Onryo Rework Idea
Hey, I've been playing the game for a while and have a few ideas that I believe could veritably be added to the game. While I wouldn't necessarily place the Onryo as a killer in dire need of a rework; she's relatively strong, fits a certain niche, and has already been through so many reworks that I'm not entirely sure what she even does now currently- I've just had this concept weighing on my head for a long time (so long that it predates any of the reworks) and would like to share it! So from the top:
There's two aspects to the Onryo's power that are relatively separate from each other: her demanifestation and projection and I have ideas for both.
Condemned Change
The big problem with Onryo's projection is manageability and engageability. For her first iteration she had to be specific to a certain survivor, but to prevent tunneling and to keep her power from being absolutely overwhelming it was mitigated by an extremely long recharge time that meant survivors both had extreme agency to remove tapes and manage their condemn and made it such that fast tempo games wouldn't even need to worry about tapes once- if at all. The latter version was the opposite: map-wide condemn made it so prevalent and effortless to obtain that it not only redefined the game into tape simulator but diluted Onryo's gameplay into spamming your teleport on cooldown. The current iteration meets both mechanics in the middle and while more powerful than the former and less overwhelming than the latter, I think some more revision to her power could be beneficial- namely in reducing her free global effect while retaining her overall power.
Onryo no longer gains condemned just through teleporting. Instead TVs passively build 'Curse' which is translated 1:1 into condemned. For example, Dwight at 1 condemned, goes and works on a gen next to an active TV. Over the course of finishing a gen he builds three Curse. Curse itself is meaningless but the Onryo's projection reaps all current Cursed into Condemned. If the Onryo tps near Dwight, he now has 4 condemned. The twist though is that if Dwight were to go and do a TV circuit (grab a tape, drop off a tape) he loses all Curse along with some Condemned.
This introduces a new degree of agency into her power: from the survivor perspective you're playing an eternal game of chicken- TV rounds are time wasted off gens, but tempting fate by building your cursed will get you killed. From the killer perspective you need to keep track of survivor's locations and time intervals- I saw Dwight on a gen a minute ago, I'll tp now and set my TV on cooldown. Carrying a tape and hedging your losses is good on paper, but holding a tape directly gains condemned (think old Onryo tapes).
Survivors who really don't want to get mori'd will have an easier time doing their diligence to mitigate her passive, but greedy players would be hard pressed into difficult decision making that either increases the stakes or decreases the gen speed.
This also opens a veneer of add on opportunities. Ring Drawing could add a global Curse rate for healing but heavily reduce the TV ratio, common addons could reduce Curse gain rate but make all survivors permanently have 1 curse for old Onryo gameplay, Iri add ons could immediately reap curse into condemn, add a global gain, or lock in condemned like her current iteration.
Demanifestation Change
Demanifestation has always been an aloof power to me; nothing about it works. Its stealth with a lullaby and a flicker with a high frequency. The noise is quiet so it's a genuine undetectable to inexperienced players but loud enough that its just a minor terror radius deduction to experienced players/deafness accessibility mode players. The immunity to pallet stuns frankly feels out of left field and only results in dull standoffs like a wraith on a copious amount of downers. My biggest gripe however is how cool the flickering idea is and how little its emphasized in her power which is the core idea of this section.
The Onryo still passively phases in and out of existence as per usual. However, the Onryo can physically 'channel' her demanifestation with her M1 while demanifested. This allows her to do an extended pulse for an additional second and would be a relatively fast charging ability (5-10 seconds).
Ambush killers like ghostface that you can genuinely lose track of make for some of the most engaging experiences in the game and making the Onryo capable to barely squeeze by a sightline of a watching survivor allows for both an intensely high skill ceiling of knowing the 'comp corners' of the game and an intense degree of mindgaming on both fronts: did the Onryo phase and walk past shack window or did she double back during it? Is that survivor holding this corner or did I waste my channel? It'd of course be useless on a grand scale of loops with long sightlines or simple pallet loops, but she doesn't need a strong chase power applicable to all situations and would redefine chase gameplay with and against her.
This would also justify making her stealth lullaby louder so that its no longer an accessibility concern and would standardize her stealth aspect across all skill levels and allow her to do small channeling minigames moving from sightlines stalking a generator from a distance.
Add ons here could include increasing the time by an additional second and doubling the cooldown, removing her lullaby while channeling, channeling slows survivors based on condemned, etc.
To reiterate: I don't actually think the Onryo needs this rework. She's not really in a dire position anymore and is currently at least a fun killer to play. She's already been through so many reworks that at this point I think it would be blatant favoritism for her to receive another. This is just a compilation of Dead By Daylight taking far too much of my headspace and wistful thinking. Thanks for reading!
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