Had my first reaper fight today, and he just… spammed the thermobaric with only 3 uses of other weaponry. I was just wondering if it’s normal for it to do this, or if the one I fought bugged out or something.
(PS4, multiplayer, 4 players ingame with one abstaining from the fight)
It’s normal, that the reaper after taking a certain amount of damage starts with the thermobaric blast. The goal is for the player to defeat the reaper before it kills itself with the blasts.
It is said that the loot is higher/better, when the player kills the reaper, instead of it getting killed due to damage sustained of it’s own thermobaric blasts.
I however, fought the reaper in the early days that it was introduced, and always had good loot. 
Oh, there should always be good loot from the Reaper.
Defeating it before the self-destruct however, increases your chances of getting the Experimental Sledgehammer.
Sometimes the reaper randomly sprints in any direction. Causing players to have to chase after him. Then other times it is hard to get it to engage in the fight and just turns and walks away, or just stands there. Then other times will fire everything it has repeatedly, with gas and stomps if players get to close. Then there are the times the reaper does it’s blast repeatedly.
Congratulations on your first reaper experience.
It appears people are misunderstanding; this reaper nearly ONLY used the TB attacks. nothing about loot. hundred attack rolls and 97 were TB barrages. we had to stay back and (for most of us) deal reduced damage because he wouldn’t stop incinerating everything in his vicinity. I’m just wondering if this was normal.
i dont believe that is normal, try fighting another one. If it does the same maybe try a new world? might be a pain to spawn another in a new world but it would be better than thermobaric spam.
Fought a second, and yeah, this one was a lot more lenient, only using the TB barrage once, before starting detonation at 2%.
What else is normal?
It’s difficult.
You could say it depends on something. On the location, the number of players, the weapons they use, the daytime ingame, on the reapers previous actions, …
But I guess this is again just working by chances. Imagine him throwing dice. A 1, 3 and 5 is for machine gun, a 2 and 4 for the rocketlauncher and a 6 for his firestorm.
And in your case he just threw many 6 in a row.
So let’s say: it’s just unusual.
Wait till you get one in a heavily wooded area and the reaper seems to hide behind the trees, blocking shots to the weak points. Or, he will not turn off the shields more than a few seconds at a time and you have to keep scrambling to get a clean shot.
At times, you could be fighting the reaper and a rival or two decides to join the party. The reaper is one of the few machines you will face that is unpredictable when you face them.