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Reaper King


iAmE

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So, now that the game has been out for a while. I have a couple things I'd like to put out there;

 

Reapers are weaker then Spinos, Megas, Basilisks and Rock Drakes. They are primarily Combat mounts, however they are, with the exception of (Maybe) Carnos, at the bottom of the list, despite being the hardest tames to obtain.

Reapers have a base damage of 75. Equivalent to the Mega, higher then the Spino (50), Rock Drake (60) and Basilisk (55). However, unlike the aforementioned Dinos, their melee damage scales at half the rate. Meaning that, at low levels or with small amounts of melee investment, the Reaper has about as much damage as a Mega, but more then the Spino, Rock Drake or Basilisk. However, after leveling the mounts, all of the above dinos will do, in some cases, significantly more damage then the Reaper. The only other primary-combat mount in the game with such a low scaling, is the Giga, which has a base damage of 480, which is over six times the amount of damage, base, that a Reaper has. It's also worth noting that the Giga can also be bred, is much easier to tame, is tankier (More on that below) and has a "Rage" function.

 

Reapers have no saddle, but have a decently high base HP. To draw a comparison to the strongest land dino in Aberration, Megalosaurus. At 150 the "Average" Mega will have 5330 HP. The "Average" tamed Reaper King will have 11414 HP. The Mega will have a saddle, the Reaper King gets passive resistances when not in Charge Light. The Mega Saddle can easily end up doubling the mega's "Effective" hit points, fairly easily, depending on the quality of the saddle. Reaper King gets, approximately, 15% damage resistance, flat non-scaling, damage reduction when not in charge light.  Let's take the one I found in a drop as an example, a 70 Armor saddle against bullet damage (As an easy baseline).

 

With zero points in both animals HP stat, the effective health of the Mega is ~9250, the effective health of the Reaper King is ~13125.

With 20 points invested in Health, the effective health of the Mega is ~19255, while the effective health of the Reaper King is ~20215.

At 30 points invested in Health for the Mega, it's effective health is ~24524, while the Reaper King's effective health is  is ~22046

(Disclaimer, I'm by no means a "Math" guy. Feel free to double check my math and correct it where necessary.)

 

Now, some other things to consider. The "Best" saddles you can get, have almost double the armor of the one I am using as an example. You can breed Megas to a much higher statline. They are easier to tame, and easier to raise. Also, the Reaper King also has the same scaling penalty from before, and its health scales at 50% the rate of most other dinos (Including the Mega). 

 

As for the Reaper Kings' utility. It has no particularly strong stats, such as the Basilisk's 2.2k base Weight, and is worse mobility wise, to the Rock Drake. It lacks the Mate Boost mechanic, and it's imprinting is currently bugged so that obtaining a high level imprint is a total crapshoot (I haven't managed one yet), due to it requesting Kibbles that are *not* in the game yet. 

However, one thing to note to the imprinting, is that if it works like the Giga, it will receive an extra 11550 health, regardless of it's actual health scaling, in addition to the standard scaling of 1.3x it's standard stats. Which changes the above breakpoints significantly.

 

That being said, a well bred Mega can easily overpower even the strongest Reaper King with a full imprinting. In addition to having a grab whose damage ignores armor, and mate boost potential. You can also, easily, counterplay the Reaper by simply having a charge light. The result of that is, quite frankly, my level 215 Carno can kill a level 270 tamed Reaper King in a heads up fight (Yes, we tested it, no we didn't actually kill the reaper) with a light. 

Up the damage, up the HP, up the reduction. Do something. These mounts are *extremely* cool, and I would like them to be worth the cost (Time wise) of obtaining them. As it stands, while they look cool, they are exclusively eye candy. While this is also the case for the Wyvern, at the very least the Wyvern has the debatable utility of flight. At the moment the Reaper is simply a weaker then a Rex by a long shot, and even on Aberration, fails to fulfill the "Apex" predator role given to them in the lore. I don't want them to be the overpowered mess Giga's were when they first came out, but as it stands, they are the *exact* opposite.

