Is Hag somewhere on BHVRs radar?

So I made a thread about Hag a while back, that I keep peddling periodically, though I don't want to get a strike for thread necroing...:

@UndeddJester said:

I've been thinking a lot about Hag lately, and I'd like to explore it. I've factored in a number of old discussions in the forums, looked through her history and explored a number of others ideas. I encourage you to read the whole thing for the full context, but of course not everyone has time for a deep dive.

If anything seems unintuitive or illogical, or ofc if you have any issues with my suggestions or have other ideas you would prefer to see, there is a decent chance I've already answered it in the deep dive, but I don't mind reiterating/re-evaluating any points, so do feel free to drop them in. So without further adue:

The TLDR - Proposal to fix Hag issues:

Basekit:

• Hag traps can no longer be placed within 8m of a hooked Survivor. Existing traps within 8m of a survivor being hooked will burn away.
• Hag gains 2 extra traps to a maximum of 12.
• Hag traps when placed are "warded" for 30s. Attempting to wipe away a warded trap will trigger the ward.
• An activated ward will cause the trap to glow orange after 1s (same hue as the hex totems) and trigger a unique alarm sound. If the trap is successfully wiped away, this followed by a shriek from the Hag for the Survivor. The Hag receives the same unique alarm notification at the same time the Survivor does, and the trap is considered triggered for 3 seconds, allowing the Hag to teleport immediately if the Hag is able to using the secondary killer power button. If unable to teleport, the secondary killer power button will create a Mud Phantasm instead.
• Mud Phantasm's will now only yank the survivors camera a maximum of 36° in the direction of the Phantasm.

Add-Ons:

• Rusty Shackles now silently creates a smaller incomplete/amorphous Mud Phantasm when the trap is triggered, which no longer pulls the camera to face it.
• Powdered Eggshell renamed/rebranded to Half Eggshell and increased to 25% Phantasm Duration (was 20%)
• Cracked Turtle Egg increased to 33% Phantasm Duration (was 30%)
• Bog water now reduces trigger range of traps by 15% (was 10%)
• Bloodied Water now reduces trigger range of traps by 30% (was 20%)
• Half Eggshell renamed/rebranded to Hunting Spider Skinshed (or let your imagination go wild). Now triggers the ward on a warded trap in 0.25s and ward activation lasts for 3.75s. (was 25% Phantasm duration)
• Bloodied Mud renamed/rebranded to Hunting Spider Carcass. Extends the duration of the trap ward by 10s. (was 30% reduced trap trigger range)

Introduction

I really like Hag. I have a soft spot for set up killers in DBD, and Lisa is a pretty unique killer... I'd argue she is almost as unique as Nurse; while she has never been particularly popular, she has always appealed to a certain type of player, and her fan base has always been pretty loyal to her...

So before we start, any update to the Hag first and foremost, must maintain the elements that keep her unique and for players of that certain archetype. She is not an m1 killer in the traditional sense, her traps are her identity, and should remain the core of her gameplay loop. We don't want a Trickster situation where we make her a 4.6m/s killer and dilute her unique gameplay away from what makes Hag, Hag.

It goes without saying, the main thing to remember here (and I'm not insulting anyone but this point is important), is we must absolutely avoid reworking her to cater to the more modern dash and projectile style killers we see in droves in modern DBD. Any rework or changes should not cater the kind of players who only see skill expression as being something purely driven by input accuracy, like Blight, Nurse, Huntress, Wesker, etc.

While this kind of skill expression is fine for these killers, this is not who the Hag is; her skill expression is far more about prediction, map knowledge, efficient and effective trap placement, macro control and out of the box thinking to catch survivors off guard.

So with that in mind...

What actually is Hag's Identity?

Her character description is pretty on point for the Hag to be fair:

"The Hag specialises in creating a dangerous web of Phantasm Traps, to be triggered by unsuspecting Survivors. She can instantly teleport to a triggered Trap, striking the Survivor that sprung it. Lock down key areas, make rescues a deadly gamble, and end chases quickly with strategic Phantasm Trap placement."

Now, with this in mind, her design fits this goal well. Hag is burdened with the troubles of being a setup killer; she is slow to traverse the map at 4.4m/s, and so tends to have to forgo gens farther afield.

The way she makes up for this is by setting up and maintaining a large web of traps, that are quite hard to see in vast majority of locations and maps, that give her the ability to heavily punish careless survivor movement in a given area, both in defending locations like generators and hooks, and in cutting survivors off at loops. She herself is also small and quite hard to see, with a smaller terror radius, so is more difficult to observe setting up her traps.

If survivors are being careful with movement, Hag is massively slowing down all survivor movement out of necessity to avoid her traps, and always adapting her methods of approaching, pressuring and looping survivors based on what she currently has set up and available in any given moment, as well as what time constraints are currently placed on survivors (usually hook timers, but also healing, or searching for totems, etc).

