[Summon Reaper] - Ideas for improving the skill in thematic and interesting ways

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The look of the Reaper is glorious. The concept of an Ultimate Minion is tantalizing. The aesthetic of a badass, sickle-wielding Grim Reaper tearing apart the battlefield is awesome. The mechanic of a devastating active ability is satisfying when it hits right.

So what happened?

Weak clear. Mediocre bossing. Paper-thin defenses. A long 1-second cast time on the Ultimate that was thankfully lowered to 0.6 seconds. The Reaper doesn't excel over competing minions in any category, be it clear, bossing, or support, while also hamstringing the inclusion of other minions with a punitive Less Damage and Less Life multipliers on them. The fact that it eats other minions further restricts the minion pool, barring support from an Animated Guardian or Chieftain Spectres. The Reaper comes with many costs and few upsides.

But I love the little maniac. So I brainstormed ways the Reaper could be improved. Not just boring numerical changes, that's too easy. Instead, I wondered how its mechanics could be more in line with its theme and fantasy to overcome its weaknesses; how could it be more interesting to build and support.

The ideas could apply directly to the gem, or be something built around like jewels and gear. The specifics can be left to GGG's discretion. Let's just get to the meat of the ideas!

Here's 12 that I've come up with. I would love to hear your own, too, if you have any! Now, a quick caveat, this is à la carte, not a package deal, so please don't think I'd necessarily want all 12 with no other costs!

Without further ado: Reaper Improvement Ideas!

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1. Soul Explosion - Reaper applies debuff on hit. When killed, foe releases their spirit as a fast projectile mortar that bombards the furthest target in range not already targeted by another spirit.

2. Shadow of Death - Reaper has 200% increased Stealth. Monsters have a delayed response to the Reaper's presence.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

3. Dance with Death - Reaper has 50% dodge, 50% spell dodge, and 50% damage reduction against Bleeding foes.

4. Inevitable - Reaper retaliates on dodge with a phantom scythe. (e.g. Riposte)
"Death is inevitable. The more you fight it, the more it hurts."

5. Solitude - Reaper has 500% more Life and Damage, losing 20% per Non-Reaper Minion you have.

6. The Weak Shall Perish - Reaper targets your weakest minions to consume. Priority from lowest duration to lowest life.

7. Immortal - Reaper performs Ultimate when summoned if Reaper has died recently.

8. Bloodbath - Reaper detonates a Bleed on each target hit by Ultimate, removing all Bleeds and dealing area damage.

9. Fear of Death - Reaper inflicts Terrify on Bleeding targets in a large area when consuming a minion. Terrify causes monsters to Flee away from the source for a short duration, detonating the remaining Bleed damage in an area at the end of its duration.

10. Decrepify - Reaper inflicts Decrepify on hit against Low Life foes. Decrepify increases damage taken by 20% while moving. Reaper has a 10% chance to deal Triple Damage against targets with Decrepify.
"As our health wanes, we become prone to greater injury."

11. Extinction - Reaper gains 5% cooldown reduction for 20 seconds per Kill, up to 300%. (= 60 kills)
"Death comes for us all."

12. Unending Hunger (Jewel) - Applies to both Spectres and the Reaper. Grants these minions a 50% chance to gain Soul Eater for 20 seconds on Kill.

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1. Soul Explosion is intended to help a single melee minion do the impossible: competently clear in a way that is consistent with its theme and unique among other melee minions. The spirits aim for distant targets to hasten screen clear, as moving around to targets is the prime mechanical weakness of melee. When the Reaper kills a pack, a blossom of spirits would erupt and smash down upon periphery mobs toward the edges of the screen while the Reaper goes to work on a closer pack.

2. Shadow of Death's stealth effect is similar to Phase Run without the phasing. Its purpose is to help mitigate a severe downside to the Reaper's splendid aggressiveness: triggering offscreen mob aggression. Monsters usually have a wind-up just before they attack. They're normally idle until you can see them on your screen, which gives you the opportunity to spot the attack animation tells and react accordingly, such as dodging. What happens with the Reaper, who is as aggressive as Spider Bots and runs ahead of you, is these mobs get aggro'd way before they're on your screen. This, unfortunately, can result in the player waltzing face-first into an unseen barrage of monster attacks and dying without a chance to react.

