Vecna's Mage Hand needs a bit of a nerf
I have been playing quite a bit of Vecna now and in general I think he is a fantasticly designed killer. I like all of his abilities and in many cases he is very fair as well.
However, Mage Hand is the one ability of Vecna that is a bit overtuned at the moment. The main problem with Mage Hand is that by simply waiting until the survivor drops the pallet, you can then activate Mage Hand immediately afterwards, and get a free hit in many situations.
Now, if the survivor has quite a bit of distance to Vecna, and reaches the pallet, things are less simple in that case. In those cases, survivors can engage in a mindgame whether Vecna will use his Mage Hand or not. However, these situations are quite infrequent, because the distance needed is quite a bit, often in a chase Vecna will be close enough to the survivor to be able to guarantee a free hit with Mage Hand.
Here is the big problem: In the ptb, Vecna was forced to predict whether the survivor would drop the pallet or not, in order to spend some of the slowdown during the pallet drop animation of the survivor. However, with the slowdown being lessened too much, Vecna doesn't have to predict whether the survivor will drop the pallet or not, he can simply react to the survivor dropping the pallet, and then use Mage Hand, still granting him a hit, because the slowdown he has to endure is so small. Or the survivor doesn't drop the pallet, and Vecna simply doesn't use Mage Hand. It's not a 50/50 anymore. So survivors have no counterplay in those situations, and these situations happen too frequently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65fPbz1f6lg&t=2sThis video of tru3 illustrates what I am talking about. Two examples are at 3:16 and 5:25.
The ideal solution would be to have Vecna be forced to predict whether the survivor will drop the pallet or not. This is achieved by increasing the slowdown enough so that Vecna wants to spend some of that slowdown during the pallet drop animation.
So with that said, Vecna needs these 3 changes:
- Decrease the movement speed during the Mage Hand post-casting cooldown from 3.68 m/s to 3.2 m/s
- Decrease the haste effect of the Boots of Speed Addon from 5% to 3%
- Decrease the haste effect of the interloper items from 7% to 5%
This way, survivors will actually be able to mindgame Mage Hand at pallets more frequently, and Vecna will have to mindgame at pallets as well, which would be ideal for a power. Of course, nerfing it back to how it was on ptb would be too much, so I think 3.2 m/s would be a good middle ground.
If Vecna received these changes, I think he would be an absolutely perfect killer, one of the best BHVR has ever created.
Comments
How so? What exactly can survivors do when Vecna has Mage Hand up?
In my opinion the nerf is definitely needed, and I am happy that BHVR listened to feedback so quickly.
And how exactly is the survivor supposed to stun Vecna if he just blocks the pallet once he has catched up to the survivor enough?
That's the greed part. On most short loops you will manage to run around and just drop the pallet after it, even more so if you have boots against it.
Feel free to show me clips, how you get value out of holding pallets on anything but god pallets, which are usually long enough for you to catch up.
I will be more than happy to learn how to use it properly.
But on clip you showed me, Kate had option to just running. If she didn't stop to drop pallet she would reach the window, or loop that rock. That was simply missplay and nothing else.
I have gotten more than enough hits by just blocking pallets at loops if I was close enough to the survivor when they reached the pallet. The movement speed penalty of Mage Hand isn't enough for survivors to make it around the loop another time. Only if the survivor has the interloper item, that's when the survivor can maybe reach the pallet again. It's even worse with the Boots of Speed Addon, which 100% also still needs to be nerfed.
I don't have any clips at the moment, but if I see some, and remember, I'll post them.
Kate could have reached the window, that's true, but in most cases you don't have that kind of setup. She would have had to keep looping the pallet loop and then Vecna would have just been able to block the pallet and that's it.
Here is a good video that shows how the blocking of pallets is very strong even at normal loops. Go to 3:46 to see what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucm7VEvxseISo basically block on god pallet, or hope survivor will drop the pallet in front of me.
Nea screwed it, shouldn't wait there.
Lifting when he wants to vault is interesting one, I will test this one and let you know how it went, but I don't think it's going to work if survivor is standing on pallet. You simply won't reach it and survivor just drop it again.
What no the pallet at 3:46 isn't a god pallet? It's a normal pallet loop.
Now regarding the pick up while the survivor is vaulting, that I do not know about either. I can see that not working however, as you mentioned.
Since when can you mind game that pallet as M1 killer?
You have to destroy it, if you to want hit.
That loop is definitely long enough for you to catch up even when you are not on top of survivor and there is no window close enough.
So did lot of testing with my friend:
Mage hand
If survivor is ready on pallet, they can drop it quite fast when they get on other side, so you have to be very close to them (that might actually improved when lifting up pallet is slower)
Also if they start vaulting animation, then pallet will be lifted after it and they can drop it immediately (not sure if that's not a bug). I am not able to attack (after casting a spell) faster then they can drop the pallet.
Flight of the damned:
There is no way you can do it on reaction, so you definetly need to do it in advance.
I have tried to spawn them as soon I saw item disappear (survivor is going to vault) and on fast vault they can easily crouch.
