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Sadako first impressions

dugman dugman
in General Discussions

I had fun playing Sadako last night, she feels a bit more effective than Wraith overall with better map presence and is a bit stronger in chase. She’s weaker in chases than killers with a dedicated power for that purpose, and she’s not as mobile in catching up as Blight or Spirit or Nurse or Hillbilly, so she’s also not “great” but in that bucket of “fun to play and probably average.”

Random thoughts

  • She’s better that Wraith in a chase because, unlike Wraith, she still moves at roughly survivor speed while Manifesting. That means she can stay Demanifested even after a survivor spots her approach or during a chase and Manifest midchase once she’s close to still get the hit. Plus she maintains on and off invisibility for a bit after Manifesting which can help in gameable loops. In comparison Wraith can’t afford to Decloak midchase unless he’s somehow blocking a survivor’s escape path without losing so much distance that even his post-Decloak speed boost can’t make it up so he’s more fragile in his ability to actually chase a survivor once they start running. Wraith’s profile is harder to see than hers at midrange (i.e. less than 24 meters) but he’s still visible as the shimmer plus taller than Sadako so it’s maybe not as much a difference as some people might think.
  • Sadako’s teleport is a bit like Freddy’s on steroids. Freddy can teleport every now and then between chases, maybe sometimes even during a chase here and there, to a generator but his cooldown between teleports is quite long compared to Sadako who has essentially no cooldown other than not being able to go back to that specific TV right away. This allows Sadako to teleport over and over many more times during a match, letting her for example teleport and, if she doesn’t spot anyone, just teleport again until she sees or hears someone. Plus frequent teleports amplify the pressure for survivors to periodically get off the gens to reduce the Condemned stacks. (Getting full Condemned is rare but it’s enough of a threat if it builds up that the survivors do need to sometimes run across the map to deal with it.) So overall I think I like how her teleport feels a bit better than Freddy’s projections, although I do like Freddy too.
  • If there’s one weak part of her kit it’s simply that it might still be too easy to avoid getting fully Condemned. If she statistically still could use a buff I’m inclined to think reducing the TV refresh times would both increase the rate that Condemned stacks can build up and make her teleport even that much more readily available. She might not need the buff though, she feels on par with a lot of other relatively average killers and is probably one of the better stealth killers.
  • In terms of perks, Scourge Hook: Floods of Rage gave me pretty decent value in combination with Pain Resonance. The auras from Floods of Rage are in my opinion better than BBQ’s tracking because they have no range limit so it’s much more likely you’ll see an aura of a survivor that is close enough to you to take advantage of it. Even if you’re in a chase, seeing the aura of the person you’re chasing is still quite useful since it makes it much harder for them to juke or mindgame. I’ve never been a fan of BBQ but I do like this perk.
  • Call of Brine is also pretty decent. It’s basically Ruin on one gen at a time, plus noise notifications when someone works on the gen as well. And unlike Ruin it can’t be cancelled by destroying a totem. The downside of course being you have to actively kick a gen now and then, but that’s fine assuming you kick the gens that regression would make a difference anyway. Also it obviously can combo well with Pop Goes the Weasel or other kicking gen perks if you feel inclined to use those.
  • Merciless Storm feels like a fun effect but mostly as a gimmick. An explosion once per generator per match that then blocks the gen briefly might not be enough slowdown to bother using it, and that’s assuming the survivors actually fail the check in the first place which is definitely not guaranteed. I can’t really see myself going out of my way to use this one, unless maybe it was combined with an Unnerving Presence type build for laughs. 😄

In the end I think people who try and play her the same way they play Wraith or Freddy are probably doing themselves a disservice, she’s not either of those characters. She mechanically turns visible in a different way than Wraith so going in and out of phase during chases is very much a thing you can take advantage of. And she can teleport a lot more often than Freddy as well but doesn’t have the snares to help her in the chases themselves. She really is her own killer because of the way everything is combined together and varies from the other killers, and I suspect the people who really do well with her will take full advantage of those differences.

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