Overwatch: Boop!

[Togath]

So... is there some way to control what game mode you get?
Like, King of the Hill versus Payload versus Capturing Points.
I REALLY dislike King of the Hill in Overwatch for some reason compared to in Splatoon and TF2... it feels less fun.
I guess it feels like one side always 100% steamrolls the other in KotH maps. I keep seeing one side hit 99%, and then lose control, and then never ever regain it... it's weird.

[The_Jackal]

So... is there some way to control what game mode you get?
Like, King of the Hill versus Payload versus Capturing Points.
I REALLY dislike King of the Hill in Overwatch for some reason compared to in Splatoon and TF2... it feels less fun.
I guess it feels like one side always 100% steamrolls the other in KotH maps. I keep seeing one side hit 99%, and then lose control, and then never ever regain it... it's weird.

Not really. I think you're probably just having some bad games with badness. I find that KotH is the MOST competitive mode, I get more games that go down to the wire than any other, whereas Payload predictably goes to the attacker, and assault usually goes to the defender. However, King of the Hill is definitely a game mode that punishes play where neither team plays the objective. In that circumstance, both teams can scatter and be completely uncoordinated, but the team that caps first has a big advantage in terms of being able to continue to accrue points while the second team contests. What makes KotH better at higher MMR is that better players are able to stay focused on the objective, not trickle in, and most importantly, preserve their ult advantage.

[Togath]

So again, probably a case of "I might actually find ranked less annoying once I unlock it".
I've really got to start playing with less random groups too perhaps.

More a rambling thing, what is it with folks around the internet talking about Junkrat having bad range and maneuverability?
As long as you account for bouncing and arcs, his bombs have amazing range with virtually do damage falloff, and his triggered bomb lets him reach almost anywhere on the map.
Like, sure it's a little hard to kill a flying Pharah with him(not impossible though), it's no harder than doing so with any projectile weapon character. I also saw at least one person claiming Rein's shield disabled him... which is weird, since I find that a shielded Rein's slow movement makes him extra vulnerable, especially since Junkrat can easily fire over or around the shield.

[Rising Phoenix]

So again, probably a case of "I might actually find ranked less annoying once I unlock it".
I've really got to start playing with less random groups too perhaps.

More a rambling thing, what is it with folks around the internet talking about Junkrat having bad range and maneuverability?
As long as you account for bouncing and arcs, his bombs have amazing range with virtually do damage falloff, and his triggered bomb lets him reach almost anywhere on the map.
Like, sure it's a little hard to kill a flying Pharah with him(not impossible though), it's no harder than doing so with any projectile weapon character. I also saw at least one person claiming Rein's shield disabled him... which is weird, since I find that a shielded Rein's slow movement makes him extra vulnerable, especially since Junkrat can easily fire over or around the shield.

Simply put: junk rat is unreliable and most of his damage depends entirely on the enemy team doing errors. At high levels of play (mid plat and up) junkrat becomes less and less viable as teams do less errors and punish junkrat picks by playing pharah and zarya.

[Togath]

Why does it rely on errors?
Sure you CAN fire randomly as Junkrat, but I don't see a reason to not always go for direct hits with his bombs(whether grenades or his triggered one exploded midair) instead.

[Rising Phoenix]

Why does it rely on errors?
Sure you CAN fire randomly as Junkrat, but I don't see a reason to not always go for direct hits with his bombs(whether grenades or his triggered one exploded midair) instead.

A good player will not allow you to do that. They will count how many shots you've fired and then engage you...or ignore the room your camped in...or kill you from far away etc.

The number of junkrats at higher elos is very low.

[Togath]

So... don't take big pauses to reload?
And why would you camp a room?
Plus he has range second only to snipers, from what I've seen. Also the bomb jumping lets him rush those mentioned snipers plenty easily.
Like, why the heck would a Junkrat stay stationary? They have maneuverability second only to Genji and Pharah.

[The_Jackal]

More a rambling thing, what is it with folks around the internet talking about Junkrat having bad range and maneuverability?
As long as you account for bouncing and arcs, his bombs have amazing range with virtually do damage falloff, and his triggered bomb lets him reach almost anywhere on the map.