Basically the range, where I was able to do it on reaction, I am able to just lunge attack instead…
Btw skeletons are not able to hit survivors working on gens and healing… Sorry, but that just shouldn't work. I would definetly want to be able surprise survivors with it. What is even the point of that range addon otherwise?
What survivor can do is when they see you prepare skeletons, they can crouch and then vault. They are even able to medium vault, if I am too close to them (because they can start vaulting faster) and I am able to only watch…
So it is not that good even for this.
For skeletons, I would reduce delay before you can attack. It doesn't make sense for it to be so limited, when there are 2 counter plays.
Fly:
Completely useless for windows and pallets, because survivor is able to vault back and I am not able to attack.
Rather weak, lol. Sorry, but anyone with enough gamesense said that mage hand is a lose-lose-scenario and could become a real issue. everybody said that it cant be buffed at all, but nothing new that devs ignore significant feedback.
How the hell this worked? (20:32) I don't think Vecna was able to attack him in time, I had this happened few times during the testing (survivor dropped the pallet faster, than I could attack), but I didn't find why.
the current way to use flight of the damned in my opinion is to spawn skeletons on top of the survivor. It is legit only good way to use the ability because the skeleton injure immediately as soon as they spawn. You use the ability like Pinhead's gateway where you spawn it right on top of the survivor and they instant take damage. It is little bit like a better Pyramid head Punishment of the damned because you can use this when the survivor is in perfect animation lock such as vaulting a pallet or window. You just need correct spacing to use the ability.
I didn't want to say much about this ability but Hens put a video out so i might as well just say it now.
The thing about fly is that if a loop is long and survivor already commited far enough away from the pallet where loop is long enough, it can be used as chase tool. the counter-play of course is just camping the window/pallet and sliding over but something this isn't possible.
Yeah, I am watching it now. We have tested it and it's not really true it's impossible to dodge (some survivors did it in his video), simply because you have animation, so if survivor is looking at you, they can so you casting it. Right just most survivors, don't know it is possible.
I catched my friend on this first time on loop, but later on it was basically 50/50, if I use it or not, issue is next to standing pallet, if survivor crouch, then you won't get the hit (you can't attack after casting).
I still get annoyed it's just impossible to use properly at distance, why is there extra distance addon? Let me at least hit survivors on gen and healing, then I am happy with it… I would love to try to go for some long range snipes.
No they didn't. I am sorry but are you for real or are you just trolling me? It was never a lose-lose situation on the ptb, and won't be anymore either once they implement the nerf that is planned. And there were so many people saying that it was too weak on the ptb.
Ohtofu thinks that this change is a buff to Mage Hand lmao. You just explained why, but in general, the change will be a nerf. I would expect Mage Hand to be not that good when survivors slide over a pallet, and I think that's fine.
No you can't react to survivors dropping a pallet. You do have to predict that. That's what allows survivors to have some counterplay as well. If you could just react to survivors dropping the pallet and then hit them with FoTD, the ability would be too strong.
But the range you can use this is more than your lunge range, that's for sure.
They also aren't able to medium vault without getting hit by a basic attack. I have often forced survivors to crouch before a vault and then get a hit against them because they had to medium vault.
And regarding fly, if you manually cancel the fly before a window, but in a way that you still vault the window or pallet, you are able to block the window or vault. You just need to time the cancel perfectly.
Personally I do not think his abilities need any buffs. I think Mage Hand getting the small nerf is fine, and then he'll be in a perfect spot. Except for Boots of Speed, those need a nerf as well.
i think you can only use ranged capacity of this skill with iri add-on and green horn. if paired with undetectable perks, it can be used as sniping tool on generators. Fly+undetectable can be used as ambush tool and it counters that item that survivors see the aura when using fly.
well if it is used across walls, you won't react to the animation. Think about jungle gyms where you know proximity location of the survivor that they're near pallet. all they see is a skeleton instantly hit them. that is kinda how I have been playing him. a great example in hens video is Yui's play on 13:26 in the video where she sees him cast it but is unable to react to it.
FoTD, just looking at the numbers
Doing the Math it just doesnt work out.
During FoTD Cast, you slow down to 4.0m/s (losing 0.6 meters assuming you take 1 second to aim and cast)
In the Post Cast Period you are slowed to 3.68m/s for 2 seconds (losing 2*0.92 = 1.84 meters)
So compared to just walking Vecna loses 2.44 meters
A Survivor moves at 4.0 m/s running and 1.13 m/s crouching
If a survivor crouches for a full second they lose 2.87 meters
So the additional range Vecna Gains on a survivor from this interaction is 0.43m, but only if you truly crouch for a full second.
I'd estimate that you do not need to crouch for a full second to dodge, so depending on a survivors reaction time and ping Vecna may even lose distance.
If a survivor only crouches for half a second, they only lose 1.435 meters, and gain more than a meter in distance.
If they crouch for half a second but full stop and then go back to running from that, they lose 2 meters and gain like half a meter of ground.
All of course compared to the default speed of Vecna and survivor.
If a survivor is playing against Vecna, and stops moving next to pallette without crouching, that isnt really vecnas fault is it?