Ideas for Fixing The Slasher
As Jason currently stands, he has a ridiculous amount of potential to be one of the most fun and interactive killers we've ever had enter Dead by Daylight. However, the state of his kit is fairly overtuned. The power trivia on his wiki page looks like a full length novel, which is not a good sign to anyone researching how to play as him or against him for the first time.
If we are to assume that Jason's ranged attack is his main ability (similar to Springtrap), then it'd be best to not make any serious changes to it. Dodging his spikes is still possible and throwing them at range involves a good bit of skill, so I'd say it isn't inherently overpowered. Instead, let's lay out some potential nerfs or reworks that could keep Jason in a strong S-Tier position without having him unfun to face.
List of Things Jason Doesn't Need
- A cooldown 4 seconds shorter than the length of an altruistic survivor heal for omnipresent evil (currently 12 seconds, healing takes 16 seconds, make the cooldown at the very least 20 seconds, no more than 30)
- Being able to enter omnipresent evil 3 seconds after the start of the trial.
- Note: Jason is currently the only teleport killer in the game to be able to use their ability so quickly. The Dredge for example has to wait 10 seconds before using their teleport which only has 3 tokens, a direct counterplay in the form of locks, and has no accompanying ranged attack or dash.
- The ability to see survivors who are standing still (or hiding in lockers) with red mist while in omnipresent evil. (Currently survivors standing still are revealed, and so are survivors hiding in lockers, who also scream and give killer instinct after a Jump Scare is performed)
- Haste (4.5454%) making him 4.6m/s movement speed for 25 seconds when exiting omnipresent evil.
- Note: Considering he has a ranged ability, and the point of entering omnipresent is usually to reload said ranged ability, I'm not sure why giving him haste basekit just for using his ability is fair. With only a 12 second cooldown for omnipresent evil, they might as well made him 4.6 at all times. Haste should only exist in his kit to compensate when he has no spike in hand, not when he just reloaded.
- Omnipresent evil being allowed to teleport to pallets, windows, walls, etc. that are near a hooked survivor (or unhooked seconds ago)
- Note: Jason currently gets a slower exit animation, but characters like Dredge cannot teleport within 12 meters of a hooked survivor whatsoever. Singularity gets 10x slowdown to tagging or teleporting to a survivor within 10 meters of a hook, which means it takes 6 full seconds of tracking to tag a survivor, and 8 seconds to teleport. You need full line of sight in that time and survivors could bring an EMP to disable any biopods. Anti-camp restrictions linger for 5 seconds. Jason's anti-camp is 16 meters, however it only goes 4 meters vertically, only slows his omnipresent exit time to 4.5 seconds, and only lingers after the survivor is unhooked for 3 seconds. His exit time should be between 6 and 10 seconds if he is to continue being allowed to appear near hooked survivors rather than blocking the locations like with The Dredge.
- Hindered on impaled survivors attempting to remove a spike.
- Note: Currently .9% movement speed multiplier, so about 10% hindered. Springtrap, who has a similar mechanic, only gets to move at 4.6 instead of 4.4 as reward for hitting a survivor with an axe that moves at 30m/s (Jason's spikes move at 42m/s) and have a gravity modifier to prevent long-range hits. It takes 5 seconds to remove the spike, 8 seconds for Springtrap's axe (no hindered penalty). Removing the hindered and making the removal time 6 to 8 seconds could be fine.
- Being able to reload at a hook, pick up a survivor within 5 seconds, and the hook instantly repair.
- Note: It isn't that this is overpowered or anything, but that it removes the entire idea of risk/reward behind sabotaging hooks for better chase potential. I think it would be better if this were removed and instead one of Jason's addons gives a hook spike to the player upon hooking a survivor.
- Omnipresent Evil movement speed being faster than Phase-Walking Spirit or Cloaked Wraith
- Note: Jason's speed is currently 8m/s, Spirit is 7m/s, and Wraith is 6m/s. Considering how Wraith and Spirit both have mobility as their main ability, with no ranged attack, only other factor in balancing being their invisibility, its only fair that Jason should be at most equal. Lowering his movement speed while in omnipresent mode down to anywhere between 6.5m/s to 7.5m/s could reduce the feeling for survivors that it is impossible to end chase with Jason. He currently is too omnipresent.
- Jumpscare/omnipresent evil still detecting survivors who were crouched for 3 seconds
- Note: It seems to be partially bugged as despite the wiki stating that it only lingers for 2.5 seconds after crouching, I have on numerous occasions been jumpscared by a Jason while I was enveloped by fog having been crouched for a solid 3 to 4 seconds. Perhaps having the linger only be 1 or 1.5 seconds could mitigate this likely server-lag related issue.
- Addons that basically work as a 5th and 6th perk.