Hag thus is a mix of an area control killer with decent abilities to hold objectives, psuedo map mobility and maintaining pressure between hook timings and totem defence; and a zoning killer that is capable of making a large number of loops unsafe, forcing survivors to leave and gamble into a previously set up and as yet unseen snare at another loop.

In many way Hag is the ultimate set up and pay off killer...

Fantastic, so what are her issues currently?

Hag has been directly and indirectly nerfed over the years, and has been hit quite hard via the changing landscape of the game.... there have been some things that have also benefited her as well, but usually the benefits came as a double edged sword...

1 - Trap Wipe Away makes her vulnerable to survivor stalking

The removal of the trap burn did remove flashlights as a pretty hard counter to her power, and is a good change... making this a universal wipe away mechanic is much fairer and easier to balance.

However the wipe away mechanic has also allowed survivors to undo her setup basekit, and while fine in theory, it gives her a similar problem to Trapper of having to deal with a survivor trailing behind her undoing her setup. At least before it was limited to survivor loadout that you could see in the lobby, and you could always take Franklin's to mitigate the problem if really needed, however now anyone can do it at all times, and is a constant threat.

Unlike Trapper, Hag is 4.4m/s and can't effectively push a survivor doing this away. Hag relies much more heavily on her traps for everything, so someone doing this punishes her way more than Trapper... which is really saying something... 😖

2 - Hook timer increase to 70s hurts her ability to exploit her survivor movement slowdown

Hag does have a reputation of being one of the worst hook campers in the game, and this would be something I would want to also address (see Survivor issues)... but it is undeniable that even if she isn't hook camping, this change hurt her quite badly, as even the most fair minded Hag's still need to exert some level of unhook time pressure... and this change hit her ability to squeeze survivor time substantially.

Survivors now have more time to complete gens, more time to snoop for and avoid/clear traps and generally limit her zone control effectiveness in her quadrant of the map.

3 - Maps got smaller (mostly Yay!) and brighter (eeehhhhh...)

As I say it's a bit of a double edge sword with Hag, the shrinkage of maps makes it easier for her to hold gens, no longer just a 3 gen machine, she can reach to 4 sometimes 5 gens with moderate effectiveness, which just is a boon for sure...

However... smaller maps do also mean survivors are more likely to see you setting up, and with maps being brighter as well, its easier to spot you and your traps than ever before... this amplifies the problems in point 1 where your traps are easier to shut down, and also further pushes point 2 as well, where smaller distances mean that survivors can take more time to comfortably reach the hook... likely even avoiding your traps entirely.

What I'm basically saying is... the Hag's game leans entirely on her power/traps probably more so than most killers, and if they are easily shut down or subverted, she suffers a LOT for it.... which leads me neatly onto...

4 - The S Tech

.... Yeah...

This is by far Hag's biggest problem. If a whole survivor team uses this and she doesn't have Rusty Shackles, the Hag is basically a 4.4m/s killer that doesn't have a power much beyond a survivor controlled teleport.

For those who don't know, the S tech involves pointing your camera to face the survivor and run towards your screen. The Hag's traps will pull the camera automatically to face the trap , and since the Survivor is already holding S, they will instantly turn and run from the trap the moment the trap is triggered.

This basically completely deletes all the Hag's setup value of her traps in an instant... a survivor can basically give Hag all the issues of point 1, but without even having to wipe away, or even look for traps at all... just blindly run around and safely remove her traps with little the Hag can do about it. It also completely pushes the issues she had in points 2 and 3 to the point of being absurd as well in the same way...

Some Survivor side issues

1 - Traps have no limitations on placement, particularly around hook.

Exerting time pressure and defending hooks IS a part of her game plan and design. It's even described in her killer overview:

"She can instantly teleport to a triggered Trap, striking the Survivor that sprung it. Lock down key areas, make rescues a deadly gamble, and end chases quickly with strategic Phantasm Trap placement."

So hooking a survivor within her web of gens and holding unhook pressure is absolutely a part of Hag's game... however Hag has no traps placement limitations, which can be pretty cool for creating trap gauntlets.... but unfortunately this lack of spawn limitations means that Hag can trap all around a hook with impunity… this playstyle is very lame and boring, but also quite tricky to effectively play around, especially in soloQ.

The last line says "strategic trap placement"... however there is nothing strategic about trapping the holy hell out of hook... and way too many Hag's fall back from the idea of maintaining their web, to instead just trapping hooks to oblivion and camping/tunneling players out... it takes no effort and no skill to do, and this gameplay should be limited in some capacity.

2 - Rusty Shackles is a universally disliked add-on that enables a lot of Hag's most unpleasant builds.

