Is Iridescent Seal + Devotee's Amulet + Deadlock too strong?
The combination of the 2 add-ons means that, other than your 1 default corrupted pool, you get 60 seconds of power after each gen gets completed.
With Deadlock, you pretty much cannot waste the value, especially with Corrupt to always guarantee the third gen not to get completed too soon.
Now the question is: why shouldn't anyone just use these 2 add-ons and perks over everything else? It makes Plague massively better than Default, when with no add-ons you could have your corrupted pool in a very bad spot in a map corner.
I think that these add-ons combination should get an overall review, and Iridescent Seal a rework or nerf, maybe making it so that you cannot add duration add-ons, like more hatchets to Iridescent head. Also currently you have no way to predict Plague will have it, you'll just get punished for doing your objective. Imagine Myers going Tier 3 for 60 seconds every time a gen gets gone. Pretty bullshit right?
The only reason I don't feel frustrated by these add-ons together is because nobody is really using it, and also nobody plays Plague (sadge), but if everyone started using these and constantly doing a hostage gen situation with those + Corrupt Deadlock Thana Blood Echo it would become very very annoying.
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But like you said no one is doing that right now and plague herself isn't that often played so why change something that is only in theroy a big problem.
Funny enough maybe this post will bring more people on that idea and you start seeing it more often
Dead lock only blocks the gen so survivors can just go back to it later to finish it.
If survivors find out iridescent seal is in play then they shouldn't stay injured. But should be smart about where to cleanse.
Iridescent seal is strong but black instanse is better.
Myers wouldn't need a t3 with every gen completed because why use that over infinite t3
It's like Myers t3 with horrible latency and you can stun him out of it.
........ So nothing at all like Myers t3.
You're not getting full value out of your proposed combo if two gens pop while you're looking for someone with your corrupt puke. It's not 100% value, just a cute oddity.
way to describe the add-ons and perks that I use on plague these days.
plague's corrupt puke has slow wind-up with heavy movement reduction and slow projectile speed. you can hug corners around tall-wall loops and she will not be able to hit you. Pallets stun you out of her power. corrupt puke is not that strong of an anti-loop tool. Its just better than no ability to play loops at all.
She is very strong out in the open(dead zones) because of flamethrower nature of her corrupt puke, but being broken is similar those situations.
I use the perks and add-ons because her lower tier green add-ons and some purple add-ons received negative changes in her last update. I rather use other add-ons if they were restored to their default state. She has nothing better to use currently than these.
Because it was the same with keys, where that time they had it it was a free 3 man out with big fat gg ez
She has hematite + limestone steal which combined make the infection on gens last FOREVER, 90 seconds in total, 110 if you use the meme add-on, so you can pretty much, especially with corrupt, force everyone to get infected.
Also other strong add-ons, like both apples
I did not have "People wanting Plague nerfs" on my 2022 bingo
The problem with Deadlock is that it makes you pretty much never waste value from iridescent seal, so even if you finish it later another gen is gonna get blocked later.
It doesn't need a nerf, it needs a rework.
Your post explicitly says it needs a nerf, then explains how you'd like to nerf it.
More than a nerf, a bigger downside to having it (or a rework), because right now only 20 seconds less of power for 5 more 40 seconds corrupt puke (not even counting possible other pools) during the entire match is just nutty
strong survivors are not afraid to play infected the entire match. Its just playing No Mither with zero drawback dead hard. Instant downs are not really that powerful in DBD when it comes to the chase because safe pallets in the game are so potent that that they're better than health states for survivor.
Look at this way, you never face consequences of having -1 health state if you don't get hit. You don't even need to endure the problems of healing with survivor allowing you to complete generators quicker. Plague's ability inherently removes one of two secondary objects for survivor which is healing(The other is totems).
The instant downs are more problematic for hook camping because hooks are in deadzones. This is why survivor tend to cleanse when going for unhooks against plague. For this reason, Infection object add-ons are just meme add-ons.
