Phovos and I have been getting back into Overwatch after idly trying it a few months ago and finding it far more fun than we both remembered. I’d given the game up back in 2019 for a multitude of reasons, some political and some simply burnout from the gameplay. I wasn’t enjoying hero shooters as much as I’d used to, and Overwatch was feeling stagnant, with few hero releases and stalemate-inducing maps leading to rounds feeling frequently slow and sloggy.
However, six years later (essentially skipping the entire Overwatch 2 era) I found myself trying it out again, and to my excitement they have made some very impressive changes to clean up and quicken the gameplay such that I can once again recommend giving it a go. Matches are trimmed down and designed to be quick and memorable, respawn timers are severely shortened across the board, and the worst maps from the old era (like Anubis and Volskaya) have been removed entirely, meaning the remaining maps are mostly fun and properly balanced for the quick head-to-head slugfests where Overwatch’s gameplay shines the most.
Perhaps because I’m still learning this new iteration and brushing up my atrophied skillset, I’ve found myself largely only playing my earliest mainstays. Since the game’s initial release, my three most-played characters have been Lúcio, Mercy, and Soldier 76, and my new tour of duty has proven to be no exception. With so many different heroes now competing for only six team slots, it’s easier than ever to always pick one of these three depending on what the map and team comp call for. But that does leave an obvious hole in my hero pool. When the team needs a tank, and I’m not lucky enough to have Phovos carrying the team as Sigma, who should I play?
Well, better late than never, because I’ve finally found one who clicks with me, and all it took was bowing to the Queen.
I didn’t originally see much of interest in Junker Queen, as her preferred playstyle felt neither tanky nor reliable. With no shields, no armor, a low health pool, and fiddly weapons requiring extremely close range, my first exploratory game with her went horribly and got me mulched faster than the training bots in the practice range. And the first caveat I must admit is that while competent play can certainly compensate for these weaknesses, they never fully go away. She will never feel like Orisa or Roadhog who can pretty comfortably stand around in the middle of the team and feel survivable even with sloppy or inexperienced play. She has a high skill floor and needs game sense, mechanical acumen, and a dash of luck to achieve what other classes can do without really trying. But for those ready to put in the work, her playstyle is immensely satisfying and eventually downright addicting.
Welcome to the Arena
Junker Queen is a brawler through and through. She excels in getting up close and personal, dealing incredible damage at point-blank and regenerating tons of health via stacking DoTs and different weapon attacks on targets. The more targets around you, the more you can regenerate, making her very high-risk-high-reward. But her aforementioned low healthpool means you can’t rely on this to blindly engage the enemy team on their terms, you need to be calculating and opportunistic to pick your battles. Pop out from behind cover with your axe already swinging, focus-down vulnerable targets and disrupt their positioning to prevent their escape. Guerilla warfare is your forte, and you have the tools to take down any opponent if you wield them wisely.
Junker Queen’s Kit
Before we cover her weapons, she has a signature passive ability that helps her do her job. Her core mechanic is “Wounds”, a DoT that whittles down enemy health while also healing her over time. A huge part of her playstyle is keeping wounds active, preferably on multiple enemies at once, so you can regenerate enough ongoing health to survive your berserker tendencies. Wounds from different weapons can stack on the same target.
Her primary weapon is a scattergun that deals brutal close-range damage but falls off very quickly. It doesn’t fire terribly fast, but it also kills squishies in 1-2 shots if you aim for the head, which is pretty easy to do given the pellet spread. You’re gonna want to be up close and personal to get maximum value out of this thing. But alternatively, you can bring the enemy to you with this next weapon:
Gracie the jagged blade is my favorite weapon in the queen’s kit. Used either in melee or as a throwing knife, Gracie deals wounds to any enemies caught either in its path or via direct contact, and it can be called back into your hand after embedding into your victim or the environment. When recalled while embedded in an enemy, Gracie will yank said enemy towards you in a vertical arc, perfectly setting you up to meatshot them with your shotgun. Herein lies the crux combo of Junker Queen’s kit, and it is equal parts versatile and immensely satisfying. Dragging squishies off the high ground into your team, punishing enemies trying to flee, or simply dealing a brutal long range attack, Gracie is the signature weapon for this character and I’ve spent hours practicing my throws to get maximum value with it.
And lastly, you’ve also got a tertiary axe that swings in a wide arc to damage and apply wounds to anyone in melee range. Much like the melee weapons in Left 4 Dead 2, spinning will increase the range you can hit, I’ve sliced people on complete opposite sides of me with a single pirouette. Get into this habit of maximizing swing spread as you need the regen bequeathed by this weapon, plus every enemy hit reduces your cooldown before you can swing your axe again. I can’t always use this weapon because melee is so dangerous, but once in that situation it becomes an integral source of damage and survivability.
Junker Queen’s mobility tool is Shout, which energizes herself and her teammates to run faster and generate a temp health barrier for several seconds. This is a very useful ability for reaching your optimal melee range, for speedboosting your allies or initiating a team fight, and for shoring up your HP when in a tight situation. It’s quite versatile and you’ll be using it a lot every match.
And finally, Junker Queen’s ultimate is a thing of beauty. With a battle cry, she charges forward, debuffing all enemies in her trajectory with anti-heal and applying wounds to them. This is extremely effective, since antiheal is probably the most damning debuff in the game (there’s a reason only two characters get it) given how heavily Overwatch’s gameplay revolves around the massive amount of healing everybody pumps out. And your newly-fragile targets are about to face you at your optimal range while you’re also regenerating health like nobody’s business. I regularly shatter defensive lines with this ult, and your team can usually mop up any stragglers if you didn’t finish the job yourself.
It took me a while to realize just why this kit was clicking with me so well, until I remembered my hundreds of hours fondly critting foos with the TF2 Scout cleaver. The moonshot playstyle is still one of my favorites in any game, and now I have a second title in which I can pull them off! Throw in the Left 4 Dead 2 melee mechanics and the survivability of a tank, and it’s no wonder I can’t stop playing this character. If any of this sounds fun to you, don’t hesitate to pick up Junker Queen’s scattergun for yourself!
