How to counter Reaper in Overwatch 2

Reaper is probably one of the most frustrating Overwatch 2 heroes because he can completely turn around a teamfight with his ultimate. Due to his devastating ultimate and his teleportation, you need to know how to counter Reaper quickly if you want to stop him from doing devastating damage to your backline.

This guide is part of the Best Counters for every Overwatch 2 hero series, where we mention counterplay against every hero in the game.

Reaper’s abilities and strengths explained

To counter a Reaper in Overwatch 2, you’d first want to know what a Reaper usually plays like. Reaper is a hero that likes to flank and hit the backlines of the enemy team. This means taking risky positions and making sure not to be found by the enemy team so as not to compromise their position.

When in danger, a Reaper would usually want to use Wraith Form and turn invulnerable to get out of the sticky situation. A daring reaper might also use Shadow Step to teleport behind enemy lines and unleash their ultimate, Death Blossom, on everyone unsuspecting.

Reaper also has a passive, The Reaping, where he gets healed by dealing damage. Due to this, you’ll never want to try to one-vs-one a Reaper at close range, since he will always win.

How to counter Reaper in Overwatch 2

Now that you know how to put yourself in the position of an enemy Reaper, what you want to do is to apply this in a real match. One of the basic ways to counter Reaper is to make sure you’re not too far away from your allies. Flanking heroes like Reaper take advantage of isolating their targets to pick off enemies and give them a disadvantage in the ensuing team fight.

To do this, you might want to play a hero that excels in the mid-range. Heroes like Cassidy, Bastion, and Soldier 76 are great to melt down or get away from Reaper before you deal damage. 

A Reaper will be useless if they cannot pick off priority opponents consistently. Make sure to stay with your tanks or healers so they can protect you while you deal damage back to Reaper. If you’re confident with your sniping skills or know that the enemy Reaper won’t disturb you from afar, you can play Widowmaker for that satisfying point and click. Pharah is also a good choice if the opposing team doesn’t have hit-scan heroes like Cassidy and Widowmaker.

A Reaper will usually be more daring if they have an ultimate. Always watch out for a Shadow Step to the middle of the team fight. Countering Death Blossom is one of the most important parts of countering Reaper.

Here are our picks for the best heroes to play against a stubborn Reaper.

Ana

Ana is a great choice to counter a Reaper, but you have to be able to hit your sleep darts. In Overwatch 2, a lot of crowd-control abilities have been removed, meaning old counters to Death Blossom won’t work anymore. Sleep Dart is one of the few abilities that will still shut down Death Blossom completely.

The only issue with relying on an Ana as your Reaper counter is that you need to have an Ana that not only plays in range of the Reaper when he uses his ultimate but also an Ana that saves her Sleep Dart for the perfect moment.

If you’re playing as Ana and can’t manage to hit your sleep, a Biotic Grenade will help so you can kill the Reaper faster, though hitting that Sleep Dart should be your top priority.

Orisa

Though Orisa no longer has a shield, she has two other very powerful abilities that can help mitigate a lot of Reaper’s damage output.

The best ability to use against a reaper is to throw Orisa’s Energy Javelin. The knockback from the javelin will stop Reaper’s ultimate and throw him out of position, which he likely carefully considered before hitting Q. Just be careful that you’re not throwing the Reaper in a direction that will put him right in the face of your vulnerable supports.

Since Reaper’s weapons are hitscan, Orisa’s Javelin Spin will not block all of the damage, but it is common for Reaper to also melee before he reloads, and Javelin Spin will block that. It will also knock Reaper out of position, which again is very important due to most Reaper players’ precise positioning.

D.Va

Similarly to Orisa, D.Va has two abilities that will mitigate damage and reposition Reaper.

D.Va’s Defense Matrix is a great option to eat all of the damage coming from a Reaper’s ultimate. Though it won’t protect everyone, if your team gets behind you it can help save most of them.

The other ability that D.Va can use is her Boosters. A lot of people use Boosters primarily as a movement or escape ability, but some people might not know that this ability also knocks back enemies. If you are brave enough to fly directly into Reaper, you can disrupt his positioning.

D.Va is also just a good choice against Reaper in general because of her mobility. Reaper is a highly mobile hero, and D.Va is able to keep up with him every step of the way.

Pharah

Pharah is one of the best counters for Reaper for a slightly different reason: the Reaper can’t fight back.

Reaper excels in close-range battles and can both easily destroy squishy targets as well as chip away at tank heroes’ larger health pool. One thing he is absolutely terrible at, though, is hitting targets in the air. Pharah is basically untouchable for a Reaper, as long as you manage your fuel properly to stay in the sky.

Widowmaker

Similarly to Pharah, Widowmaker excels at countering Reaper because the Reaper can’t fight back. As long as you stay far away from the middle of the fight, where a Reaper will likely target, you’ll be able to pick him off easily.

You should also be looking out for flanking Reapers at Widowmaker. You can save the lives of your innocent support teammates before they even know a Reaper is about to attack them. Just make sure to hit your shots.

All in all, the best way to counter Reaper is to be aware of your surroundings. A Reaper will be very telegraphed in their actions once they have an ultimate up or if they want a kill. Stay aware, watch out for your teammates, and you’ll be good to go.