 

Thank you. 

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THIS!!! okay we have  4 reaper kings so far and have managed to get 100% imprint by sheer luck on 2 of them. stats are as follows:

level 215 at "birth"
23k health
359% Damage
1400 weight

 

even on my leveled Reaper  (lvl 245 i think) the damage is 455% and does about 400 ish damage, the only benefit I see to the reaper is that you  have a further hit box and knock back. so the strat i have been using is hit it with the acid balls to slow it down and  back up while attacking to hit it  when you are out of  it's range. but  my  Bred Spino can easily out DPS my reaper king. Heck my reaper king almost died to a level 35 alpha crab!

 

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I didn't get the impression that the Reaper was intended to be really good against other big dinos. Seems like a good PvP utility dino, but not necessarily something to be taken out for meat runs. Most of the people who have gotten them so far seem to be less inclined to take them into PvP because they're afraid of losing them. Honestly, they're pretty powerful creatures...but you know what they say about expecting a fish to climb a tree.

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4 hours ago, LouSpowells said:

I didn't get the impression that the Reaper was intended to be really good against other big dinos. Seems like a good PvP utility dino, but not necessarily something to be taken out for meat runs. Most of the people who have gotten them so far seem to be less inclined to take them into PvP because they're afraid of losing them. Honestly, they're pretty powerful creatures...but you know what they say about expecting a fish to climb a tree.

They aren't powerful. At all. The lore implies they are the apex predator. They are the strongest creatures in the expac to fight in the wild, Rockwell/alphas aside (Their wild counterparts do, literally, 300% more damage and have a 90% damage reduction instead of 15%). They are not a "PvP Utility Dino" (An impossible to land 20% slow is not "Utility". ), both the Rock Drake and the Basilisk have much higher "Utility" then the Reaper. 

Whatever vision the developers envisioned for them, be it a powerful combat mount, or a utility mount with the slow/spin attacks, needs to be addressed, because they fail in absolutely all of it. They have next to no meaningful utility, and are weaker in a heads up fight then a Carno. I'm not necessarily asking for Giga+ here, but something that actually has a reason to exist would be nice for the hardest to obtain tame in the game. 

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21 hours ago, LouSpowells said:

Seems like a good PvP utility dino

I don't see how it could be?    At least in a PVE standpoint the monsters can't make charge light, but it's become commonplace for everyone on the aberration map to have a glow pet on their shoulder 100% of the time...no reason not to and they can save your life.    

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These need a buff for sure, maybe giving them ~double the melee and a 50% damage reduction rather than a 15% would be a starting point. A PERFECT reaper; 150 queen plus 75 bonus levels and 100% imprint should be AT LEAST as powerful as a standard boss Rex 100% imprinted bred with good stats across the board (45+ points into health and melee upon hatch, overall level 250-350 at hatch) with an ascendant saddle or AT MOST as powerful as a bred Giga with 300% melee at hatch with 100% imprint and an ascendant saddle because that is what it will be facing in a large scale pvp war and dispite being the most difficult to obtain of the bunch they are the weakest. 

Here comes a bit of a rant

( although my opinion is that gigas need to be completely redone with the TLC patch, smaller model more balanced stats because they still overshadow everything else by a significant margin. All of the large combat creatures should be similar in power to a Rex but with unique abilities and stats to give them different playstyles the most rewarding but difficult to master abilities should be given to the most difficult to tame creatures. example: Gigas have similar stats to a Rex but a positive rage mechanic that significantly increases damage  for a duration of time at the expense of a rest period, reapers should again have similar stats to a Rex but has natural damage reduction that is basically a free ascendant saddle when there is no charge light and has all of the extra attacks it currently has to make up for its taming process. All these creatures should be equal in a simple left click/right trigger each other till one is standing fight but have abilities that if used skillfully by the player will win the fight )