Junk's damage does not fall off AT ALL, just like Pharah. But he's a low skill cap Hero, because of how slow his projectiles go. Yes, you can lob bombs close or far, but you're relying on someone being there by the time they arrive, which is nothing like aiming.

Like, sure it's a little hard to kill a flying Pharah with him(not impossible though), it's no harder than doing so with any projectile weapon character. I also saw at least one person claiming Rein's shield disabled him... which is weird, since I find that a shielded Rein's slow movement makes him extra vulnerable, especially since Junkrat can easily fire over or around the shield.

Hahah, no. Playing Junk into Pharah is NOT effective. Your team had better be able to take her down, because really, seriously, you're not going to help. Pharah can hover well outside Junk's range and never, EVER get close enough for him to hit her. Any Pharah getting killed by Junk is culpable for her own demise.

As for Rein, yes, you're right, Junk is great and popping the rectangle. In fact, that's one of his best uses, and why he's in the game: He let's you dismantle the Rein/Bastion combo without taking meaningful counter-battery. Also, the knockback of concussion mine can shift Rein out of position, making it easy for the rest of your team to take out the people behind him.

The biggest issue with Junk is that he's very dependent on zoning fire to be effective. Anywhere the enemy team has room to maneuver, they can play dodge-em with most of Junk's fire, making him next to useless. Especially with Lucio being omnipresent at higher MMR, you just speed boost your team out of the chokepoint, after which Junk's advantages turn to disadvantages. There's definitely spots where he can be hellishly effective (Anubis 1, Volskaya 2), but I'd say he's replaced Symmetra as the 'situational pick'. And like Phoenix says, Zarya can farm him for energy pretty trivially.

Why does it rely on errors?
Sure you CAN fire randomly as Junkrat, but I don't see a reason to not always go for direct hits with his bombs(whether grenades or his triggered one exploded midair) instead.

Because the range at which you can reliably land hits with Junkrat compares wildly unfavorably to other Heroes, when you've got a lobby full of people who can actually aim. His projectiles just travel too slowly to hit people beyond 25m reliably. They're not going to be there when your nades arrive, and that's a range where a good Soldier can blow you away in ~2 seconds.

[Togath]

Personally, I don't quite agree. I feel however, this is unlikely to go anywhere. And differing views are okay, so dropping it seems best for the time being.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

For what it's worth on the Junkrat conversation...

He's currently the least used hero in professional games, not only falling in the same <1% category as Sombra and Hanzo, but actually getting ZERO picks in the given timeframe.

Junkrat can be very effective against a wide range of players, but, due to the slow trajectory and/or avoidability/destructability of his entire kit, skilled players are better at avoiding Junkrat's abilities than skilled Junkrats are at landing them.

He's actually SUPER strong into a disorganized team at a chokepoint, absolutely. But the better you get the less reliable Junkrat is against you.

If this weren't the case, we'd see him appear in professional games due to his VERY solid choke-point defense abilities and wide AoE damage at lower skill levels. If he scaled consistently with skill, he'd make an appearance due to those strengths being important.

[Togath]

For what it's worth on the Junkrat conversation...

He's currently the least used hero in professional games, not only falling in the same <1% category as Sombra and Hanzo, but actually getting ZERO picks in the given timeframe.

Junkrat can be very effective against a wide range of players, but, due to the slow trajectory and/or avoidability/destructability of his entire kit, skilled players are better at avoiding Junkrat's abilities than skilled Junkrats are at landing them.

He's actually SUPER strong into a disorganized team at a chokepoint, absolutely. But the better you get the less reliable Junkrat is against you.

If this weren't the case, we'd see him appear in professional games due to his VERY solid choke-point defense abilities and wide AoE damage at lower skill levels. If he scaled consistently with skill, he'd make an appearance due to those strengths being important.

THAT is a much better way to explain the issues. Interesting... perhaps they'll buff him a little in a patch?
What would be needed to tip him over into being strong? Increased grenade movement speed?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

THAT is a much better way to explain the issues. Interesting... perhaps they'll buff him a little in a patch?
What would be needed to tip him over into being strong? Increased grenade movement speed?

