So my idea for the Reaper fix is to bind a smoke grenade to Reapers right click instead of his life steal which is either lackluster or broken af.
The smoke grenade would fit with Reapers play-style which Blizzard is trying to implement, it would give him a gap closer without giving him any mobility, and it would raise his skill ceiling which is something Reaper has always struggled with.
Blizzard has said multiple times that they want Reaper to have a very hunt and pounce play-style. To the point where they won’t change the worst ability in the game. However, the smoke grenade would help with this play-style. ex: Drop it on a support before you engage to make sure the enemy can’t interfere with your one v one.
Gap closing has always been something Reaper has struggled with. However, giving him a mobility ability would be BROKE with his shotguns. So the answer is to give him a gap close that doesn’t rely on mobility at all. Rather getting rid of the enemies ability to shot him as he walks menacingly towards them.
Finally, it would raise his skill ceiling because lets face it after like two games as Reaper you’ve basically mastered him. Enemy far away? Press W. Enemy close? Click heads. About to be murdered? Press shift. Literally never? Press E. However the mitigation and a long cool-down on the smoke grenade would increase his skill ceiling a ton. Will the D.va eat this very slow and very obvious threat? Should I throw it on my support which is getting dove to help keep them alive, throw it in front of my tanks to we can get ground without our barriers getting hurt, or should I throw it on an enemy support and delete them? The possibilities from this ability are great and I’d love to see them in game.
I don’t mind having a somone grenade on say a secondary fire with a long cooldown, but they need to address shadowstep.
Essentially this ability becomes useless at some point in the SR ladder. It’s too low, it’s too difficult to use against railings, it’s too loud, the cooldown is too long and arguably the range is too low.
The point of this idea was basically Bliz said that their not going to do anything with shadow-step so I started thinking about what I could do to make to ability better. Throw a grenade and shadow-step into it for example. And then I liked Reaper having some form of situational defense to go with his situational offense.
That’s an interesting suggestion. I also agree that Reaper absolutely cannot be given any kind of enhanced mobility while shooting, which would be extremely overpowered and leave very little opportunity for counterplay. It would also make for some interesting Widow moments like where she could hold her ult until the smoke is up so her team can still see people through it. It would made for some neat strategy. I like it.
I’m alright with this. Both Widow and Hanzo could use their wallhack abilities to counter it, which would make both of them more selective about when they use them.
That’s kinda the point… Give him a way to survive in the fight without some broke life-steal. Also remember that the cool-down on the nade would be like 10 sec, it would only be about as big as Ana’s nade effect, and it’s slow and obvious so it can be countered by movement.