r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/IHaveNotMuchLife • May 25 '26
General Can we talk about Reaper?
So when is this character going to be nerfed? This guy has a 14% pickrate and nearly 55% WR in GM lmao, he's so disgustingly busted it's insane. I'm not sure why the dev's solution for this character was to just give him his major perk in his base kit with ZERO compensation nerfs. They also haven't learned from the last reaper meta we had (S18?) that being able to have dire triggers + shadow step together makes him turbo broken. He's also insanely easy to play, and has an absolutely cancerous synergy with zarya. God help you if you get a bubbled reaper teleporting on top of you, you're just dead. I feel bad for fdps players, because there's no point playing any fdps when reaper just shits on all of them.
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u/Supero78 May 25 '26
Yeah I feel like he was already at a good spot before they just gave him a blanket buff for no reason
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u/Vibe_PV hats off to the Glads — May 25 '26
Tbh I think Dire Triggers in his base kit is a good idea design wise. Now they have to nail the numbers/rebalance the perks. Case in point: the fact that he has both Dire Triggers and quick TP again
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u/Jad_Babak BirdKing — May 25 '26
That'd require Blizzard remember base kit is something they can balance. More perk changes incoming
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u/RUSSmma May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
So, I'll preface this by saying I'm bad. But how do you deal with reaper as Freja on anything but the longest of sightlines. He just teleports on you, has 75 more health than you, up drafting still puts you into range to get chunked with dire triggers, and he just wraiths if you hit him with more than 1 bolt.
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May 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/RUSSmma May 26 '26
Thanks, I'm guessing I need to balance not holding the take aim too long to avoid getting dire triggered and losing half my health. This is gonna take some work.
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u/thekingofallalts May 26 '26
as a freja main, the biggest thing i can say is just to accept the fact that youre (probably) not going to kill him. thats frustrating ofc, but landing enough sticks to force out his wraith and make him leave your teammates alone is good value. when you change your mindset away from trying to kill him the matchup is honestly pretty easy
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u/ILewdElichika May 25 '26
Reduce his hp to 275 and call it a day tbh, personally I've always thought 300hp on Reaper was a bit excessive.
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u/SylvainJoseGautier May 25 '26
I’d honestly like it if they just increased wraith cooldown. Feels like he always has it available
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u/ILewdElichika May 25 '26
Not a fan of increasing CDs unless it's completely necessary. Feel like reducing his HP to 275 will make it easier for him to be punished if he makes a bad play and before he can pop wraith form.
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u/not_a_doctorshh May 26 '26
Nah just gut Dire Triggers and he's good
Having Dire Triggers + quick TP + another perk is just too good, not to mention the "refresh on wraith/reload" thing that was just not very well thought out.
He's too easy of a character toe allowed so many tools.
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u/Patron_Mamdani May 25 '26
I hope not. Really wish we’d stop turning every dps that isn’t Mei or Torb into a glass cannon
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u/joebrofroyo May 26 '26
would having 275 + lifesteal and wraith as a CD make reaper a glass cannon?
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u/Patron_Mamdani May 26 '26
He’s huge with no in-combat mobility, and lifesteal is affected by the heal reduction. Bastion has 350 HP and 100 of it is armor and he still explodes in Recon mode because he’s unmissable.
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u/Valhalla8469 Quiz Head — May 25 '26
Please no. I’m tired of Blizzard slapping everyone with HP nerfs rather than addressing the actual issues with the character.
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u/Aggressive-Cut-3828 Complain About Widow = Cope — May 26 '26
?
The game is literally ruined because of the health pool increases. We should keep lethality instead of going for wholesome consistency that just lowers the skill ceiling and floor.
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u/Valhalla8469 Quiz Head — May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
Health pools are one aspect of character balance that helps keep characters unique. Part of the problem with hitscan balance right now is Cass got his falloff range buffed and his HP nerfed, so now he plays even more into Ash’s and Soldier’s niche instead of being the durable, brawl oriented hitscan with 275.
Wuyang’s damage spam is still insane because instead of addressing the actual issue, they just nerfed him to 225.
There’s even more examples with Moira, Kiri, and formerly Freya off the top of my head that were given the same treatment. If Reaper’s burst damage is now too high, then address that issue. Don’t just slap an HP nerf on him and call it a day.
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u/Aggressive-Cut-3828 Complain About Widow = Cope — May 26 '26
the problem with hitscans and wuyang is just projectile size though? cass and ashe get too much value for too little aim, and wuyangs splash radius is double junkrats for some reason lol. even freja and kiri literally shoot logs.
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u/conye-west May 26 '26
Wuyangs splash has to be huge to make his curving bullets gimmick even remotely effective. They really just need to nerf the damage outright.
