Reaper has been put in a pretty bad state for awhile in Masters+ & professional Overwatch. His niche which is tankbuster is overall done better by Hanzo and Junkrat. His niche maps such as Temple of Anubis are no longer his niche maps. Brigitte who is played often hard counters Reaper and also allows the team to somewhat counter him too. Reaper has to get into close range to do any real damage, which also increases his risk of being focused down by range/tanks or CC’d. Reaper’s ult is somewhat outdated and also counterable by range, hard CC or displacement CC. For a close range brawler, he has one quick escape or quick gapcloser, not both. His hitbox is pretty big and his spread is rng. Shadowstep has it’s purposes, but not to the extent that I think it was envisioned to be.
Reaper only works if you’ve got a somewhat disorganized team. For professional play, that’s not going to happen.
I do understand that Reaper is one of those heroes that if you buff him, he can be brutal in lower ranks, so maybe hes being considered but there’s no clear direction for him.
Honestly, at this point of time, I just want to see my boy reworked into some high skill cap hero, much like Hanzo (which imo is in a great spot).
What are the dev opinions on Reaper?
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Why play Reaper, when you can play Hanzo?
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One more thing, every new hero that’s been added is bringing some kind of knockback. Hammond, Brigitte, Doomfist, which further hurts Reaper’s close range brawling
Dont nerf hanzo, buff reaper
I personally don’t think there’s much wrong with Hanzo. He’s in a good spot right now. Nerfing Hanzo only fixes one of Reaper’s many flaws, but buffing Reaper can fix many of Reaper’s flaws
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Because Hanzo isn’t OP, it just still looks that way because besides widowmaker, his DIRECT competition is garbage. A bunch of dps need buffs, bug fixes, or reworks.
Maybe they are garbage because Hanzo does their job better?
Honestly I think Shadowstep needs to be replaced, or Reaper needs some kind of third ability like a right click
Sombra has the same problem, but the other way around. She is just garbage in low tiers and a very good pick in pro play (cough Contenders). If they buff her for low tiers, she becomes broken in pro play. Some heroes are never gonna be balanced and we have to deal with it
Well in my linked discussion thread, the idea would be to make Shadow Step invulnerable to damage and CC while disappearing, but he’d still be just as vulnerable while appearing.
Making it a useful retreat ability.
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No, Reaper’s garbage because of a loooong list of reasons from before Neo Hanzo. Soldier 76 dived into meme tier when the added armor and barriers crushed him. McCree is still being built back up. Junkrat has a terrible grenade bug that makes him non-competitive at most ranks. None of this has anything to do with Hanzo.
Reaper does seem to be pretty weak, they definitely need to look at him.
I think it’s time to give Reaper an alternate fire. Brig can make it impossible for him to engage at close range, so some longer range attack would make him less easily countered.
reduce spread, rework shadow step (garbo mobility, never used in midst of fight), some form of armor penetration because killing brig is 99.9% impossible
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I think Reaper needs more survivability on top of reliable damage. His ult can be displaced or CC, his shotguns are RNG, and for him to survive he has to land shots with his RNG shotguns to heal
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I think the biggest problem with Reaper is that Brig is a better Reaper than Reaper, plus all of the other stuff she does.
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