My Thoughts on Nemesis
Hi, your friendly neighbourhood master of all things scaly, winged and fire-breathing here, i did a sort of post like this for Trickster when his PTB released, and i figured i do one for Nemesis, so here's my thoughts
Playing as Nemesis: Nemesis is good, like, REALLY good, i don't know if it's just that I'm good at this killer or that my survs are potatoes (granted all but 3 of them so far were) but holy hell Nemesis is really good, Nemesis' power works sort of like Myers, instead of stalking though, you hit them with a tentacle attack, this attack has about the same reach as PH's base Punishment of the Damned, with the exception of it not going through walls (can still hit over small obstacles though, not sure if that's a bug but i imagine it isn't), upon reaching tier 2 your tentacle breaks pallets and breakable walls, and at tier 3 it goes from base PH POTD to i think PTOD with the green range addon
I want to quickly talk about Tier 2, breaking a pallet or wall with the tentacle doesn't stop you in place, you get slowed down quite a bit yes but you still move and recover pretty fast, i'm pretty sure the survivor gets about as much, if not less, distance if a Demo with Barb's Glasses breaks the pallet, it's honestly pretty insane
next we have the zombies, these are unsung heroes honestly, they give you free tracking, free hits, free downs (Deerstalker value baby!) and free infections, plus you can kill them yourself for free infection as well, they respawn too, they're honestly really helpful
Playing against Nemesis: There honestly is next to nothing a survivor can do against a good Nemesis, Pre-drop the pallet? well if he's in tier 2 he can pretty much ignore it entirely and cut off most of the distance you'll get, wait for Stuns? Well if he has Enduring and you stun him and he's in tier 2 you get no distance from it, camp pallets? don't he can hit you through those regardless of tier he's in, Loop him? if it's a short loop he can hit you through the obstacles and if a zombie shows up then you either have to get hit by the zombie or by Nemesis, Vault Windows? his power works exactly like Shred and PTOD so that isn't happening if you're infected already and if you aren't infected then you're feeding him more of his power, he's like Freddy only instead of obnoxious slowdown and teleporting he has obnoxious range, zoning, pallet breaking speed and free hits and downs
CONCLUSION: Nemesis is fun, he really is, but only if you're playing as him, currently the only way you can really win against Nemesis is if you split up on gens and rush them as fast as possible due to his lack of map mobility, when he gets out of tier 1 that's a giant signal that says "start panicking now"
As much as i wish to say otherwise, he's likely going to get nerfed when released to live servers, which is a shame, because i do quite like playing him, but he's way too strong IMO
Comments
His range is nowhere near Punishment of the Damned, it's more like a T3 Myers lunge range. It also slows him down massively to charge, has a small hitbox and is fairly easy to dodge, has a lengthy missed cooldown where Nemesis is slowed, and doesn't even do a health state the first hit on an uninfected survivor. The pallet breaking I will grant you, but it's not so fast that it invalidates the pallet drop. Bubba's pallet break is much faster, you don't see his gameplay being a "lose-lose".
The zombies are mostly luck based but I will admit they can create unwinnable situations for the survivor. Then again, these are uncommon.
He still *seems* very good but I'm not making any judgement until he comes to live. Remember, people were worried Trickster was OP on the PTB.
he seems to have plague/myers counter play where you try to power starve them. I guess just walk up to a zombie and get purposely infected, then play regularly.
He is amazing to play as I really enjoyed him, however, he was very terrible to play against as a survivor. He has a lot of map pressure, which isn't bad more or less its annoying really. He isn't as strong as PH, Blight, Nurse, or Spirit, but I feel like he is going to receive a nerf, which is kinda sad
It's too early to say. There is the possibility to dodge his tentacle attack, but it can be quite situational. Still, at the moment, I do believe he has a fair amount of counterplay.
Breaking the pallet with his power for example is faster than breaking it normally, but survivors can still get a bit of distance to him. It's certainly doesn't nullify the pallet drop, that's for sure.
We'll just have to wait and see. One counterplay that is very important is to get the injections if you are sick. I'm just not a fan of the idea that these injections have limited use. But there definitely needs to be a proper incentive to go for these injections instead of just gen rushing.
I do feel like the examples you give are always the worst case scenarios though to be honest.
they should keep him as is honestly, maybe zombies need some nerfs but nemesis being powerful is kind of in character for him
To be honest, I believe Nemesis was designed to be very powerful, to be used against red ranks specifically. In fact, while it may be slightly too early to make this prediction, I think he may be equal or better than spirit. With his ability to corral survivors into zombies for insanely high lethality, a (after a certain point) uncleansable infection while having a power that gains more strength over time for an improved late game vs other killers. Having moderate mapwide pressure in zombie downs/injures/infections, with a power range that mostly only punishes very efficient looping with its narrow, relatively short AOE.(From what I can tell it only strikes the first survivor hit. Perhaps a hitbox bug, correct me if I'm wrong.) Which I think is great, passively nerfing killers like spirit by putting killers above them or equal to them is the best way to go for the health of the game I believe.
With that said, I think he also has an adequate amount of skill in necessary to make the most out of his power and the zombies. As far as I can tell, the zombies simply wander around aimlessly unless they detect a survivor so they are virtually worthless on their own and it takes either Nemesis actively using them, or survivors low awareness of where they are for them to be effective. Also, unsure if its a bug but they also seem oddly loud on some maps such that you can hear them through a few walls or from Stridor distance away.
Finally, I don't think tiering up his power will be as fast as it currently is on the PTB, I'm almost positive it'll be slowed down slightly when going to live, its just that they are gathering data on it.