I have never felt so powerless in the game as while playing Clown.
I'm saving up points for Blight, so as it turns out Clown is my only character with a massive pile of cakes and BBQ and Chili, so I decided to bust him out for a while and see how it went.
It has, by a long margin, been the least enjoyable stint of playing killer I've ever done. I can't quite put my finger on why I feel so weak when a lot of his downsides are shared by, or are worse on, other killers.
Biggest thing is, he has an absolute lack of map pressure, possibly the worst in the game. There are several sources of general map pressure. The first would be the most obvious and the strongest; mobility. Nurse, Billy, Spirit, Oni, Freddy, Demo, Hag, Wraith, even Legion, they all put pressure on survivors by being able to get where they're going faster and it's great. There's also stealth; Wraith, Michael, Pig, Ghostface, Deathslinger, they all pressure the map to some degree because survivors have to feel cautious, keep on their toes, and move more carefully.
Clown, I feel, has anti-stealth. Whenever a Clown is in a chase, everyone on the map knows about it. The constant screams from landing his bottles tell everyone that the Clown is currently occupied and they are completely safe. Unlike Demogorgon and Oni who also announce most of their actions to everyone in the neighborhood, there's no threat that Clown's going to come charging at you or teleport across the map to jump on you. The screams are a big green light to sit on gens.
His chase potential feels so close to being good, but it's just not quite there. You can use the bottles to zone, and there are some places where it turns safe pallets into unsafe ones just because of either the slow or the threat of it causing survivors to take a hit they otherwise wouldn't have. However it simply isn't enough. Getting one less loop out of a loop doesn't lose games for strong survivors. Throwing a bottle to zone a strong loop takes you 25% of the way to being an M1 killer with no power, and if they only get moved to the next loop over, that strong loop is usually still available to them after the couple of seconds it takes for the gas to clear.
I know there's going to be people who jump in to say "Well I play Clown flawlessly and he's one of the best killers, you just don't play him right" and I'm sure no amount of reasonable debate will knock them off that high horse, but I can play basically any killer at red ranks and feel, if not comfortable, at least not completely powerless.
Comments
When clown came out I was still new to the game and I loved the idea behind his power. Unfortunately I have to agree with a lot of what you say though. He´s underwhelming in every aspect.
I still play him occasionally though (p3 50 all perks...) and if I get to verse a good team best I can hope for is a 2k unless I go all out ruthless. The salt you can farm with him is real - I imagine the particular brand of "Survivor Mains" feel so humiliated losing to clown, and rightfully so.
If you encounter more casual survivors though it can be lots of fun. Before the Killer lock was implemented I was fortunate enough to verse a full team of Dwelfs as Santa Clown, good times:)
Regaring your last paragraph: Let them spew their BS into the void, like when they claim they 4k 5gen 100% of the time at rank 1 with clown, no perks or addons and only using one hand while writing an essay about why Clown is the best Killer out there with the other one. They´re trolls or have issues that can´t be resolved here.
I agree, but I never understand the mentality. Everyone knows he's not great, so is it that they want to keep him bad so they feel unique playing it? Or just that they want something to lord over others.
I think due to his low popularity and the DEVs being notorious for taking very, very long to adress things I wouldn´t hold my breath on the Clown buffs. I think they just don´t care enough to invest ressources into him.
I agree with the helpless feeling when playing Clown. It's only second in my book to playing perkless Hag and having dedicated servers not be on your side (or even be impartial--I would be okay with even that).