Key Takeaways
- Due to her lack of shield, Junker Queen is best on maps with lots of natural cover, allowing her and her teammates to avoid damage.
- Junker Queen also excels on certain maps with high ground—assuming she is able to hit her Jagged Blade and pull enemies from high ground into compromising positions.
- Junker Queen counters heroes which rely on careful positioning, such as Lucio, thanks to her Jagged Blade ability. She is also effective against heroes without movement abilities due to how she can quickly close the gap and deal significant damage through a combination of Commanding Shout and Carnage.
- Junker Queen is countered by enemies with abilities that negate her self-healing passive and anti-healing ultimate, such as Ana’s Biotic Grenade and Kikiro’s Suzu, along with long-range heroes that position outside of Jagged Blade’s range, such as Widowmaker and Ashe.
Table of Contents
Junker Queen Quick Tips
- Junker Queen has 450 health, with no shields or armor.
- Junker Queen’s Jagged Blade, Carnage, and Rampage abilities deal bleed damage (damage over time). Junker Queen heals herself for 125% of all bleed damage dealt.
- Junker Queen is one of the only tank heroes that can affect her teammates, via extra HP and movement speed from Commanding Shout.
- Due to her lack of a shield, teammates sometimes get annoyed at seeing their tank pick Junker Queen. Download the Z League app to find teammates who support and enable your style of play.
Junker Queen Abilities
Img via Blizzard Entertainment
Scattergun (Primary Fire)
Junker Queen’s Scattergun is a hitscan shotgun weapon that deals up to 80 damage per shot (without headshots) and has six bullets per clip. As a shotgun, it’s most effective at close range, but the weapon can be surprisingly effective at medium range due to its relatively tight spread, especially if Junker Queen is shooting at an enemy tank like Roadhog or D.Va.
Jagged Blade
Jagged Blade causes Junker Queen to throw a knife out in front of her, which has a slight arc while traveling in midair. Upon impact, Jagged Blade sticks into whatever it hits, whether that be the floor, a wall, or an enemy player. If an enemy player is hit, Jagged Blade does 50 damage instantly, along with 30 bleed damage over three seconds. When Jagged Blade is recalled, it pulls the impacted enemy in the direction of Junker Queen. While returning to Junker Queen, Jagged Blade can slice through any enemies in its path, dealing a small amount of damage.
Jagged Blade allows Junker Queen to displace enemies in key situations, similar to Roadhog’s Chain Hook. For example, if an enemy Soldier: 76 is on high ground, Junker Queen can throw her Jagged Blade and pull him off of high ground, allowing her and her teammates to follow up and quickly secure the kill.
Jagged Blade has a small hurtbox, meaning it’s not particularly easy to hit enemies with. Junker Queen’s effectiveness is drastically reduced if Jagged Blade is not used effectively to turn the tides of fights.
Carnage
When Carnage is used, Junker Queen swings an axe. Any enemies hit by the axe receive 90 damage dealt instantly, along with an extra 40 bleed damage over the next three seconds. Through Junker Queen’s passive self-healing, every enemy hit grants her an extra 50 HP. And, crucially, for each enemy hit, the cooldown of the ability is reduced by two seconds (eight seconds if no enemies are hit).
Carnage allows Junker Queen to deal a significant amount of burst damage, especially if followed up with Scattergun. Its short range, cast time, and obvious telegraph are downsides to consider. Junker Queen can get around these downsides by pairing Carnage with Commanding Shout, and overwhelming enemies regardless of if they see her coming or not.
Commanding Shout
Commanding Shout instantly grants 200 extra health and 30% increased movement speed for Junker Queen for five seconds. Allies in its 15 meter range also gain 50 health and the same increased movement speed, but for only three seconds.
With a movement speed and health buff, Commanding Shout is a powerful ability that can quickly turn the tide of fights. However, due to its long 14-second cooldown and Junker Queen’s lack of total health and other movement abilities, it needs to be used intelligently. Without Commanding Shout, Junker Queen is an easy target and can easily get overwhelmed and killed, especially if she gets rushed by a tank like Reinhardt.
Rampage (Ultimate)
When Junker Queen uses Rampage, she moves forward in a mostly straight line. Any enemies hit by Rampage take 100 damage over 4.5 seconds and receive an anti-healing debuff over the same timeframe. Thanks to Junker Queen’s passive, every enemy hit results in 125 self-healing for Junker Queen.
During Rampage, Junker Queen must intentionally move through the enemy team to hit as many players as possible. This tricky positioning leaves her vulnerable, but is counterbalanced by the fact that she receives ample healing in the seconds following the hits thanks to bleed damage. If the enemy team is coordinated and not under pressure, Junker Queen should aim to have both Carnage and Commanding Shout off cooldown before using her ultimate, to allow her to follow up on kills after it’s used.
Rampage is easily countered by Kikiro’s Suzu, which removes the anti-healing debuff on affected players and stops them from taking bleed damage (which therefore prevents Junker Queen from self-healing through her passive).
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