I'd worry a little that any buffs to his playstyle aimed at pro play might make him far too powerful against beginner opponents.

The big problems, as I see them, are the following:

• Trap is easy for skilled players to spot and avoid/kill.
• Grenades are difficult to hit.
• Tire is easy to see coming and easy to destroy.

The last one is hard to fix without making him horrendously broken at lower levels of play (possibly have destruction still cause an explosion, albeit for lesser damage?). The former is, I think, simply due to trap...well...not being that interesting, frankly. Compare to the utility and tricks possible with the Demonman's Stickybomb launcher in TF2, for example.

More speed on the grenades would help, but at that point you might have to lower the damage -- they DO do 120 on a hit currently, and you'd have to be careful about accurate Junkrat grenades devastating low-level play. He also has some power budget tied up in his passive, which I'd cut immediately: it's weird, typically useless, and frustrating for an opponent when they forget about it due to rarely seeing a junkrat.

The core issue is, I think, that his wide-range blanket of potential damage is tough to balance -- bad players are easily decimated by it, and would be MORE easily decimated if it were accurate, but skilled players can basically ignore it currently. Finding a good middle ground is going to be tricky -- I'd probably start by adjusting the burst damage, tweaking the direct hit damage, and upping the speed to reward direct hits more and reward random explosions less (although keep direct damage if a grenade bounces directly into someone).

This is all just off-the-cuff speculation though. I haven't analyzed the Junkrat situation enough to make any solid judgment or suggestions.

[Pendulous]

So... don't take big pauses to reload?
And why would you camp a room?
Plus he has range second only to snipers, from what I've seen. Also the bomb jumping lets him rush those mentioned snipers plenty easily.
Like, why the heck would a Junkrat stay stationary? They have maneuverability second only to Genji and Pharah.

Psh. Mei is my sniper.

Junkrat is super fun, will continue to be super fun. But I don't do competitive, so eh. If the game is never going to get at least most of the heroes capable of being in the meta, then whatever, I'll just play what I want to play elsewhere. I will say this though. having a bad game as Junkrat seems so much worse than a bad game with another hero, because it's just so much more obvious. Straight up, if you're not gold damage and have a handful of trapped heroes (on defense, it's a little harder on offense), you need to switch. Also he's just so easy to counter (speaking of snipers).

[NeoVid]

He also has some power budget tied up in his passive, which I'd cut immediately: it's weird, typically useless, and frustrating for an opponent when they forget about it due to rarely seeing a junkrat.

Junkrat is my second most played character, and this idea made me go "Nooo!" out loud. Killing your opponents in random, frustrating ways is half the fun of Junkrat! Hell, "Weird, typically useless and frustrating for the opponent" should be the official description for Junkrat and/or his players!

[Avilan the Grey]

So far in placement matches:

1 easy win. 3 easy losses. Last game 2 people left our game.

I have a feeling I won't make Gold this season since I will probably start in Bronze instead of Silver. The last two matches has just been ridiculous. QP has much better team spirit and more skilled players than Competitive, which I find hilarious.

[Avilan the Grey]

Once again an easy loss. So one win, 4 losses. At this point I fully expect to end up 1 w / 9 loss.

Once again one person left our team with 2 minutes on the clock.
Blizzard needs to make the penalties hurt even more.

How about 1 quit - 1 hour ban.
2 quit the same day - 2 hour ban
3 quit the same day - 24 hour ban

[GolemsVoice]

I honestly think it's fine that not all characters are picked in pro play, since pro play may be a very prominent strata of the Overwatch community, it's not all that big, I'd wager. And Junkrat in Quick Matches is just fine.

[Togath]

I honestly think it's fine that not all characters are picked in pro play, since pro play may be a very prominent strata of the Overwatch community, it's not all that big, I'd wager. And Junkrat in Quick Matches is just fine.

Given I don't have any interest in competitive or pro play, it seems fine to me too.

