Juno is FINALLY here, and I have some thoughts...

The new Overwatch 2 hero, Juno (formerly known as Space Ranger) has finally released in a public play-test. This video gives my thoughts on each of Juno's abilities, detailing community pain-points such as the inability for Juno's primary fire to headshot, how should an "auto-aim" lock on ability should be handled balance-wise, as well as the highlights and lowlights of this new hero.
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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Initial impressions
0:49 Overall design - dueling and escapability
2:39 Healing output and SFX
3:02 Mobility - hovering and flight
6:56 Speed ring
10:17 Lock-on torpedos (Oh no)
16:06 Ultimate
17:55 Overall impressions
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Edited by @ryanp652
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Thanks for watching!

[Poopkipp]

One underrated facet of glide boost is that you can effectively A-D strafe while mid-air. Echo and Pharah can’t strafe at full speed while airborne like she can.

[ramenthederp]

I remember seeing a Reddit post where they said that she didn't have that dopamine and impact feeling that the "fun" supports get. Baptiste and Kiriko get the dopamine hit from headshots, Ana gets that little "tktktk" DOT sound, but Juno's abilities all feel kinda soft. Her weapon is like Ana without the dopamine feel. Especially her ult doesn't have much SFX, it doesn't have a lot of visual impact, just has a little "boop" sound instead of a powerful orbital ray.

[gentlemankaiju]

Feel like Juno is a support to her core. Not crazy damage, not insane healing. Tons of utility and helps teammates with skills and ults. The movement is great and feels rewarding for skilled spacing.

[homepress]

Her glide through the air needs to work like Princess Peach and Smash Bros where if you let go of the jump button and hit it again, you'll begin gliding again That way it feels a little bit less clunky where you have to cancel the ability just to fall.

[nerdherder]

A very niche interaction is that I think she is maybe the single best pick for echo copy. Her glide lets you stay safe up in the air, and your missiles are almost a guaranteed ult if you hit a couple of people

[infochan]

The point with the ult is so true, every game I had I tried to tell my team to hide behind cover for the ult to end but no one listened, the presence of the beam doesnt feel threatening neither does hearing "Locking Satellite vector", it looks more like Zen ult which might be why people dont take it seriously, Kiri is a great example on how to make a scary ult, the howling with her voiceline just sounds intimidating. Though its very in character for people to underestimate Juno due to how cute she is.

[fizzlock]

I genuinely think she's fine as she is. She's not overly broken in any direction, and trades off low damage for CONSISTENCY. Her damage is very consistent, and that brings a mercy-esque sort of minmax to her kit, where you can really look to maximize your damage output to charge fast Orbitals.

She brings a similar playstyle as moira, though she trades the survivability and staying power of Orb/Fade for more range on her heals, and utility.

Right now, I hope they don't change a thing. Let the community play with her a little more and see if there are any oddball things that stick out, right now she's not obnoxious to play against, extremely fun to play, and not busted. Probably the best hero release in OW2 up to this point.

[Skyrdr]

Everyone complains that supports do too much damage, yet everyone wants Juno to headshot. Too many people in this community complain for the sake of complaining.

[Unbidden]

I think reloading her gun during the right click could be an interesting idea, given that it fully locks on and is not cut short to animation cancel and instantly reload. as long as the lock on time is around 1.5-2 seconds, or some time comparable to the time it takes to reload, I think it would make the ability fit better into the flow of her kit, right now it feels hard to know when to use it and feels better often times to just use your primary fire to keep your team alive/ deal damage.

[DokuDoki]

Previously I was in the camp of "hovering should reset the double jump" but after I've seen some players use walls to get to places double jump alone wouldn't reach, I think it should be left as is because that's where Juno's mobility skill expression is going to be the strongest

For the torpedoes I just don't like how long it takes to charge them and how long the recovery time until I can shoot again is, all on top of the travel time. One or the other is fine but together it just leaves you with like 2 seconds of downtime where the payoff doesn't really feel worth it

I feel like the fact the ult travels through walls is gonna be more huge than most people think

[kylepackard]

I think the ult is the clunkiest part of the kit largely due it being deployed at her feet. I think either increasing the radius or allowing you to place it similar to flux or amp matrix might allow for more dynamic use of the ult. When i was playing her and off angling there were times when i wanted to give the ult to my tea. But in order to give the ult to my team i was forced to give up the angle and use cooldowns to return to my team.

