Trickster is hillariously underpowered
So underpowered to the point I'm wondering why is he in the game in the first place. Every killer on the roster could be fixed by adding some add-ons base kit, but even if you add ALL add-ons base kit, Trickster is still a pile of steaming garbage. The only way to make him a viable killer is to look at the other projectile killers, identify how his playstyle differentiates from them and then buff him accordingly.
Huntress: She can prep a Hatchet around the corner and with a generous hitbox get a health state.
Deathslinger: He doesn't need to prep, he can just do it on reaction, but he has a smaller hitbox to compensate.
Trickster: He has a smaller hitbox, has to hit 6 TIMES, during which his screen is experiencing an earthquake.
He is the ONLY RANGE killer that CAN'T use his power at RANGE and that can't guarantee an injury at window vaults. His unique playstyle element is hitting multiple knives, so we can conclude that he should have the advantage to be more flexible with projectiles than Huntress and Deathslinger, but having the downside of a smaller hitbox and multiple hit requirement. As such the logical conclusion would be:
Flexibility: Trickster doesn't slow down while taking out the knives, only when fully holding them. He should have a faster power cooldown than a Huntress canceling her Hatchet or Deathslinger canceling a fully aimed-in gun.
Injure potential: Any ranged killer which isn't able to guarantee injuries at windows shouldn't even belong in a game where you have Huntress, Deathslinger and even Pyramid which can hit through walls. As such the Knife injury requirement should go down from 6 to 2 and an added 1 second invulnerability window when injured.
Range: Since Trickster is a ranged killer he should be able to hit his knives at range, as such his left-right random recoil should be removed and any knife that hits over 25m+ should instantly injure, not down (ricochet addon doesn't work with this).
TLDR: With a few changes trickster can be on the same level as all the other range killers, but currently he is a range killer who can't play at long-medium range and that is abysmally mediocre in close range.
Comments
Tbf, most of his problems come from his movement speed.
Out of all the ranged killers, hes the one thats justified the least, in being slower.
Also his lullaby, if anyone should have a tiny TR with no lullaby it's him, not Deathslinger who can reel you in with a single click the instant he turns a corner.
Wasnt Slinger's TR nerfed a while ago?
Besides Lullaby warns survivors of you being near, but not how near, since unlike TR it has no intensity from distance, which can play in your favor if you use something like M&A, which can catch survivors of guard.
Also, Trickster is more dangerous than Slinger, while Slinger can easily secure injures, Trickster can outright obliterate you if you get caught at a bad spot, and Trickster can snowball pretty badly as well if survivors arent careful.
Trickster is weak in chase. But he's the 2nd best camper in whole game. His potential to multiple injures is rivaled only by bubba - sometimes, he's even stronger. Also as it stands - he's very much unfun to go against (and taking this perspective - it's good he's bad, because unlike skull merchant he does not plague games that much - so even killer players don't enjoy to take him that much).
He would benefit from full rework
Also, Trickster is more dangerous than Slinger, while Slinger can easily secure injures, Trickster can outright obliterate you if you get caught at a bad spot, and Trickster can snowball pretty badly as well if survivors arent careful.
all killer will get a hit when your in a deadzone. arguably instant down killers punish you way more for being in deadzone then trickster does. for example billy has instant down on his chainsaw and it leads to direct down with no speed boost or any second chances in regards to backrev chainsaws. All the killers can snowball effectively when their opponent plays poorly.
trickster being a good camper does not excuse him from having poor performing chase. Being unfun face is another excuse for killer to be bad. getting 1 down with trickster requires 12/44 knives to hit. It should not be that hard to dodge 33 knives. I think survivor players just don't want to learn to attempt to sidestep projectiles and rather just Line of sight cheese+rush generators to victory. It is like why try outplay the killer aim with your movement when an auto-pilot solution exists.
As I have said many times in the past, he is dps-oriented killer that relies on damaging health-states over time but his movement speed reduction when holding knives suggests him being a character that timely throws knives at specific times. It does not make much sense for him. The other killers do not spend much time in their throwing mode because they're burst damage characters and they rely on timing their throwing mode to land hits. Trickster's power design forces him to stay in throwing mode for virtually entire chase otherwise he cannot use his power correctly but being stuck at 96% m/s is nurse-level movement speed is awful. It is way too easy to line of sight a 96% m/s moving killer. this forces trickster to volley few knifes, get line of sight, put down his knives, walk at 110% m/s, raise his knives again, shoot more knives, rince and repeat until he gets down. that gameplay loop he has is non-sense for him. that is why he is not very good. It is way too time consuming chases for him to be an effective chasing killer.
Yes. Try to outplay 56 knives that are being shot semi-randomly (by design) AND are being shot rapidly. Sure makes sense. Totally skill dependent and absolutely not about luck...
The killer is just bad. Both performance-wise and fun-wise
that's like saying try dodging 8 hatchets. add-on exist to improve the killer....
Making him 4.6, remove recoil and laceration loss, can making him good, like a ghost face but without insta down, building his laceration, like: if you see that the chase is not good for you, you can throw a few knifes and go find another survivor.
The difference is, that each hatchet is skill shot. It's single shot that has it's CD after. If huntress had 56 hatchets, it would be still more fun to play against. The basic idea is - there's a skill in dodging huntress. There's not really any skill in dodging trickster.
So again - even if huntress is undeniably stronger, she is MUCH more fun to go against
judging from our conversation with slinger, you have the opinion that every skill-shot is luck based. at that point, life itself is luck based. there is skill to being more consistent dodging shots. i do not want to argue about this any further. I am not interested in another forum ban.
DS is not luck based. DS is skill based as well. He's just super tough for casual players. There are so many small holes that can be shot thru - making his skill ceiling insane.
Meaning your assumption is wrong