Reaper needs some buffs – Here are some balance ideas to make him more viable

General Discussion
1

Currently, Reaper is underpowered compared to the other damage heroes. He does a lot of damage up close, but his shotguns’ spread is too big, and the pellets do too little damage, so hitting a target who isn’t right up his nose will barely do any damage, and due to the spread and the damage of the individual pellets, it is very difficult to deal any decent amount of damage on a target with a small hitbox. His Hellfire Shotguns are basically melee weapons with a slightly extended range.

Reaper’s role is a tank-shredder, yet Torbjörn and Hanzo are better tank-shredders than Reaper is. :thinking:

His passive ability, The Reaping, can be useful if you’re fighting a Reinhardt swinging his hammer at you, but other than that, it doesn’t make an impact in the majority of situations. His Wraith Form, however, is close to perfectly balanced at the moment due to the changes that they made which reloads his shotguns upon using the ability and lets you cancel the ability whenever you want. However, his abilities have extremely long cooldowns compared to similar abilities of other heroes, so even Wraith Form could do with a shorter cooldown.

Reaper’s Ultimate ability, Death Blossom, is the only thing that I’m not changing in this hypothetical balance patch. Despite Reaper’s incredibly slow movement speed and vulnerability during this Ultimate, a well-timed Death Blossom can totally turn the tides of a match. Sure, it’s easily countered with a barrier or by simply walking away, but an unexpected Death Blossom can kill you before you even remember that you have a barrier (if you’re Brigitte, at least). Against tanks, it’s not as effective, especially against tanks with armour, but Death Blossom isn’t supposed to be a tank-shredding Ultimate. It’s extremely effective at killing damage and support heroes, so I’m not proposing any changes for it whatsoever.

The changes that I’ve written below would give him a new passive ability which would let Reaper deal more damage to physical barriers (e.g., Reinhardt’s barrier and Zarya’s bubbles), heal more on eliminations (but less by dealing damage), deal more consistent damage with his Hellfire Shotguns, use Wraith Form and Shadow Step more often, use Shadow Step more stealthily, reach his target location with Shadow Step faster (although take longer to commence it), and deal more damage with Death Blossom at extremely close ranges but less damage at longer ranges, with a longer radius.

I’m very excited to hear what you think about this idea, so please give me some feedback!

Currently, Reaper is a relatively underpowered damage hero. He does a lot of damage up close, but his shotguns’ spread is too big, and the pellets do too little damage, so hitting a target who’s not right up his nose will barely do any damage. His Hellfire Shotguns are basically melee weapons with a slightly extended range. His passive ability is useful, but it doesn’t make much of an impact. His Wraith Form feels amazingly balanced at the moment due to the changes they made which reloads his shotguns upon using the ability and lets you cancel the ability whenever you want. However, his abilities have extremely long cooldowns compared to similar abilities of other heroes.

Also, Reaper’s Ultimate is one of the easiest Ultimates to counter: You can simply walk away. If you’re playing as Reinhardt or Orisa, you can tank the entire Ultimate with your barrier. Zarya can survive or let one of her teammates survive with one of her projected barriers, and Brigitte can also survive Reaper’s entire Ultimate with her single barrier, and she’s a support hero!

The changes below would give him a new passive ability which would let Reaper deal more damage to physical barriers (e.g., Reinhardt’s barrier and Zarya’s bubbles), heal more on eliminations (but less by dealing damage), deal more consistent damage with his Hellfire Shotguns, use Wraith Form and Shadow Step more often, use Shadow Step more stealthily, reach his target location with Shadow Step faster (although take longer to commence it), and deal more damage with Death Blossom at extremely close ranges but less damage at longer ranges, with a longer radius.

Keep in mind that any of the numbers in this post could, of course, be tweaked by Blizzard if they hypothetically were to be implemented into the game. I did put a lot of thought into these ideas, but, of course, I haven’t done any testing, so some number tweaks might be necessary.

I’m very excited to hear what you think about this idea, so please give me some feedback!

New Passive Ability: Barrier Buster

  • Reaper deals 30% more damage to barriers (Reinhardt’s Barrier Field, Orisa’s Protective Barrier, Brigitte’s Barrier Shield, Winston’s Barrier Projector, and Zarya’s Particle Barrier). (Not applied to shields in heroes’ health bars—just physical barriers, so this would not do extra damage to Zenyatta, for instance.)

Notes: This new passive ability would make Reaper more effective at dealing with barriers. Since Reaper’s role is a tank-shredder, it would make sense if Reaper could more effectively take down Reinhardt’s, Winston’s, and Orisa’s barriers, as well as more quickly break Zarya’s bubbles. There’s only one non-tank hero with barriers, which is Brigitte, but she’s in the meta right now, and her stun ability, Shield Bash, is nearly unanimously hated—not to mention Brigitte’s extreme survivability and sustainability while just being a support hero. This passive ability would make Reaper a great counter to Brigitte, as well as shield tanks like Reinhardt and Winston.