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The reaper should definitely bring much more to the table than is does currently considering it is quite arguably the single most difficult and tedious tame in the entire game. Just last night I spent a farm session where I burnt through over four radiation suits amassing over 500 pheromone--we weren't actively picking it up, that's only what we had in our spino\drakes when we finished--and the only notable levels we ran into were a single level 115 and a single level 100. I realize this is a small sample size but it illustrates the difficulty in finding a good queen perfectly, you have to rely on the rng of not only finding a high level but finding a high level that gets good stat roles. Compare that to getting a "good" rex\spino\giga etc where once you get the stats you want you simply breed it over and over until you have literally as many as you like, investing time in getting a reaper is absolutely pointless in its current state

Though I understand why people don't want to create a giga 2.0 for aberration, reapers are currently so weak you could easily buff them considerably and still leave good bred spinos\meglos incredibly competitive. Giving tamed reapers at least 50% mitigation when no charge source is present and buffing their damage--either by buffing attacking speed, base damage, or both--by 50-100% would still leave them on a similar playing field as a good bred spino\meglo. With charge light it could go either way depending on the quality of the meglo\spino and the saddle while without charge light it would fall pretty decisively toward the reaper.

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Eh, after reading through this thread I was gonna say that increasing his damage resistance to around 50% seems reasonable, but now that I've actually seen what this guy can do I'm thinking that even that would probably be too much. If he does get an increase in damage resistance he definitely shouldn't get anything more than that.

If you try to beat a heavily mutated Rex/Spino/Megalosaurus at their own game by just standing there spamming your basic attack you'll probably end up dead (as you rightfully should), but that's not what a skilled Reaper rider will be doing. He has so many tools to work with, especially in the context of large-scale PvP which is what this thread seems to be concerned with. You have his burrow for ambushes or even just for hiding when he's injured, you have a "get off me" tail swipe with massive knockback, a projectile that slows the target, and a huge jump which makes obstacles in the terrain a non-issue.

Honestly, even taking into account that you can't stack mutations on him I'd still argue that the sheer utility that he offers makes him a fantastic PvP mount. Leagues ahead of Spino or Megalosaurus.

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On 12/30/2017 at 9:47 PM, Lockjaw said:

Eh, after reading through this thread I was gonna say that increasing his damage resistance to around 50% seems reasonable, but now that I've actually seen what this guy can do I'm thinking that even that would probably be too much. If he does get an increase in damage resistance he definitely shouldn't get anything more than that.

If you try to beat a heavily mutated Rex/Spino/Megalosaurus at their own game by just standing there spamming your basic attack you'll probably end up dead (as you rightfully should), but that's not what a skilled Reaper rider will be doing. He has so many tools to work with, especially in the context of large-scale PvP which is what this thread seems to be concerned with. You have his burrow for ambushes or even just for hiding when he's injured, you have a "get off me" tail swipe with massive knockback, a projectile that slows the target, and a huge jump which makes obstacles in the terrain a non-issue.

Honestly, even taking into account that you can't stack mutations on him I'd still argue that the sheer utility that he offers makes him a fantastic PvP mount. Leagues ahead of Spino or Megalosaurus.

No. Just....no.

 

The mount doesn't have enough utility, if he loses to a Carno. You don't lose to a "Heavily mutated" anything. You lose to a mutton tamed Carno let alone even a prime or kibble tamed Rex, Spino or Mega. 

People need to dispel this myth that there's some kind of "Skill cap" that makes dinos useful in this game. There isn't. Dino combat has no depth.  If it doesn't DPS, Tank or provide a major utility (Like Daedon/Yty), they are *not going to be used* outside of PvE eye candy. 

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53 minutes ago, iAmE said:

The mount doesn't have enough utility, if he loses to a Carno. You don't lose to a "Heavily mutated" anything. You lose to a mutton tamed Carno let alone even a prime or kibble tamed Rex, Spino or Mega.

