Plague needs more bp and her puke needs a strong debuff for survivors
25, 100 is just too low. I have been playing her today and yes, I probably didn’t get much bp because I am so inexperienced with her, but I usually get more bp as a survivor (or at least played 2 survivor games in that span for the same points) and when I play other killers I get more too. Plague should at least compete with Freddy and Doc for being the wealthiest in bp. It should be 75, 300 at LEAST.
Now her puke needs something. Survivors are not threatened by her puke and feel no urgency to heal (both because it might actually benefit them to not bother, and because she freely gives instant heals - that might hinder her if the fountain was on the other side of the map.)
I suggest the following:
- Throwing up now shows bright green spots like a built in Bloodhound.
- Being sick automatically makes you contagious.
- Broken survivors are exhausted and while they are not hindered, vaulting and stagger take longer.
- While sick, actions are slowed by 50% and skill checks are 50% smaller; no great skill checks unless you have Stake Out.
- Broken survivors’ vision is slightly hazy - like a less severe Clown gas.
I think this would help the Plague out a lot.
Comments
Just revert the movement speed nerf
Yea I would say double the BP for puking on objects and taking a fountain. 75/300 might be too much though.
I BELIEVE I read somewhere that her current BP gains are bugged at the moment and that when the patch for it comes out you'll be seeing a lot better gains.
As for your other points:
1: something to that accord already happens but due to the infrequency of the vomit, you're more then likely going to spot the blood from the "injury" then you are the vomit.
2: You already are when you're broken. Think of it like reaching a point in a personal illness when you finally become contagious.
3: I'd more prefer to see an add-on that did something like this as opposed to default. A quasi Plague Inc where you control the type of disease you're spewing.
4: No. Just no. I'm not going to go into why. Just no.
5: Within reason MAYBE? I could see maybe your vision clouding slightly each time your character vomits, but Clown levels might be a bit harsh considering that blur already gives people headaches.
I'm not a fan of those changes, but she does need changes.
Her BP gain for Brutality is way too low and her Hunter category is slightly too low.
For changes:
No heal on fountains
Animation pause during vomit to weaken looping while infected (this may not even be enough)
Currently survivors just ignore fountains so that you never get Corrupted Purge because being broken doesn't matter with how brokenly strong pallet loops are.
On the flip side that you do get a group that uses the fountains, the heal removes any pressure you gained leading to her having no map pressure similar to Clown. The Corrupted Purge is supposed to be strong enough to make up for this but it is not anymore since the nerfs post PTB that lowered her charged up move speed.
The changes need to allow her to have more map pressure and for survivors to feel like they actually NEED to cleanse as currently they do not.
Spirit is generally considered by "most" of the community as one of the most balanced killers while ALSO being rank 1 viable. This means she should be a level of balance to aim for with killers. Would these changes make Plague rank 1 viable? I think so. Would it make Plague better than Spirit? Definitely not. If it wouldn't make her stronger than Spirit it should be a fine change balance wise.
I nearly always max out the points in the Deviousness category (being sick one) especially if you get the 4K. The real problem is in the Brutality category. I have gotten multiple 4K games as Plague with all survivors being 3 hooked and I have gotten max 3500 BP in that category.
If you want more sick points just break people before you down them and be sick on everything. Also corrupt purge gives a load of points so use it when you can.
In terms of buffing her increase the movement speed again or just increase the effectiveness of the sickness so you don't need to rely on the add-ons. I nearly always use the green charge speed and green effectiveness add-ons.
She is supposed to have other score events that would increase her BP gain. I can't remember if they just didn't make it in on time or what, but it's supposed to be higher. I will say, though, that I'm not a fan of just increasing the points alone. Her current scoring events are incredibly easy to do so I can understand why they're not very rewarding. I don't think I should be showered with points because I outplayed a locker and puked on it, for example.
I feel like the buffs you proposed would be a bit much. It's already fairly easy to infect multiple survivors (I'll typically have three or four infected at once once the ball starts rolling), making them more contagious would only make that easier to do. Then once they are they would be far easier to chase, and work as slow as they would if they were asleep.
It sounds very oppressive and unfun to play against, if I'm honest. I feel like I would spend most of my game running back and forth between fountains. Imagine if the killer is running infection time add-ons and defends three generators. All they'd have to do is puke on a generator once every 50 seconds to keep them permanently infected. The second you touch it you become sick and have to go cleanse yourself, or else you'll work on it at half speed.
