Junkrat is a demolitions expert who uses strategically placed traps and grenades in order to fend off hordes of oncoming attackers. With proper trap positioning and grenade spamming, he can inflict heavy amounts of splash damage to the entire enemy team, forcing them off chokepoints.

Playstyle

Junkrat thrives in positions where he can bounce his grenades into the enemy team without being under threat of counter fire. While weak in head to head battles, he uses traps and mines to ensure he can safely rain down chaos on to the unsuspecting enemy team. Mastering Junkrat requires heavy amounts of map knowledge, as well as a sense of projectile timing, both of which can be learned with time. This time is well invested, as a skilled Junkrat can easily turn the tide of battle into his team's favor at any level of play.

Pros

• Great at holding chokepoints
• High damage when it connects
• Can stay out of line of sight while bouncing grenades at enemies

Cons

• Low Mobility
• Destroyable abilities
• Hard to be accurate at long range
• Have to learn the physics of his grenade bounces

Abilities

Total Mayhem (Passive)

• Drops 5 grenades on top of your body when killed after a short delay
• Each grenade deals 60 damage

Due to the grenades dropping where you die, you can't really control whether or not this ability will be useful. Most of the eliminations you score will be due to lack of awareness by the opponent.

Frag Launcher (Left Click)

• Shoots a grenade in an arc
• Bounces
• 120 Damage per projectile

The bouncing aspect of this ability makes it a great asset when it comes to defending chokepoints. This allows you to stay out of the enemy's line of sight while still dealing damage to their team. The projectile it shoots is fairly slow, but the firing speed isn't, meaning an enemy might accidentally face tank two of them at once while trying to run through a chokepoint. Determine the most popular chokepoints on whatever map you're playing and use this to keep enemies out of them. The heavy damage this deals should quickly give you ultimate charge, as well as burn down the opposing Reinhardt's shield. The slow moving projectile and strange bouncing mechanic can make this ability difficult to hit at first, but after practice you'll begin to predict where and when it will land. Depending on the height it falls from, the projectile will bounce higher so when firing from above the enemy, try bouncing it off the side of a wall so it doesn't fly over them.

Concussion Mine (Shift)

• Throws out a sticky mine
• Deals up to 120 damage
• Knocks away enemies and Junkrat depending on range
• Must be manually detonated
• 8 Second cooldown
• Destroyable

The most common use of this ability in a defensive setting is placing it inside of your Steel Trap. This combination will deal an easy 200 damage to anyone foolish enough to get caught in it. Try placing it near the most common chokepoint on whatever map you're playing to hopefully pick off an invading enemy before the full teamfight begins. Another option is placing it on either an alternate chokepoint or flank route. You'll most likely be spamming the first choke point with your grenades, so an opponent might try to flank your team via an alternate route. If the chokepoints you've been holding have already been compromised, then your next best bet is placing this either directly on the point or on a nearby health pack. For non-defense scenarios, such as King of the Hill maps, placing your Trap/Mine combination directly on the point can also prove effective against unaware opponents.

This mine is considered a projectile, and has a fairly fast travel speed, meaning you can throw it directly at an enemy and then detonate it, dealing a significant amount of damage. Furthermore, the mine's built in knock back effect proves useful in both retreating from opponents, or knocking them away from you. When thrown at an opponent the direction of the knockback isn't something easily controlled, but you might score a clean kill or two with it if they are standing near the edge of the map. The best use of this effect is to reposition yourself. Throw the mine on the ground under you, run slightly in front of it, and then jump while detonating it at the same time. This will give you a major boost into the air, allowing you to avoid either enemies or obstacles. Using this effect to its full extent will allow you to easily gain the high ground advantage over your opponents.