Well yeah if a good Reaper is losing to a mutton-tamed Carno then he's too weak. I have a hard time believing that, but I haven't tested it myself so I won't argue the point.

Like I said though, if he does need a buff it should probably just be a more substantial damage reduction when away from charge light. Not that and double damage and whatever else until he really is pre-nerf Giga.

55 minutes ago, iAmE said:

People need to dispel this myth that there's some kind of "Skill cap" that makes dinos useful in this game. There isn't. Dino combat has no depth. 

I totally agree... for 99% of the creatures in this game. But the Reaper is one of the very few exeptions to that rule. He actually has a toolkit to work with. I probably recognize the usefulness of those tools more easily than some in this community because I've seen similar abilities in other PvP games.

Don't see the value of burrowing? Use the Zerg in Starcraft.

Don't see the value of a "Get off me"? Use Bowser in Super Smash Bros.

Don't see the value of a slowing projectile? Use Ash in LoL.

Don't see the value of a jump? Uh... Use Rex in Ark.

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If it doesn't DPS, Tank or provide a major utility (Like Daedon/Yty), they are *not going to be used* outside of PvE eye candy.

Eh, possibly. But the Ark community is very reluctant to actually take risks and try stuff. I remember that there were some people screaming on the forums because there was "no way to beat the Dragon boss". What that really meant though was that they weren't willing to take a chance and actually try the Theri even though it was suggested multiple times and proven successful on unofficial servers. "Official or it didn't happen!" Well someone finally tried it on official and it worked. So whether or not something is being used doesn't always indicate whether it's really viable.

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9 minutes ago, Lockjaw said:

Well yeah if a good Reaper is losing to a mutton-tamed Carno then he's too weak. I have a hard time believing that, but I haven't tested it myself so I won't argue the point.

Like I said though, if he does need a buff it should probably just be a more substantial damage reduction when away from charge light. Not that and double damage and whatever else until he really is pre-nerf Giga.

They could give the reaper 10x his current damage, and triple the damage reduction he has, and he will still be weaker then current gen bred gigas. Both in ehp and damage. 

 

10 minutes ago, Lockjaw said:

 

I totally agree... for 99% of the creatures in this game. But the Reaper is one of the very few exeptions to that rule. He actually has a toolkit to work with. I probably recognize the usefulness of those tools more easily than some in this community because I've seen similar abilities in other PvP games.

Don't see the value of burrowing? Use the Zerg in Starcraft.

Don't see the value of a "Get off me"? Use Bowser in Super Smash Bros.

Don't see the value of a slowing projectile? Use Ash in LoL.

Don't see the value of a jump? Uh... Use Rex in Ark.

Burrowing is useless if he has no inherent value. Burrowing in SC is effective because the units that Zerg produces are capable of successfully ambushing something. If you get ambushed by something that is of no threat, then it isn't really an ambush.

The "Get off me" doesn't do enough to actually get anyone off you. 

Slowing projectile on Ashe is effective because, as a ranged hero, she can capitalize on the concept of kiting (Something the reaper can't do).

The value of jumping is basically irrelevant because you can't jump out of anything.

 

See. Here's the problem. You assume I don't understand the intrinsic value of the "Utility" the reaper has. I do. The value of this "Utility", is literally useless in practice because none of them make the Reaper threatening, or desirable. There is no time in actual PvP where you'd say "I really wish I had a Reaper here", because none of the utility is that useful. The only thing the reaper does well is run. Which is fine and all, but there are literally a dozen other dinos that do that, except better, and several of them (IE Basilisk/Rock Drake) are straight up better then the Reaper in a fight. 

15 minutes ago, Lockjaw said:

 

Eh, possibly. But the Ark community is very reluctant to actually take risks and try stuff. I remember that there were some people screaming on the forums because there was "no way to beat the Dragon boss". What that really meant though was that they weren't willing to take a chance and actually try the Theri even though it was suggested multiple times and proven successful on unofficial servers. "Official or it didn't happen!" Well someone finally tried it on official and it worked. So whether or not something is being used doesn't always indicate whether it's really viable.

