Can somebody explain this addon to me?
Most of the Plague's recent changes were absolutely fantastic, and they made her feel great to play, but there's one small part of her addon pass that I just do not understand.
This thing. It's a yellow, and it doesn't provide any other effect, so I don't think it's a meme addon (and her actual meme addon is quite good and has a lot of potential in it, unlike many others.) I don't get how this is a good thing.
Less total pools means less chance of a pool being near any given location, and generally necessitates further distance travelled to be able to activate Corrupt Purge. It means there's less places for survivors to cleanse at, which is the only possible positive I can see in this... but that doesn't help you in practice, because that also means that it takes much less time and effort for survivors to reset your pools. Since the default is 6, reducing it to 4 means that no matter what, if all 4 survivors are infected, they can coordinate cleansing and instantly reset your fountains. This is not something you want because it wastes x-1 fountains and you probably aren't getting the last fountain when you want it. Yes, wasting 3 fountains isn't as bad as wasting the base 5... but you're still way better off managing your fountains and survivor sickness and preventing the reset from happening.
Her pools aren't like Nemesis's supply caches - they're a resource for her to manage, not just a survivor aid. If the idea is slowdown by forcing survivors to travel farther on average to be able to find a pool... I don't actually see this having much of an effect, considering how her fountains normally spawn; having more of them encourages some to spawn in really far-flung areas. But either way, you never want survivors to be forced to travel to the farthest pool possible from them, because that means it's the only pool and they're going to reset you. (Or they're smart and they're trying to cleanse in a bad pool, but in that case, it's not forced and they'd be doing that regardless of whether there's 6 or 4, because again, the tactical placement of Plague's fountains is more important than survivors wasting a bit of travel time to reach them.)
I could see this addon working if it reduced Plague's fountains to 1 or 2, because it'd change how she activates her power. It'd also be stupid strong. But 4 doesn't accomplish that.
So how are you supposed to use this thing? What am I missing?
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I mean I guess less fountains to cleanse from and helps fill them all faster which then gives you that power since they're all full? I mean that's it. It changes the playstyle I guess a little bit.
There are two reasons that this effect could be considered that I'd be able to see, though take this with a grain of salt because I don't really play Plague that much yet.
The first is that fewer Pools means they're going to be broken for longer, and if you're lucky they have to waste a lot of time trying to find the remaining Pools while they are broken so they're not on generators during that time. The second is that you passively get your Corrupt Purge noticeably quicker since that happens when the Pools all reset, meaning that not only is everyone broken for longer, you have more of a chance to make good use out of that with your Corrupt Purge since that happens more frequently.
My guess is that it's supposed to be an addon that informs an active, aggressive, rely-on-passive-reset playstyle, as opposed to a more measured and tactical one where you go out of your way to manually activate your power at select times.
Also it's probably for the teams that aren't a coordinated 4SWF, so more likely to have a team where you have atleast one that refuses to cleanse and gets mad at the other 3 if they're cleansing. 😂
seems utterly worthless as far as i can see.
Knowing my luck, I'd take this addon when somebody takes a Swamp offering..
I get that that would be the theory behind it, but I can't imagine this actually being better than the normal playstyle unless you literally forget to grab your power, or you're new and you don't have the sense of timing that comes with reload-type killers. Relying on passive fill means you're getting 1/4th of the Corrupt Purges you otherwise would. A little bit of survivor slowdown and a little bit of travel time has absolutely zilch on 60 seconds of the deadliest ranged power in the game. CP's also one of those powers where you really want to choose the activation time - you get it when you know where several people are. One of the reasons Trickster's Main Event is considered bad despite its power is because you can't choose when you get it (without handicapping yourself), and oftentimes it makes itself available in situations where you can't capitalize on it. Relying on passive activation for CP is similar; it's the reason her one iri addon isn't as good as it sounds and it typically needs to be paired with Bitter Murmur or the other iri to work it. And even then, gens getting done is way more predictable than when some survivor across the map is going to cleanse.
Survivors remaining broken has very little to do with the nearest fountain's location. Only smart survivors will consider location at all, and the decision to remain broken is pure survivor preference. Nervous survivors will always cleanse at the first opportunity and experienced survivors will remain broken until something happens to make it unfeasible (they need to go for a save when the Plague is camping, someone else cleansed and now the Plague has Corrupt Purge, endgame, etc.) It's not like alarm clocks where having one near or far alters your decisionmaking on whether to spend the time on it or not. When you need to cleanse, you need to cleanse; when you don't need to, you shouldn't.
I guess this creates a new playstyle for Plague, but it does so in the vein of Scrapped Tape Doctor; it's worse than how she normally plays. This addon just does not seem well thought out to me.
I mean, it’s like you said. It means it’s less likely that a given location has a fountain, and it’s overall easier for the survivors to force a reset. It may make them go out of their way more to cleanse, but you also have to go out of your way more to pick up corrupt, so I think it’s just not really worth it. I haven’t been using it and I don’t really plan to either.
It did throw me off as a survivor though when I played against a plague who had it - I thought she was running apple addons when I saw less fountains and didn’t realize there were only 4 total pools until suddenly they got reset.
Oh, I'm not saying it's good, I just think that's the thought behind it. I'd give it a secondary effect to help emphasise that you're supposed to be playing more aggressively and actively with it, but idk what that'd be.
I do think it's slightly better than you're making it out to be, there is merit to relying more on the Broken status than the Corrupt Purge if you're confident in your M1 looping skills, but yeah- not great.
Oh, I'm totally happy playing Plague either way; Corrupt Purge or extra noisy, extra visible injured survivors. There's games I'll never need to use Corrupt Purge... I just wouldn't want to bring this addon for the ones where I will need it, because when I do need it, I need to be able to react to situations as they unfold, not have survivors completely control my power. Granted, I haven't used any addons on Plague since I hit prestige 3 in favor of hoarding everything forever, but I still wouldn't use this one in its current state.
I like the idea of a supplemental secondary effect. If the intended playstyle is to rely on passive charging, while hindering your ability to pick up fountains, it could give a buff to Corrupt Purge length, or cause all survivors to scream when fountains get reset. Like, she has the one brown addon that creates a different playstyle where you infect everything and force survivors to become sick that way, but that one actually buffs what it needs to, so it works.
I like that second idea- if they all scream on the fountain reset, at least you can know where they are and start to plan whether you can get there to use your Corrupt Purge on them.
Wouldn't be a bad change at all!
The fewer fountains there are, the fewer fountains are available for the survivors to cleanse with.
No.
Hmm, it’s be interesting to combine this with one of the perks that makes infections happen more easily and play a perma-broken style where it’s less convenient for survivors to cure themselves and you get automatic free Vile purges passively more often.
i think its pretty good, i've used it a couple of times and it just makes it easier to get your power without going out of your way to go collect it since it will be forced on you faster. Great for maps like Swamp.
i think it was otz or a diff. streamer that used Prophylactic Amulet with Blessed Apple (start with 2 pools corrupted) and had moderately good success. I don't think he played any differently: try to get as many survivors infected from the start, then drink from corrupted pool.
I've also tried these 2 addons together and had decent success but I'm only at mid tier MMR at best.
I think the idea is that instead of getting your power yourself you allow the survivors to choose when you get it by cleansing at all fountains.
So you can keep doing other things and not have to stop pressure to go get your power.
It's just not that good of an idea. Giving more control to survivor of a power that's already in control of them seems iffy