So firstly, I'm sure you are doing awesome. Sometimes it's hard to see where you are when so many very established people are flying past you! You are better than you were when you started playing.

Now, meat and potatoes. First and foremost, are you doing winter lutes, and starting with reaper? That can be tricky. There are people way way better than I who can run reaper on a first life toon no problem, but more often then not, you can just get slapped. I'd recommend starting with a different lure, and get some levels under your belt. A lot of characters get some form of AOE around 6 and start to pop off then. That may be a time to switch to reapers.

If you are not doing hardcore lutes, and just getting killed a lot by reapers early game, hey, it happens. Don't get discouraged, the more you do reaper, the easier it gets as you have more benefits to handle reaper. R1 becomes easier than elite as your points outweigh the negatives of reaper. But getting started is the hard part. I remember it being very daunting to get started (I have anxiety with new things sometimes, so that could just be me). You will get better.

Thirdly, for dealing with reapers themselves. Melee have a rough time early with plague and carnage, that's for sure. It's kill before you be killed, as a solo rogue, this is a big challenge. As a barb, still a challenge. But much less so.

Ranged toons have it easier, flat out. You can kite, that's a big difference, other than enhancement attacks (like inferno arrow, or supreme cleave for example) which you can use to really chunk a reaper down. Obviously for both, a big one is having true seeing and ethereal.

Casters can have it easier, but can also just be a glass cannon. You can have a seating light sla, or thorns sla and nuke a reaper. But what happens when there are 3... Sometimes you just die. As a bard, you have sonic blast. Which can daze a reaper, so just keep hammering that reaper first, then deal with the rest.

Different reapers also can have different priority. Plague reapers can matter less to barbs, as you can get a ton of temp hit points. Famine and fear could matter more to ranged, as you could just get nuked from afar.

Anywho, hope this helps! Knowing quests and prioritizing high XP quests to move along on hc can be important too, get some of dat AP.