Hot take: Unviable killers is a myth
The title alone will make most people not read this I'm sure but I'll explain my opinion anyway.
I'll make a brief comparison to another game and then I'll get to my point. In Apex Legends (yes I'm aware it's not an asymmetrical game). certain characters are just naturally stronger than others. I main Wattson and Lifeline but I know characters like Octane, Valk, Pathfinder, and Wraith are considered "higher tier" for their mobility and ability to take high ground. Do I think Wattson should be buffed to be able to get high ground and compete with those characters? No, that would be silly. Her playstyle is different and her skill cap should be different.
Going back to DBD, I always see comments about buffing certain killers to the level of the likes of Nurse, Blight, Huntress, etc and I personally don't think they should. Their playstyles are different and they should perform at their current levels based on what type of character they are. Myers should never have the map pressure of a Spirit. Clown should never have the same camping control as a Hag. Killers should not be on the same levels in what they're able to do.
Additionally, just like there are people who play in Masters and Predator ranks in Apex with low tier characters, there are people who play DBD who can pick up ANY killer and do well with them. Which means that the issue isn't actually the characters, it's the skill level of the majority of players and I think that's a harsh truth most people aren't ready to accept. The majority of DBD's player base (and this is directed at survivors AND killers) are just not as good at the game as they think they are. Plain and simple. Your inability to 4k with the Wraith doesn't make the Wraith bad because someone else using the same character against the same team COULD get it done. Therefore, the issue is the player, not the character.
MAYBE Myers needs a slight buff to get out of tier 1 faster but that's literally it. Every killer is fine as they are and should not be buffed or nerfed. (Except the Nemesis tier up sound. that thing is too loud and needs a heavy nerf)
Comments
Sorry but most all the players with a high amount of hours in this game will disagree with you. 90% of the killer roster is unviable against equally skilled top tier 4 man swf, which btw is common at top mmr.
Can you win against those groups with the unviable killers? Yes, survivors can have bad games where they mess up a lot. That's where unviable comes in, you rely on survivor mistakes. If they don't make lots of mistakes you lose even if you played perfectly.
I think you believe content creators do better than they actually do as well. Old win streaks before mmr don't matter because most matches were against potatoes. Current win streak thrown in when mmr was "turned off" per say, also doesn't count. Most those matches were again, potatoes. You'll notice the matches they win with non viable killers are when the survivors make a ton of mistakes. Also, win streaks where they just facecamp/tunnel someone out as fast as possible and run NOED isn't something I would call "winning". That's zero skill and lots of desperation. Should we also mention win streaks being done at off peak hours where all the swf groups are off? What about content creators you're sourcing actually agreeing themselves that most the roster is unviable?
Unviable = you lose even when playing perfectly against equally skilled top tier survivors. The deciding factor is whether or not they make a ton of mistakes or not, something that happens much less the higher mmr you go, which also increases the amount of swf.
It may take you more hours in the game to find this but 90% of the killer roster is unviable by those terms, it is not a myth.
If you wanna talk about "average" matches, not at high mmr then sure everything is viable there because players at that level have no idea what they're doing. However that level isn't where you determine objective "balance", it's at the high end. When we talk about unviable killers it's at top mmr levels.
You must not watch there streams. The very people you site as evidence will tell you that the killers are unbalanced.
Otz will often state that it’s hard to believe that blight and clown are in the same game.
as to your point of player skill; yes I do agree.
But
when you face Coordinated teams and High MMR; What clown is capable of is vastly different compared to Blight and Nurse
Sarcasms aside, let's point out how many times Otz & consorts get destroyed by teams with a bit of experience. Let's not forget the BotB either.
edit: I've read the rest of the thread. I'd put my money on troll or bait. Let's let this one drop out of view.