Steel Trap (E)

• Throws a trap on the ground that immobilizes enemies for 3 seconds
• 10 second cooldown
• 80 damage
• Destroyable

While this trap has limited function when it comes to playing attack, it proves itself as a valuable tool when defending. Unlike Concussion Mine, the trap will not activate on an enemy until it hits the ground, so the only time it deals damage is when an enemy runs onto it. The most common way to see that this happens is to place it along with your Concussion Mine in a narrow choke point where enemies are more likely to step on it. Another placement option is putting in an alternate location to the one you’re spamming with grenades. This will allow you to keep enemies off one chokepoint while allowing you to know if someone is flanking from the other.

RIP-Tire (Q)

• Control an explosive tire that can be detonated near enemies
• Destroyable (100 health)
• Deals up to 600 damage depending on range
• Can climb walls

If RIP-Tire is destroyed it deals no damage, so you need to make sure you're giving it the highest possible chance of survival in order to be effective. This means that you should start off in a safe position where you can guide it into the enemy team without it taking damage. The tire's ability can climb walls can assist you with this. Keep in mind that enemies can hear the tiring coming at them, so you have to rely more on juking ability/cover then stealth. You can't use any other ability while controlling the tire, so you should make sure place a Steel Trap near you if you are vulnerable to a potential flank. To further ensure this ability connects to its target, try dropping it down on enemies from high ground. It's much harder to kill a tire falling onto you then one coming from directly in front.

It's worth noting that you don't have to be directly on top of a target in order to score a kill with RIP-Tire. The damage from a mid-range detonation is enough to eliminate most supports and damage dealers. Due to Junkrat's heavy damage output this ultimate charges up extremely quickly, so there's very few situations where you should hold back from using it. One of these rare situations is if your team has a Zarya who is about to have Graviton Surge.

Matchups

All of these matchups are subject to change depending on your individual skill as well as that of your opponent. Due to his sometimes inconsistent nature, there isn't any matchup where Junkrat dominates a specific hero, thus the neutral category.

The Neutral

- Supports: Most support heroes aren't going to try brawling with you, so the best option is to hold your position and wait for someone who will. The two supports that can hold their own (Ana and Zenyatta) are usually a 50/50 depending on how good they are at aiming. Ana and Zenyatta both deal more consistent damage than you, and can accurately hit you while juking grenade bounces.

- Zarya/Reinhardt/D.Va: While I don't recommend face-tanking any of these heroes, they aren't very complex matchups. Against Reinhardt, your job is spamming down his barrier down as fast as possible. This will allow your allies to clean up the rest of his team with ease. A low charged Zarya won't out damage you, you just need to make sure to stop firing while her shield is active. If she is already charged up from a previous engagement, you should be able to retreat by mine jumping away since she has limited movement. D.Va can easily chase you with her Boosters, but her mediocre damage should give you enough time to retreat to the rest of you team. If you are forced to fight her, you may be able to outdamage her due to D.Va's huge hitbox.

- McCree/Soldier 76/Reaper: All three of these heroes have fairly basic mechanics, so you don't have to do anything too fancy to defeat them. You should be able to spam McCree with enough grenades to force him out of Flashbang Range, or just straight up kill him depending on the situation. If he's an experienced McCree player he shouldn't need a stun to kill you, so play carefully and use bouncing grenades to your advantage. Soldier won't do any meaningful damage to you at long range, so he'll most likely try to get closer if he wants to brawl. Juke as much as you can so you don't get hit with his Helix Rockets, and then dispatch him with a grenade and mine. In both these matchups (and pretty much every other one) try to continuously jump while firing, this will decrease your opponent's accuracy while yours stays the same. Reaper's only chance is engaging you while Concussion Mine is on cooldown. He is going to need his Wraith Form to get close to you, so just wait it out and try to get some distance from him in the meantime. Once he's close range, you can either knock him back with your mine or use it on yourself to get above him. Reaper does significantly less damage at mid/long range so you should be safe just to spam him with grenades at this point.

- Bastion/Torbjorn: The way these heroes deal damage requires them to be completely immobile, so take advantage of this and send a barrage of grenades their way. Make sure you are bouncing the grenades off walls to hit them, because just a few seconds of direct fire from either of them is enough to melt your health pool. If Torbjorn set up his turret out of your range, it's best to just let other members of your team deal with it since your grenades won't be accurate enough. Torbjorn isn't likely to try to engage you head on, but if he does treat it exactly like the Reaper matchup.

