Doesn’t matter.
Have a Hanzo, Widow or Pharah in your team and the Reaper must switch asap. The reason why people think Reaper is strong in the lower ranks is because Hanzo and Widow players aren’t very good there, and they are not in every game either.
“Oh yeah Reaper’s fine”
He only has
and he’s been F-tier for literally 9 seasons (almost 2 full years) because reaper needed 2 different ults to be in the meta, because his kit is so lackluster
#BuffReaperNOW
make reaper a sniper as well. lel
I miss the first days when the game came out and Reaper was a true threat…LONG gone are those days…I loved playing with him the first season, he was just so much fun when he fit, it would be nice to see him have his days again. Such a fun hero to play.
Thanks a lot for the discussion guys! A couple of points I want to point out that are flawed, regardless of your opinion or whether you agree with me:
BTW for sake of further discussion I am sitting at 300 hours of Reaper, peaked at 2894. I might be biased but I would very much value a legitimate response over “lol reaper main just crying for buffs git gud lmao”
P.S
Just also want to say thanks for these words. They are very true and I could not have phrased it better. A “low rank destroyer, high rank feeder” is hardly a niche for any hero
Honestly, this is one of my shower thoughts constantly, as a Reaper player with almost 150 hours between two accounts.
I’ve thought of some rather simple things, such as the end location is no longer telegraphed, faster cast time (honestly, this one would bad for the health of the game for a few weeks), and replacing the screaming about reapositioning and what-not with his Plague Doctor/Nevermore raven sfx, and removing the sound of both his boots hitting the ground out of a shadowstep (it’s a sad reality not many people notice, due to terrain clipping)
There’s two things I’ve thought of that would honestly make Reaper much more fun, and increase his skill ceiling, but not lower his floor. Both involve gutting Shadow Step (let’s be honest, it’s only got fringe uses).
Reaper marks a target at a 30m range with a soul globe graphic (reusing old assets is always cool), with a reticle like Zen’s discord orb or Sombra’s hack . Everyone can see it similarly to discord upon use, but only Reaper can see it until the secondary activation.
Upon secondary activation, Reaper will dematerialize into smoke and move towards the marked target, appearing behind the target, with a .3ms delay between landing and taking action aside from movement, essentially the same as Wraith Form’s exit delay, with a sound queue playing loudly for the marked target, and within roughly ~8m of everyone around him, but much quieter.
Upon reaching the target, Reaper gets a small decaying 30hp barrier, similar to how Doomfist’s shields work.
The travel graphic would need to be distinguished from Wraith Form though, and have a clear visual.
The difference between this and Shadow-Step would be the travel time being over Reaper moving to the target, rather than having all the wait time be from casting.
Another thought I had would be a high-skill headshot type slug (Shot in the Dark is what comes to mind to stick with Reaper’s edgy theme), that does mediocre damage unless it headshots, in which case it exclusively removes armor, and nothing else, on a 15s cooldown, with a straight line-hitscan bullet, with a windup like Ana. Reaper basically pulls out a magnum, quickly swaps it with his left shotgun and shoots it at a target.
But then again.
Maybe they could merely speed up the animations on both ends, fix the casting reticle, and it’d be all Reaper needed.
You’re absolutely right! The only people who think Reaper is OP or broken are Winstons who don’t know they’re feeding/over extending and VERY low Elo players. Once you’re gold and up, he’s a complete joke.
These are all very innovative ideas but at the same time I can see one or two flaws in them.
Regarding the magnum idea, I really doubt they would implement it. Reaper was originally designed with a magnum, so having cancelled that in Alpha stage, i hardly believe it would make a return in any form, much less when McCree is now a thing.
The problem with marking is that it limits Reaper’s movement to where a target is, which isn’t always a good thing. Reaper needs to lie in wait occasionally and pounce, and teleporting ONLY to a target rather limits its flexibility.
My second most loved hero is Reaper. I know this account doesn’t say much but my smurf is same SR as yours maining reaper and tracer.