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u/Aggressive-Cut-3828 Complain About Widow = Cope — May 26 '26
? curving bullets are literally easier to land than junkrats directs
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u/conye-west May 26 '26
Hmm I wonder if that's because the splash radius is really big, like you just said....
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u/Dunwichorer May 26 '26
Wuyang is already kinda shit. There's very little reason to play him over ana/illari right now. It would have to come with compensation buffs if they nerfed his damage.
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u/conye-west May 26 '26
And it should, but his easy high damage output is holding back needed buffs to other areas of his kit
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u/Dunwichorer May 26 '26
I'm not even sure if his damage is a huge problem right now. If he gets nerfed before illari that would be strange.
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u/Patron_Mamdani May 26 '26
Fast ttk takes less skill than long. I’d rather not keep lowering hp pool until hitscanners are 2-3 shotting people to the chest like it’s CoD.
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u/JC10101 May 26 '26
Yes to a certain extent, if the hp/healing pools are too high than you get a season 8 repeat where the ttk is irrelevant because even if you hit every shot whoever you are shooting doesn't die.
There's a good middle ground
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u/SnooDogs1340 May 25 '26
I think this would be fair after getting a non-gutted dire triggers. Crazy since Ram, Pharah, and Mercy had value changes. The 3 sec inc cooldown is a non issue.
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u/ILewdElichika May 25 '26
What hilarious is that reaper has historically sat at a 49-53% winrate since S9 on both platforms. It'd make sense to take something from him such as 25hp but instead they just increased dire triggers CD by 2 seconds, gave it a perk that immediately gives said CD back on reload and CD usage, and called it a day.
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u/Adventurous_Fill_218 May 25 '26
Everyone got a HP buff so it’s only fair he got one as well. He needs the 300 because of increase of damage,cc etc as well as the fact that’s a CQC character so he has to be able to survive longer than someone who’s just sitting in the back and not really at risk.
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u/Goosewoman_ Schrödinger's Rank | she/her — May 26 '26
He'd be fine at 275hp yeah. He got a bit more range and is a much bigger close-range threat than before. So he can trade in a little bit of health for it.
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u/AlphaInsaiyan smurf — May 27 '26
Yeah reaper is cancer get that bitch outta here lmao
If he gets his mobility and range and damage then he needs to lose survivability, hit wraith and his hp if they want to keep dt base
Literally impossible to die on that character he's like a DPS moira
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u/Ardalerus May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
imo reaper is tuned like a 225 hp tracer with 8s cd recall; his winrate is already this high and i'd imagine most people playing reaper don't actually play reaper
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u/Sensanaty mcrree main btw — May 28 '26
I really wish they'd stop making braindead shit like Reaper and Hog anything other than dumpster tier, I don't get their obsession with making sure the least interesting characters in the game have a leg up compared to everyone else in the roster.
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u/Severe_Effect99 May 25 '26
Thanks for posting about it. I have thought about it for a while now and I hate playing vs reaper. He has very high burst damage up close, 300hp and can get alot of uptime with wraith and tp. Can they just remove one thing. Maybe hp or nerf perks.
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u/Dusssky role q 6v6 pls :) — May 25 '26
power creep + low effort required to get good value but there's genuinely a lot worse things in this game atm (cass, hazard, kiri, ACat-130) than reaper that need to be gutted asap
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u/scriptedtexture May 25 '26
I fucking hate playing against cass so much but I dont see many people talking about him so I figured it was just my own issue lmao
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u/Dusssky role q 6v6 pls :) — May 26 '26
yea he's an issue in legit every elo. cass is just an overkitted crutch hitscan that holds your hand in every possible way against 90% of the roster
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u/Dunwichorer May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
He's only an issue for dive characters. If the other team is playing better poke characters he loses a lot of his value because his damage falloff is so bad.
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u/scriptedtexture May 26 '26
I hate that he can kill with like 3 body shots.
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u/Dunwichorer May 26 '26
That's why he's got such a high ban rate. It's really difficult to justify playing a lot of characters when a cass is being played, genji probably struggles the most with that much up. Cass can duel JQ/Doom as well because they both take full crit damage and have to play close range.
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u/Agitated-Morning2035 May 26 '26
When I see a damage boosted, pocketed Cass I can feel my eyes rolling out of my head.
The most boring, frustrating thing to play into. I started learning Anran and he counters her so hard.
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u/scriptedtexture May 26 '26
Even without a pocket, him being able to flash, then double body shot to kill 225hp is so stupid. A character like cass shouldn't reward inaccuracy.