[The_Jackal]

I honestly think it's fine that not all characters are picked in pro play, since pro play may be a very prominent strata of the Overwatch community, it's not all that big, I'd wager. And Junkrat in Quick Matches is just fine.

Absolutely. The pro-scene is important to the publicity of the game, but not really relevant to making it fun and accessible, which is what 95% of players really care about. There are ALWAYS going to be Heroes who have a pick rate of zero at the competitive level. There are always going to be Heroes who have niche utility. Personally, rather than continually iterate on the dogpile of the competitve meta, I'd just assume Blizzard spend more resources on adding new heroes, and arguably more importantly, more maps and game modes.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I honestly think it's fine that not all characters are picked in pro play, since pro play may be a very prominent strata of the Overwatch community, it's not all that big, I'd wager. And Junkrat in Quick Matches is just fine.

Oh, I definitely tend to agree. I'd just favor a few small adjustments to him, as I suspect it's frustrating for improving Junkrat players to reach points where he just isn't anywhere near as effective as he once was.

[Landis963]

Oh, I definitely tend to agree. I'd just favor a few small adjustments to him, as I suspect it's frustrating for improving Junkrat players to reach points where he just isn't anywhere near as effective as he once was.

Well, on PTR he is currently immune to all his bombs (as opposed to Live, where he's only immune to his mine). Would that be a step in the right direction?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Well, on PTR he is currently immune to all his bombs (as opposed to Live, where he's only immune to his mine). Would that be a step in the right direction?

I'd almost consider that better at low-skill play where you're more likely to vaporize yourself. It also makes it safer to fight in close-range situations, certainly, but I don't know if it does much to improve his ability to actually fight an organized team at mid-long ranges.

*shrug*

Again, I'm no Junkrat expert. I'd really want to play him a bit more and watch some streams of high-level play before I'd make any real calls on things I'd suggest.

[Morty]

I try to play Junkrat a lot, because I liked Demoman back in TF2. But I can't get a good handle on him. I feel like his bombs are easily avoidable, unless you're up close or firing into a chokepoint. I mean, I don't miss sticky spam from TF2, but something's missing.

[The_Jackal]

I try to play Junkrat a lot, because I liked Demoman back in TF2. But I can't get a good handle on him. I feel like his bombs are easily avoidable, unless you're up close or firing into a chokepoint. I mean, I don't miss sticky spam from TF2, but something's missing.

Like I said, he's there to fill a niche, as much as anything. When you're trying to take Volskaya 1, and you've got Reinhardt in the alcove in mid protecting Reinhardt and Torb's turret, you need something to be able to punish that setup. Junkrat keeps the game from devolving into a really campy tower-defense style of game.

[Velaryon]

RE: Winston,

The_Jackal pretty much has it right. Winston is highly team-dependent because of his shield's limitations, so he depends on mobility, coordinated play, and picking his battles in order to be effective.

At range, the shield can buy Winston a moment to get away if he's just a second or two away from his leap coming off cooldown. However, at range Winston can't engage so it's no good to him there. If he's actually close enough to fight someone, the shield is nothing more than a momentary hindrance. Not only does it break easily, but enemies can step right through it and continue shooting you. In order to get much out of it in a close-range combat, Winston has to be able to cat-and-mouse in and out of the shield until it goes down or he kills his target.

As for his leap, you can control the distance a bit by aiming up or down as you jump, to lengthen or shorten the distance. You can also activate your leap while jumping or falling. Combining the two can get you some truly MASSIVE distance on jumps.

His ult... well, it's not really much of a threat unless there's a pit nearby. It can sow a bit of chaos if your team pushes while you're doing it, and you can sometimes trap one unfortunate enemy against a wall or something and just keep smacking them into the air, but otherwise it's best used to save your bacon when you're about to die, since it instantly puts you at 1000 health. I definitely think his ultimate is the weakest part of Winston's kit, but I'm not sure how to improve it without massively changing or just completely replacing it.

