Junker Queen's secondary fire can cause a wound effect on opponents.

After a little time experimenting with the new Overwatch 2 tank Junker Queen in the latest beta, it’s clear her kit gives her a lot of flexibility. It’s early days, but here are a few tips on how to play Junker Queen based on my own playtime, as well as what I’ve been seeing in the community.

First of all, Junker Queen isn’t going to be very effective at long range. Like the rest of the tanks in Overwatch 2, she’s designed for close-quarters combat. She can be useful at mid-range thanks to her crowd control ability, but we’ll get to that.

Her primary fire is Scattergun, a pump-action shotgun. It holds six shots and has a fairly quick reload. It can one-shot a Tracer at point-blank range if you can hit a headshot. Based on some testing in training mode, it deals roughly 85 damage per shot at close range, so two headshots will take care of most heroes.

It looks like the damage falloff starts at around seven meters. At around 20 meters, it’s barely doing any damage at all - only around 25 for a headshot. So, you’re definitely going to want to get in close.

Commanding Shout (which is left shift by default on PC) can help the tank and her teammates get up close and personal with the enemy.

It boosts the overhealth of both Junker Queen and the heroes around her — it has a range of 20 meters or so. Junker Queen will receive 200 overhealth. Allies will get an overhealth increase of around 100, but they’ll need to be within line of sight when you activate Commanding Shout. This overhealth boost will disappear when the ability expires after four seconds (there’s an 11-second cooldown after that).

While Commanding Shout is active, Junker Queen and allies that are within range will get a speed buff of (I believe) 30%. Her speed boost stacks with Lúcio’s, so they’d make a pretty effective duo as part of a rush composition.

Junker Queen's Commanding Shout ability could prove very useful.

Wound is a new passive effect for Junker Queen. It drains enemy health over time and restores some HP to Junker Queen (not unlike Moira’s Biotic Grasp). At a base level, you won’t get a lot of health back from wound — around 15 HP over three seconds — but it can stack. One of the abilities that applies a wound effect is Jagged Blade, perhaps the most compelling part of Junker Queen’s kit.

Jagged Blade has multiple uses. First, it’s her secondary fire. She can launch the knife toward enemies in an arc. If it lands in an opponent, it will cause around 80 damage and create a wound effect. Junker Queen can manually recall the knife, which pulls an enemy it’s stuck in toward her.

This ability opens up a ton of combat options. There’s the obvious benefit of being able to pull an enemy from a pack toward you. Unlike with Roadhog’s Chain Hook, Junker Queen can still attack while the enemy is traveling toward her, so you can fire Scattergun or time an ax swing for devastating effect.

If you recall Jagged Blade when it’s stuck in an enemy that’s less than 10 meters away and they’re in line of sight, you’ll bring that hero right up to Junker Queen’s face. That makes squishier heroes prime targets. I’ve found an ax swing, headshot and melee combo to be pretty effective if you can time it right. That combo should dramatically reduce the health of higher-HP enemies too.

Stick the knife in an enemy that’s above Junker Queen, and not can you pull them down from the high ground, it seems like they can travel a bit further than 10 meters. It’ll also give you more time to prepare an ax swing.

Of course, there’s a chance to score environmental kills with Jagged Blade too. There’s a three-second delay before the knife recalls automatically, so you’ll have a moment to adjust your positioning so you can pull the enemy into a pit.

If you miss with a knife shot, try to wait until an enemy or two is between you and the projectile. When you recall it, Jagged Blade will create a wound effect on any enemy it passes through, and you’ll restore health from each of them. The ability has a six-second cooldown, which starts when you throw it.

That’s only one aspect of Jagged Blade. When it’s in Junker Queen’s hand and you Quick Melee, it will create a wound effect. It will also deal more damage than a regular Quick Melee.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what pros come up with using this ability.

Junker Queen's ax is called Carnage.

Junker Queen’s other core ability is Carnage. This is the affectionate name she gives to her ax, which she swings at the enemy. This too causes a wound effect. It has a pretty short range (unsurprisingly) of three meters or so. Between the ax swing and the wound effect, you’ll deal around 140 damage.

There’s a bit of a delay between triggering the ability and Junker Queen swinging Carnage. I feel that’s a hair too long at the minute. Getting the timing right will take a bit of getting used to. The ability has an eight-second cooldown.

Junker Queen's Ultimate is called Rampage and it has a similar effect on enemies as Ana's Biotic ... [+] Grenade.

Junker Queen’s Ultimate is called Rampage. She spins all her weapons around her head and charges forward. Any enemy she comes into contact with is wounded.

What’s also interesting about Rampage is that affected enemies won’t be able to heal for the duration of the effect (I’m not sure how wide the AoE is yet, though). It’s similar to the anti-heal effect of Ana’s Biotic Grenade with the additional damage over time caused by wound. That could make an enemy team easy pickings for a well-coordinated team.

The wound effect created by the Ultimate will provide Junker Queen with more healing (100 per target) than she gets from a Jagged Blade or Carnage attack.

The charge effect is a double-edged sword. Junker Queen rushes forward about 25 meters, but you don’t have directional control. You’ll need to be careful with positioning so you don’t accidentally charge off the map.

On the plus side, the charge works on any horizontal plane, including in mid air (similar to Doomfist’s Rocket Punch). That means it could be used for rollouts. However, it seems a bit of a waste to use Rampage as a movement ability unless you desperately need to get back to the point for a last-second stall.

Overall, Junker Queen seems like she’ll be a pretty impactful hero if she’s used well. I’ll add to this guide as we learn more about her during the beta.

Meanwhile, just after Junker Queen was announced, I and some other members of the media had the chance to ask some Overwatch 2 devs some questions about her. You can read what they had to say here:

If you have any questions about the beta or Overwatch 2 in general, hit me up on Twitter @krisholt. I’ll help as best as I can.