So when is the appropriate time to use Reaper?

Competitive Discussion
1

When asked about buffing Symmetra and Mei and others due to their extreme lack of usage in Overwatch League, I believe the response was that some characters were meant to be situational characters and were fine as is. For example, Mei came out when absolutely necessary to hold a chokepoint or hold the final point on Payload maps, which is what Blizzard probably intended for her character.

That’s all well and good, but what about when a character should be being used, but is still not seeing any playtime?

In the recent weeks of Overwatch League, I’ve seen a lot of Triple Tank/Quad Tank run on both Offense or Defense. Typically it comes out on 2CP/Hybrid maps when the team needs to push through a chokepoint and put themselves on a point to outlast the opposing team.

I’ve seen Junkrat and Soldier come out to shred the tanks, and I’ve seen Widow and Pharah come out due to the lack of range from the Tanks side. I even see Tracer come out for Pulse Bombs on the tanks.

I never see Reaper. Your supposed “Tank-Buster”. Who’s sole job it is to destroy tanks.

How is it that the Tank Buster does not see any playing time when there are 3-4 tanks on the battlefield? The most picked heroes in the entire League, according to Winston’s Lab, is Winston and D.Va. Winston should be directly countered by Reaper, but we never see him. D.Va gets countered pretty hard as well when her Matrix out. Reaper never comes out.

Currently, in the game as a whole, from Bronze to Grandmaster, 3 of the top 6 picked heroes are tanks. Reaper, meanwhile, is at the bottom. In Grandmaster, Symmetra has a higher probability of being picked than Reaper. Symmetra, accused of being a skill-less hero with no redeeming qualities outside of Silver, is picked more in your high-tier games than Reaper. That’s insane.

He’s your Tank Buster. He can’t bust tanks. No one uses him to bust tanks. That’s a problem. I feel like that needs a fix.

I’d post the links to my evidence if the Overwatch site allowed links.

2

I play a lot of Reaper. The big difference I notice between my play style and a lot of other Reaper’s play style is that they are usually going out on mad flanks. And it works sometimes, but in anything higher than mid gold, he usually dies on those flanks. With heroes like Tracer and Genji, why pick Reaper when you can dash/recall to safety instead of slow wraithing into a corner and dying?

I don’t like flanking. To me he works better around a friendly tank or very close to heals(because once that wraith is gone and you’re less than half health, you’re dead). So I play him very objective/team based. The fact that he has to be so up close and personal to people is also probably off putting to others. Why get so close when you can harass them from far away as Genji or Tracer?

I just like playing Reaper. I like shooting people in the face and them dying. I like getting mad charge off Roadhogs who don’t land their hooks and dropping Winston’s that are on my healers. It’s rewarding.

3

I agree with this. Reaper is a fantastic shield-buster and does well just doggedly staying with the payload.

He does suffer from range when doing this though and is almost playing a tank/dps in this style.

4

I am currently reaper main, and was 4500 by playing reaper. The right time to play reaper is when the enemy team has Winston + d.va, and Orisia + Hog. Or if they have more than 2 tanks (3 or 4), ask your support to play zen, then you will be able to rekt the enemy team. However, if the enemy team has zen, mccree, tracer all at the same time, I would recommend not to play reaper. (I still play it though xd)

5

In OWL I only see reaper on second point of Anubis where he seems to be mandatory.