Why I hate Freddy (and why he's unbalanced)
Ever since his rework, his kill rate has skyrocketed. Why? Because he's OP. In case you don't know, his power is basically survivors are awake for about 80-90 seconds at the start of the match and then fall asleep. While survivors are asleep they can be interact with dream snares or dream pallets, and also be subjected to debuffs, albeit small ones. He can also use dream projection and teleport to any unfinished gen. Now, in concept, it sounds really cool. But in practice, not so much. Freddy is one of the only killers that make me think, "Guess I'll die." My reasoning is that I've only won a few games against a Freddy. The few times I have were against grey ranks. This does not apply to any other killer. I'll die some games, and I'll win others against the same killers just different players. I absolutely despise Freddy, only playing him when I have a daily.
Assuming it's Freddy with no addons:
Freddy can set down dream snares which make the survivor scream and slow them down. Why is this a bad thing? Well, for one, it takes away from killers like Clown, Hag and Trapper, making it cheaper. Unlike the aforementioned killers, however, Freddy himself does not suffer a cooldown or anything for setting the snares. Trapper has to have a trap available to set it down, Clown has to have a bottle to throw it, Hag has slower movement speed, which I'll return to later, and both Hag and Trapper have to perform a time consuming animation to use their traps. Trapper (and Clown to some extent both have the abilities to be hindered by their own traps, as well. Clown can't see through the gas sometimes, and Trapper can get trapped, of course. Freddy does not, however, have a long animation to set up a snare, nor be on top of it while he's setting it, added on that he does not have a penalty for stepping on them, whether it be movement speed or trapped.
Tagged on with his basekit is dream projection. This basically makes it so he can move anywhere survivors can do progress towards their objective. Why is this a bad thing? A main point is that killers like Hag, who can teleport, have to set up something to be able to do that, and can be destroyed whether it be through ripping portals apart or shining a light on it. Freddy, however does not have to set anything up and has the ability to go to key locations at almost any point in the match. Likewise, he does not suffer a movement speed debuff for being able to do this either, like a killer who I've mentioned before.
Assuming it's pallet freddy:
Freddy can now set up fake pallets that awake survivors can not interact with and asleep survivors see no problem with. What's the issue with this? The main problem is that it takes a group of coordinated survivors to say something about the pallets to return to later to throw down/avoid. After being unhooked, I ran around with a Nea pointing at pallets to throw down because I couldn't. In other words, you have to be susceptible to his power in order counter it. Which, let's not forget, there are addons that make it so if you try to do that, you can get penalized. Like trapper's single addon that makes you injured when trying to disarm a trap. But chases are where they shine. Unlike doctor where throwing down pallets early is generally a good idea, especially when he's charging up his power, you have no indication at all if you should throw it down early or not. And if you don't, it'll come back to bite you if it's fake. If you do, you just wasted a couple of good loops no matter what it was. There isn't a clear indication of whether pallets are real or not, not even a shimmer like Wraith's power or how Freddy sees it but without the blue hue.
Are there counters?
Now some of you might think, "Well just stay awake." But as far as I'm concerned, that's not that good of a trade off. You can either get hooked to wake up, run across the map for just 90 seconds of a bit of high ground, fail a skill check and let him know where you are, which he can go to with his projection, or find an awake survivor to wake you up, which gets longer the more the trial continues. Most of these only last for a minute. Now, obviously, the most sensible thing is to just disarm the snares or pallets (if you know what's real and what's not), but they can go back up in a second, so it's not really that amazing of a counter. Not to mention how canon it is to Freddy's lore, that you have to be asleep to be susceptible to attacks by him in the first place. And because in terms of in-game, the high ground you have is able to be cut short. Not to mention the pill bottle which lowers that advantage quite substantially.
My suggested nerfs
I haven't been playing prior to his rework, but from everyone, it didn't sound like a strong power. And I, like many people, have a suggestion without changing the entirety of his power. Mash together this Freddy and the older Freddy. You have to be asleep in order for him to affect you, and he has to put you to sleep. At least with this, you have more prep time and incentive to wake up. Either that or give him more of a time-consuming animation for setting up snares and traps. At least with the first one it's more canon to Nightmare on Elm, and with the second one, he actually has to become similar to Traps and Hag. Last one, promise: he has a movement speed debuff for walking through snares and pallets, until they fall, have collision. Only the same amount as survivors though so that no distance is gained or lost for walking through a snare, and by the pallets I mean they would push him back, but not stun him until they fall down and explode.
Freddy's just too much of an easy killer that has no downside to using his power. Almost every killer has a downside except for him. Anyways thanks for reading if you did
Comments
I agree with that, Freddy is very powerfull. Freddy without power is already very fast and difficult to spot since he is invisible at a certain distance, he also has a higher hitbox problem than the other killers. The fact that he can replace a fake pallet right after a survivor has fallen into the trap is a little too strong. He literally has the add-ons of the clown but much less dodgeable than this one and yet, he has these two other powers as a bonus (Teleport to generators and be invisible when he is out of the radius of terror).
The second concern is that the stronger a killer (see too powerful), the more likely it is that toxic players play it first, I rarely come across a freddy who does not tunnel, or who does not play memento and yet I have come across quite a few. He is probably the only killer who poses a real problem for me and who has absolutely no fun surviving.
It maybe me, but it reminds me of the days of overpowered Nurse and Spirit. 🤔
They have to just unlock all wake up points on the map not only 1 when u fall a sleep like that thing from The Saw.
Freddy is fine where he's at. Much like The Doc, he takes a little more player skill to play against and survive chases. There's no mindless looping against the him because he can and will shut that down.
And you know what? That's a good thing. The game needs strong killers otherwise what's the point of even having the killer role?
They nerfed them from like 6% to 2-3% forever freddy hasn’t been around well forever