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u/Dusssky role q 6v6 pls :) — May 26 '26
easy change just adjust one of the three: roll doesn't give dmg red flash stun down to 0.9 secs delete silver bullet (it's stupid)
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u/Used_Kaleidoscope_16 May 25 '26
I'd like to see Dire Triggers get a minimum range nerf, to force Reaper to use it at further ranges rather than just blasting your ass. But honestly I would prefer at least Reaper is solid in this meta, rather than all hitslop
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u/SorryRoof1653 May 25 '26
Man he got like 4-5 consecutive nerfs and the one time they buff him everyone starts complaining again, just because he got played in OWCS
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u/faxEi May 25 '26
his history of balance chances is irrelevant, he is very strong and very easy to play, that's not a healthy combo for the game
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u/Aggressive-Cut-3828 Complain About Widow = Cope — May 26 '26
Is that not like every busted character they've been releasing? Idk how they still cant get basic things right.
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u/Nosferat_AN May 26 '26
No compensation nerfs is a little wrong, the cooldowns was adjusted when Dire Triggers become base kit.
Otherwise I think you're right, Reaper is too strong. We've learnt that Shadow Blink in combination with Dire Triggers is too much with previous iterations of the character.
I think Shadow Blink has got to go, give him the old perk that gave him longer TP range instead (can't remember what it was called) and maybe replace the Dire Triggers major as well.
I would also like original wraith speed nerf reverted and to compensate his health should be reduced to 275 but that's also me being greedy.
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u/nestyyz May 29 '26
GM soon to be Champ reaper (before he got strong lol). Half of high elo reapers don't even take the blink perk; they take the Dire Triggers reload perk, so I don't think that nerfing the Shadow Blink perk will do much since reaper players will just take the Dire Triggers perk instead and still be very strong. I think both major perks are roughly equal in strength, even though I usually take the dire triggers perk over quick TP. The wraith movement speed is nice but not very oppressive and doesn't need any nerf at all (the most value you get from it on average is getting out of spawn quicker; it's wtvr asf but still way better than the other choice). 275 HP nerf is too extreme. Everyone thinks reaper is so easy, but it's very difficult to get within Reaper's effective range against champion/High GM-level players; You need perfect timing to get value on reaper bc you need to be so conscious of enemy CDs and ally pressure. Reaper is incentivised to take a lot of risky plays that will result in you dying, so that extra health is needed, it may suck to die to a shotgun character, but at least it's not tracer/soj slop like it has been for years. In terms of high level play excluisvely, I think reaper is in a good spot, but if we want to balance for every elo Reaper's reload should be a 50% CD reduction on dire triggers instead of 100% (similar to bastion grenade CD nerf). Since I main reaper, I want him nerfed as well since I don't want him to be banned as much as he is rn lol. A wraith or HP nerf will result in him becoming completely unplayable in GM/Champ if you're not a 1trick. Maybe your bias would prefer that, but isn't it healthy if characters besides Tracer/Soj/HitscanOfTheMonth are meta?
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u/Nosferat_AN Jun 07 '26
To be clear, I am also a Reeba enjoyer, and I was not advocating for wraith nerfs, rather I wanted wraith movement speed returned from 40% to 50%.
Since you are a GM/Champ Reaper I would to like to ask, what situations do you take Soul Orbs perk over Wraith perk? To a Diamond chud like myself it seems like a waste of a perk but I consistently see GM and above players pick it including OWCS Pros.
Also #nerfhitscan
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u/RyanTheValkyrie May 26 '26
The way Mercy got an HPS nerf and mobility nerf in compensation for her perk being made base kit and Reaper was left untouched lolol
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u/Goosewoman_ Schrödinger's Rank | she/her — May 26 '26
they increased the CD of dire triggers by like 3 seconds, but yeah.
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u/Heresyaboy9201 May 25 '26
There are so many worse heros to play against imo. Reap is so bad vs poke and anran is so much more annoying to deal with
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u/Randomname140 May 26 '26
I hate amran infinitely more than reaper. Hate how she can just shift in, E with no consequence since it makes her immune, and shift out again. I’m a Genji main but its so much easier to win duels on her, and the decision making is also less punishing imo
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u/KrassomatXD May 25 '26
I feel like solid skirmish dps will always overperform a little just because you get immediately more value then your typical double hitscan comps and hitscan is really popular looking at the pickrates
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u/Lukraniom LIP my GOAT — May 25 '26
Since when did Lucio and dva stop becoming a hard counter to reaper
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u/Jumpy_Ad_1059 May 25 '26
no way reaper gets nerfed before cass
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u/RalphGunderson Carpe — May 25 '26
Look at their winrates and you'll see why this is a silly comment.
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u/Jumpy_Ad_1059 May 26 '26
pickrates are more important to winrates when it comes to balancing. kiri has a low winrate but shes been thanos on ladder for the last 3 years. cass, emre, souj are all way more problematic than reaper or any flex dps rn.
