Reaper has failed me, and we have failed him

General Discussion
1

Every game, every patch. I think, “Maybe this time Reaper will be good, he’ll work, he got buffed hard enough.”

Every single time I am wrong. And I am so tired of it. I literally play this game in the hopes that Reaper gets an event cosmetic or a buff. So I can enjoy my favorite character from any videogame.

I am so sick of this nonsense. Reaper gets the smallest buffs that have minimal impact on gameplay, keep him underpowered, and for no reason. Other heroes get huge buffs that knock them up a few pickrate tiers.

  • Reaper has been out of 2 triple tank metas
  • Reaper and Mei were buffed to counter a trip-tank meta. And it failed horribly. Both heroes are still bad.
  • Reaper has never gotten nerfed and he is still weak
  • His ultimate is literally incapable of killing most of the tanks.
  • The only hero with a purely 100% non-combat ability
  • Has an ability that is the slowest in the entire game on a teleport
  • Has pickrates worse than Bastion
  • Has a teleport+speed boost and is still a slow Damage hero

There is never a reason to properly select Reaper. Other heroes do his job better.
Tank buster? Hanzo has rapid fire and Tracer deals high DPS at twice the range of Reaper, with way more mobility

Brawler? McCree, Doomfist, Soldier. All more viable and have more versatile kits.

Flanker? Genji and Tracer. Quicker, smaller, and faster than Reaper could ever hope to be.

And I know this post is nonconstructive, I’m venting frustrations. But my all-time favorite hero and favorite videogame character has been in the garbage for nearly almost 3 years. There’s almost no point in keeping him as a playable character.

Reaper needs a considerable buff, possibly a rework. To me, the biggest issue is ShadowStep. That teleport has long overstayed its welcome and is an incredibly niche ability that doesn’t really benefit Reaper.

I have lost faith in Reaper, he isn’t fun. I know other hero mains (sym, mercy, etc.) have lost their fun in their mains due to reworks.

I’ve lost fun in Reaper due to neglect. Reaper needs more attention because he has been struggling.
It seems a lot of the forums agree Reaper needs help.
Seagull thinks it.
The #1 Reaper player, SpiritOW thinks it.

And the stats that we as players have access to, definitely proves it beyond a reasonable doubt.

#SaveReaper

27 Likes
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Our resident edgelord seriously needs help.

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Reaper is dead and he may not be coming back this time. With the addition of Brig came Rally and Repair Pack, two abilities which reduce Reaper’s value by 50% for a substantial portion of the match. The long-term implications of these armor-generating abilities were immediately clear to many of us DPS mains, yet they eluded the development team it seems.

I get it. Mistakes happen. That’s life. But this mistake had permanent consequences for a large subset of the hero roster, who now remain overly niche indefinitely. Reaper can still thrive against non-Brig comps but the moment they go Brig, you need to switch if you take winning seriously, because Reaper has no counterplay against her armor regardless of the Reaper player’s skill level.

Seagull is proposing more counterplay to armor. YourOverwatch is proposing more counterplay to armor. Blizzard themselves have added more counterplay to armor specifically through Torb’s ult. It’s obvious that armor is a problem in the game. So why not just…fix the problem?

Rework armor so that it affects all heroes equally, thereby allowing rapid-fire and shotgun hitscans the fair chance to output the same value as the explosive and sniper heroes. Better yet, replace Brig’s ability armor with a sizeable portion of HP instead, allowing Brig players to get significantly larger healing stats.

Short of fixing the actual problem at its root like this—or giving Reap the armor-piercing rounds that Seagull suggested—I don’t see him being generally viable ever again sadly.

4 Likes
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If reaper isnt fun after not changing, maybe it’s you. It’s ok to get bored of a hero

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You know what’s a real bummer too? I consider beyblade to be one of the funnest metas to ever be in this game. If anyone remembers that, it was so much fun coordinating that spinning speedboosted bubbled reaper.

7 Likes
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I feel like Reaper will forever be a sub par pick, not because he is bad, but the fact that he’s clunky and has to be up close hurts him a ton.

Other DPS can simply do his job better.

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It’s not that Reaper isn’t fun. He is functionally bad.

Everyone likes to claim his damage as 140 per shot, one of the higher end DPS normal shots. That while armor does hit him hard not too bad and especially if he gets accurate hits and head shots. However don’t forget he has a pellet weapon, and no I don’t mean this from the armor view.

Do me a favor. Take Reaper, face a clean wall and shoot from decent distance. Count or estimate how much of his shot via bullet holes are outside his crosshair. Keep moving closer until all the holes are within his croshair. I don’t know the exact distance, but it is ridiculously short. That’s how close he has to be to get max damage.

After that, think about other characters models and hitbox compared to his spread. Even if you do manage good headshots, with his spread chances are you’re only doing 1/2-3/4 his damage anyways due to his large spread vs smaller hitbox on anyone that’s not a tank.