They will never be equally viable. That's not even a debate. The point is that even some of the worse killers aren't just a free win for survivors. Many killer players don't take the time to learn certain kits or strategize correctly with it, then lose and call the killer bad. It leads to pointless balance discussions where someone wants busted buffs or to break the limitations that make killers balanced. Like op said "Myers shouldn't have the map pressure of Spirit". If every killer is good at everything there's no reason to play any particular killer. None of this is against killer buffs, more just trying to explain that not every killer needs to be the absolute best at certain things. Weaker killers are okay. If everything was as strong as Nurse, Blight, Spirit, Artist, then it would be stale.
Yeah I agree. I can't take this game very seriously for exact same reason.
This is a wordy way of saying that tires don exits.
I would bet my organs the best trapper in the world would undoubtely get absolutely dunked on by a decent swf with good perks unless they are throwing on purpose.
Hot Take: Killers, with the exception of 2 or 3, REQUIRE Survivors to mess up. Which means they are very much not viable.
Survivors play flawlessly & Killers play flawlessly: Survivors win.
Survivors play flawlessly & Killers mess up: Survivors win.
Survivors mess up & Killers play flawlessly: Killers win.
Survivors mess up & Killers mess up: More than likely; Survivors win. Depends on how bad the screwups are.
To win as Killer: Survivors have to mess up. It don't matter how good you play.
To win as Survivor: You just have to play well.
The game is dictated by Survivors, and this means the only Killers who are viable are the ones who can take that power back in some way, shape, or form. Nurse, for example, can negate powerful loops and flawless looping, thereby reducing the amount of mistakes Survivors have to make to give the Killer a chance.
Against a coordinated team, Trapper is Machete man.
Against a coordinated team, Meyers has no stealth and is denied stalk - if he even makes it to end game.
Legion injures people (oh no!) but at high levels of play, nobody cares.
Wraith is a 1v1 ambush killer that can be completely countered with coordination and comms.
Doctor's debuffs are laughed at by higher tier plays and is countered by boring, safe gameplay.
Freddy is basically useless in safe loops and has nothing but his TP - which can backfire at times.
Clown is a clown.
Pig traps are unreliable and her ambush is basically a gamble.
Ghostface Night Shroud pops faster than a balloon in a war zone now.
Deathslinger ADS ground pound nerf basically removed him from the entire game.
Ornyo exists.
Plenty of sub-par killers, especially when you compare them to the raw abilities of the more competent ones out there.
Why bring Meyers when Oni is basically the same "get to your elevated state" killer, but better?
Why bring Doctor to shut down loops when Nemesis is flat better at it?
Why bring Freddy as a high mobility killer when Blight is just as fast, more reliable, and more deadly in a chase?
Why bring Executioner for skill shots when survivors dodge and make a laughter of each tiny failure when you can bring Plague and render meta healing perks useless?
Why bring Trickster and take several seconds to damage a survivor when Huntress is more reliable and deadly?
At high MMR, why aren't you bringing Spirit, Hag, or Nurse? Do any other killers exist? Why should they?
Yeah, no other game's community demands that kind of skill from players just to play normally. It's crazy.
There are many unviable killers and it shows. You can beat a team with one of the stronger killers, and then switch to a different killer which you're equally as good at, and lose to that same team. What is Trapper or Ghost Face gonna do better than, let alone as good as, Nurse or Blight? Nothing. Their toolset is too weak, and it needs to be buffed until it's not. If they stay the same, they're just gonna stay unviable, because you can only get so good with those killers, and even with that top level of play with them, you're not gonna be able to beat certain teams no matter what you do. It's up to the survivors to make the mistakes and give you the kills.
By this logic, Tru3Talent and Dowsey going up against Oracle a competitive 4 Man SWF using their M A I N S (Tru3 as Wraith and Dowsey as Twins) getting rekt and struggling to get HOOKs means Wraith and Twins isn't viable.
If your Killer Skill level Matters this means Survivor Skill level should Matter too no?
Especially since MMR exist now, you want as small of a gap as possible.
Anf here is where you logic cookie crumbles.