For a power that instantly grants old instant heals for free via fountain healing, there has to be major upside to her ability to compensate the major downsides of free 4 second instant heals.
From my personal extensive testing, I would say that second-class add-ons that I would use as plague(and I use these as back-ups) are Emetic Potion[Yellow-add on]+Infected Emetic[Green add-on]. Together gives her a 70% vile purge infection, a slightly weaker version of her old purple add-on, Vile Emetic that once granted 100% vile purge infection. They make green puke viable because you can very quickly break a survivor from 100-0 ->m1.
I'd say the apples are just worse version of iri-seal. they're not really worth using. I would also say that they make you worse at plague because it means you have trouble adapting in using both of her abilities to your advantage in tandem. I would say same for survivor. I think it is important skill to be able adapt to both corrupt puke plague and m1 instant down plague. From my personal opinion, Its easier to loop an m1 instant down than it is to loop a ranged flamethrower killer. Of course, there are some inevitable situations where you will need the skills to to play against her corrupt puke form so It is important to be good at playing against both versions of the killer.
I'd say plague is a bit of underrated killer but she's not exactly powerful when the survivor are good so her status probably favors underwhelming, more so than effective.
The drawback of staying injured all match is that I'll use blood echo and thana, so no DH or whatever.
As you said, if everybody is injured, they'll have to cleanse. But at least 2 people are gonna have to cleanse, otherwise what I'm gonna do is straight up bodyblock the hook if just 1 person healthy comes, and maybe even infect that survivor fully and down them, so not even the chance to do a trade so I force second stage. That guarantees at least 2 corrupted pools.
Then I'll get everyone infected again, and later have 2/3 pools, if not more. Then it's gonna be a problem for them, because they're gonna have to cleanse much closer.
That's why hematite + limestone seal has been banned from Dbd League (unreasonably imo), because taking all gens hostage for 90 seconds is huge. You can outlast 40 seconds, but not 90, so you either don't do gens or get infected. Also I might even have Black Incense, and then you're screwed unless you have distortion, because I'm gonna see perfectly when to leave a hook and when to camp if you don't cleanse.
Effectiveness add-ons are not better than duration combined or even just yellow duration, because what you want to do with Plague is puke on a survivor, then unless you already infected all gens immediately leave and infect as many people as fast as possible , if they work on gens they'll get infected much faster already with the buff.
yeah that's why when people say you should never cleanse vs plague, that is not correct attitude. the correct attitude is that you should limit cleansing to limit amount of times that you need face corrupt puke.
The strategy behind plague end up being the strategy that some people propose to do against Oni which is that you use strongest pallets on the map to starve plague from getting early downs because if plague cannot get an early down, she cannot get hook therefore she cannot play hook-defense game with infection. So a perk like Blood echo which requires hooks becomes ineffective because no hooks = no exhaust and a perk like dead hard becomes very difficult to play-around with safe pallets when your ranged attack is absent.
typically survivors want to over-cleanse at around 1 generator so that they don't need to loop corrupt puke plague all game. Iri seal somewhat forces the survivor to adopt an early over-cleansing strategy from start. Like I said in my previous post, her slow-wind up, slow projectile speed and reduction in movement during wind-up gives survivors near full control to outplay corrupt puke by hugging corners tightly around tall-wall type loops like jungle gym walls.
The add-ons that used to give plague a bit of counter-play towards survivor's efficient looping of corrupt puke were weakened. Those being Rubbing Oil, Worship tablet and new add-on Vile Emetic. The faster wind-up on Rubbing Oil was halved, so now if you want get a similar effect to old rubbing Oil, you need use Vile Emetic which provides 10% projectile speed increase which is suppose to "help" you hit survivors before they turn the corner with corrupt puke and mitigate the whole 50% nerf. The main problem with running these add-ons is that they burn both of your add-on slots for what was once just a single add-on slot for similar effect. The other add-on slot for what people used to make people cleanse was black incense. The idea was that if you don't cleanse, plague gets a lot of aura reading, but if you do cleanse, The rubbing Oil+Corrupt puke would give plague a very potent chase tool. Black incense+Oil is still somewhat usable but it just feels a lot worse to use post-change.