I don't even know how to respond to this, other then the fact that almost all of it is wrong. Theri's were the first dino to beat the Dragon, but people weren't crying that he was unbeatable because they hadn't tried Theri's (We actually did). The Dragon received several nerfs before the Theri even came out, and an additional nerf while Theri lines were being developed. People were screaming the Dragon was unbeatable because, on Official, we tried to kill him with 20 level 2.6k rexes, and lost. He had a base damage of 6k with a percentile HP based attack, while having literally millions of HP. People were "Screaming" that he was unbeatable because he really was. 

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Right now I think the Reaper king is really to weak, we got one 2 days ago and I think I never was that disapointed with a dino after the first test run like yesterday !

 

From you wiki " At home in the cavern's deepest chambers, Reapers are towering, terrifying apex predators. "

ok the looks are great and terrifying but unfortunally thats all .

In my opinion damage reduction is way to low and damage is even worse my first lvl 120 Megalo does more damage after tame ! then a reaper king with 80% imprint......

the megalo took me around an hour to tame the reaper king 2 days with clan mates of try and error ok at least we got easily enough glands.

 

Someone is here the opinion reaper king is a great Pvp mount don't know haven't tried that yet but I my opinion I don't think his kit allows great pvp action.

from the Pve side I would say ok he won't deal damage lets have at least a great scout...but no if he walks around without light nameless are spawning around him ( wait a nameless attacks a reaper king ???? ) very strange . so you have to use your shoulder pet to debuff your own reaper king or fight through hordes of nameless ...good job.

my suggestions are :

buff damage  at least that it will be as strong as a megalo

buff damage reduction at least that he got a reduction as other dinos with a blue saddle

and defenetly most important either stop the light debuff or give him a aura that no nameless spawns or attacks him.

 

My 2 cent

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, iAmE said:

They could give the reaper 10x his current damage, and triple the damage reduction he has, and he will still be weaker then current gen bred gigas. Both in ehp and damage. 

I've said many times that even now the Giga is still OP. Either he needs to be brought down, or the other apexes need to be brought up.

As for "current gen bred" anything, that's sort of it's own topic in itself. Mutations should be taken into account in a balance discussion, but it can't just be an endless cycle of "Yo dawg! Over the last 5 years someone has managed to breed up 100+ levels in health and melee in their favorite creature! Buff my Reaper to have the same strength!!!" (I'm not saying that that's what you're doing, I'm just throwing that out there because I can already see it happening.) There needs to be a clearly defined point around which non-breedables are balanced, and if someone does manage to stack mutations beyond that point then they should be allowed to just reap the reward of having a stronger dino.

Quote

I don't even know how to respond to this, other then the fact that almost all of it is wrong. Theri's were the first dino to beat the Dragon, but people weren't crying that he was unbeatable because they hadn't tried Theri's (We actually did). The Dragon received several nerfs before the Theri even came out, and an additional nerf while Theri lines were being developed. People were screaming the Dragon was unbeatable because, on Official, we tried to kill him with 20 level 2.6k rexes, and lost. He had a base damage of 6k with a percentile HP based attack, while having literally millions of HP. People were "Screaming" that he was unbeatable because he really was. 

I probably should have been more clear. Maybe there was a point where Dragon really was unbeatable, but there was also a point after he was nerfed when that conversation did take place. People playing on official screamed that it couldn't be done. Other people said that they did it with Theris. It was on unoffical, but no adjustments had been made to the dino's strength. The people on official didn't want to take the time to start up a Theri bloodline if there was even a slight chance of failure, so instead they kept insisting that the people on unofficial were playing on easy mode. Then someone sucked it up, tried it on official, and it worked.

Anyway, I've said all I have to say on this subject, so I'm out.

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1 hour ago, Lockjaw said:

I've said many times that even now the Giga is still OP. Either he needs to be brought down, or the other apexes need to be brought up.