- Note: While I am actually all in favor of giving creative and useful addons to killers, it is well known that strong killers do not need them. Blight's numerous addon reworks and nerfs are prime example of this. Jason currently has two very problematic addons, 'Deputy's Badge' and 'Sauna Rock.' The badge gives -10% generator progress upon missing a special very hard skill check (like the perk 'Oppression') if a survivor is working on it, and if no one is working on it, it will just start to regress for passing near it while in omnipresent evil. The rock gives 13 seconds of exhausted for everyone who is jumpscared (16 meters radius) every time, with no real activation requirement or effort needed. If this exhaustion status effect was tied to being hit by a spike, or if omnipresent evil was nerfed to require more careful use of jumpscare, then it would be a non-issue. 'Deputy's Badge' needs to have its effects completely reworked. I'll go over some ideas in the next section.
List of Things Jason Needs
- Addon reworks.
- Orderly's Shoe (Common): Increases the duration of the Haste effect after a jumpscare by +5 seconds
- Rework: Increase the duration of undetectable by +8 seconds after a jumpscare (default is 2 seconds, would become 10 seconds total).
- Party Noisemaker (Uncommon): Breaking a Pallet
or a Breakable Wall
with Jump Scare reveals all Survivors further than 32 meters for 6 seconds.- Rework: Breaking a Pallet
or a Breakable Wall
with Jump Scare reveals all Survivors within 13 meters for 6 seconds. (This would bypass needing to make a survivor scream with jumpscare, as it is aura reading instead) - Note: The rarity of this addon would probably need to be swapped with the reworked Imprinted Aluminum, as this aura reading affect would be strong enough to warrant being Rare.
- Rework: Breaking a Pallet
- Imprinted Aluminum (Rare): Injuring a healthy Survivor with a Throwing Spike inflicts them with Mangled and Hemorrhage for 70 seconds
- Rework: Survivors hit with a throwing spike suffer from Mangled and Hemorrhage for 50 seconds
- Note: The reason I believe this one could use a rework is that it currently has no effect against already injured survivors, and has too close to the same value as Sloppy Butcher, which in the past resulted in a lot of similar addons for other killers being broken up into two separate addons or having their durations heavily reduced. Making this apply on every hit for a shorter duration should improve its utility.
- Sauna Rock (Rare): After performing a Jump Scare, inflict all detected Survivors with Exhausted for 13 seconds.
- Rework: Survivors hit with a throwing spike suffer from Exhausted for 13 seconds
- Alternative Rework: All detected survivors are inflicted Exhausted for 13 seconds (like current version), Jumpscare detection range is reduced by -4 meters (Keep the purpose the same but add a small tradeoff, encouraging accurate mid-chase ambushes by the Jason Player)
- Deputy's Badge (Very Rare): While in Omnipresent Evil, passing within 2 meters of a Generator causes the Generator to explode, lose -5% progress and begin regressing. If a Survivor is repairing the Generator, it will instead get a special Skill Check. If the Skill Check is failed, the Generator loses an additional -10% progress on top of the base missed Skill Check penalty.
- Rework: While in Omnipresent Evil, all partially repaired Generators start regressing. Effect ends after performing a Jump Scare. Survivors repairing Generators during Omnipresent Evil gain Blindness, lingers for 13 seconds after a Jump Scare, or the Survivor has stopped repairing. Survivor's affected by Jump Scare while repairing a generator cause the generator to explode and lose -10% progress
- Note: There are about a million ways you could rework this generator related addon, but I figured a mix of Ghostface's 'Driver's License' addon and Legion's 'Fuming Mixtape' could keep the Gen Jason playstyle alive but without being as frustrating to deal with as a survivor. It would give time for survivors to react and get off of the gen before the regression event, as well as giving more map pressure to the Jason with passive regression, the blindness as a bonus to encourage ambushing unaware survivors.
- Orderly's Shoe (Common): Increases the duration of the Haste effect after a jumpscare by +5 seconds
- Improvements to tracking
- To make up for nerfing jumpscare affecting crouched survivors only for 1.5 seconds before they crouch, removing red mist on idle or hiding (locker) survivors, I believe the visibility and linger effect of footsteps should be greatly increased. Current sensing is only 16 meters, increasable by 4 meters with a green rarity addon. I believe that making it 20 meters (at least just for footsteps) and increasing the duration of footsteps from 1.5 seconds to 2.5 or 3 seconds could make Jason much better of a tracking killer instead of a teleport spam killer.
- Haste when grabbing a trash spike or hook spike
- Since Jason would have to go out of his way more often with a longer (20 to 30 second) omnipresent evil cooldown, giving him some haste, maybe 5% for 5 seconds for example, could mitigate some of the distance lost. This could also help Jason players who become skilled at zoning, which he is very capable of. Zoning the chased survivor toward a loop with a scrap pile or hook, they could grab a spike mid-chase to get a speed boost just over 4.6m/s movement speed, making landing a ranged shot or basic-attack easier without using omnipresent evil.
