Pinhead's gameplay is very underwhelming
Now the idea of fun is subjective, one may find pinhead fun while others don't. I'm completely on the fence and as of now, outside of his persona and fundamentals, the character just isn't enjoyable to use. He feels very unfun to play without his strongest addons, and what have we learned about making killers addon dependent? Seems absolutely nothing
The nailed (no pun intended) everything about this character to a T ; The animations, the skins, the now revoked voice lines, the abilities. However, what they didn't hit just right is how his abilities should work and as of now he is just a weaker clown (excluding when he doesn't use his strongest addons).
I'm Iridescent 1, I main a lot of low tier killers (legion, pig) and am aware of how to apply pressure with my abilities. This doesn't seem to be the case with pinhead because you actually get punished by his using his abilities outside of unsafe loops and chain hunt never effing activates. I've played about 11 games and out of those 11, chain hunt activated thrice for a mere total of about 10 secs in total between all 3. Just this recent game, I had a survivor hold a box semi-hostage, and hid around the map being an immersive gamer and I could not find him while his team mates slammed gens. His M2 feels like it punishes him more than it rewards, chains break too easily and it's easily dodge-able.
I'm not quite sure what to do to make improvements to him and not make him so addon dependent. The character has so much potential but just executed so poorly and the complaints that were made in PTB just went thru straight to live. I feel cheated out of spending 20 bucks for buying the chatterer skin and pinhead, he's just so weak.
Comments
I don't quite agree that the chains need to do damage, he has an iri addon for that which makes him insanely strong, but that's the issue is we don't to have another killer that is insanely add-on reliant. Nonetheless, higher tier addons that tons of grinding to stock pile on
to me, he is like nurse that has the rewards of clowns bottle but requires the aim precision of deathslinger.
so I would say he is nurse+clown+deathslinger into one killer. Currently, I feel like i need hit the survivor 3-4 times in a row with my ability just to get an M1 hit. it seems very excessive. To me, it feels like they tried to hard to make an M1 killer that is not rewarding to play.
I wish his ability could injure and down survivors but his movement speed was reduced to 96.5%. I wish bvhr could make a another killer like nurse with high skill-cap that is hard to use but rewarding to play.
Pinhead seems so close to that.
What gets me the most is often you are forced to break your own chains if you want to hit the survivor, but doing so just opens them up to immediately dead harding towards the pallet on the loop you caught them at.
There's also the fact survivors can just throw the pallet down anyways despite being chained.
It just often feels like that using my power is delaying the chase longer than if I were to keep chasing them as a M1 killer whcih defeats the purpose of having a power. At least chaining survivors and then breaking the pallet helps them from getting too much distance on you.
He's just.. I dunno, he seems useless. Like everything he does is a net loss save for a few niche scenarios. Who tested this #########?
As a killer main, as much as it is fun to dunk on survivors, I don't think we should add another ranged killer that is on par with nurse. He has potential to be a good killer with the kit he has. The main gripe with this killer is how bad chain hunt is in it's current state, even with double speed up addons for chain hunt, a survivor just picks up the cube and it takes another 30 secs or something (I don't know the exact number) before it activates again; the survivor can just pick up the cube and rinse and repeat.
He's not a ranged killer and I don't think he should become one either, he just needs tweaking to make his abilities actually feel like they do something without punishing us as well. It's high risk with little reward it feels like, and we can all agree that's just no fun. Sure he has the ability to 4k just as any other killer can, but still doesn't mean he's not weak. I wish BHVR actually listened to all the complaints about him that were on the forums during PTB
"The main gripe with this killer is how bad chain hunt is in it's current state, even with double speed up addons for chain hunt, a survivor just picks up the cube and it takes another 30 secs or something (I don't know the exact number) before it activates again; the survivor can just pick up the cube and rinse and repeat."
I think objective of chain hunt is for survivors to get off generators and to hunt for the cube like secondary objective. As far as getting survivors off generators, I would say it does its job alright. What I would say though is that finding cube is too easy currently due to aura reading. This is just my opinion from my limit few games playing against Pinhead. I would say his chain hunt is an ok spot strength wise.
"it's high risk with little reward it feels like, and we can all agree that's just no fun"
I feel like this is contradiction. your agreeing that the chain ability is underwhelming(little reward) but disagreeing that making his ability high reward would be a bad idea. I think his problems are more towards his 1vs1 being pretty poor. I feel like if his reward for landing the chain was just single health state loss, it would simplify his kit a lot more.
If I assume correctly his strongest add-ons are the Torture Pillar and Impaling Wire. Correct me if I'm wrong.
What I noticed (beside his bugged lunge that cost me a LOT of hits) is, that long range chain hits are not rewarding enough (chains break too quickly) and that chain hunts need too much time to activate. His power is hard to aim and, if not used point blank, easily dodgable. And you still can use pallets while being chained (why though?).
What I suppose is this:
1.Reduce the inactive chain hunt timer (until the box respawnes) to 20s (from 30-40 I think).
2. Reduce the chain hunt timer to 60s (and change the add-ons a bit number wise).
3. Make the Box's aura invisible until 3/4 of the timer is up. (change the ultra rare to something else like exposed while carrying the box and 30s after or similar)
4. Make the chains harder to break the further away the gateway is from you/the further the chain travels. Especially if it's someone on another floor (Hawkins, the Game, Midwich etc). People should be rewarded for sick hits. Now they actually lose distance.
5. If chained you should not be able to drop pallets.
6. FIX HIS LUNGE!
Yes, that is the objective of chain hunt, if it actually would happen. You are correct, it is extremely easy for the survivors to get the cube and make chain hunt null and void; there's a reason why out of 11 games I've played as him, only 3 times did chain hunt activate for a total of 10 secs combined. You can't say something is in a good/okay state just because of the potential it has, that's like monstrous shrine is a good perk because it can be "good" under a niche circumstance. Why have something in the game that barely activates? It just makes you feel gimped.
The reason I stated it's high risk with little reward is due to the fact of how easy it is to miss/dodge his gateway chain, and even when hit outside of unsafe loops it effectively does nothing versus experienced (key word experienced, not good or bad, just some with base knowledge of how to loop) survivors. I don't quite agree with making his iri addon 'engineers fang' baseline, he is already extremely strong with that addon (I would say right about easily middle of the pack A tier). The solution shouldn't be this whatsoever.
your first complaint is solved by his other iri add-on, lament configuration. it hides aura of the box within 16 meters. I have used it with torture pillar that reduces the chain hunt activation time. I would say it activated a decent amount of times. The problem is that running these add-ons makes his 1vs1 atrocious.
Leads me to my next point. Engineer fang(his other iri) fixes his rewards problems in 1vs1. Almost all my chases, I have successfully injured the survivor very quickly upon entering a chase, however when it came to using his "original" power, it just takes so many hook hits to get any value out of his original power. The location in where chains spawn can be behind trees or rocks. as consequence, the survivor can rubber-band the chain on many objects, so as result, the chain can break instantly. It is also very ineffective at loops because the chains can spawn facing your direction and if you walk through circles or the chain, the chain instantly breaks making it very poor at loops. It is just so many layers of RNG.
Engineer fang is so much cleaner. a single hit is single health state loss. it removes all luck components to his power and just gives him clean consistent gameplay. one of your complaints that hitting chain does nothing outside of unsafe loops vs experienced players. This add-on for first hit always does what it says it does regardless of loop strength, so it solves that problem. As you said, the gateway is easy to miss/dodge. I think putting engineer fang in his base-kit and improving current add-on to be a basic mechanic for downing survivors would greatly normalize his rewards for hitting his ability.