Yeah, but I said in my OP that I don't really want a Giga. I'd like the "Terrifying apex predator" of Aberration to be, worth using on Aberration. I don't necessarily care if he's not an "Apex" predator on the island, but I would, personally, like to see him be of comparable quality to a Rex or Wyvern. Both of which destroy the Reaper, even without a light. The Wyvern is, arguably, horrible awful in PvP, as are most flyers, but you still might use him on a daily basis for PvE/Meat runs for babies, etc. You can't even do that with the Reaper because he is just worse then just taking out an Allo, Rex, Giga, Wyvern, Mosa, Squid, Rock Elemental, Mega, Basilisk (You can see what I'm getting at).

 

I don't want them to be overpowered, but I'd like a reason to use one. There currently isn't a reason to use one, even on a closed transfer aberration server. 

1 hour ago, Lockjaw said:

As for "current gen bred" anything, that's sort of it's own topic in itself. Mutations should be taken into account in a balance discussion, but it can't just be an endless cycle of "Yo dawg! Over the last 5 years someone has managed to breed up 100+ levels in health and melee in their favorite creature! Buff my Reaper to have the same strength!!!" (I'm not saying that that's what you're doing, I'm just throwing that out there because I can already see it happening.) There needs to be a clearly defined point around which non-breedables are balanced, and if someone does manage to stack mutations beyond that point then they should be allowed to just reap the reward of having a stronger dino.

That wasn't really the point. I was more making jest at your point of "Doubling their damage AND whatever else until pre-nerf giga" comment, because it shows a pointed lack of experience in how the two dinos relate. At all. Current gen gigas on Official PvP, are already knocking around 5-600% melee, and it's been less then a year. That comes out to about 2700-2800 damage per bite, and if you literally gave the reaper king 10x it's base damage, you'd be right in that ballpark. 

Realistically, balance wise, the Reaper should be better then a comparable apex. Since the Giga is, by all knowledge, a bit stupid, I wouldn't mind if it was simply stronger then the average level 225-250 bred Rex, or hell, even comparable to the Rock Drake or Wyvern (Both of which kill the Reaper without batting an eye). 

1 hour ago, Lockjaw said:

I probably should have been more clear. Maybe there was a point where Dragon really was unbeatable, but there was also a point after he was nerfed when that conversation did take place. People playing on official screamed that it couldn't be done. Other people said that they did it with Theris. It was on unoffical, but no adjustments had been made to the dino's strength. The people on official didn't want to take the time to start up a Theri bloodline if there was even a slight chance of failure, so instead they kept insisting that the people on unofficial were playing on easy mode. Then someone sucked it up, tried it on official, and it worked.

Anyway, I've said all I have to say on this subject, so I'm out.

I know that conversation took place, because I was part of it before Casanova had a meltdown and said some stuff that shouldn't have been said and closed the topic over the ensuing firestorm. 

That being said, literally everyone on Official was racing to make their Theri lines because Theri's were horrifically overpowered at the time. The conversation had nothing to do with screaming, and until aforementioned firestorm, was nothing approaching "Screaming". The only problem was, without the accelerated breeding and such to allow for breeding lines to be so advanced, you'd actually die to the dragon because the Theri couldn't carry enough cakes to sustain through the fight. 

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4 hours ago, TR-8R said:

So in short, a reaper king is still weaker than a 6th generation rex with saddle ?

in short reaper is junk crap thrown out there for looks. AND wc has kibble tree jacked so you have to literally hit the lotery to get decent imprint. I have a 150 with the plus 75 to it, and got jacked on second imprint requiring drake kibble. We have one grown and took like 20 hits to kill just a lvl 90 paracer. and the 150 i am raising has worse stats and will have worse stats than that one. I thought hey this would be sweet we can take it to boss arena............LOL heck we only take it out of the base to troll and make other ppl think a wild king is around. otherwise virtually worthless aside from pve eye candy

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