I wish I had more buffs to suggest for Jason, but currently its easier to think of things that are problematic than things that would make him better. His kit is already pretty well made and fun to play against in a lot of scenarios. Key issue is just that a lot of players have mastered him already, and many of his small effects and some addons have proven themselves problematic to keeping the character feeling balanced. Lowering his basekit map pressure and making some of his addons not as overbearing would surely make him more fun to face, all while still keeping his skill ceiling very high. Hoping to hear everyone else's thoughts and ideas!
Comments
Omnipesent is the part thats bit overtuned on him then his spear or post jump scare speed buff.
It has super low cooldown at the start of the trial, its cooldown is very small like it should be 15 seconds minimaly or 16.
He can stay in it as long as he wants which sometimes is bit slowing game in a way that nothing gets done and things dont move so better option is either a) limit time he can stay in omnipresent like 25 seconds or something like that or b) that he can stay in it as he wants but after like 25 seconds he looses his tracking ability and must rely only on sounds and his intuition.
This would make him better killer to face like i dont have problem with spear because I know its lot loop dependent and if he misses it he must go out of his way and reload but what makes him unfun for me is how fast he gains his power, jason is killer that longer you loop him the weaker he gets (looses his haste and wastes time by reloading spears) but omnipresent having so few limitations is kinda most annoying part about him tbh and using it in chase isnt that great because if survivor presses crouch button the he evades him compleatly.
I dunno I feel like a lot of people's approach towards Jason seems to be "death by a thousand cuts" type changes. As he currently stands he's mostly balanced with most of his more aggregious stuff like Deputy's badge shaved down and fixed. Ultimately he only needs two real changes?
Remove the ability to see survivor's doing totems in OE.
Put a hard limit on time spent in OE by 20 seconds at most.
And that's pretty much it.
Agreed, especially since it's in custom games LOL
I dont really see the reason people want the long initial cooldown at the start of trial. Like I said before, there's actual reasons for it on Onryo and Dredge to have a window at the start of the trial. Jason on the other hand is basically in the same boat as Dracula at the trial beginning. Theres no real reason other than to give a random nerf.
Onryo can't even be interacted with at the start of the trial. Her cooldown doesn't make sense in that regard, as its for a whole 30 seconds, which is much longer than the time it takes for most killers to start their first chase, potentially even down a survivor. And for Dredge it wouldn't break the game if he didn't have to wait 10 seconds considering most people agree his counterplay is kind of unnecessary with the game's current balance of killers. The only reason Jason should get a longer match-start cooldown is because he has a ranged ability where getting into an instant chase as soon as the game starts is often a guaranteed down, which getting a hook that early increases the chance of the killer winning by like 10 fold. The fact he can immediately give chase right as the game begins makes him the easiest killer to snowball with right off the bat.
Onryio and Dredge both have those cooldowns so survivors can have a chance to do the appropriate counters they're SUPPOSE to do with those powers. Theres specific interactions... This isnt even me guessing, this was a question I asked the devs way back when. They didnt want Dredge popping out of a locker on someone who spawned in shack 2 seconds after the match started.
This isnt the case with Jason. Theres no threat of him being onto of a survivor THAT fast and theres no special interaction survivors need to do ahead of time. You can argue the ability is OP or stronger than Dredge, but theres no reason for specifically a longer cooldown at the beginning of trial other than just cuz you felt like a nerf should go somewhere.
Fact is he cant get across the whole map like dreadge or onryo but the cooldown being so low (its what 4 seconds it should be bit longer), the other parts I mentioned are reasoneable i would say.
Fun fact. The match doesn't start until the killer's client starts the match, regardless of survivor clients. Not allowing killers like Dredge/Onryo to use their powers immediately is at least partially a bandaid to address that. You can already see it with perks like Corrupt, that don't activate until all clients have reported that they've loaded in, which can take a few seconds, allowing survivors to get on a nearby gen before being kicked off, or even an entire minute or two when a survivor has lagged out during loading.
There's no counter at the start of the match for Onryo though, that's my point. All TVs are off for 30 seconds, you don't need to grab a tape, in fact you cannot grab a tape from a TV that is off. I suspect the only reason she has that 30 second cooldown is so that survivors can start on some gens, otherwise she'd be able to start snowballing the game immediately if she had something like say the 10 seconds Dredge has. This is the exact same reason I think Jason should have at least a 10 second, if not a 15 or 20 second cooldown at match start. The reason that Springtrap doesn't have this restriction, for example, is that his doors are slow, fixed spawns near generators that require him to either bring Lethal Pursuer or go to 3 or 4 different doors guessing someone might be there each time. There's a hiding counterplay with him that can waste a lot of the killer's time, allowing survivors to spread out and start working on gens on opposite sides of the map. Not to mention if the Springtrap player isn't using the doors themself, the survivors could use them to get around the map.