I understand the strategy you are describing which revolves around spending time to individual spread sickness, however if you use double infection add-ons, survivors that are completely broken that are put on the hook will spread infection to the rescuer. You will Spread infection more naturally and be more time-efficient overall. The survivors will also be very shocked to find themselves nearly instantly broken into an m1 down should they ever come within your effect m1 range. It ends up making cleansing a lot less rewarding given that you can remove their health-state very rapidly. I find it that I get more value out of using plague's power to down survivor out of position rather than using her ability as chase-tool enhancer. Both iri seal and this build highly excel at doing this in different ways.
Just my subjective opinion, the old plague with add-ons felt like much stronger chase killer but she felt very clunky to play. The new plague feels weaker in the chase[weaker overall] but she feels more smooth to play. Overall, I enjoy playing her more but don't really appreciate her weaknesses being more pronounced.
Because Seal is both redundant and demonstrative - especially with the regressive use of Devotee's amulet.
Sure, you get your Corrupt more often (Yay!) But it's a lot shorter. (Boo!)
You can use Devotee's Amulet to bring it back to normal (Yay!) But you just wasted an item slot and a rare item just to make your first choice viable (Boo!)
Seal gives you your power on generator completion (Yay!) But because generators can be completed in sequence, there's great overlap, which means there's bound to be massive inefficiencies (Boo!)
You get one of the most powerful abilities in the game up to 5 additional times (Yay!) But survivors will see that you wont be drinking from fountains anytime soon and take the time to cleanse. You're using your power against healthy targets, not infected and injured ones. (BOO!)
You used 2 items to increase the frequency of your power (Yay!) You could have used the same rarity in items to go Black Incense and Vile Emetic to make yourself far more deadly in the long run (Boo!)
Deadlock can prevent 3 gens from popping before 1st chase is done (Yay!) 2 are likely to still pop, and all you've done is force whoever was repairing gen 3 to start working on another generator first. Unless you brought Pop or Ruin, you've accomplished very little. (Boo!)
There's a reason you don't see this very much as Plague, because it isn't particularly any more effective than other builds.
I understand the attraction. "I get my power and they cannot even complete the next generator! Muahaha!"
Until you realize that Tinkerer is literally a superior option, as it places you right next to the first generator right before it pops, positioning you for one or more downs with your surprise power - which means you don't need the extra 20 seconds.
Wait, why are we talking about the first few generators anyway? It's the Plague! Bring Corrupt Intervention, Severed Toe, and Ashen Apple.
Now you won't have to worry about the first two gens being done at all, and survivors will become broken quickly for you to engage with a Pool Of Devotion at your discretion.
Not saying it's 100% hypothetically better, but IS+DA with Deadlock isn't exactly breaking new ground. Plague is a strong killer that's been around for years. The build as recommended is strong, but no stronger than what she already can do with other perks and addons.
From 100% to 50% is barely noticeable, if you need just a bit of charge before a corner it barely makes a difference, even with the default one compared, and rarely you ever need to fully charge the power.
The 10% speed add-on is very hard to judge, because other than messing up the muscle memory and the arc of projectiles, it increases the distance at which you can vomit in the open, and I don't know how much it is but sometimes it makes the difference..
With Corrupt and Deadlock it's very hard that even 2 gens pop back to back, and if it happens maybe you slug someone and start to go for a massive slug towards the infected people, maybe even with Hysteria or Tinkerer.
Whatever the strength, I think it's the killer's counter part of survivors having 4 busted toolboxes with 4 BNPs, or always 4 meta builds stacked always, so it's fair.
Don't know what MMR you're playing at, but last I checked - 3 gens pop in less than 80 seconds, and Deadlock only blocks 1.