[chic_]

Leave her as is for now. We need more time. A weekend wasn’t enough for the community to “properly” complain. What i am afraid of is the devs buff her for no reason.

[wabingus]

The identity of the modern support role has already shifted pretty hard to just being DPS with mobility, sustain, and healing for their team. Supports need playmaking ability that isn’t just fragging out. (cough cough Illari cough cough)

[paullucas]

Juno's kit already has a lot of skill expression within it. Aside from mechanical skill, the cooldowns have playmaking potential through great utility and combos. Like any high-skill-ceiling hero, it will take some time before people statt getting really good with her. There is nothing to change about her until the best of the community learns the macro and micro of playing her effectively.

Just like we saw in the Pharah rework, people didn't quite understand how good she had become, and now she dominates the comp ladder. The devs just need to give her some time before buffing or nerding anything

[stallionduckchaser]

I only played for a few hours but i am against headshots on her and with good positioning i think her movement will be enough to escape, right where sup should be imo. (Sup main here)

[kitpeddler]

When Kiriko was released and was stronger than the other supports, the devs said that rather than nerfing Kiriko, they wanted to bring the other supports up to her power level. I think we are in the reverse situation here, where Juno is somewhat weaker than the other supports, but that should be remedied by bringing the power level of the other supports down to be more in line with Juno, rather than buffing Juno to be in line with the current support power level. I say this as a support main btw.

[bomochu]

Interesting analysis Spilo! A lot of what you said articulated exactly how I'm feeling with Juno. Overall a really fun character.

Some possible changes imo could include a healing headshot multiplier. This would still encourage aiming for headshots but on teammates. Also, perhaps a notification when an enemy Juno has locked onto you with pulsar torpedoes (like a 'locked on' text on screen). There are clear audio cues when she's starting up the torpedoes, but you don't know if you're the one being targeted.

Also, not sure if it's necessary but a 50% jump height increase with speed ring would be pretty nice. The mirror matches would be hilarious with everyone jumping in the air.

[dark_matter]

Since the LoS for the torpedoes can be a bit finnicky, I think it would be fair if they have a halved cooldown if you don't actually fire any torpedoes. I very often found myself accidentally releasing it without any target locks.

[gazaprince]

A thought I've had for Juno's ultimate is giving you the ability to reposition it with refires of the ultimate key. That with either a decent response delay, because orbital laser, or number touches would work in giving it better action rewarding responses.

[TigerBlood-mb]

I personally think supports who have hitscan shouldnt headshot.
Supports should dual through their superior kits like ana vs widow is the best example as widow wins in the sniper dual unless the ana lands a sleep dart or nade plus ana has a weird headhitbox, and this leads to their being defined differences in how they dual.
Compare that to Cassidy/ashe and illari and illari just feels like a Cassidy ashe hybrid with a heal turret and because of this I feel illari is actually better than both Cassidy and ashe, and I fear if you did this to juno, not only would it probably break her and force nerfs elsewhere which would make her feel worse to play for the reasons people wanna play her, but it would dampen the experience as you'll probably be rewarded more for staying more still to land your shots opposed to it encouraging you to move around more and care less about actually lining up those harder shots.

I personally like the idea for the torpedoes but personally I think shes perfect outside of the movement, and I agree that she shouldnt just have more vertical, so i wonder if we could add a CD reduction to her somehow, like imagine if you landed more torpedoes, it cools your jets off, this would both encourage you to use them more offensively for that slightly faster jet cd, but also would add a level of management to her kit while making the flight maybe feel less janky, kinds like how adding this to queens axe added so much depth to her kit and made her infinitely more enjoyable.

But I actually think we should go the other way and remove bap and illaris headshot multipliers, in favour of them having more engaging kits because thats why people play support, they want super in depth kits that can be broken because these heros aren't intended to kill others unless stepped too, like if baps gonna have 3 health bars, he should have to use all 3 health bars to kill me, not just lands some headshots and win the dual against me because hes soldier with 3 health bars 😂