Fair buff ideas to make Sadako a bit better
Sadako is widely considered one of the weakest killers in Dead by Daylight and for good reason.
Sadako's power is very much a jack of all trades, but she lacks in each department.
Her TVs have a long cool down, she has no anti-loop, she is a stealth killer with a lullaby, you can still see her demanifested, and her Condemn feature takes a specific play style in order to work consistently and is otherwise just a gimmick.
There are a lot of good, yet fair ideas that can help fix some of the glaring issues with Sadako.
• Tiers to Condemn Stacks (idea originally proposed by YouTuber Choy)
Sadako's Condemn should have different debuffs for each tier. For example, each tier of Condemn would have different effects on the survivors getting increasingly more impactful. A few examples would be Blindness, Exhausted, Exposed, and being Moriable would be the 7th tier. Essentially this would just make her Condemn feature a little more impactful and not as gimmicky and sometimes useless when playing her traditionally.
• Remove her lullaby/improve her stealth
Sadako is a stealth killer as I previously mentioned, but her stealth is not all that good. I am not sure why she has a lullaby as it is somewhat of a giveaway of your position. It makes no real sense to give a stealth killer a lullaby. You can also see her in her demanifested form flickering in and out of stealth, so you have to rely on breaking line of sight a lot or uncloaking behind walls in order to land sneaky hits. Just improving her stealth a little would go a long way.
• Lower the cool down of TVs
When Sadako projects to a TV, the TV is turned off for 100 seconds. This is extraordinarily long for no real reason other than maybe her trying to spam Condemn stacks. 100 seconds is way too long and her map mobility is essentially the main part of her power, so limiting her this much is a bit unfair. 60 seconds would be a lot better and would improve the flow of her gameplay by quite a bit without making her mobility too strong. This would also make survivors have to interact with TVs a bit more and overall improve her power.
• Allow her to walk through pallets/walls while demanifested (idea originally proposed by forum member Alex_)
This one is a shot in the dark, and I understand being skeptical about doing something like this. Sadako has no form of anti-loop. Instead of giving her the speed or lunge that Wraith has, giving her the ability to walk through pallets and/or walls could greatly make her better in chase. Of course, her demanifest speed could be tuned so this doesn't become too strong. I feel like this could make her more interesting to play as and against, without giving her a chase power too similar to Wraith.
Overall, Sadako is a very weak killer that could use some buffs. She is one of the best visually designed characters BHVR has ever made, and it is a real shame that a character as influential and iconic as Sadako is in the state she is in.
Comments
This killer is not weak by any means. You can see it in last kill stats. Also if you want to see her strength go watch onePumpWillie - a streamer that has 200 winstreak on her.
It's just that the killer requires certain addons and playstyle to be very very hard to deal with. You would need to delete this type of play before we can talk about buffs (which would alienate players that like exactly this).
There is a reason why Otz and many other high-level streamers have her in the bottom tier of tier lists. How Willie plays Sadako is a very niche add-on/perk-reliant playstyle which is the only way to make her that effective. Kill stats are also very inflated and inaccurate in determining how strong a killer is. Her high kill rate could be a result of other factors like lower pick rates. Her situation is similar to Myers. Myers with the right add-ons and perks could be considered strong, but he is still a weak killer given his base power being really bad. Look at Sadako and look at a majority of other killers. She doesn't really hold up well and to make her effective requires immensely more effort.
Nobody likes that condemned garbage. Slugging survivors over and over is incredibly dull gameplay. I do not care what a streamer man does or says.
Every part of her kit works against her and she is hamstrung by the mori stuff which is useless unless you force it. Kill rates also mean exactly nothing without context. Twins are "high MMR monsters". You think they don't need changes?
This too. Having to rely on a play style that is unfun for the other side is not a healthy thing for the game. This also proves that her base power is really weak if you have to rely on a niche add-on/perk-reliant play style in order to make her viable.
Yeah she needs A LOT. She’s pretty garbage. Good at nothing.
Yeah, she definitely does. She doesn't really excel at anything at all. Hopefully, the devs decide to show her some love.
Any buff to Sadako should also address the Elephant in the room (or rather the Elephant on the floor) that is the condemn slugging playstyle
IMO at least.
You're absolutely right. I think a lot of people(me at least) find it vastly unappealing and wish so much of her power weren't wrapped up in it.
I heavily dislike the playstyle because, much like stuff like genlock knight, hostage doc, bleedout starts and so on - it just drags matches on for so long to the point of tedium.
The playstyle even punishes you for trying to play safe by constantly giving you stacks of condemn for healing people on the ground/injured which is ridiculous if you ask me.
I would be in favor of pushing this forced condemn play style away for buffs in compensation. Killers should be fun to play as and against, and you shouldn't have to rely on niche add-ons or perks for them to become viable in the first place.
yes its because they do not stream-line base-kit mori's into killers kits. Its because casual survivor find mori oppressive and unfun. Just look at @YOURFRIEND post. She is fun to play but not super effective.
I have to agree with most of the posts here. But... Current sadako has condemn play so she in fact is in the same boat as meyers - there's no reasonable way to talk about their buffs so long as their specific addons/plays exists (but they both should get some buffs once it is addressed).
Also if I heart correctly - sadako has also fairly high pick rate in asian servers. Keeping this in mind there still is a risk to alianate large player base in that region.
My point is that her base-kit is terrible and she relies on add-ons, perks, and a specific play style in order to be a viable consistent winning killer. This play style is not fun for many and it isn't a healthy thing for a killer to have to rely on add-ons or perks to balance things out. Add-ons should not be too strong in general and killers should not be too weak in general. They should rebalance things to make the game healthier for everyone. As I stated before, It is similar to Myers and his Tombstone add-ons.
I had mentioned previously that I would be okay with them changing her condemn play style in order to make her traditionally a better killer. It would be a healthy thing for balance and fun for other players. Killers should be able to compete traditionally without needing add-ons to carry their power. Add-ons should never be too strong and powers should never be too weak. Also I do imagine her pick rate is probably a bit higher in Asia due to how popular Ringu is in Asia.
I can agree with this
I like playing against sadako because it feels like a fresh and different game. Unique gameplay experience. Playing as her could be an interesting as well but her powers(stealth/mobility and build-up of mori) are under-tuned that most people dismiss her and play stronger killers with more stream-lined gameplay. Sadako could benefit from more stream-line gameplay. Sadako is ok to play if you do not care about winning and losing. for me, she is more of joke type that I cannot take seriously when playing her. I play her occasional for gameplay variety. It would be cool to have a mori-based killer that is popular but I am not seeing it currently.
Really? I kind of like it and it would be interesting to go against in pub matches but unfortunately it's just not common enough, only sadakos I see just play "normal" which is dissspointing really because that's an entire mechanic being unused
You like laying on the ground doing nothing? Why? Are you watching YouTube or doing coursework while playing the game?
How's it any better than being on the hook? In fact I'd say it's preferable as you're not in immediate danger of dying, and you can move around (albeit slowly, but still move around)
I even made a poll here and more preferred being slugged over being hooked, and about only 4 people chose being hooked
As one person commented: "being hooked = guaranteed 33% life lost, while being slugged = 100% potential life kept"
Why else do people try to resist being hooked and perform sabo plays? If someone wanted to be hooked they would just let the killer do it