Lol has a, i would say, 90% working matchmaking. Meanwhile dbds SBMMR softens/loses all its filters when queue time get too long.
When i play with my legitimate iron/bronze friends in league i can steamroll the enemy team most of the time. When i play with my diamond/master friend i get rekt by diamond/high platin enemies.
DBD: I have 300 hours and intentionally lost for the last 2 years and I still saw swf every evening and survivor with several thousands of hours. Same thr other way around according to hearsay on this forum with 5k hour killers stomping 100 or less hour survivors. Or even high matchmaking differences in the survivor lobby between thousands and dozens of playtime hours.
Listed viability of killer wouldn't be a problem IF this game had a working matchmaking system since then every killer would get matched into lobbies with a 50/50 chance of truly winning or losing. But DBD doesn't have that. Either it's a 4k or a 0k and the devs see the statictical 2k average and are happy.
By my count 11 out of 27 killers are viable. Unless your definition of viable means on pare with 10,000 hour 4 man swf death squad. The only Nurse or Blight can win arguments have been so over done.
Didn't read but title is correct.
It reads like one of those 'The Earth Is Flat: Prove Me Wrong' dudes on Twitter. Basically - someone wants to argue and wants to see other people argue, so she's going to bait the hook.
There isn't really an argument here. There's an assertion and that's it.
Here I'd disagree. I know that I played very differently at 40 hours than I did at 200 hours, and I play differently at 700 hours now.
Both sides require skill. It's not the same set of skills as, say, competitive SC2 or competitive LoL, but knowing tiles, mindgaming, flicks, techs, gamesense etc...I'd reckon those all constitute skill.
Like I've stated earlier in the thread, DbD isn't a game based around skill, but around game knowledge. After a certain point, you stop playing better, but you never stop playing smarter
I'd say that 'game knowledge' is a component of 'skill'.
I wouldn't. You could be a God at using Blight and all his tricks but without game knowledge, you wouldn't know how to use them properly
you are saying all killers are viable because someone who got hours makes a living playing the game can oook
you also don't main killer I'm sure don't play killer at all so really you don't know what your talking about
Yep. That's why I said 'a component of'. You can't really be called 'skilled' at a game unless you have both good game knowledge and solid mechanics. And DbD has a lot of mechanical skill at the higher level (flicks in particular).
I'm not one of those players who thinks a character is inherently bad. But when you have a coordinated team against someone like Trapper, than can kill his whole kit. There's not much play around that.
It's not a matter of we want them to be equal in terms of map pressure and such, but there's a reason why you see the same killers further up the chain. I'd say that's an issue.
I think what a majority of killers at all skill levels want is roster equality. Currently the the balancing factor for success against a decent team is;
Personal skill + the killer + loadout + tactics
Game would be in a much better place if Personal skill was the only variable. A variety of killers regardless of your mmr sounds so much better.
if you are convinced of this then you should try to do a game on the game (no pun intended) with demogorgon or any other normal m1 killer... you'll change quickly your idea, trust me
The Game isn't that bad of a map for Demogorgon
Its convenient to ignore the fact that the skill cap for killers is wildly varied but the skill cap for survivors is pretty static.
There is a fairly static style of gameplay to DBD, saying a killer isn't viable isn't the same as saying unplayable.
There are definitely killers in the roster who are worse at shutting down loops and applying wide spread map pressure. This doesn't make them unplayable but definitely makes them less viable in a flat meta where survivors can apply pressure across multiple gens consistently every game and know how to loop.
Yeah if you are good enough then you can do it but its a lot harder with some than others.
An equivalent would be barring some strong perks from some survivors and not others. There would be a mass migration of people who only play the strong perk survivors because hey its easier.
You have a point its about skill but the skill cap for killer is much more varied and as a result you see the same killers again and again in high level play.
Some poeple are not reading this because their hidden MMR is so high that there's no chance they are getting a Sadako, Pig, Myers, Clown, or any M1 killer in their match because they aren't viable.