To put the 30% damage bonus into perspective, Reaper normally does 140 damage at point-blank range (meaning the closest range possible) with one shot. Reinhardt’s barrier has 2,000 HP (shields, to be specific), so it would take 14.2 shots at point-blank range to single-handedly destroy his barrier. With this new passive ability, it would take 10.9 shots instead.

The Reaping (Passive)

  • Healing stolen from enemies upon dealing damage is increased to 25% (from 20%).

Notes: Reaper’s self-healing from this passive ability is miniscule and rarely helps him stay alive. A simple increase in healing by 5% would help him a lot, while not making too much of a difference to the point where he’s practically unkillable.

Hellfire Shotguns

  • Spread angle lowered to 15 (from 20.1).
  • Random spread pattern reduced by 50%.

Notes: Lowering the weapons’ spread by ~25% would slightly increase Reaper’s effective range, and lowering their random spread pattern would make the spread more predictable, thus making it a little easier to deal consistent damage. He would still only be effective at close ranges, but he would have an easier time hitting fast-moving enemies and enemies with small hitboxes.

A reduction of the random spread pattern by 50% is the same change that Torbjörn’s secondary fire recently got.

Wraith Form

  • Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds (from 8).

Notes: As I mentioned before, Wraith Form is nearly perfectly balanced thanks to the relatively recent buffs made to it; however, like with Shadow Step, the cooldown feels too long. If you use Wraith Form to quickly get out of spawn, escape a dangerous situation, or just as a general movement ability for some extra movement speed to help you get behind the enemy to flank or get into the fray, you are extremely vulnerable for a whole eight seconds. Most other movement abilities—like Moira’s Fade, Sombra’s Stealth, and McCree’s Combat Roll—have six-second cooldowns or lower, while Wraith Form has an eight-second cooldown. Reducing its cooldown would make it much less of a risk to use Wraith Form as a way of escape or just as a way to get somewhere faster. This would be similar to McCree’s recent Combat Roll buff, decreasing its cooldown by two seconds as well. Other than a cooldown reduction, I don’t think that Wraith Form needs no other changes.

Shadow Step

  • Cast time reduced to 2.05 seconds (from 2.5 seconds).
  • The beginning animation now lasts longer than the target animation. Instead of both animations being of equal length, it now takes 1.25 seconds to commence the teleporation (the same as before) but only 0.8 seconds to exit the animation at the target location.

Notes: Most people agree that Shadow Step is the worst movement ability in the entire game. It’s extremely slow and leaves you extremely vulnerable both during the starting animation and the animation at the target location. These two changes would be a reduction by 18% in cast time, and it would now take longer to commence the teleporation than to finish the animation at the target location. Currently, the cast time of Shadow Step is 2.5 seconds, and it takes 1.25 seconds to both commence the teleportation and leave the animation. With these changes, Shadow Step would take the same amount of time to commence the teleporation but would take less time to exit the animation at the target location. This would make it much safer to use Shadow Step as it would reduce the risk of enemies noticing you and immediately killing you after teleporting before you even get a chance to react. Even if an enemy were to notice you with these changes, you would still have the chance to escape or kill them if they don’t kill you in time.

The reason that I didn’t just straight up reduce the cast time and having equal animation times on both ends was that I didn’t want Shadow Step to become an ability that players use to escape a dangerous situations. With these changes, it would take just as long as it does now to start to begin the teleportation, but you wouldn’t have to wait as long to be able to move and attack at the target location. This would make it just as difficult and dangerous to escape with Shadow Step as it is now, but it’d be much safer to use it to flank.

  • Cooldown reduced to 8 seconds (from 10 seconds).

Notes: Like Wraith Form, the cooldown for Shadow Step feels too long. After using the ability after getting out of spawn, you won’t have the ability for a whole ten seconds, which is even longer than Wraith Form’s current cooldown. Reducing its cooldown by two seconds would undoubtedly make it more viable for getting behind the enemy when needed—or even getting away whenever it’s possible. A similar ability, Sombra’s Translocator, only has a four-second cooldown and can be used whenever she want without being in line-of-sight. It may be unfair to compare two abilities of two heroes with vastly different kits, but Shadow Step is easily the worst movement ability in the entire game in its current state.

  • The black smoke that appears at the target location is much fainter and more transparent, making it more difficult for enemies to notice.