Reaper is pretty strong in my rank and he can sort of go solo carry mode on some maps which are smaller and has those cool flank routes and narrow alleyways.
His consistency over all maps arent that great, main reason being its so hard to play around with so much CC and snipers picking you off.
CC has always countered short range heroes, so its not just reaper. Tracer and Sombra also get the treatment to some extent. Right now the game is full of CC heroes.
His Shadow Step is not as bad as most people say it is, if you are smart enough you can use it pretty well to flank around without people noticing. And thats how you play reaper.
He is pretty strong on what he’s designed to do, but his issue is what he’s designed to do does not really go well with the current state of the game having lot of CC heroes and snipers.
Reaper is a shotgun range hero, so its ok for him to be countered by snipers. But when you have multiple CC heroes, he just cant do what he’s made to do even.
Maybe he needs CC immunity as a passive. That alone would make him better.
Trying to get the Pixel Spray achievement without using blossom but is annoyingly difficult. Literally placed the whole crosshair on someone’s chest, neck and head, and did 80, 90 and 120 damage (only 1 headshot).
You have to be stupidly close and then pray the spray doesnt screw up your headshot that should literally delete any character in 5mt or less …
You know its bad when you cant kill Sym turrets without getting super close and a tracer 10mts away outdamage you by a brutal amount.
#BuffReaperNow
Great thread, with good points
his ult range is same. not depends on range.
also op dont let this thread die. your points make sense greatly.
Reaper is fine. He needs no buffs, and no rework.
I very much agree that CC immunity would be excellent, but I didn’t suggest that change mainly because it seemed rather unfair. There’s no reason, both lore-wise and gameplay-wise, for Reaper to somehow be immune to stuns. Stuns can and should have their place and effectiveness, and other than Reinhardt, I don’t think any hero deserves CC immunity.
I’m all for making Reaper better but at the same time, I really don’t want to make him too powerful, or induce powercreep, or anything like that.
THOUGHT provoking. As in provoking thoughts. He isn’t saying he’s feeling provoked by him.
Lore-wise would be his partial incorporeal form during ult. CC immunity would be nice even if it was not from all characters but just some of them like Ana and Brigitte.
It would still not overpower his ult, because there are loads of shields and negations, but it would give it more value because you could use it for longer than 0,5s before stunned.
That does not change the fact that he still needs a buff to his mobility, to give him a change to get into his weapon effective distance.
#Jeffshowreaperlove
So far his buffs were not “real” buffs:
I would say this was “technically” not a buff, but in most contexts it was pretty good. Before, Winstons could easily 1v1 a Reaper and win if you properly shield dance. With 1100 effective hp, Reaper would take too long to actually kill a Winston, whereas now, Reaper has a more than decent fighting chance.
I do still miss the handy random healthpacks from stragglers or flankers which you didn’t kill, but all in all I would still take vampiric healing over soul globes, though in all honesty you could implement both to help his survivability. Once again, it’s a well-deserved change that wouldn’t put Reaper into “relevant” zone, much less OP
Lot of good comments here and how to adjust him in his current situation, however, I think that’s the wrong direction. Personally I think he needs his own thing, not just more damage, better escape. Lemme 'splain.
Why would you pick him? Seriously? In a vacuum ya he’s not bad, in DM he’s great, but if you want to kill people, why pick Reaper? Hanzo and Widow are far better choices.
Widow:
Hanzo:
Reaper:
TLDR: Reaper doesn’t make sense anymore because other options exist that are just as deadly, bring team tools to the table, and can be deadly from any distance.
Oh and I don’t want to be the guy who complains without a solution, so here it is. Smoke Grenades. Currently no character can obfuscate sight. It’s a great sniper counter, it allows obscuring vision without an actual physical barrier, and it keeps everyone guessing where Reaper is. It’s countered by Sonic Arrow, Widow Ults, and auto targeting abilities. And would be REALLY fun to use. Personally I’d toss em and go the other way so the enemy would think im in the cloud lol