As a whole, the rework does feel like a nerf and the biggest impact Reaper players are feeling is his lowered damage. I made the adjustments and completely changed my play style to accommodate this new change…and the results is we’re having to completely rewrite the book on how Reaper ought to be played. So I have a few questions that I think would help me and others succeed with Reaper going foward.
What exactly were you guys (the development team) seeing to want to adjust Reaper?
What was your original goal with Reaper from a game play perspective?
The reason I’m asking these questions is because I always interpreted Reaper and the various adjustments you guys made over the years as a “Tank Buster.”
When I look at the rest of the February patch note and compare the character changes, it feels like you guys are intentionally nerfing Reaper as a whole so the Tanks can reign supreme. And that would be a more acceptable reason for why he needs a rework; you guys want to boost the power of the Tanks and Reaper does obliterate them.
If you want Reaper to no longer be a Tank buster…I’ve give your guy’s build of the game an honest shot…but my overall attraction towards Reaper has been his high damage and relative ease of use: the absurdly high pellet spread made hitting targets easier and leveled the playing field against highly skilled players adept with Widowmaker, Roadhog or Zenyatta. Once I got in close, everything else about Reaper’s weakness no longer matters because now we’re playing the game on my terms; close range.
And this IS MY OPINION…but I think the game benefits more from Reaper being so niche: as in, he under performs in every other situation. But once he gets in close, he stands out as being of the strongest characters in the game.
I don’t personally feel like Reaper was ever supposed to be a “tank buster”
I think he was intended to be an assassin in the same vein Widowmaker is. Comes out of nowhere, quickly eliminates a target, and gets away safely.
The difference between the two obviously is that Widow is able to do her job from a safe distance, while Reaper is able to go toe to toe with people much more easily.
As for what this change was supposed to accomplish, I think the intention was to just make Reaper more valuable in the moments where trying to assassinate someone isn’t in the cards for him, to be better at general combat.
I think they would have succeeded greatly in that regard if they had kept what they put up on the experimental card.
Correct. The original defense for Offense heroes was meant to counter against defense heroes (and vice versa). While Reaper does have an advantage against Roadhog, he was never meant to be a Tank-buster nor was any hero designed that way.
Basically, yes. Like Genji and Tracer, he was intended to be a flanker and an extremely close-ranged one, with quite a bit of sustain thanks to Soul Orbs.
You can look at Reaper being somewhat similar to Soldier in that he’s flexible and little easier to aim with than Soldier with a little less control and lot more mobility. Whereas Soldier can engage in medium and short ranged combat. Reaper is strictly locked towards CQC. A middleground between Tracer and Soldier.
These days, Reaper’s function is a little lost. He’s bit too random, and too risky, though still with great mobility and sustain. His burst is largely out of his hands (which is not a competitive trait that’s wanted), but he still has one of the best damaging ults in the game.
Even if his original design wasnt meant to be a tank buster, the devs definitely see and balance him and mei (at least before 2 2 2) as heroes who keep tanks in check as we saw in the brigitte q&a
this was definitely what they were trying to do, they just missed the mark a bit
That’s true, they did say that and I remember it now
Still though, Reaper doesn’t have a whole lot that makes him any more dangerous to tanks than other characters besides damage, and his damage is hurt by the armor many of them come equipped with.
I bet his life steal is what’s supposed to keep tanks in check though thinking about it. Tanks do hurt a good amount, but generally less than damage characters. Combine that with Reaper having an easy time dealing max damage against them and it can make it trickier for them to deal with him.
I’m still thinking they should have bumped up his life steal again to counteract the damage he lost in this last patch.
Reaper, as he is, was never going to be an assassin. His teleport is slow and announces to the enemy that he is doing it. His wraith form is not fast enough to be an offensive threat, so it is limited to being defensive. And his normal movement is as slow as everyone else. Tracer and genji are more of a threat because they can close the distance before you know they are there AND get out of dodge. Not only is their mobility not either/or, as reaper is subjected to, but they do BOTH better than reaper can do either.
I agree with this. Definitely feels like the intention was the assassin route, and then they started pivoting to tank busting halfway through the games life cycle. I’m actually fine with them going the assassin route, they just need to go about it where there are reasons to pick Reaper over similar characters (give him a smoke grenade with a slow or dmg/cc reduction to enemies to add extra viability to his kit). I think their intention is to make him an assassin that’s different than others in that he can take on tanks more easily, but that’s not his primary function. To achieve better success they need to nerf McCree, Echo, and Hanzo (slightly) and also tweak his shadowstep so that it can be used as a less than reliable escape (all other assassins have better engage and disengage. If shadowstep can be used to escape, then wraith form can be used offensively more often, which would go a long way)
I’d say the biggest thing that makes him so dangerous to tanks is that’s he’s basically gonna hit all his pellets on them and the self healing he gets from that even at 30% is 84 hps which outheals a lot of tanks damage goes even higher with self heal ontop of the fact he’s also gonna win the battle due to his damage and the tanks that can outdamage the healing most have shotgun spread which wont hit all pellets on reaper
I feel like it was supposed to be a buff, and I was kinda hyped for it, really let down by the change he feels really weak now, he’s a little better at taking duels with other dps and supports but everything outclasses him 1v1 so hard anyway it was never his job to take duels.