One more thing that I haven't seen mentioned about Winston is that he's an excellent counter-pick against Symmetra and Genji. He can destroy a turret nest like nobody's business, and is one of the few that can easily move in and out of range of Symmetra's gun as needed. If he leaps right on her and locks on his Tesla cannon right away, she should have no chance against him unless she's already charged her gun on his teammates (in which case he picked the wrong time to engage). As for Genji, he can't deflect Winston's gun, doesn't typically do well at long range, and Winston is one of the few who has a prayer at keeping up with a Genji trying to get away.

More a rambling thing, what is it with folks around the internet talking about Junkrat having bad range and maneuverability?
As long as you account for bouncing and arcs, his bombs have amazing range with virtually do damage falloff, and his triggered bomb lets him reach almost anywhere on the map.
Like, sure it's a little hard to kill a flying Pharah with him(not impossible though), it's no harder than doing so with any projectile weapon character. I also saw at least one person claiming Rein's shield disabled him... which is weird, since I find that a shielded Rein's slow movement makes him extra vulnerable, especially since Junkrat can easily fire over or around the shield.

Junkrat generally prefers high ground, and doesn't do well against opponents that get above him. He can arc his grenades upward to shoot at targets on a level above him, but it shortens his range considerably. Soldier 76, McCree, Mei, Torbjorn (with his turret), Bastion, and all the snipers can outrange him if they have a height advantage. And if Junkrat is ever able to shoot a Pharah out of the air, she was flying too low and deserves as much or more blame than Junkrat for the death.

The only mobility Junkrat has is launching himself with his mine, which is not especially precise or easy to aim (for me at least). If you're using it for mobility rather than killing or re-positioning an enemy, it seems to me more suitable for simple things like boosting you up to a ledge you can't reach with a normal jump. It's not so hot for escaping (unless you're using it offensively to push an attacker away or kill them).

I certainly don't think he's a bad character, but he's easier than some to play around. Even having gold damage isn't necessarily a good indicator of Junkrat doing his job successfully, if it doesn't translate to kills or opening a gap for teammates. I've gotten 10,000+ damage with him and still finished matches with single-digit kills, while feeling like I didn't accomplish much.

[Pendulous]

I never understood high ground for Junkrat. His bombs bounce. A lot.

[Avilan the Grey]

I'd almost consider that better at low-skill play where you're more likely to vaporize yourself. It also makes it safer to fight in close-range situations, certainly, but I don't know if it does much to improve his ability to actually fight an organized team at mid-long ranges.

*shrug*

Again, I'm no Junkrat expert. I'd really want to play him a bit more and watch some streams of high-level play before I'd make any real calls on things I'd suggest.

Being immune to my own bombs would really help when you're caught and have just used your mine; you really have no option now but suicide attack.

As for other points: Prefer high ground? Actually he does better on LOWER ground, where he is protected but can lob up on you. High ground is second best; even ground is worst. Also, yes, Reinhardt with a shield up is an enemy I truly enjoy facing; I think without boasting I end up killing him 65-70% of the time. My biggest enemy is D.Va, which I have no chance of beating, period unless I get help.

[Togath]

I have found launching myself when at super low hp is surprisingly effective for getting a trade(like, when I hit scratch-damage-could-kill-me low and can't safely flee).
Also thanks to playing lots of Demoman in TF2, I've gotten pretty good with aiming my mine launches~
It's fun jumping over groups of enemies to attack from behind. :3

[Avilan the Grey]

Yeah, aim is the least of my problems. If you have basic knowledge of (game) physics, it's easy to bounce things where you want them to go.

[Avilan the Grey]

Ended up in high bronze.
The four matches today was a mixed bag. 2 neutral, one awesome and one very... stereotypical.

The awesome one was the last game. We lost, but none of us cared, because it was absolutely even. A perfect match, from an enjoyment standpoint. Ilios: Lost two rounds, won two rounds and the last round went to overtime 3 times before we lost it. It was awesome.

The stereotypical? A Hanzo yelling at me as Junkrat to switch to Mercy or be reported. I mentally gave him the finger and continued playing. After the loss he urged everyone else in both teams to report me (for what?) at which point I just pointed out that if he had a problem with Junkrat on attack, maybe he, as a Hanzo, should switch himself to a healer.