Let him eat souls with right click so Mercy has a hard counter.
And you can’t say heroes shouldn’t be designed to counter a specific other hero anymore, because Brig was designed specifically to counter Tracer with her 155dmg combo.
Dude please stop. Reaper is bad. For a close range hero there are tons of other choices you could pick which are safer and more reliable. Hanzo can go up close to an enemy, spam Storm Arrow and lunge around, and deal more damage to a tank than reaper could hope to in the same time frame, and safer at that.
Reaper is supposed to be a close range raw damage hero, but everything in the game works against him. I am honestly even against him getting a ranged option, he should just be more fluid to play. He is slow, sluggish and just clunky. I would make shadow step an instant quick teleport, with a little more range than a tracer blink. That would enable him to get into the fight quickly and close up. And then there are STILL tons of ways to deal with him. Armor ruins him, stuns, boops, he has the most interruptable ult in the game…he needs help.
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Stop? Stop trying to say that there can be legitimately good reaper play? That his effectiveness is in the hands of the person playing him and not based on bad enemies?
Fine…
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he lives in an imaginary world where reapers actually picked
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No. He is objectively too weak. You can do good with any hero if you put the effort in, even Reaper. That isn’t the point. The point is that there are safer and better choices for the niche he is supposed to excel at, which is close range damage and tankbusting. That is the problem.
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Okay, but my point from long ago is that “safe” picks aren’t universal. A safe pick for you is someone you’re good and effective as. It’s why I consider Ana a safe pick for me, and Mercy a risky pick. I’m used to playing Ana. I know how to play around teammates and enemies as her. With Mercy, I don’t know where to be, what to do to be most effective. She’s not a safe decision for me.
Also, you said he’s objectively weak, but said you can be good as anyone. Which means it’s not objective.
Repair is certainly not a bad hero. But his teleport is kinda lame. Its loud and obvious as hell, takes forever to complete, and is mostly used to just get back to the battle.
you can do good on bastion but hes trash
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But if you can do good on him, what does it matter what the perception of rank/tier is? I would be more than willing to concede reaper’s viability if we do it objectively and not just say other people do his job better. To run things objectively, we need data and numbers (and I don’t mean pickrate and winrate). You get those and I can very easily be persuaded here.
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Two charges on Wraith Form. One to get in and one to get out. Change his teleport to be some kind of nemesis/assassin target marker that increases Reaper’s damage dealt to that target and reduces damage taken from that target. Like a more concentrated form of Zenyatta’s discord but on a longer cooldown. Maybe make him harder to interrupt during Death Blossom.
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Its the difference between good and bad. I could play Reaper and do good at him, or I could play someone I don’t usually play, and do better because that hero is just better. It is honestly depressing to have a weak favourite hero. Yeah sure I can kill tanks with reaper but it’s annoying to think about the fact I could do it safer and quicker with another hero I barely play. That is why I said there is objective weakness.
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I think the problem with Reaper is that he’s caught between two niches, and as a result isn’t great at either.
Is he a flanker/assassin, meant to kill squishies? Or is he a frontline fighter, meant to kill tanks? Blizzard seemed to be pushing for the first one early on, but now they seem to be moving towards the second one. He needs to fit into a single role and commit to it!
If he’s an assassin, he needs to be better at sneaking around and infiltrating the backline. The best thing I can envision is a faster/more reliable teleport, and maybe, just maybe a slightly higher movement speed.
If he’s a tank buster, he needs to be a bit better at range. Close range is where most tanks operate best, and most good tank busters (Bastion, Roadhog, Junkrat) can operate at a much further range than Reaper can
3 Likes
Rework armour so that he won’t be dealing 40 damage per shot inside his effective range.
It does matter. You could literally play good as any hero in bronze. Any hero, it’s not hard. If you were good you could probably out dps a genji/Hanzo as Ana.
But as you get higher, people understand the game more until you reach around diamond/masters were most bad heroes will no longer be able to play like the use to.
Can you first prove to me how Reaper is good and what does he fulfil because right now you’re basically just saying nope to all the arguments you’re presented
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I thought up an idea for him earlier today. One that focuses more on his current kit rather than relying on a new ability.
Reaper
- Passive: The Reaping
- Dead enemies drop Soul Globes again, which can be consumed by Reaper to regain a portion of health. Life siphoning stays.
- Hellfire Shotguns
- Pellets now consistently deal 7 damage per pellet.
- Shadow Step
- Reaper is now provided with a few frames of invulnerability during the cast and exit of Shadow Step. Invulnerability lasts .4 seconds after end of Shadow Step. Movement and abilities can be still be used during this time.
- Sound produced by Shadow Step reduced.
Developer Comments: The idea of these changes is to help Reaper be better at what he does: be a close range threat. Dying to Reaper will help him retain his health, allowing him to continue fighting at the dangerously close range he prefers. His damage is now more consistent which should help him be more deadly in his preferred range. Lastly, his Shadow Step has been adjusted to no longer be a liability to him. The added frames of invulnerability will help him Shadow Step up to pesky Widowmakers without enabling him to die before control is returned to the player. Now, Reaper will have at least a short window to act if he knows his Shadow Step location is being targeted.
This is where I would probably start with when trying to fix him. Seeing if there’s a way to make his current kit work without needing a total rework.
First thing I’d like to see them try is letting reaper ignore armor. Makes no sense to have a “tank-buster” that gets so hindered by armor.
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Increase his movement speed so he isn’t such an easy target and can effectively close range on targets.
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Tighten his spread on his shotguns, any hero can dance around him and barely get grazed while landing shots that go beyond the range his shotguns are capable of. This would also allow him to land more consistent headshots as well and potentially bypass armor.
Allow Reaper to use Shadow Step within Wraith, which would instantly make him teleport to that position and put both abilities on cool down.
Make Shadow Step faster overall, or just instantly teleport after the initial casting time.
Make kills shave off 3 seconds of both his abilities that are on cool down so that he can disengage and become more aggressive in combat.
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Shadow Step needs to be faster and less obvious. It takes him three years to go through the full animation and everyone’s ears get blasted with “DEATH COMES”
The latest changes were definitely a step in the right direction. However, his self-sustain is still pitiful and his ultimate is … underwhelming most of the time.
Boost his passive to 40-50%, or give him a new active on his right click that increases his damage output for a few seconds, duration resets on kill and works with Death Blossom.
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25 armor to make up for his huge hitbox. A bit tighter spread.
Remove shadow step because it’s bad mobility and symmetra’s teleporter is flat out better. Every hero with mobility (D.va, Winston, Tracer, Genji, Doomfist, Hanzo, Junkrat, Mercy, Widow, Lucio, Moira) can at least use it during a fight. Making him invincible during the animation would be busted.
Add a new skill.
Black Fire- small aoe rectangle in front of Gabe 12m range from his body. Goes through barriers and hits white hp first, instantly reloads his shotguns, doing m1 damage decreases cd.
Gabe’s flanking is really bad if the enemy knows what they’re doing. He’s more of a close range tanky-frontliny-brawler. He needs really strong sustain because his m1 grabs so much aggro, and he has to get into suicide range of the tanks. Shadow stepping is such a boring ability anyways.