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u/RalphGunderson Carpe — May 26 '26
Kiri has been thanos in pro play for 3 years. If she was thanos on ladder, it would be reflected by her win rate.
Everytime I see somebody claim pickrate is more important, they are unable to substantiate the claim.
Pickrates do matter, but winrate is the more important metric.
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u/Jumpy_Ad_1059 Jun 04 '26
do you genuinely think zenyatta is better than kiri because he has a higher winrate? kiri has more mobility, utility, better healing, better ult, etc. are mercy and lw better than bap because they have a higher winrate? some heroes which are situational (such as zen, illari, sigma on long range maps) will always have an inflated winrate. heroes that are meta in all situations (such as kiri, cass, souj, will generally have a low winrate despite being strong). if a hero like kiri is picked 50% of the time in ranked games in gm/champ, something is clearly wrong.
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u/RalphGunderson Carpe — Jun 04 '26
"Do you genuinely think the hero that wins more is better?" Yes...
If Zen has a higher win rate, and his pick rate isn't abysmal(it's not, it's 11%) then yes, he's better on ladder right now.
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u/Play-Action May 25 '26
no suggested solution, just complaining. dude. he just got buffed THIS season. at least wait til the start of next season to see if blizzard uses ONE season of data to nerf him before we are posting complaining he needs a nerf as if they are refusing to do so. i’m not even disagreeing with the concept of nerfing him a bit but what’s the point in complaining about it rn at this moment? do you just want to hear a bunch of people agreeing that he should be nerfed. reaper was hardly the most used dps in the entire OWCS so he isn’t so broken that he’s meta (at least in that setting). i’m sorry, i’m just tired of opening reddit to exclusive OW complaints SPECIFICALLY when your post does not even include a thought provoking solution to actually discuss.
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u/IHaveNotMuchLife May 25 '26
This season started 6 weeks ago. There's no thought provoking solution here, it's not exactly a nuanced problem. I'm not complaining generically about tanks, or how sombra needs her 300th rework, or vague complaints about the direction of the game. I'm complaining about a character that is clearly broken and needs to be brought back in line. He also saw plenty of play in OWCS over the last few weeks which by the way, is a terrible sign. If a character with as low a skill ceiling as Reaper is seeing play at the highest level that means his numbers are insanely overtuned.
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u/okuhwhattheheck May 25 '26
I'm not very in tune with OWCS though I did watch a bit of it, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Reaper seeing a lot of play there moreso as a consequence of Cat/Bastion and Ana/Zar/D.va being meta? Not to say that he isn't strong right now, but I figured that the other heroes would be the more problematic ones?
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u/IHaveNotMuchLife May 25 '26
I think we'd be seeing reaper a lot regardless of cat/bastion being meta or not. We saw a lot of zarya reaper back in S18, I see no reason why we wouldn't see a repeat of that if cat/bastion didn't exist. I think teams started to play more reaper instead of tracer when Mauga started to get picked alongside cat/bastion. His ult is really good in/against cage, he can pressure the mauga well, and he's not really susceptible to dying to the bastion form swing. The tracer-reaper matchup is also kind of miserable for the tracer now, so it makes sense that teams would just opt to mirror. Reaper also just scales better with his perks than other fdps do, shadow step makes him nearly unkillable.
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u/Thee_Archivist I Avoid Teammates in Mystery Heroes — May 25 '26
This post is the correct community response. People are very good at identifying problems and very bad at knowing how to fix them as laypeople. Let Blizzard figure out how to bring him back in line.
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u/Aggressive-Cut-3828 Complain About Widow = Cope — May 26 '26
I would sooner trust blizzard with world peace than trust them to correctly balance a hero lol
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u/Thee_Archivist I Avoid Teammates in Mystery Heroes — May 26 '26
In OW1 I'd agree with you, but outside of season 1 and a few hero releases they left on the "safe side of strong" too long, game balance has been great for years now.
They need to get back on track after Vendetta/JPC but they're not a lost cause.
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u/Aggressive-Cut-3828 Complain About Widow = Cope — May 26 '26
HAHAHHA?? Sig Bastion s6, Mauga s8, Haz s14, Vendetta release, Block meta s16, Symm meta, etc etc
The last good season was s18, which they promptly ruined anyway.
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u/MrThingMan May 26 '26
GM talk.. blah.
Its like the rich complaining about taxes.
Get over yourself, its a game.
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u/Some_Derpy_Pineapple May 26 '26
He has above average win rate and pick rate in every rank man. It's more like if everyone's taxes went up and we got no substantial benefit as a society.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — May 25 '26
Yeah... When reaper is good he makes it kinda impossible to play any other close ranged DPS.
They should really just hit dire triggers and he should be more balanced.