Why is Blight so hated?
(EDIT: This is not an Us vs Them post or rant just my personal opinions based on information I see with both the community and in-game, my comment regarding survivor skill is not a personal attack to survivors it was just the simplest way to say that it is simple)
Its always seemed very weird to me how blight is consistently regarded as one of the most hated killers by survivors. Blight is by far the hardest 'feature' to learn in the game due to how overly complex he is at base not even mentioning his map dependent interactions. As a result, it should be quite obvious that a good blight player has clearly devoted a large amount of time to learn and become good at the character, so why is it such a big problem that they are rewarded with one of the strongest killers in the game?
I personally suck at blight (PS5 things XD ) but do not have any hatred towards anyone who stomps me with him when I play survivor, instead I am quite amazed and respect the fact that they actually invested the time and had the patience to learn the hardest killer. I think it is perfectly fine that a character that is difficult to play and master is extremely strong, as why would someone want to dedicate all that effort to a killer relative in strength to a legion for example, that is very easy and quick to get good at. (Granted I do think his basekit is fine but his add-ons were 100% overtuned in the past and NEEDED nerfs, but there are still a lot of players that complain(ed) about base blight)
I also think it is quite odd that players complain about blight yet they mainly play survivor which is some of the easiest gameplay in a mainstream game, seriously the hardest thing is to learn how to loop which is a universal skill relevant to all killers, where as learning blight is not a universal skill. I think its fair to complain and voice your opinion when something is disproportionate in terms of input required and in-game results but that just seems so outrageous when it comes to a character like blight. Like if someone dedicated that much time to be able to stomp players on a regular basis, they've earned it and instead of being upset that you lost, it would be more productive to just get better and dedicate the same amount of time that those players did to become good at blight and then maybe you could go toe-to-toe with that same player.
Comments
I by no means meant that blight is not strong, he is arguably the 2nd best killer in the game (maybe 3rd cos of Billy), my main point (and rereading my post it was definitely not well developed by me) was that balancing and complaining about a killer's strenght solely based on how counterable they are at 'low' skill levels is just not logical or reasonable imo. Since if he is easy to counter but requires a lot of input from the player then it is just not rewarding to play him and dedicate time.
The main issue I fear is not due to the killer design itself but due to DBD matchmaking and how poorly it judges a player's individual skill, this leads to (as you mentioned) blights being able to easily deal with lower skill survivors who find themselves in higher MMR brackets than they should. If this mathcmaking system was improved, then that aspect of both blight and nurse would be severely minimized (noob stomping), this would also mean that 'better' survivors would match up against these 'skilled' blights and then it would be a more even playing field for both sides.
One can only hope BHVR improves their matchmaking system tho :(
I did NOT intend that comment regarding survivor skill as a dig or attack, it is simply my personal opinion, since imo I think dbd is quite an easy and simple game to pick up, learn and master. However, between both sides I do think that being a good survivor is infinitely easier than being a killer player of equal skill since there are less things to consider when playing as survivor (except in Solo Q, being a good solo player is equally if not a bit harder than being a good killer player due to the sheer amount of game sense you need).
I made that comment as to be even a decent survivor individually you do not need much game sense or even be able to optimally loop. I'd disagree with the claim that there are a lot of add-ons that drastically change a killer power since it is mainly only Myers, Skull Merchant, Knight, and Vecna, all other killers do not receive a massive game-changing effect from their add-ons that it is worth learning each and every one, but I do appreciate that you are considering this aspect as part of a survivor's skill regarding game sense that is something I did overlook.
Regarding killer counterplay, imo I do think that most if not all (barring Skully and Nurse) have some sort of counter play that can help in prolonging chase and stalling for time, this is what I think a chase should do and I feel a lot of players easily dismiss this aspect when they get downed and feel that they should be entitled to being able to loop the killer for multiple gens. 'You ran a knight for 60 seconds but went down after he zoned you' , that is still a really good result that will contribute to your team escaping.
But to finally end it off, I do still think that playing dbd in general and more-so survivor is a VERY easy gameplay loop when comparing it to other games (but thats not a bad thing), as there is very little mechanical skill needed to be even decent at dbd, the main thing a player needs is game sense and that is very easily obtained if you indulge in a bit of dbd media outside of the game for both survivor and killer (YT vids).
