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The problem with add-on dependence and weak killers

SirCracken SirCracken
in General Discussions

DbD has always had a problem with balancing, I think most people can agree on this. There's a massive amount to be said about maps, perks and the individual powers of certain killers. But today I'm going to be talking about how killers, specifically on the weaker side, suffer from a lack meaningful add-ons to choose from.

I'll be using Sadoko as my first example. She has 2 main strengths:

  1. A stealth ability that allows her to sneak up on survivors
  2. A decent map traversal ability that allows her to cover lots of ground, albeit dependant on RNG to have your TVs in a good location.

She does have a 3rd ability. But it's so poorly implemented that in most of the games I've played with her it might as well not exist. Whenever you teleport to a TV, and a survivor is within 16 meters of said TV, the survivor will gain a stack of Condemned. When a survivor reaches 7 stacks of Condemned they can be swiftly killed by Sadako if they are downed. Regardless of how many hook states they have remaining.

What makes this ability so weak is partially because Sadako has no way of quickly downing survivors. But the main reason is that it's laughably easy for a survivor to remove their Condemned stacks compared to how quickly they can get them. For a survivor to remove a whopping 3 stacks out of the 7 all they need to do is go to a TV, take out a tape that sluggishly builds up Condemned the longer they hold it, walk about 20-30 meters to a specified TV, and bam! Just under half of their Condemned has been removed.

For comparison, it takes 100 seconds for a TV to become active again after teleporting to it. What takes a survivor 30 seconds to remove half of their stacks, it takes over 3 times that to add 1 stack. This is why this ability is so poorly implemented.

Now imagine if that 100 second cooldown was 0. Or better yet, if the cooldown of the last 4 TV's you teleported to was 0. Suddenly getting Condemned is extremely easy and just by popping around the map looking for survivors you're slowly putting pressure on anyone nearby. Especially if your TVs are close to generators. Well, there's an add-on that does just that:

Iridescent video tape

Hitting a survivor within 8 seconds after Manifesting turns on the last 4 TVs turned off from Projection

Slap this add-on into your loadout and not only is Sadako's map traversal even stronger, not only does it make keeping track of her that much harder, but it makes Condemned an actual threat. But this is a huge problem. Not because it makes her too strong, far from it. Even with this add-on Sadako still struggles against decent survivors.

The problem I'm referring to is that you shouldn't have to use an add-on just to enable an ability of the killer you're playing as. Not "strengthen", "enable". Condemned simply doesn't exist if you don't use this add-on. An ability shouldn't be so poorly designed that you need a specific add-on so you can make it functional.

I've used Sadako as a prime example of this but there's many other weak killers that have this exact same problem.

  • Pinhead's box can be easily found and solved, deleting half of his power from the game... Unless you use the Iridescent Lament Configuration.
  • Ghostface's nightshroud is incredibly buggy and can be revealed by survivors from behind cover and punishes you with a massive cooldown when removed... Unless you use the Chewed Pen and Olsen's Address Book.
  • Nemesis' mutation forces you to hit 3 survivors with an attack that doesn't damage them before you gain the ability to break pallets, something that other killers can do instantly with their power... Unless you use Marvin's Blood oh wait they nerfed that so you still have to land 3 hits lol.

All of the killers I just mentioned shouldn't have to have 1 or both add-on slots dedicated to making parts of their power merely function. Add-ons are supposed to offer variety to the abilities of a killer. Not decide you get to use parts of their kit at all. As it stands all the killers I mentioned need a buff, and their add-ons especially.

They don't need anything drastic such as an entire re-work of their power. Just make it so their kit is useful without any add-ons so there's a reason to not use the same 2 add-ons every single match.

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