Your mistake is that you're not considering skill floors and ceiling.
A Sadako player can only be as good as it's possible playing with Sadako. A Nurse player can only be as good as it's possible playing with Nurse. There's a lot more room for improvement for Nurse, Blight, Artist and Huntress than Pig, Myers, Clown or Sadako, for example. Their skill floors and skill ceiling is different, and then the player's capability is limited by that. Playing pig perfectly may be equivalent as playing an average Blight match, for the same player. When people say some killers are not viable, they mean that these killers aren't able to reach a standard of power that other killer would have to. Doesn't matter how much improvement you do, your killer will always be below in terms of capability than the other. Knowing that and remembering that previous DbD tournaments show that survivor's will absolutely dominate, why play a killer that's limited for their power and be behind others that allow you to be rewarded for your training? That doesn't make sense. Conclusing again: they are not viable.
"there are people who play DBD who can pick up ANY killer and do well with them."
Pure lies, watch some tourney and see how "different" killers are.
Game is objectively unbalanced and needs to be fixed, end of discussion.
Oh but yeah, if there is unbelievably huge skill gaps, you can win, simply because enemy sucks order of magnitude worse than you.
Based
lmao if you think so... personally i COMPLETELY disagree with you. that map is a nightmare for every m1 killer in the game
And here Hillbilly wants to talk to you about maps that chain windows or that only contains short loops but with a tree or a barrel to make the curve impossible.
Here the problem isn't skill, it's either maps that aren't well made, or the Hillbilly that is unviable because he can turn as much as he wants in a too short time window.
This is a kind of problem every killer has, but different for each of them, so you can't change maps or mechanism because that won't solve the problem for every killer, so... You buff killers.
reply to tippy2k2
Well this blew up in one day. I knew it'd make some of yall mad but dang, yall still arguing about this. I'm not taking the time to respond to 80 comments (most of which are just repeated the same talking points over and over anyway) so I'll sum it up here.
Being able to get a 2K is not a measure of viability. Since with camping you can basically guarantee a 2K.
Viability is a killer being capable of getting the 4K. If a killer is unable to get a 4K at their best performance, there's no real reason to play them. And if I want to camp survivors for a free 2K, I'll just play Leatherface, because he's by far the easiest killer to do that with.
A facecamping 2k does not show viability. Being able to fully kill half the team using all 6 of their combined hooks does though.
But considering how you think you have to get a 4k to be considered viable, I won't even bother arguing with you on that because that's the exact issue I have with a lot of people's attitudes towards this game. 4ks should be a rarity. 4 escapes should be a rarity. Expecting a 4k to be normal for a killer leads to an extreme inbalance
You said Skills Level matters. So at the top of top 1%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uf8BExJWWc&ab_channel=DOWSEY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6p4OtdwOy0&ab_channel=TrU3Ta1ent(The Best Killers vs Best Survivors) Dowsey and Tru3 struggling to get hooks versus Oracle (4 Man competitive Team) on their strongest Killers means those Killers aren't viable.
If a killer gets a 2k they got clapped, not only did they failed miserably to defend their gens but also stop half the team from leaving through the doors, survivors completely dunked on them that match.
I read your entire post, but honestly, the disagreement just stems for your definition of viable. The fact of the matter is the competitive scene literally proves certain killers are not viable. You can pretend the majority of killer players are trash all you want, but I am not sure how that changes reality or how you even vaguely expect you would change anyone's mind. The "have you considered you just suck" is not going to make someone who wrecks average survivors with whatever killer you think is the worst magically believe they can 4k survivors who make Nurse look like a chump.
The equivalent is just as silly, telling survivors they can solo queue into optimal killers with a garbage team and still win. Not likely, maybe you are the second coming of Christ when it comes to looping, but, as you pointed it out, this game is asymmetrical. The 1v1 is rigged against survivor. And the 4v1 is rigged against killer. Assuming equal skill, which is how you are supposed to discuss viability, by the way.