Well I guess that is just speculation, considering he just lost a huge streak I would assume that the frustration came from that and was not necessarily because he could have avoided it if he was more awake…
It is fairly easy to say that that is the reason… Let us have a look at Knightlights 500 wins on Nurse without perks or addons, before and also while doing the streak he always said that the streak will end as soon as he faces a 4 men comp squad, wanna guess how many 4 men comp squads he got during those 500 games? 0, which is why the streak is still active. As far as I remember there was only like handfull of games where they even managed to finish all gens, and none where the gates got opened… I think that should be enough evidence, when a person can win 500 times in a row without facing opponents he should get matched with a single then clearly matchmaking is broken.
What you describe here is the macro game against Blight, but people didn't lose to these comp level Blights because of bad macro, they lose because they last like 20-30 seconds in chase each… If you get 4 really good solo survivors without comms they will do far better than the people that are usually unlucky enough to end up in games vs people doing win streaks. I fully agree that it helps and that soloq is at a disadvantage when it comes to the macro, but even if those ordinary people playing against the comp Blight had voice chat and callouts and all that stuff, they would still get demolished because the other guy plays on comp level and they don't. Also you can negate some of those things with good game sense, which is something good players tend to have. No, those things don't make people look like Serral, there is a massive difference there and it is not even comparable.
Well even though I don't think people will suddenly be that much better against a Blight that would currently wipe their floor I am all for evening the grounds between solo and swf.
Since his nerfs, he is a lot fairer. The only reason left to be annoyed about anymore is he is an insane skill check.
He is hard to dodge because of his flicks, and he recovers fast from a miss, so you can only predict when he will take an injection and try for an m1, not react. This gives him a lot power to zone you, and to prevent you leaving tiles, all the while he can walk you down for m1s while charging his power the whole time. Billy can ofc course hit you the same but Billy without his chainsaw is just sn m1 killer, so he doesn't have the same value off an m1 from Blight.
All of this means that he required exceptional knowlege of tiles to have even half a chance, this makes him very frustrating to fave... not aided by the fact he tends to be played by uber sweats.
I would say in general, Blight isn't hated. I would say sweatlords are what are truly 'root cause' hated. Blight is so strong, that he attracts sweatlords (just as Billy now is attracting sweatlords). If you really like a good steak, but 20 greasy goobers wipe it between their pits, you probably aren't going to want to eat it. Since too many experiences with Blight are the pit-sweat stained version, they start to think that is all Blights, and don't take the chance on eating that steak.
I would say Nurse is truly hated even though she similarly attracts sweatlords. Nurse just disables most of your ability to play the game, and you have to play an entirely different game to beat her. I share the opinion she should be on a different launcher/only in customs, she is that unenjoyable to face.
Yeah, I would agree that most of the reason that Blight is hated is because he attracts people obsessed with winning, and play Blight in the sweatiest way possible: the strongest perks and add-ons, hard tunneling right out of the gate every game, etc. Not all Blights, but most I encounter play like their lives depend on getting a 4K. There's a lot of intersectionality between sad, desperately sweaty players and S-Tier killers.
If there were a Venn diagram with people who play like their entire sense of self worth is tied to not losing at a video game and people who exclusively play S-tier killers, it'd be a near perfect circle. These are the same people that will exploit every major bug that comes along because they can't even conceive of not taking every legal advantage they possibly can, even if it makes the game painfully boring.
So yeah, more a player issue than a Blight issue. But that doesn't change that most Blight games suck.
Blight is really fast and as old MFT, Nurse, and other fast Killers with little cooldown prove - extra speed breaks Looping and makes it hard to even engage with. Not impossible, but really hard. I don't see Blights mindgame really. I prefer the looping dance I do with Killer, and the chase dance I do at loops with Survivors AS the Killer, which is why I play M1s mostly. It's just more fun.
Blights have a reputation, unfairly so IMHO, of being super duper sweaty. Not all Blights are this way at all. But a lot of Blights are very competitive because he can be super oppressive especially with Lethal Pursuer and slowdown perks.
Blight's addons used to be really, really broken. Like OP broken, to the point every Blight ran them every time and it was frustrating to play against. Some people harbor resentment of that still despite it being fixed, the way some people still hate Knight and Skurchent because they used to be able to hold 3gens super well.
I think I understand what you're saying, but we may still disagree. I find it disingenuous to label the majority of players as "low skill." Prioritizing the top 5% of players over the majority seems unfair. The majority of the player base shouldn't have to adapt to the standards of the top 5%, and nothing—be it a killer, perk, or item or whatever—should only be counterable by the highest-skilled players. Imo, blight and nurse have such strong base kits that they already exceed the average skill level of most players. When combined with certain perks, playstyles, maps,they can easily dominate, as evidenced by their kill streaks.
