we want to take the hero.
Primary rework. Primary fire damage increased to 140. Damage halves after hitting a surface. This allows him to 2 tap on primary but only with direct hits. Spamming would require 4 hits to kill a 250hp target, nerfed from the 3 he requires now. A direct and bounce would also not kill.
This would bring back the combo as well, albeit with little to no margin for error and well below the margin for error he had when they nerfed his mine damage in earlier seasons but then reverted since it made him too weak.
He would be significantly nerfed in lower ranks and weaker on maps like Lijiang control but it would likely increase his top rank viability on most maps as long as the player can hit consistent directs. I think this would be enough to fix the hero with no other changes and considerably raise his skill floor.
Primary damage increased to 125. This brings back 2 tapping on primary but avoids the combo. He’d likely need a few additional changes because while nice this would not be enough to make up for everything he lost coming into season 9.
Primary damage increased to 130. This brings back his mine nade combo but it is worth remembering that it would be severely nerfed compared to in season 8. In season 8 his combo could do 30 more damage than max health. Previously it was nerfed down to 20 more damage than max health and he was so inconsistent/weak that Blizzard reverted. Having no margin for error would not be too strong and taking even a single step to the side would result in survival due to the fall off. I think this would almost be enough to fix the hero but he’d probably need another buff on top. If we’re heading in this direction I’d rather go with the full primary rework to raise his skill floor.
Mines do 20 additional burn damage over 2 seconds (140 total). This would allow him to combo but not instantly. It would also allow him to double mine 250hp targets. Receiving healing would prevent the kill. He’d still be significantly weaker than in season 8 and would additional changes but this would be a major buff. I’m not too big a fan of this since it doesn’t address his skill floor and if anything makes it worse, but it could work.
Additional mine. If he’s not allowed the combo or extra damage on primary this would add extra kill confirmation on targets with very low health, something that he really suffers from now along with increasing his mobility. I’m not really a fan of this since it would be very low skill and open up triple mining squishies but it would probably be enough without touching burst.
Mine cooldown decreased to 4 seconds. Similar reasoning to the above without letting him throw out back to back to back mines.
Mine fall minimum damage increased again up to 80 (or more). This would allow him to do primary and mine into an airshot and kill through almost any healing. Given that this is a skillshot the vast majority cannot consistently hit, I think a kill should be almost guaranteed. The combo would still not be possible. While very nice, I don’t think that this alone would be anywhere near enough and would be an extra change.
Rip tire health increased to 125. The extra 25hp would prevent it being 1 shot by other projectile heroes such as Pharah, Hanzo, other Junkrats as well as Reins fire strike. Right now it’s common for tire to evaporate the moment it leaves cover.
Rip tire speed increased from 12 to 13. This was his OW1 pre nerf speed and it’s noticeably faster. This would leave the tire vulnerable but allow for much more manoeuvrability, surprise angles and make getting into range more consistent.
Replace trap with a defensive cooldown or area denial ability. Something like a smoke bomb to limit ability to target anything inside/outside the radius? This would let him take flanks and close range fights without immediately dying but I worry about the consequences for tanks. A strictly defensive ability might work but does that go against Junkrat as a hero being all about chaos? Maybe.
I’ve left out things like clip size, reload speed etc because I don’t think changing any of them would address the fundamental issues.
QOL changes
Mine health increased from 25 to 100, the same as trap. This prevents them being broken by random aoe/melee that isn’t even aimed at the mines. This would not change anything about his power and only make his mobility more consistent.
Flashing light on mine removed. This was added to prevent mine/trap combo but it no longer kills so is unnecessary. It mostly prevents Junks pre-set rollouts.
Bugs
For the love of God please fix these:
Trap breaks instead of activating.
Trap activates and damages the target but they can keep moving.
Trap disappears but goes on cooldown.
Mines sometimes disappear but go on cooldown.
Mines sometimes do not boop Junkrat.
Mines sometimes no reg.
Tire sometimes cannot climb walls.
And that’s it 
