Excuse me for the incoming rant, but I’m getting over some facts about Reaper:
His spread is wider than most heroes at a solid 5m
He’s been F tier and worse for pretty much all of competitive
Has one of the easiest ults to shut down ahem stun ahem
Basically countered by the entire meta minus Hammond
Shadow Step has to be the single worst and least useful ability in the game
He has 2 mobility abilities yet he’s still super slow and immobile
Deals LITERALLY half damage to armor
Has gotten over 4 buffs and is somehow no where near reliable to use effectively
I might recommend reworking his ‘E’, or just giving it some serious buffs. Remove the voice line. Remove the arriving animation, because using it is just begging for your head to be handed to you on a silver platter. Or just give him some kind of reliable buff that can at least put him an acceptable place in the meta. Please, and thank you.
I think he’s underwhelming, but there are a couple of things that I think are fair weaknesses:
If he’s really deadly at close range, he shouldn’t be able to close that gap super easily. I think not having as much mobility is completely fair. However, Shadow-Step needs either an overhaul or replaced with something else because it is not as useful as other abilities in the game.
That’s not exclusive to Reaper, though. I imagine with the Torbjorn rework that it may help with the armor-frenzy that’s happening at the moment.
I don’t think it’d be fair to remove the voiceline or arriving animation. There’s a couple things I think could work - damage reduction when teleporting or making it faster would help.
Agreed with Andough, a few of these things are intended weaknesses for Reaper. Lots of people call for Reaper to ignore armor, but I really don’t see that as necessary. Most armored targets are slow, beefy heroes that Reaper can land full bodyshots on – with the exception of Brig’s Rally, but that’s kind of a whole different thing – and even when Reaper’s damage is halved, he’s still able to dish out damage like a McCree against those targets, which isn’t really crippling. It does mean his poke game is even weaker, but emphasis on “even;” it’s already far from his forte. If you really want that big damage, aim for meaty headshots.
I do agree, and I think most people do as well, that Shadow Step is always a bad ability. And what’s worse is that when it works as intended? It feels like a great ability for Reaper. It totally fits who he is and his kit. I really think a few simple buffs could put it into a more usable place, and boost Reaper’s applicability. An instant teleport, for example, or even just drastically reducing its cast time? That would go miles. One of my go-to buffs has been to allow him to combine Shadow Step with Wraith Form, letting him burn two abilities so that he can more safely get into positions – and then hard commit to those positions.
Another more wild buff I’ve had in mind is letting him Wraith Form out of stuns. There’s a lot of match-ups that absolutely should be more evenly matched but ends with Reaper getting spooked away as soon as a stun-combo hits him. Letting him Wraith Form to quickly get out of those binds gives him a stronger frontline presence which he currently lacks. Which is ironic considering he arguably should have the strongest frontline presence of any non-tank hero.
Im coming from a thread about how reaper is too OP Reaper Ult Too OP
hes an 1800 pharah main Im dead
like oh you wanna counter reaper ult be in the sky
The biggest problem Reaper has had is that even when he works fine, other heroes simply work better.
Reaper has no big draw, especially when Tracer exists, and unless Blizzard massively overtune him, that’s not going to change.
Personally I’d like them to make him an anti-armour specialist like Torbjorn. That would give him a niche without crowding Tracer and minimizing the frustration of putting an extremely strong mechanic on an extremely strong hero, because Reaper has plenty of counterplay beyond just living through his damage.
Well, is there anything wrong with a silver pharah main? I got unlucky with placements (and that’s when I was bad) and I never climbed… and at least i’m climbing this season because in silver no one tries to counter pharah and I’m a really good one. And also I’m not afraid to let my profile be public… Ahem ImJoosh Ahem. But I prefer to avoid being toxic so good day
He really just needs mobility. There’s no reason a squishy DPS hero who is required to be in nearly point blank range to be effective should be as slow and clunky as he is, ESPECIALLY not when you’ve got Doomfist who is an absolute butcher in close range but also has insane mobility (although I’ve said it before on the forums, I do not think DF is actually OP, he is just really good in the right hands). Reaper deserves the same potential. It’s really just his mobility and the fact Shadow Step is so clunky/slow.
His Ult in and of itself is fine IMO. I really think the game overall needs reliance on uncounterable DPS Ults and instead should focus on comboing a lot more to make the DPS ults more effective. Not to say they shouldn’t be useable solo, but I actually think Reaper’s Ult is one of the best designed in terms of balance…it is very strong but functions best with teamwork kind of like Pharah’s Ult. I think Ults in general should not be I Win buttons for DPS but should instead be extremely powerful with the right combo. It isn’t that Reaper’s Ult is bad, it’s that many other DPS Ults are too easy and too good. Just my opinion though.
But yeah Reaper needs some love. I’m surprised they didn’t touch him on the PTR seeing as how Soldier and McRib both got some much needed improvements. But let’s not forget Blizzard likes to “balance” things based on mass complaints from Silver tier players and they all probably still think Reaper is OP.
I agree, with so many QoLs/buffs/spread and range buffs he can’t really keep up anymore, soon.
Torb’s shotgun got improved and Hog’s will probably follow.
Reaper’s deserves the same and he has not even an alt-fire.
So his main-fire should at least be viable.
I think they need to go all in on his in-your-face brawler style and forget being a flanker entirely. Maybe his E boosts lifesteal from 20% to 70% for x amount of time?