I've made a similar point before, but I'll use this example again: if one or two students struggle with an assignment while the rest of the class does fine, it's probably just a personal skill issue between the two. However, if 75% of the class struggles, the assignment is probably too difficult. In my opinion, the majority of the survivor player base is average in skill—not low, not high. Blight dominates both low-skill and average-skill players, which is why many people may dislike facing him.
If you believe that nearly 2,000 consecutive 4ks with blight only happened because of consistently failed matchmaking, it feels a little tin-foil-hat, respectfully.
In any case, thank you for taking the time to give your perspective. gliyn gamer :)
I think it's less so Blight himself that's the issue and more so the people who play him
The "Sweaty Quad Slowdown P100 TTV Winstreak farmer" stereotype exists for a reason
The point stays though, it should match people with equal skill and does not do that, therefore the streak continues, which is kind of fair... Like my whole point here is that it did not once match KNightlight with players of equal skill, probably because 4 men comp Squads don't really play pub matches... But that's an issue by itself... We cannot even know if Blight or Nurse are busted when mastered because we don't get to see a fair match with equally skilled opponents in public matches in an amount that would allow us to judge... And to be fair, no matter if nurse or Blight in that scenario, if you are not a comp squad in that scenario you won't win against a comp player... Which is once again fair, because how could you expect to do so otherwise? The game would be majorly unbalanced otherwise.
Sure I guess, you don't need to be a comp player to win the majority of matches, look at almost every streamer, they also win the majority of their matches, on almost every killer... The major issue is matchmaking. I play mainly Wraith these days and I would say I win almost all my matches (chase wraith, not the hit and run stuff...) and I also don't have 10k hours, but the majority of games I get just have rather new survivors... And before somebody tells me I am low mmr and that's why, how am I low mmr if I win almost all of my matches? I am pretty sure there are competent survivors around my level in the matchmaking pool, but I guess they get the far players, because at that level there are not enough to match... So to go back on the main topic... Matchmaking is the issue, you can play almost every killer and get to a really high streak if you are good enough, there players with 200+ streak on Nemesis, 100+ on Clown and so on... Those killers are by no definition overturned, by they still get huge streaks.
Billy stopped being respected and became hated once he stopped being garbage. Because frankly, people DO NOT like good killers. People often tend to refute this with: but people find wesker,blight, oni and billy to be fun. But that statement misses just one single word, let me show you how the phrase when it being actually honest looks like:
People find BAD weskers, BAD blights, BAD onis and BAD billis fun. The moment the wesker is flicking and hug teching, the moment the blight is actually good with rushes and bump logic, when the oni can flick and uses slugging to build pressure, and the moment billy uses overheat correctly at loops they become unfun.
I don't know about that, before Billy got nerfed in the first place people already loved him... But sure some people just don't like a challenge in chase...
From someone who has played since the game literally released, idk where this narrative was born. People despised billy, crack billy and instasaw was mostly what you saw and people hated it.
People had issues with him a lot, the fact content creators didn't expressed this does not mean it didn't exist, even then a lot of them commented on billys "unfairness".
Like only briefly before his nerf and after it I heard this "everyone loved billy" because most of the people In the community at the time voiced their discontent for the killer.
I mean instasaw yes, crack Bill was OK for the community I think, at least that's how I remember it...
I hate him for beeing an awful killer now. Hug tech is gone, he is hardcore nerfed and he cant play around any loop anymore. Love how bhvr slowly ruins the game.
Depends on the person, everyone hates some killer, here are I'd think the most popular reasons to hate him, from someone who mains him:
blight is ######### ######### and i hope he gets buffed soon. He is slow as #########, without his hugtech he is useless in most loops, his collision is awful and he is buggy as #########. Worst killer in the game
I'm sorry, but you can tell how the game is going. This is a skill to laster in dbd. Analyse your opponents.
Killers like Sadako teach that really well.
If the first gen takes a long time, people are not looping well and / or look generally confused and clueless, then you DON'T have to make the game as miserable for them as possible. Especially not as blight. I will die in this hill.
This is a game. Games are supposed to be fun and a little empathy goes a long way.
Edit: this post might be outdated, Im just bored and read through stuff right now. Haven't looked at the date, sorry.
He's broken on PC and/or with double speed add-ons, and mediocre otherwise. Most survivors hate a killer just because they're strong, but in this case I give them a little more leeway, until his problems^ get solved.
You necro'd this post twice for that? And no, Blight is still one of the strongest killers in this game. He doesn't need hug tech to be a strong killer, not at all. He can just be counterplayed at loops a bit more effectively now, which is a good thing. Blight doesn't need to be busted.