Thoughts about Legion
Legion as a killer has never been truly good or viable. The original kit brought potential, but also carried the baggage of Deep Wounds. The recent changes added much need counterplay in exchange for bringing the movement speed in line with the average killer. Overall Legion has been left in a worse state than when he was originally introduced. My solution to getting this killer in a more viable and fun to play state is 3-fold.
1. Decrease terror radius to 28m from 32m- This change adds a tiny bit of stealth back to Legion’s kit. Legion isn’t a very big killer and shouldn’t possess the TR of a bigger killer. Survivors also already believe, wrongly, that Legion gets “free hits” even though his stealth was completely negated with the current changes to his TR. Adding that stealth back in will give Legion players a better overall power role feel without giving the killer more movement speed or frenzy speed.
2. Remove the Deep Wound mechanic from Legion and replace it with an on-hit effect mechanic. Deep Wounds is, in my opinion, a hindrance to the overall design freedom Legion. The mechanic is shared with Borrowed Time which means that any changes to it affect both the killer and perk. I feel currently the perk has gained strength in proportion to Legion’s loss of strength involving Deep Wounds. I propose leaving Deep Wounds to BT and giving Legion an on-hit effect mechanic. This will allow for more design space to play with while not damaging or enhancing a perk directly. Legion is already built for this type of effect generation and we can see the thought process being explored with the change to Pin addons.
3. Change the vaulting speed decrease from -25% to -20%. Vaults feel slugging and look visually sluggish. While timing the animations will fix the visuals it won’t fix the gameplay feel. I think 20% is a better fit and still gives survivors the needed distances if they choose to run away rather than vaulting back pass Legion.
After the above steps are investigated I would do a pass on the addons. Pins should apply effects on first frenzy attack, not second. The power recharge could stay the same as I feel that with the increased duration being able to frenzy more often at base wouldn’t be healthy. The 4s base cooldown after frenzy is fine, but the cooldown addons should be allowed to scale it back to 3.25 rather than the current 3.76. Stab Wound Study and Frank’s Mixtape need a redesign even if the current system stays.
Comments
I have to stop you at number 2. The devs are absolutely not going to fundamentally rework him and remove Deep Wounds even if it is pretty worthless at this point. I think we should focus on things the devs would reasonably consider and be willing to undertake. IE it needs to be quick and easy changes like your number 1 and 3.
"Pins should apply effects on first frenzy attack, not second."
Thankfully they already acknowledged this on the last stream and are looking into this exact change.
The issue with Legion in his current iteration is almost the exact same issue that Plague has. The problem for both of them is that survivors still don't heal. The devs see this as fine because they think it's a fair tradeoff for them being 1 shottable the rest of the game as that sounds very strong. The problem in this lies with how many pallets and windows there still are and how much time they can waste at each pallet or window.
There are so many pallets that they are almost always within a safe distance of one if not at least a window. This makes it so being 1 hit from going down in exchange for just pounding the gens down without wasting time on healing is always worth it for them. They can finish 5 gens long before you have finished eating through all the pallets.
This is where both of them fall apart. Pallets and windows being too numerous and strong makes both of their powers worthless. There isn't enough danger to make them waste time healing. The biggest and easiest thing I think they should do for Legion in this situation is to give him an extremely small terror radius, like at least 28 if not less. This would make staying injured a little more scary as you have a better chance of getting closer before they can reach the pallets or windows. Obviously map reworks are what we need the most but this is much easier and for Legion specifically.
I know your topic is mainly Legion and not Plague, but the reason they are both weak currently is the same reason. I recommended that Plague needs extra negatives attached to being infected and broken to more incentivize them to use the fountains.
The devs think staying injured all game is much more dangerous than it actually is and they don't realize how overly safe pallets and windows are.
This is obviously based on playing at rank 1 against actually competent survivors that know what they're doing. At low ranks they will heal and then these killers are totally viable. However being viable only against stupid survivors isn't where I think killers should be.
The devs have mentioned that they've considered more drastic ideas for Legion and they have one that they like, but think it may be too crazy for the game. If the current Legion build doesn't catch on and show results they've said they would consider sharing said extreme idea. So letting deep wounds be only a Borrowed Time thing is still in the realm of reasonable. Getting rid of deep wounds from Legion would give the killer so much more room to be worked with and later balanced.