With Jason he can just click one button, go into his ability, zoom around at 8m/s between every generator on the entire half of the map survivors spawned on until he sees 1% of a generator done, teleport to a nearby window/pallet, and anyone within 16m who didn't crouch at least 3 seconds ago screams and is revealed with killer instinct. He has an incredible advantage at match start that no other killer gets without bringing what are usually iridescent rarity addons.
Im not commenting on everything else, just specifically the initial cooldown. Those cooldowns are present when there's an actual reason for it and missing when there's no reason for it. They didnt want Onryio to stack 4 stacks of condemned before survivors could get to a TV. Jason is just using a decent mobility tool to cross the map, similar to bat form Dracula. I honestly think if they didnt put an initial cooldown at all, no one would be mentioning it. The only reason ppl are saying thats something to crank up is because the 3 second cooldown existing reminded them that was a thing and not because using the power at that stage of the game is anymore impactful than using it at any other point.
The important point for Onryio here is the condemned, not the actual mobility. They didnt want her to start stacking bunch of condemned immediately before survivors can reach the TVs. You can argue Jason is good at patrolling gens... but thats not an argument for initial cooldown. What your saying isn't something specifically for the start of the match, but just that OE in general is strong. You'd have the exact same argument that its strong for the rest of the match, a cooldown at the beginning isn't touching that.
But that is the entire argument for Onryo's cooldown at the start of the match. Her ability (condemned via teleporting in TVs) is too powerful to be active so early, so survivors get the cooldown as a time to get a little bit of generator progress. Jason's mobility and gen patrol is too powerful to be active so early, there needs to be a little bit of buffer time for survivors to set up, spread out, and get a little bit of generator progress.
Its not for gen progress, its so they can physically reach the TVs before they can be spammed several times. If they dont turn the TV off, Onryio can rapidly just fill their condemned meters.
I agree with you he does not need death by 1000 cuts but what about longer cooldown on how much he can use OE rather then a cooldown on time spent inside OE? (Would also avoid issue of him being spat out when he genuinely had no info)
I personally would like a 30 second cooldown on being able to use OE after coming out of it. Perhaps remove cooldown on hooking to not punish fast chases and would encourage him to chase more with spear rather then hurry back off into OE.
If that and totem mist was added I don't think I would have as much issues with Jason as I do. I don't like how survivors get any info while he is in OE but think that would balance it out.
Well, uh, they only spawn next to gens… so…
Correct, same spots that xeno's tunnels and Animatronic's doors spawn. Its not that she'd be able to start chases quickly, but rather that she'd be able to spam all the OTHER TVs before you can turn off the one you're at and give you a stack of condemned for each one. Plenty of killer powers allow them to cross the map quickly, but its specifically the fact that you have to run upstairs to grab the tape before everyone in the area has up to 6 condemned stacks out of 7. The 30 second window is to help protect against the condemned playstyle, not because they wanted to give you a head start against an M1 killer.
A 30 second cooldown on OE is honestly pretty excessive and not necessary, Jason already gets a longer cooldown on a successful Jump Scare so tripling it would just cripple him for no reason. I think the problem is more duration more than anything else and I suspect why there's no limit on the duration is because forcing jason to come out of it would be tricky to code around. If that doesn't work then I would say after 10-20 seconds in OE perhaps Jason can become more visible to survivors in a mist form or something so they don't feel as compelled to crouch around and do nothing.
None of these things are a problem. Is jason stronger than nurse? Ghoul? Blight? Why aren't we nerfing those killers? Why are you nerfing a killer who is weaker than ones that we are aren't nerfing.
The only exception i'll make and the only thing i think he needs, is just to make it so survivors cleansing totems are considered crouching for the purpose of his power, that way the hex build isn't as annoying to play against.
Theres no successful or unsuccessful cooldowns.
i’m going to get downvoted for this but jason is fine apart from totem jason. If you lose to a non totem jason it is 100% a skill issue. His spear is super easy to dodge unless he zoned you but if that happens it is because you messed up.
I don't understand how it would cripple him so badly, cooldown is 12 seconds making it 30 seconds would only prevent him for spamming it over and over, which I find the least enjoyable to verse. Spear play with Jason in chase is so fun imo, but being able to spam OE so often just ruins that because a lot of Jason's opt for OE dragging out the match and make it extremely boring
the only players it would hurt would be players who are constantly using OE rather then commiting to chases and as I said originally we can make hooking remove cooldown so if you come out of OE down a injured person then hook you aint waiting around for cooldown.
The mist suggestion you said could also work but I still worry about how often he can go into OE but could see that working.