Normally i avoid these forums but the outcry on both sides of the junkrat argument are too severe right now. Both sides are saying alot of incorrect facts about junkrat and i’d like to clear them up and then address the changes.

Junkrat specializes in area denial and area denial isn’t just measured in damage, its measured in time. This is one of the significant advantages of a slow projectile and more importantly his ricochets. Increased speed alone reduces his ability to deny an area and with reduced bounces he loses a significant amount of time his grenades occupy an area. He does lose a bit of range at the farthest reach, same with rollers that take up space for very long periods of time. So technically, yes, with this change junkrat loses a good deal of area denial strength in the worst way possible, reduced time.

On the other side of the argument, yes, there are junkrats who do spam constantly and get rewarded for it. For those that say no one accurately predicts the 2nd,3rd or 4th ricochet, just because you can’t doesn’t mean i can’t. Not only does this require a mastery of the grenade launcher and prediction of players, it also requires intimate knowledge of every map. If we can or can’t see a surface to ricochet off of, we need to know of it to use junkrat. Every prop, destructible, window sill and detail in the map needs to be remembered to use junkrat to his fullest. I often joke that no one knows the volskaya chairs are rounded on the edge, since it gives me greater control on ricochets. I think its the reduction of this intimate knowledge that a lot of junkrat mains are upset about and i get it. Its a lot of work to put in to get a grasp on this wacky hero and odd weapon.

but know that i put in more work. I study GM streamers to see how the best on each hero move, where to place traps and what their tendencies are. Study maps during game and off-stream to know how to land every shot where i want to through 3 or 5 different angles. I’ve spent seasons only playing long range, another season only flanking, hell the first 4 months i forced myself to fight everyone head on so i can learn how to deal with junkrat’s weakest link. Has this cost me some games? Yes, but its for mastery of a hero. I don’t speak for all junkrat mains but i’m willing to throw some of this time and effort away to get overwatch as a whole to a better spot. I know not all players are happy about throwing away the time they put into the hero but hopefully if i can then some other can as well.

it feels like these forums have forgot what being a player means. You take the tools blizzard gives us and use it to the best of your ability. End of story.

So while we can easily see what we lose, lets focus on what we gain and how to use it.

What we lose in area denial time we now get accuracy. Not just accuracy where the grenade detonates, but when. Ricochets will now detonate wherever they land so that you can now deny a specific area with no chance for the enemy to evade a roller. This is a change that’s better for OW as a whole. Lower SR players will now step on grenades less while at the higher levels the damage is completely unavoidable if you plan your ricochets appropriately. His increased speed makes you more contestant against everything but also this follows the changes with all off-meta heroes.

Why was reaper passive changed? Same with torb’s armor packs, and sym’s ultimate. These heroes had abilities that required someone to die or take too long to be useful. OW happens fast, quicker than i think the developers ever thought it would be. Junkrat’s area denial wasn’t removed, it was front loaded because it’s too slow in its current state.

When describing how i visualize ricochets to my viewers one of them came up with a really good analogy. He said that the way i was describing it was that i’m now playing with a knight instead of a bishop. Its a very good way of thinking of it, we get reduced range for the ability to attack exactly where we want to. Its not a clear cut nerf or buff but simply another piece in the game of OW that operates closely to what we had but not the same.

More importantly, it helps the communities perception of junkrat. The reality is that we need to deal with that before any massive changes. Jeff wasn’t lying when he said perception is more important than reality in regards to balance. Further down the road there could be more changes to junkrat once the communities perception of him changes. As for right now, use what is given to us. Junkrat survived self-damage, one mine, with a 5 second cast time ult. We can deal with having one or two less bounces.