Creative Overwatch tactic lets Reaper survive Self Destructs

An Overwatch player demonstrated a clever Reaper tactic to survive almost certain death from the enemy D.Va’s self-destruct.

Playing as Reaper on the Gardens point of Oasis, McLuvinsit was able to not only defend the control point, but even live to tell the tale with a creative use of Reaper’s abilities.

As the enemy team flooded onto the point, McLuvinsit was able to repel them single-handedly, firing a few shots into the Roadhog for his first kill before unleashing a Death Blossom into the rest of the group and picking up three more eliminations.

Before she died, however, the enemy D.Va set off her Self Destruct, leaving Reaper seemingly helpless with Wraith Form on cooldown. With some quick thinking, however, McLuvinsit was able to avoid the explosion by using his Shadow Step to teleport right in front of himself, using the moment between disappearing and reappearing to avoid the lethal damage.

While teleporting away from the bomb entirely might also have worked, this decision not only meant that McLuvinsit didn’t have to quickly identify a location that would offer him cover – not necessarily a simple task when the teleport itself requires line-of-sight, and is starting right next to the Self Destruct – but also meant he could maintain control of the point, and even pick up a final kill.

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While the applications of this tactic might be fairly niche, it does demonstrate that Shadow Step can be used as a defensive tool in combat – especially for avoiding big, single sources of damage like Self Destruct, allowing players to save the cooldown on Wraith Form, which offers more extended protection.

Obviously, to pull off a trick like this requires quite precise timing – Reaper needs to be in between his original location and his teleport target at the moment of the explosion in order to avoid the damage. As a result, players will need to understand both the timing of the teleport and the Self Destruct – or whatever else they’re trying to avoid – in order to survive.

Having said that, the move should be significantly easier with the modern version of Shadow Step, which is no longer as limited as the original version. Plays like this show off another way in which the ability can now be used beyond simply moving to locations that would otherwise be unreachable.