It boggles my mind how people still think this, Winston has a lower jump down, can bubble dance, and easily avoid a Reaper an entire game while Reaper is easy picking for everyone else. It’s honestly all people know in QP, see a Winston go reaper and lose, he might be one of the worst DPS counters to Winston to be honest.
7 Likes
Reaper wins against Winston on all direct confrontations. It forces Winston to have to play more aloof and it denies Winston otherwise free uncontested space if you keep playing something like Widowmaker into him.
If Winston isn’t diving or can’t jump his prime targets easily because of reaper bodyguard, you have 1 hero who is keeping Winston on lockdown. Winston’s isnt’ getting kills because he has to leap out faster. If he’s having to slink back to his supports after each dive from heavy wounds, its slows up how much he can keep jumping and try to make space.
It allows your tank to make space uncontested since Winston can’t persist in the backline for longer and longer periods of time. You can totally try to play around Reaper’s which do not hard focus you 24/7 and make mistakes to play apart from their squishies.
Which is why a hero like torb or bastion is arguably a little better. Bastion can control space around him much more solidly than reaper can, but you can be picked off by enemies on winston team for being a bit bulkier and you have no mobility to chase winston around terrain.
Torb can provide a super annoying turret to shoot winston at nearly all times. Can control space around him, and pelt him from distance while being a different target to dive.
30 Likes
Reaper counters Winston by playing as a bodyguard. The vast majority of Winston’s value is from dives and he cannot dive near reaper safely at all. This means reaper denies the enemy tank of most of their value by simply existing near his team, especially if he’s by the supports.
Which means the other dps/the tank/the supports can do mostly as they please without an enemy tank to contest them much of the time.
It’s not unplayable for Winston. With masterful and fast decision making he can pick and choose targets that are valuable in some way while avoiding reaper but it is much less efficient than usual. In such a case Winston loses his kill opportunities and trades himself for disruptions instead. Weaker value but if you hop around and maximize that value, you can beat out the reapers value he gets by serving as little more than a body guard.
But… a good reaper can plan flanks while still waiting for your dive and keenly teleport to the target you’re jumping to and meet you there. Not much you can do if he’s that smart.
6 Likes
And his shotgun is better than reaper lol.
4 Likes
because a shotgun to the face probably does a lot of damage
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Honestly He’s not bad against Winston, he just loses to a Winston who has support, dmg boost etc and as the tank he’s more likely to get backup than a reaper.
That said honestly the worst part of the match up isn’t who wins or loses, but what happens when Winston isn’t diving your team. While Reaper has a teleport, it’s not the best movement ability in the game and Reaper is very short ranged.
Forcing reaper on Body guard duty makes him fairly useless if Winston doesn’t jump the person he’s guarding as his ability to do anything at mid to long range is basically nil.
Not Reapers… thats a joke…
Reaper is one of the most underpowered heroes in the game. Wraith form is utter dog, Teleport with no cancel and how long it takes and his dmg can be better done by other heroes. Reaper is a joke
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OP play Winston til you get a good replay of this happening. I’ll do it too. Report back.
Who’s gonna get more tilted during this? Me or my team? 
If Winston isn’t jumping, Winston has no value.
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The problem is you have to get close, and any decent Winston can just easily avoid the damage with bubble dancing then bail and. Bastion and Torb I would consider counters, but reaper doesn’t offer anything if people can aim, Dva does a better job as well, she can follow Winston constantly.
I’m curious to see what OP thinks is a winston counter.
Sounds like you’ve been playing against bad reapers to think that.
Oh, yeah? Well, well… I bet you were playing against bad Winston to think that!
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-Hog
-Mauga ( Not sure ,easy to play around his heal ability)
-Junkerqueen
-Dva
-Bastion ( if you are brain dead and don’t wait out tank form)
-Torb
-Sojourn
-Bap ( with his 5 thousand health pools)
-Kiriko ( with her 5 thousand escape mechanics)
Reaper shreds through winstons bubble, can shred winston in a 1v1 engagment unless the winston knows what he is doing and the reaper is a w key warrior that holds down left click onto the monkey.
He used was a counter for winston in ow1, but other characters are just better at reaper’s job in killing tanks like winston
Of this list, Kiriko/Sojourn are not counters. Not to the same degree as the others on this list. They are by far the weakest to mention. Otherwise, the list is perfect.
Kiriko’s DPS is trash and can’t kill Winston quickly nor burn through shield. All of her healing is evaporated as it cant’ go through shields nor do you have a great spammable AoE heal for his zapping. Your strategy if you get dove is to run away. Great support when the strategy is to leave whoever else is nearby for dead. You might live, but everyone else on your team is dead. That’s not a counter. That’s simply trying to run away not to die. A moira would be a better support because she cna avoid being dove with fade, but she can also help keep other people up with residual healing via AoE, AoE healing, and healing orb which can penetrate shield. As well as the occasional counter attack with ultimate. Moira doesn’t really counter winston in stopping him point blank, but she negates so much of what he does and is resilient enough to what he does he can’t get his job done quite so much.
Sojourn doesnt’ really do anything great against WInston. She’s got an 8sec mobility tool which is very easy to abuse. While she has 130 DPS and projectile, its fairly neutral. She can’t really feed off his body too much like you can a Mauga for spamming 1shot rails for each energy. Shield is frequently and blocking enough that it greatly limits her spamability. Again your general strategy against WInston is to run away from him. You give Winston ultimately what he wants which is to make space and make you run away from him.
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Repear? I always knew he was fruity
4 Likes
because back when people didn’t quite understand how to play Winston vs him (literally just leap away), Reaper would roll Winston if he tried to fight Reaper
It’s a persistent sentiment that’s stuck around somehow
Much like people thinking a single hitscan should counter a pharamercy by itself, it’s just not true in the slightest anymore
However, Reaper’s presence alone deters Winston, acting as essentially a difficult buffer/bodyguard if the Reaper just hangs back with his backline, but it’s not really an ironclad counter like some people seem to try to portray it
But there are other heroes who can do the same thing better and be a threat at longer ranges, so not really sure why it gets brought up as often as it does
If you are 1v1 a Reaper until death you are a god awful Winston player.
Reaper is great against every hero with a huge hitbox.
Winston is so big every pellet will hit and then, Winston takes full damage ; up to 100 dmg per shot.
At point blank, Reaper can kill winston in 5 or 6s. So the Gorilla either dives to his death or gets denied to save his fur.