I really don't get this PH change...
This... literally did nothing but make PH more clunky to play.
The lose-lose situation survivors got into before? Still existent. This change did nothing to "correct" that. You know what did happen? PH now feels so goddamn sluggish!
One of the best strategies is to place trails at choke points or along loops during a chase. It's the smart thing to do—force the survivors into the open or force them to step into Torment, effectively disabling DS/Unbreakable. You can still do that, but my LORD, does it feel awful now. That's the worst part, it doesn't really change how he plays, it just feels bad.
To compensate for the sluggishness? Congrats, you can spam M2 slightly more now. You don't need half or even a quarter of your gauge to do that. Yay, I can spam an attack mindlessly because playing him properly feels dreadful.
But the most confusing thing to me? Why was this change even necessary?
"But he can hit me over a pallet or vaulting a window!"
Allow me to name some OTHER killers that can do that: Nurse (obviously), Demo ( mostly windows; he just shreds pallets), Huntress, Slinger, Plague..
The most apt of the above that I can think of is between PH and Demo. They both function pretty similarly: 115% killer, great zone potential due to their M2, can shut down loops due to said M2, are reduced to 92% while using it (unless you use Rat Liver). The only difference I can find is that PH's M2 is somewhat more forgiving in terms of timing, but both are vulnerable to being baited out or just holding W away when they try to outplay you at a loop.
The only issue I could find with PH was that cancelling M2 did have a slight cooldown. You never noticed? That's because it was ridiculously easy to completely bypass it by pressing M1 immediately. That's the infamous M2 into M1; the trick that still exists despite the above change.
So in summary, here's what the change is: M2 became easier to mindlessly spammed, playing him properly feels sluggish, and the tech the change was meant to correct/remove is still in the game. Oh, and he's still the best tunneller in the game by far because he can bypass DS—one of the 2 anti-tunnel perks in the game—by design because the devs refuse to nerf/change/rework that busted perk, but let's not even mention actual issues.
Comments
Almost 20 minutes after posting, I apologize for how i conducted myself in writing the above. I'm just rather displeased by these changes, despite the effect being very minor overall.
If it makes you feel better I main him and actually hoped the devs would fix those issues so people can enjoy playing against him more but... No. No they didn't. He can still mindlessly zone, just fake putting the sword in and you can still stop them dropping the pallet or vaulting the window because you hit them still anyway if they commit and hit them if they don't because there's no cool down. They didn't fix his issues, they just made him feel worse to play.
I guess I'm gonna be going nurse full-time now and putting ph as my back burner main because yeah, these changes didn't kill him and he's still as strong as before, he's just a lot clunkier and I cant be asked to relearn everything.
The issue is that you can bypass the cooldown that he's supposed to have when he lifts the sword, both in his current and previous iteration. That's the thing that makes him so goddamn unfair in chases.
His changes sound ok on paper, but when I played him it has made nearly no difference.
You can still “Quick-scope” with the sword, which can force the survivor to not take the window or pallet, thereby giving you a free M1 hit.
Also, as others have said it’s a lot more painful to leave trails as you have to contend with the cool down after.
The only good to come of it is the reduced penalty for using POTD, I feel there’s a lot more freedom now when using it rather than only saving it for guaranteed hits.
No there's still the issue of insta zoning into a lose lose too so they didn't even fix that
Yeah I thought they were gonna fix him but nothing was really changed except he feels clunky and he can spam his power more. I said I was gonna give PH a serious try this update but all they did was clunk him up even more...they have to have messed something up, there's no way they intended for him to play like this in the update (probably due to lack of testing, or not watching people play the PTB and not listening to people like otz who probably know this killer better than they do?