Some Thoughts about Killer Add-Ons
Add-ons which improve killers primary powers are bad for game variety, Pyramid Head is the worst offender since why would you *not* want your ranged attack to be extended in length but there’s other killers too like Ghostface’s Philly, Knight’s Map of the Realm, Bubba’s Award Winning Chilli, Myer’s J. Myers Memorial and so on that are more or less must take add-ons (If you have them).
I don’t really know what should be done here since many of these make weaker/mid-tier killers more usable, maybe rework the killers to improve their power then change the add-ons up?
In contrast I’d say add-ons that change killer gameplay without destroying balance are good like Pig’s Amanda's Letter, Myer’s Scratched Mirror (Kind of weak though) or the Demogorgon’s add-ons in general which allows for many different styles of play.
Meanwhile some add-ons are straight up easy mode, Clown’s Redhead’s Pinkie Finger combined with Cheap Gin Bottle which completely negates the downside is the best example but also things like Myer’s Tombstone Piece combined with J. Myers Memorial.
Finally beginner perks that show the location of an m2 power I feel should be base kit (Plaid Flannel for Nurse and Cat Figurine for the Twins), not having them just makes things unnecessarily difficult for new players and are basically worthless for top MMR players.
Comments
Once upon a time killers were strong without addons. Someone had the "brilliant" (please not the sarcasm) idea to make killers weaker and require them to have strong addons to be scary.
As an example: Launch Wraith used to uncloak faster than he does now. Many killers got minor nerfs that would be 'undone' via certain addons. As you can imagine it was not a good idea.
One of the biggest problems with DBD is the "doubling down" of addons that do the same thing or nearly the same thing. As Nemesis you can stack 2x zombie movement speed addons - ok this is a terrible example because they still do almost nothing. However in the case of Pyramid Head double range addons makes his attack nearly impossible to miss. Double up on Nurse addons and you get the same thing.
OP you need to realize Clown is a complete joke without Pinky Finger. I'd be all for deleting pinky finger if Clown got massive buffs and the new pinky finger was crap but he was so much better that it was like you had a 60% buff on all the time.
yes bhvr said that they try to make the killer without addons have only 80% of his strength
As weird as it sounds, I'd be fine with killers only having meme addons. IF they made some of the possible stats lost by removing %-statboost addons basekit.
Because then killers had a "good" basekit plus "good" miniperks/memes instead of bad basekit and "good addon that only fixes 1 bad aspect of the basekit"
Let me guess, BNP or Syringe are preferctly fine and balanced Add-Ons right ?
90% of killer's addon are useless, worthless or without any logic. An add-on shoud improve of change something that's not related to your power directly. Let's say an add-on who's going to reveal aura of survivor 4mt around you every 40 seconds ( i know it's stupid, it's just an example ), another one could be a mini ruin ( if you bring this addon, gen not being repaired regress at 10% ) and so on and the same goes for survivors, no more BNP or other things like that.
Right now, it is not "killer add on" or "survivors addon", everyone bring the best addon they have and, since the majority of the addon sucks, everyone bring the best they can.
BHVR should do a complete rework of the addons but this alos mean rework the entire game
Hmm, i think it depends on the killer and his power.
Also if you want to include those indicators you may want to add the option to remove them, i see a lot of high level killers say that those indicators actually only hinder your gameplay instead of helping. So either adding them as an option on custom matches or as a toggle feature in regular matches would be best. But honestly i don't know if its necessary
-"Let me guess, BNP or Syringe are preferctly fine and balanced Add-Ons right"
That's exactly my point. If the killer had something on the level of a BNP it would let them once per game turn off a completed generator or worse. Imagine if the killer had an offering where once per game they could press "Z" and that gen became a trap generator. Once "completed" it would become inert and never be able to be completed for the rest of the game (and not count for completed gens).
Instant heals would be "fine" if you could only heal twice per game and then became broken base kit.
So here's the issue. Clown is a joke with no pinky finger. Should he bother playing without pinky finger?
Trapper is in a worse situation because he has to slowly collect his power. He should have Bloody Coil Base kit.
Bloody coil basekit would be way too strong, the addon is genuinely amazing.
I think the reason they don't buff tend to buff trapper is that he's quite snowbally as is, and buffing his power could make him insanely oppressive.
Best way to buff these killers actually isn't a buff to their power, but instead would be a nerf to strong survivor-sided maps imo. One thing most weak killers have in common is that they are extremely map dependent as they lack great chasing powers, in contrast the best killers generally aren't very bothered by the tiles and maps they get.