I don't think she's that far off from being great, she doesn't need massive changes, just slight tweaks. I've been playing her since her release and I've been doing pretty well with her. I feel like over buffing her would be counterproductive, and making her too oppressing will just make her not fun to play against.
@Peanits Any debuff in addition to broken would be nice. What about the status effect that slows gen speed?
At the moment only Hillbilly chains do that right?
That alone would stop the don't heal trend because you won't want to do gens slow and also be broken.
This idea wouldn't be oppressive because it doesn't effect plague's chase potential it only effects survivors ignoring their sickness. Since it's a fast cleanse it would be fine right?
The problem there is that the time you spend going to a fountain, using the fountain, and then returning to your generator needs to be shorter than the time the infection would add to the generator. If it's not, you're going to end up taking longer whether you do or don't cleanse yourself, and by default the meta becomes to just do generators instead. You can see a very similar effect with the legion. You could either stay injured and power through generators or spend a significant amount of time healing just to get injured (or in this case, infected) again shortly after.
There's also something to be learned from the legion in that having the game stalled for too long just ends up not being fun. If you end up in a loop of running to fountains and cleansing because the killer is infecting every generator and survivor they come across, it's going to be a miserable time.
I think we've got two different definitions of oppressive, though. By oppressive, I mean there's no avoiding it. It would be far too easy for the plague to keep you infected, and having to constantly cleanse yourself only to be reinfected the instant you touch another generator would bring the game to a crawl.
That sounds like a flaw in design then no? Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
Using her wrong.
Puke on them during the chase and break them with your puke. With a yellow add-on it takes 1 half decent puke stream to break someone.
Keep in mind when they break they don't get the speed boost they would get from being hit. Then you hook them. If they choose not to heal themselves, then they are 1 hit for the match. if you can't take advantage of this, I suggest watching some good streamers, and see how they counter loops and win games as trapper at rank 1.
2 buffs that were proposed in the PTB that seemed more fair and balanced:
The main problem with adding other de-buffs to the Plagues power is that it would make her feel too oppressive with certain de-buffs such as: slower action speed, exhaustion, blindness, stuns, and visual effects that narrow or obscure vision. The broken status is already a powerful deterrent, but as many have learned while playing against Legion or the 1 shot killers, healing isn't worth the time when you could be doing gens instead. Alone the Broken status is just not enough to tempt survivors to cleanse at the fountains and power up the Plagues ability, and we are seeing that in the current game as most survivors simply stay sick and wait until the gates are powered before cleansing.
I believe these 2 suggestions were the best for improving game-play QoL for the Plague, without being too oppressive to the survivors.
I'm so tired of, "It's too oppressive." Are we killing people or taking them on a nice stroll through Red Forest? Multiple sprints, free full heals, totally safe un-mindgameable loops, weak killer after weak killer, baseline mechanics to counter killer perks and powers+perks to do it too. Can we get anything, with any kind of power? Not once in the 3 years I've seen this game grow have I seen, "It wasn't fun for killers." However I'm sure I can do a quick search and find multiple instances of, "It wasn't fun for survivors."
I can go into multiple reasons why Plague is bad, show that I've been playing her for over 30+ hours, show my points, and people would simply respond with, "You don't know how to play her." "You're just bad." "Git gud." You'll never see that for a survivor who runs in a straight line and gets broken though.
She needs work. Also, she has 0 brutality gain, and using her power stops you from gaining it altogether unless you break something, or just m1. She's not scary. She's not good, she doesn't get any points. The only redeeming quality is she's got an interesting design. That's it. It is more efficient to just M1 them twice, and then puke on them.
Then again they'll just go heal and completely ignore the time gain you get from healing. Not that it took long before, but nah. I also love how you lose your power when stunned too, cuz the only thing she gets that's remotely powerful has to be just turned off. Not like you lose a ton of time going to the fountain in the middle of god damn nowhere, and wasting the timer desperately searching for someone so you can get a down with it.
This obsession with only focusing on whether or not survivors are having fun, is creating this massive sense of entitlement. I had someone get mad I killed them after the gates were powered. "We did all the gens, you lost, I deserve to escape." You can't make this crap up. I already have games where people never heal, cuz why would you? Just rush the gens, 99%, then heal to full and Adren. That's even if you get caught. Just adren to a fountain heal to full, open the gate, leave.
Apparently the numbers are down, and I can tell you without a doubt, it's not cuz Plague is good.