Notes: This change would make it slightly more difficult for enemies to see the noticeable black smoke that appears at Reaper’s target location (which appears as soon as Reaper uses Shadow Step). It would still be there, but it would be more difficult to spot, so enemies would be less likely to immediately notice where Reaper is going to be, making it safer to use Shadow Step. Teleporting right into enemies’ line of sight would, obviously, still be dangerous, and you would likely still die, but using it in a location where an enemy might look would be a safer move with this change.

  • The range of the voice line that Reaper exclaims while using Shadow Step has been reduced to 10 meters (from 15 meters), and the volume of the line has been slightly reduced.

Notes: This would make it safer to teleport behind the enemy, which is what the ability was designed to do, while still allowing enemies to hear him if he is teleporting too close to them. Reaper’s footsteps are loud anyway, so it’s not difficult to hear Reaper, even after he’s used Shadow Step.

The goal of these changes is to make Reaper more effective at taking down targets with smaller hitboxes, increase his survivability, and make his poor teleportation ability actually viable for flanking and moving along the map. There’s no straight up damage increase or any crazy changes to any of his abilities. He would simply be better at his job, which is to flank and to shred tanks.

I put a lot of extensive thinking into these change ideas, so I’d to hear what my fellow players have to think about these changes. Feel free to give me feedback!

TL;DR: To sum all the suggested changes up:

Changes summed up (click to reveal)
  • New passive ability: Barrier Buster, which makes Reaper deal 30% more damage to physical barriers, such as Reinhardt’s Barrier Field.
  • The Reaping: Healing increased by 5%.
  • Hellfire Shotguns: Spread angle lowered by ~25%. Random spread pattern reduced by 50%. Reaper’s overall damage output remains the same, but his damage becomes more consistent, and shooting heroes who are a little farther away than right up Reaper’s nose would be a bit more effective.
  • Wraith Form: Cooldown reduced by 2 seconds.
    Shadow Step: Cast time reduced by 0.45 seconds. Cast time shifted so that the beginning animation lasts longer than the final animation at the target location, making it just as difficult to escape with Shadow Step but much safer to flank with it. Cooldown reduced by 2 seconds. Black smoke at target location made less noticeable; and range and volume of voice line played while using the ability reduced.

Here are some changes that I thought about but ultimately scrapped for one reason or another:

Scrapped ideas (click to reveal)
  • Infinite Wraith Form, but health slowly drains for the duration. This would make health management an important part of Reaper. It would make for a playstyle of constant anxiety over Reaper’s health. The sole point of Wraith Form is to escape dangerous situations anyway, so having your health drain while trying to escape the enemy at low health could potentially kill you or at least leave you in a very bad situation. Besides, Reaper’s Wraith Form isn’t meant to last for very long since it’s only intended to escape dangerous situations, like escaping to safety while at low health or avoiding an Ultimate. Therefore, having Wraith Form last indefinitely would be pretty pointless anyway.
  • New secondary fire: armour-piercing bullets at the cost of 2 or 4 ammo per shot. Having bullets that deal more damage to armour or simply ignore armour’s damage-negating effects altogether would make Reaper even stronger against tanks. Reaper is very effective at taking down tanks, especially with my proposed changes to his Hellfire Shotguns, so having shots that negate the effects armour would make him way too powerful. It would also nullify Brigitte’s entire Ultimate, as well as her Repair Pack ability—not to mention how easy it would be for Reaper to completely delete tanks with this change. Yes, he’s a tank-shredder, but he’s not supposed to be that strong against them. Besides, plenty of non-tank heroes have armour (and as mentioned, any hero can have armour thanks to Brigitte), so it would make Reaper unreasonably powerful to not just tanks but any hero with armour.
  • Increased range for Death Blossom (e.g., 10 meters instead of the current 8 meters) but with damage falloff. I thought about increasing Death Blossom’s range while adding a damage falloff so that it does less damage at longer ranges, which it doesn’t in the game right now, but I decided against it since Death Blossom is already really powerful, and it would likely be a net nerf to add a damage falloff anyway. 8 meters isn’t that much, but Death Blossom can borderlien insta-kill non-tank heroes when they are caught off guard, so that doesn’t matter as much. Death Blossom isn’t as much of a death sentence if you can manage to not put you in a position where enemies are out of its range and shooting at you.
7 Likes
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I think Reaper needs an alternate fire. He’s too one-note, too easily countered.

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I actually talked about a scrapped idea for an armour-piercing secondary fire in the “Scrapped ideas” section of my post. That’s a popular idea, but I don’t agree with it, at least not along with all the balance change ideas in this post.

There are, of course, other things he could have as a secondary fire. Other popular suggestions include another weapon altogether—like the grenade launcher that he had in Overwatch’s cinematic trailer—a smoke bomb, a scythe, and more.