Clown isn't even bad either, he has a decent skill-floor but once you hit it I think he's a solid mid-tier. He might drop if regression gets nerfed though since he does depend on it.
Tell me which would be harder to loop in chase: The very best trapper in the world (but all his traps are disarmed) or just an average Blight?
You can disarm beartraps for free and it makes him a joke vs SWF teams. He has no real ability to slow down the game and getting free damage on trap disarm would make him not be a D tier killer.
Trapper used to have crazy RNG so that it might take 2 tries to get out of a trap or you might be stuck still at 24 tries. Honestly that was more fair because most of the time it felt like getting out was 8-10 tries. Trapper got some of the most brutal nerfs in the first year (to be fair the no trap under hook is fair and I can't fathom why Hag doesn't get the same treatment).
With bloody coil you can make the argument that if he plays on a map with grass then he is an A tier killer. Without that Addon he's easily in the bottom five of all killers - but still better than Doctor.
There is no reason to have Doctor or Trapper in the same game as Blight and Nurse. It's literally the same thing as choosing Dan over Ken in Street Fighter. Dan is there as a meme; you pick him with the idea that if you win with Dan then the person you are playing against really sucks.
If you want to keep trapper weak then you can never be mad when you only face the top ~8 killers every game all using strong addons.
Nemesis has an entire kit of meme addons. The best addons are zombie movement speed but they are easily path glitched. There's an exploit where you can make them "afk" next to a generator when they should be pressuring you.
Well thats concerning.
I dont know anything about nemesis nor am I interested in learning about his curret addons. The whole "needs 3 hits" and the "weak-to-barely good" progression of his whip put me off somehow.
But thasts why I'm in support of removing statboost-addons and adding most of these lost stats to the basekit. If there arent statnboosting addons which dominate the usefullness of addons, the othet types of addons may shine. Im thinking special effects ( wraith aura reading while invisible) or minor mosifications should be the kinda of effect for the addon slots.
Transformative addons like Tombstone or mirror myers, or even nurses new "warp back to start" should be alternative abilities to swap in the ability/item slot.
Disarming traps isn't free, it requires you to be there and invest time into it.
Trapper doesn't really win by having conveniently disarm-able traps anyhow, you generally win by creating a web, hooking someone in it, and then goad survivors into making mistakes that coalesces into more of them having to come save, making their own mistakes, and all dying from it.
Bloody coil just makes this strategy..... super ######### up. If they did make it baseline I guarantee it would get reverted or he'd receive a nerf.
Also why is doctor all the ways down there? His anti-loop power is certainly pretty usable and has a bunch of benefits and cool perk synergies, along with a nice selection of addons.
And I mean, I already said what I think would help which is overall nerfing several maps to make killers without strong chase powers more viable. Nurse and Blight are so special because they don't care much that you got a Shack -> Long Wall Jungle Gym -> Cowtree chain. Once anti-loop is not so necessary things will be much nicer.
Nemesis would be a massively better killer if (pick one):
1) HIs whip was always "T3" length and the buildup mechanic were removed and could always break pallets. Infection no longer gives a speed boost.
2) At T3 his whip damaged and infected in the same hit.
For either option zombie attacks should give him mutation as if he whipped the survivor.
-"Disarming traps isn't free, it requires you to be there and invest time into it."
You say that it would be OP if trapper had Bloody Coil base kit. Why do you say that? Is it because it would make disarming traps always have a penalty? That would be an example of disarming traps not being free.
The killer plays vs four people and it is too easy for one person to nearly completely remove the Trapper's power. Hag and Trapper become an absolute joke if one player just spends the entire game ruining their traps.
Bloody coil would only become oppressive if it gave a deep wound if already injured. Given the state of trapper compared to say Blight with no addons- I would say give Trapper deep wounds with bloody coil if someone disarms a trap while hurt.
-"Also why is doctor all the ways down there?"
The doctor's main power is detection. He has no movement power and his antiloop is in the "weak" category. You can watch streamers like Otz play Doctor and when they make no mistakes it takes 6 shocks to get a hit. Also Doctor can get completely fouled up by server latency; he shocks someone and they still vaulted because the killer isn't host anymore.
Doctor can't use STBFL and has no real instant down option.
Doctor is required to use the discipline addon or he sucks.
Doctor' s power can inflict very mild slowdown that usually has very little impact. Compare that to say PH who has much stronger antiloop and his power can skip the hooking animation and ignore anti tunnel perks.
I play killer the majority of the time so am not saying killer add-ons are overpowered compared to survivor add-ons just the game might be better if things were reworked so I agree.