This isn’t even including that to deal even close to max damage he has to be in range of every CC in the game. Including two stuns (Brig & McCree), sleep(Ana), freeze(Mei), two-three knockback(Lucio & Ashe, Pharah).

Outside of this short range he is nearly useless. See how many shots it takes to kill a 200 HP hero with just Reaper from even medium distance. He has no way to get close without burning his only escape tool. Shadowstep may be the worst ability in the game. I can’t tell you how many Reaper I have noticed using it only to headshot him before he can move and usually kill him.

In his current state, Reaper is bad.

It’s not just one ability or an easily interrupted Ultimate either. He is fundamentally flawed.

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Ohey RichC is back.

I think beyblade was the best because it was about ults not broken team comps that rely on breakneck speed flankers

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True. It’s something you can identify and counter. The current meta is just about overpowering an enemy who is constantly being healed. A Lot. Our current DPS simply don’t have the DPS to do it unless very very skilled. That’s what happens when you stack healing with no limits and give healers damage potential.

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I think they need to remove all abilities in the game that grant armor. Armor has a specific role in the game (making tanks tankier against rapidfire/shotgun heroes without making them ridiculous vs. precision damage) and it should never have ever been used for anything else. Also, it isn’t being used for that when it should be (Hammond should have armor and less hp).

1 Like
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just rework that stupid shadow step it’s useless

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Agreed but it’s more than one ability. His core design has always been not the greatest and with how much healing and stuns have been added to game he is just much worse.

My random ideas? Combine Wraith form and SS. Make Wraith move like Valkyrie much like his first video.

Then give him a “berserk” kind of ability. Tightens his spread a lot, maybe move a little quicker though that may be a bit much. The drawback? Can’t wraith while active and if too strong disable his trait during it making a use for increased damage if you’re more than 5ft away or if you need to get close or push as an offensive class.

3 Likes
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Reaper is still fun to troll hard on people, and if you ever do get him and your popin’ off it feels amazing, but Reaper does need a Buff, allot of mercy mains i know love me as Reaper and wish I did rank to see how far i can go up the ladder with Reaper , I 2nd Reaper to my Symm, but I love it when people think i’m Reaper main , even though my name is an to an old word that isn’t used in the English language anymore.

But shadow step is by far the most useless, and you should be invulnerable while in Death Blossom also cause how so many CC’s are in the game andcan shut it down in a moment notice.

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Reaper doesn’t need a buff, tanks need a nerf. If we buff Reaper where he hard counters tank then why go 2-2-2 if he is just going to delete tanks? The only possible comp to go against him would be GOATS or quad tank. Dps would never appear other than him. If we nerfed tanks and some AOE heals then GOATS will go away and he won’t destroy tanks.

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Reaper does need a buff. He’s useless outside 3-5m. That’s why I suggest an ability buff to his spread. A temporary one that can be countered and isn’t an overwhelming presence.

I fully understand that buffing something does more than affect their supposed counter. Yes just straight high buff to Reaper’s spread would make him a killing machine. Every hero would be slaughtered.

However on that same note, simply doing a straight nerf to tanks would do nothing to help Reaper. He’d still be useless outside 5m. He’d still have bad abilities. It would just make better DPS like Tracer and Genji even more desired.

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Blizzard claims Reaper flows with the Meta so let’s see.

Beyblade meta.
People quickly figured out Reinhardt was better to Nano… Feelsbadman

Triple tank.
Reaper didn’t deal out enough damage due to healing and barriers also he didn’t have self-healing

Dive.
Reaper was to slow

Mercy with dive meta
Reaper was to slow but also couldn’t confirm kills quick enough due to Mercy and a million rezzes per match

Double sniper
Reaper has no range

Goats
Reaper doesn’t deal enough damage quickly enough… also stuns everywhere.

So Reaper was meta in
Season 1. Everything goes season btw.
Season 2. For about 2 weeks until people started choosing to nano the Rein.

Reaper really comes and goes with the meta guys…

7 Likes
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Yeah when (I think it was) Jeff said Reap ebbs and flows with the meta I was gonna say.

“Jeff! You wonderful bearded man god. Do you play your own game? Do you watch your own esport?”

Reaper has been F tier since S3 and has never gotten better

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It’s just not Repear’s meta. He will be good against comps with no barriers, large hit boxes, no armor, low mobility and no CC. Sure to happen soon!

Just wait it out guys

To be fair he’s almost as good into six Winstons as bastion is. Maybe that’s his niche?

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I can only imagine that the only reason Reaper does not get armor penetration is because all tank mains would rise up and start complaining in such case.

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The fact that Reaper has gotten 3-5 buffs and very little nerfs and is still bottom tier should speak volumes. He has a bad design and their continual increase of healing and support flexability has made him and most DPS just not that useful anymore.

It’s a tank and heal game guys, and it’s looking like that won’t change anytime soon.

1 Like