I don’t think that he should have a second weapon, like a grenade launcher or a scythe. Reaper is not a long- or mid-range explosive hero, nor is he a melee hero.

As for another secondary attack, like a smoke bomb, I disagree with that too. Reaper’s role is primarily to flank, and if you’re behind the enemy, picking off easy targets, you don’t exactly need a distracting smoke bomb. I think a smoke bomb is a good idea for this game, but it should be left for another hero, not Reaper.

I can’t think of a secondary fire that would fit Reaper’s playstyle, wouldn’t make him overpowered, and wouldn’t be unnecessary or underpowered. I don’t think that’s what he needs, really. It would make for more interesting gameplay, but I think that Reaper is fine only having his shotguns, as long as his existing kit is buffed. I do have an idea for a new passive ability, as I detailed in my post, however.

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I think Reaper needs a long range attack for the same reason as Mei and Torb - it’s partly for self defense and partly so he can still be useful when he can’t close with the enemy for whatever reason.

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Unlike Mei, Reaper can annihilate enemies at close range. I don’t think that he needs a long-range attack. The reason that he has Shadow Step is so that he can flank and get behind the enemy to hit them at close range; however, as I’ve detailed in my post, Shadow Step is a really bad ability, hence my buff ideas for it.

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I still think he does. It would also help somewhat with his glaring weaknesses against Brigitte and Pharah.

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You should read the original post, as one of my ideas is a new passive that would help him counter Brigitte, not to mention that his reduced spread and more consistent damage would also help him take down Brigitte.

As for Pharah, Reaper is not the one who should deal with Pharah. The only thing that a Reaper player should do to deal with a Pharah is to switch to a different hero or let someone else deal with her. The most powerful close-range hero in the game shouldn’t have powerful long-range attacks too.

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“Barrier Buster” should be renamed “Piercing Darkness”, for maximum edge.

1 Like
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I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. I’ve advocated for my main to get some buffs as well in a diff thread. I do disagree that Wraith Form needs a buff, I think if he actually had a useful E ability, we would already see a huge improvement

+1 <3

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It could definitely use a better name, but I don’t think that neither the word “piercing” or “darkness” fits the ability. Reaper’s attacks don’t go through barriers, and… well, what’s dark?

I didn’t suggest any buff aside from a shorter cooldown. I think eight seconds is too long.

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Reaper should not be affected by armor period. A Tank Buster shooting blanks against tank health is hilariously bad design.

Other than that, I like all your ideas for improving Reaper.

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I talked about this in the “Scrapped ideas” section.

It would be especially broken if none of his attacks were affected by armour by default, via a passive.

Nullifying an entire game mechanic would make Brigitte’s Repair Pack and Rally, as well as any hero with armour by default, would be so hard countered by Reaper it wouldn’t even be funny.

Reaper can still do massive damage to tanks at close range, and they have large hitboxes, so it’s not like it’s hard to land the pellets. Besides, it’s not like tanks only have armour. Reinhardt only has 200 armour out of his 500 total health, for instance.

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I’m talking about Reaper’s shotgun treating armor the same as HP during the damage calculation. It wouldn’t hard counter these armoured heroes.

Plus, a hard counter to Brigitte isn’t really a bad thing.

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I don’t agree that he need more dmg from up close. He would become very devastating against most of the heroes in the game, especially tanks.

All he needs is improvements to shadow step.

15

This is Reaper we’re talking about, here. Everything about him is darkness.
Perhaps “Rending Shadows” is better?

16

I don’t think that armour should be nullified for Reaper.

With such a power, he would be able to shred Bastion, D.Va, Orisa, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Winston, Brigitte, Wrecking Ball, Brigitte, and any hero who has gotten armour from Brigitte. It would make Brigitte’s Ultimate much worse, as well as her main healing ability.

With my proposed buffs to Reaper’s Hellfire Shotguns, he would do more consistent damage, and as mentioned, due to the increased damage per pellet (but reduced number of pellets, mind you), he would actually do more damage to armoured targets without needing any sort of armour-piercing ability.

What does that even mean, and how is it related to barriers?

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Let’s say if we reduce his spread then to compensate his dmg needs to lowered just like torb.

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I dunno, man. I’m just trying to come up with an edgy name.
“Absence of Light” or “Event Horizon”, perhaps? The barriers are pretty much hard-light tecnhology, so maybe that’s fitting? The latter would be a nice parallel with his character too, since he himself has crossed the moral event horizon.

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A tighter spread would hardly affect close-range combat, which is the range at which Reaper is supposed to be. A range reduced by 15–25% would simply slightly increase his effective range, making him do better than just simply tickling enemies who are not right up his nose.

2 Likes
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I was actually thinking more of a long range weapon. Kind of like Mei’s icicle or Torb’s single rivet.