The Bad

- Genji: As of Season 2 Genji will now get caught in Steel Trap when he dashes over it, but this isn't enough to turn the matchup in Junkrat's favor. Genji can either climb over walls to avoid Junkrat's grenade spam or Deflect his way through it, and once he does you don't stand much of a chance. Your slow projectiles will rarely connect to a decent Genji due to his passive double jump, and he will eventually wear you down with his right click. Although he is agile he only has one burst of movement, so if he initiates the fight with Swift Strike you should be able to Concussion Mine away. You don't want to get your own grenades deflected back at you, so when he uses Deflect you should just place a Steel Trap on the ground. Concussion Mine can be reflected but Steel Trap cannot.

- Pharah: The Pharah matchup is very similar to that of Genji. If she is managing her flight properly, it's extremely unlikely that you'll be able to land grenades due to their fall off so I don't recommend standing toe to toe with her. Concussion Mine is fairly fast, so if she has already taken a bit of damage you should be able to finish her off with it. If she ults near the ground, make sure to grenade/mine her to hopefully save most of your team.

- Mei: It takes 3 grenades connecting to kill Mei, and by this point she's probably already frozen you. She can also win the long range war with her extremely fast icicles. Your best shot is waiting until she's already used her Ice Block, knocking her away with Concussion Mine, and spamming grenades from out of her line of sight.

- Tracer: Tracer will get nearly one shot if you can connect either a mine or grenade, but that isn't likely to happen. If she is playing correctly, she can get close to you without risk of taking damage. Fleeing from her isn't an option, so your only chance is either getting assistance or predicting her movements.

- Widow/Hanzo: In these matchups, you are simply going to be outranged. Unless they are playing extremely out of position, there should be no way for you to land damage on either one of these heroes. Your best bet is staying out of their line of sight, dealing with the rest of their team and relying on your own teammates to kill them.

- Roadhog: Roadhog's massive health pool and short Chain Hook cooldown makes this an extremely sketchy matchup. You can eventually wear him down with grenades, but it's not worth the chance of being hooked while you do that. Try to stay out of his range at all times, and rely on bounces to deal with him.

- Winston: Winston can leap right over your trap and immediately start melting you down. The 6 second cooldown on his Jet Pack ensures he will always have the upper hand when it comes to movement, so running isn't an option. Additionally, he can shield himself from your grenades while still channeling on you with his Tesla Cannon. Avoid fighting him at all costs and retreat to the rest of your team for assistance if he tries focusing you.

When to play

Junkrat excels on Defense, as he can make use of the many chokepoints and extra time at the beginning of the round to setup his trap/mine combo. You should try to find either high ground or a position where you can safely bounce grenades at your enemies. You want to be playing extremely far back. The bouncing of your grenades make their range extremely long, so use this to your advantage in order to be safe from the enemy frontline. Junkrat can be played at a decently high level of effect on King of the Hill maps, but I wouldn't recommend choosing him over any other hero in this situation. If the rest of your team is looking to play aggressively (Winston, Genji, Tracer, ect.) then you can use the disruption they cause in order to position yourself well. The health kits on KoTH maps are used extremely often, so placing your trap combo near them is a consistent way to pick off enemies. Playing pure attack (such as on capture point or payload maps) feels extremely awkward as Junkrat. Traps and grenades are much less effective when you aren't using them to hold a chokepoint, and attacking promotes fighting head to head. This being said, Junkrat on attack can and has worked before, but it requires a well-practiced Junkrat to make it useful.

Further Resources

I hope this guide has given you a good understanding of how to play Junkrat in a competitive environment, but here are some further resources if you'd like to continue your mastery.

- A full overview of all the choke points in the game. Link.
- Seagull playing Junkrat on Dorado (Defense).
- Grego playing Junkrat on King's Row (Defense).

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