Reaper and Mei are getting buffs, and the Overwatch community is full of speculation

Overwatch heroes Reaper and Mei will be buffed in an upcoming patch, lead Overwatch director Geoff Goodman confirmed yesterday. He didn’t exactly expand on what those buffs are—but a few comments on the Overwatch forum have led to speculation on the upcoming PTR patch.

Overwatch players on the forum now believe that Mei will gain the ability to freeze multiple enemy heroes at once, while Reaper will earn the ability to cancel Wraith Form.

Related: Reaper and Mei to be buffed in upcoming Overwatch PTR update

“Cool thread,” Goodman wrote in response to fan suggestions to Mei buffs. “I always thought what would be cool is if Mei could freeze multiple people at once with her primary fire. Oh wait a minute, I have the editor right here. Hmm…”

Goodman posted a similar response to a thread about Reaper’s incoming buffs. “The most obvious thing for reaper would be to manually cancel out of Wraith Form at any time, similar to D.Va’s rocket boosters,” an Overwatch player suggested. Goodman responded: “This would be pretty fun,” ending his comment with a thinking face emoji.

The Overwatch developer did previously say that a Reaper buff of that kind would make certain Reaper counters less reliable, like McCree’s Flashbang. But times have changed. Goodman said he was concerned for that reason, but “with an increased recovery time before he can fire, there is still a good window of time for counter-play, even with an early cancel.”

The ability to cancel Reaper’s Wraith Form gives the DPS hero the element of surprise. As he stands now, he can’t exit Wraith Form until it’s run its full course—meaning he can’t shoot, either. A surprise exit from Wraith Form can catch the enemy off-guard. As for Mei’s potential freeze buff, that advantage is more obvious.

Goodman didn’t announce an exact release date for the potential Reaper and Mei buffs.