If you think Demogorgon is an M1 Killer, no wonder you think The Game is a bad Map for him
Your definition of "viable" is barely getting a draw, so of course people were going to disagree with you. Getting a draw is neither a win for the Survivors, nor for the Killer.
Viable means having a chance to 3k-4k, which most Killers can't against good Survivors
cause his shred can hit throught pallets or walls, can hit you from afar without being fully predictable, isn't it? please... despite i like demogorgon generally speaking he's awfully weak. i don't know about your matchmaking, but mine is full of swf guys who actually know how to loop, and aganist those guys only FEW killers can work... demogorgon is definitely out of that list
Tell me you don't know how to play Demogorgon without telling me
cause you saw every match that i did with it, right? Bold of you to assume that i don't know how to play it... i've all the killers at p3, i think that i'm more than capable to judge each killer properly... the only killer that i still found irritating are spirit (but only because i don't have headphones) and nurse (mainly cause i don't like her concept, without mentioning the bug still present that afflict her like the teleport in the basement despite you are blinking elsewhere). demogorgon isn't viable aganist a group of decent survivors, period. you can keep lying to yourself since it's your main probably, but this won't change the facts.
Have I ever said he's viable? No. But you thinking "he's awfully weak" just tells me you don't know how to play him.
Having every Killer P3 doesn't mean anything
prestige itself doesn't mean much sometimes, i'll give you that, but unlike the others i did those prestiges using every killer (meaning that i did my fair amount of matches/eperience with everyone, using their bp offerings, addons, etc etc...). Also you just contradicted yourself by saying that he's not viable. there's a HUGE difference when you play aganist the average/casual guy (in that case i can even win without troubles with a bad killer like legion) and when you play aganist sweaty people who will stack evey 2nd chance in this game and know the basis of looping, and since i got only the 2nd ones...
To be honest, I read the first page of responses but not the rest. There is so much going on here, but I will say I think many people tend to group up "player skill" with "killer's power".
Obviously, someone like Otz or any content creator who plays this game for a living CAN (keyword CAN, not WILL), make lower tier kills looks extremely strong and oppressive. But let's disregard that and look at things objectively (and for the sake of argument, I am assuming the killers are not using add-ons).
The killer's powers are often separated into:
Chase potential & map pressure.
A killer's ability to end chases quickly and/or have map pressure determines their strength among the roster. In a 'healthy' state of balance, killers who have strong chase potential (think Clown, Deathslinger, etc.) do not have mobility to pressure the far corners of the map, and vice versa. Killers with map pressure but weak chase potential are things like Wraith, Freddy, Onryo, etc.
Not all of those killers are 'strong', but their powers make sense because they have clear weaknesses to exploit.
Whereas let's look at our friend Blight. Who can, with the right skill level, end chases extremely quickly, and also dash to anywhere he wants on the map extremely fast. Obviously, Blight would be more viable in higher tiers of play because he has both of these qualities. A lot of the time, when you escape against a Blight, it's because they misplayed on some part. Whereas Myers is at the hands of the survivors. If he gets a 4k, it's because the survivors made mistakes.
Taking all that into account, it should be easy to have an unbiased view on which killers are strong or not (think of how good they potentially are if the killer player plays perfect). I do think the word 'viable' isn't quite right to use, because 99% of DBD games are casual, and not the 1% of tournament games where it matters. But in MMR, you would more than not go against optimal survivors who can easily exploit the weaker killer's weaknesses, so yeah, the stronger killers seemed more viable than others because sometimes they were the only chance of getting a few kills.
You have to be a true fool to believe anybody can reach this "level" you speak of. Whatever helps you sleep at night bud. xD
No.. because then that professional player goes up against professional survivors and loses with 1 hook. Majority of the roster is dead when equally skilled players verse each other.
Just because a streamer plays trapper and does well against questionable survivors while just sitting in the basement, doesn't mean trapper is viable.