3. Dance with Death is to make the Reaper tankier in a different way from most minions. Stacking the Reaper with a huge life pool doesn't really suite its tall, spindly frame. I liked the idea of an untouchable, intangible Death. However, dodge does nothing against degens, so I added generic damage reduction (like totems and the monster version of Soul Eater) and reduced the dodge from 75% to 50%.

4. Inevitable's retaliation effect is to build something mechanically interesting into the Reaper's tankiness from Dance with Death. Thematically, I liked the concept that fighting against Death only hurts you back. Take a look at all the various cultural stories of vain attempts at seeking immortality, from Gilgamesh to the Fountain of Youth. Since the retaliation works like Riposte, it gives the Reaper a ranged melee attack to help clear, but you'll need to somehow ensure those foes are bleeding to activate Dance with Death, wear Bloodbond, or socket the Quickening Covenant jewel.

5. Solitude is a different way to encourage players to use the Reaper by itself without pigeonholing it. Instead of Less Life and Damage for other minions, Solitude's bonus would scale the Reaper's damage and life instead. Now you have the choice between a singular ultimate minion or incorporating a weakened Reaper into a larger army as bleed support or an assassin-type with his Ultimate. However, this may make Bloodlust Support too much of an obvious choice for the standard minion army. Then again, there are already several Spectre monsters who could do the same (e.g. Kitava's Herald, Knitted Horror).

6. The Weak Shall Perish is to give more control to players on what the Reaper will consume. So long as you keep a supply of perishable Phantasms around, you can avoid losing your Golems, Spectres, and other permanent minions. I imagine the consume ability was conceived precisely to limit the usage of hard-to-replace minions like Spectres, so this suggestion may only be allowable if it comes at another cost, such as an item slot.

7. Immortal offers a limited reprieve from the dangerous hesitation, distraction, and confusion of not realizing amid chaotic combat that your Reaper has died and wondering why the Ultimate that should have killed that Rare didn't happen. Lag? Mana? You're frozen? Stunned? Silenced? Reaper's frozen/stunned? Bad line-of-sight? No, it was just dead. But with Immortal, it can come back with avengence!

8. Bloodbath adds a rhythm to using the Ultimate, where waiting for a Bleed to proc on a boss can lead to more damage. It offers another way to capitalize on Bleeding. Against large packs of mobs, this gives immediate damage when you don't want to wait for Bleed damage to chip away at trash, as well as compounding damage against tight clusters. In the end, I really just wanted to do more interesting things with the Reaper's Bleed.

9. Fear of Death is both thematic and practical. Flee is movement, and Bleed deals more damage to moving foes, so the synergy is simple. With Bleeding mobs scattering outward and then detonating at the end of Terrify, they widen the area of effect and may reach other packs, helping clear. The Reaper would be able to act as support for other Bleed builds. Consuming a minion has a 6 second cooldown, though, so there are stiff limitations as well as build opportunities with cooldown reduction.

10. Decrepify came from the idea of old age, when our Life is coming to an end. Running from Death takes its toll. Knockback and Ensnaring Arrow are two ways to ensure the target is considered moving, which benefits Bleed and activates Decrepify's damage taken debuff, which can help your entire team. Even if the target isn't moving, though, the chance for Triple Damage for the Reaper still applies. The limitation of Low Life to apply Decrepify is thematic, making it similar to the Punishment curse.

11. Extinction is a way to boost clear by double-downing on the Reaper's unique mechanic. This lets you build up a massive cooldown reduction for the Reaper, affecting its Ultimate as well as its other moves, like Dash, Combo, and Consume (Fear of Death). It's similar to Unending Hunger for Spectres by letting your minion go wild while clearing but having little relevance during big boss fights.

12. Unending Hunger including the Reaper would work to improve clear speed, but it's also a less unique solution. I included it because it's one of the simplest ways GGG could give the Reaper a mechanic boost as a standalone minion.

Yo, these suggestions sounds so cool! thematic, and bloody interesting. Become game designer mate!

Great ideas! I hope GGG implements at least something!



(Though I wouldn't keep my hopes up...)

This!

GGG needs to get their lemming brains selves over here and read this.