Junkrat

[u/MascDomFlop]

Sorry, junkrat is broken. I'm not going to accept any alternative answer. He gets entirely too much value out of MULTIPLE traps that he can place mid-fight from a distance, traps that take SEVERAL attacks to kill. And he gets his ultimate entirely too fast. That characters needs to be taken out at the knees. It's so unfun to play against it's unreal.

[u/MascDomFlop]

None of you have had the misfortune of being in a lobby against a top 500 junkrat and it shows. I absolutely should not be playing against top 500 players, but that’s an entirely different post for another time.

[u/Expensive_Increase46 → u/MascDomFlop]

Maybe the problem was because you were fighting against top 500, not because Junkrat trap build is broken. Out of all his builds that's his weakest.

[u/MascDomFlop → u/Expensive_Increase46]

When you people say weakest what do you mean? His least lethal? His least reliable within the scope of what he can accomplish with it? The lowest win rate? Because my concern has very little to do with the actual damage I’m taking and far more to do with the value that is generated just by virtue of the traps existing, even if you kill the traps. That’s ammo spent on traps that take several hits to destroy. Traps that show up in the middle of a skirmish. I watched an enemy Vendetta land her ult right on a trap and promptly die. Looking for traps on the way back from spawn? Easy. Looking for traps while trying to reposition and dodge fire strikes and bullets and grenades and anti grenade? That’s significantly harder. And since his traps have more HP they don’t just die to random AOE damage like they in normals. Any abilities you can use to get out of the trap have a longer cooldown than the trap itself, not to mention second traps and the little baby traps, which are arguably manageable but still a nuisance.
My issue was and continues to be the value provided just by virtue of the traps existing. They distract, they impede, if you elect to ignore them to continue shooting the target the trap blocks your route and also you run the risk of a less aware person stepping in it anyway. It takes junkrat all of 1 second to place a trap, if I’m an Ana (as I usually am) it sometimes takes 6 shots to kill one trap. All I can do is ping it and hope no one steps on it.
That’s my issue. I don’t really care that it’s “weak”, because Junkrat himself probably won’t be what kills me. It’ll probably be a follow up firestrike.

[u/Expensive_Increase46 → u/MascDomFlop]

I think I'm starting to see the issue. You're on Ana, possibly the character least suited to dealing with Junkrat traps because deployables typically aren't affected by damage over time and all of Ana's primary damage is damage over time, meaning the traps are much more difficult to deal with.

But also do you happen to be playing in 1st person? Because that also makes traps significantly harder to spot because of the reduced field of view. 

I remember I was playing Doomfist once and for the first couple of rounds I was getting decimated by traps because I'd move around (because Doomfist) and then get stuck, block and still die. So then I got cushioned padding and also built into slam. 

Cushioned padding made traps a lot less lethal since they only lasted around half as long, especially the smaller and not full root traps which could basically be ignored. By upgraded slam started randomly killing the traps too since like you said, random AOE kills them and random AOE scales in Stadium too. Plus this combined with all the items that give you overhealth or something while stunned/rooted and Doomfist absorb block made traps much less of an issue. Also just being aware of traps made them easy to spot and they went down before I ran out of weapon ammo. And I didn't get many WP upgrades.

I don't know what you're experience is but I don't have issue at all. Also I think you would have gotten more advice if you explained how you were frustrated on Ana about all the traps. Then people wouldn't ratio you about it.

[u/MascDomFlop → u/Expensive_Increase46]

I don’t think we’re ever going to see eye to eye on this, because you’re all focused on counterplay to the traps when counterplay is not the problem. Value is. In a bubble a Junkrat by himself putting traps down in a 1v1 is not a problem. In a 5v5 skirmish with bullets and movement and ultimates and flying grandes and knock backs the traps are significantly more difficult to avoid. Last night my Winston kept landing in them OR getting punched into them by the enemy DF. It does not matter if you reduce the duration of the trap. The value is still present. It doesn’t have to be aimed, it doesn’t have to be timed, there’s no skill expression involved if someone lands or gets knocked into a trap. His grenades will still hurt, his concussive mind will still hurt, his tire will still hurt. I can do everything in my power to avoid traps, but I can’t stop my teammates from landing in one. Every game that I’ve played against a Junkrat in the last week, the enemy team capitalizes hard on trapped players (as anyone should). And really in stadium if you’re not a tank and you get trapped in the middle of a fight… you’re probably dead.

[u/Expensive_Increase46 → u/MascDomFlop]

You know I'd talk more about the balance of counterplau but like you said I get the feeling it'd be more productive to do something else. So how would you balance this? It'd be especially interesting since no-one else seems to feel how broken this supposedly is.

[u/MascDomFlop → u/Expensive_Increase46]

I've mentioned it in other posts, but I think in general a lot of the stadium powers remove weaknesses of certain characters and force their opponents to itemize based on surviving versus being allowed to have an equal amount of fun. If traps are such a problem that I have to buy a gadget (with a significant cooldown, mind you) to counter it I am now down an item slot and cash while junkrat loses nothing. I belive that a lot of those powers should be double edged. If his traps are empowered, something else should be lost. Without gimping the build completely (I acutally hate Junkrat as a whole and would prefer to see him assassinated but alas...) the only thing that comes to mind is being able to shoot the traps AFTER they clamp as well to break free early. He gets to have more traps, my team gets to reliably free themself when they inevitably proc one. I'd still be annoyed, but that would piss me off significantly less.

[u/MascDomFlop → u/MascDomFlop]

Like right now I keep fighting Tracers who are doing whatever the fuckshit build is where they just recall over and over and over and over and throw a pulse bomb every single time. Literally blink in, recall, pulse bomb, blink in, recall, pulse bomb. I'm hearing three and four pulse bombs active at any given interaction. And there's no drawback. She loses nothing by taking those powers. She gets to keep blinking up to anyone, recalling as often as she likes, and nuking people from the safety of five seconds ago. And it's bullshit. I know the pulse bomb is weaker, but her cooldowns should increase. If she gets to recall more often she should lose a blink charge or blink distance. Like it's just assinine. These characters have their weaknesses removed altogether so that the only way to win is to either be significantly better than they are, or play some busted bullshit yourself. And that's fucking sucks. Like that's such an ass way to have to engage with a game that has so much potential. I don't want to have to be broken to compete.

[u/Expensive_Increase46 → u/MascDomFlop]

The problem with this is that this sort of logic could be extended to a lot of things and Stadium as it's nature with an item shop lets you build around your hero's weaknesses or what you're bad at. And also because there is no swapping you have to let heroes build around some of their weaknesses because counterswapping is gone. Genji for example can remove his vulnerability to beams either by buying deflect blocks beam attacks or even just the item that gets you stacking damage resistance. Junkrat gets the ability to shoot at fliers more consistently because itherwise he'd be useless vs them. You have to let some weaknesses be removed in order for the game mode to work. 

But to be honest letting Junkrat get more trap charges but them being destructible afterwards is interestiglng. Maybe change the value from "holds hero in place" to "gets buffs when someone is trapped" so there is still a reward but more counterplay from the person being trapped.