Every player I've ever talked to, veterans to newbies, casuals to sweats, meme players, theme players, whoever... nobody likes this add-on on Hag.

Survivors get no chance to react and even try and dodge when this add-on is in play, and it betrays the usual agreement survivors have with traps, bjt at no cost to the Hag. Normally Hag has to capitalise quite quickly on her trap trigger to get value (which is something we want to fix vs. S tech), and so this gives survivors a chance to react to the trap if the trap trigger isn't convenient to the Hag. You have a chance to move away if the Hag hesitates to take the trap.

Rusty Shackles completely undoes this, and due to that lack of warning Hag can take their time and often still get a hit with no chance for the survivor to do anything about it... and where this becomes a problem often, is this add-on enables Hag to exploit mean effects of perk combos very consistently (e.g. Weave Attunement and Franklin's was very oppressive on Hag).

Now admittedly a lot of Hag's nastier builds have been gutted since Knockout and Franklin's have been trashed... but the fact a survivor can't react at all will always remain a problem whenever some mean trick of killer perks becomes an option. Rusty Shackles is in every build like this.

My personal gripe is there is something deeply unsatisfying about it. Hag jumpscares are actually quite fun to me, and her traps creates a nervousness that is lacking a lot against other killers... and Rusty Shackles turns that cool alarming jump scare and instead makes it a very boring and just annoying. Despite the result being the same... a Rusty Shackles hit feels so much worse than a normal Hag hit.

Change goals and principles/discussion points.

Hag hooks range limit - The reduction of Hag's camping ability via the trap hook limitation seems counter intuitive to her identity, however I was careful to choose 8m, since her trap trigger range is 2.7m, she can still effectively trap pretty close to hook for preservation of her hook pressure, but she can't trap all around the hook in the Survivors shadow to make it so obnoxiously difficult to play around. It's still effective to exert hook pressure, but it does take more trap commitment and set up, that a single wipe away (rather than 3 or 4) can effectively counter for survivors two pay attention.

Increased trap count - Number of traps correlates to the effectiveness of the Hag's web. While there isn't much we can really do about the 10s hook timer increase (at least without strong arming it), what we can do is allow the Hag to be a little more liberal with her trap placement. More traps means survivors have to be more careful traversing the map, since there are more opportunities for a trap to be lying in wait ahead of you.

This has the added bonus effect of effectively increasing the effective range of her web, and making her a little less 3 gen reliant, and also rewarding Hag with effective trap placement by increasing the odds she can push Survibors into her Web a little easier.

Warded Traps - A straight forward change really, it simply limits Survivors from following Hag around and bullying her by neutering her traps. The 1s initial trigger and 3s activation aligns with her wipe away mechanic, so of Hag does leave it too long, she loses the ability to protect her warded trap. She can't m1 and run for example.

Obviously some effects, like her blocking add-ons and her Iri with the cooldown can prevent her from teleporting to the warded trap, but the ability to create a Mud Phantasm instead still keeps the mechanic functional in her kit when running these add-ons.

Reduced Camera Yank - Thinking about it carefully, this is the best number I can imagine to effectively gut this effect. The camera yank is a great little horror theme addition I'd love to keep, and this change doesn't effect how most survivors interact with the traps.

The problem with values any larger than this (say 90° for example, you can create similar W/D techs). 36° still does enough to disorient/spook the survivor/get the idea across, but trying to tech it comes with issues like you can accidently run into walls, and can't usually turn far enough for it to matter without really good reactions to recognise which way they turn and respond fast enough from the survivor in addition, which seems fairer all round.

Egg and Water Add-Ons - I wanted add-ons for the new ward mechanic and having 3 variants for her duration and range add-ons is just... why?

The only reason you use the eggs is for the purple block add-ons or for slightly better anti loop flexibility, and we don't need such small differences between them... also the numbers were ugly...

Similarly since range was changed basekit, we don't need such small subtle differences between them anymore.

Suggestions I avoided

• Increased to 4.6 after teleport (and 4.6 in general) - This is simply unnecessary if you don't have S tech. Hag can usually get a hit if she reacts immediately to a trap trigger, and if she doesn't, the decision to actually take the trap is a meaningful decision for Hag. It also is a key part of mindgaming Hag at tiles, where if Survivors know a trap is down, they can bait her trap/TP and create an effective mind game, and Hag in turn can mind game taking the trap at any moment over it's 6 seconds duration to go flr a hit as well. If she becomes 4.6 however, she can just take the trap anyway and then loop normally for a short time... and doing that, she isn't really playing the Hag game anymore.
• Increased lunge after teleport - Again this is not really necessary after removal of S tech. Hag can make good use of perks like Coup and even Unrelenting to go for big swings off of traps, and should be a conscious decision of her build. The zoning power and potential mind games of an activated trap in chase gives her plenty of tools to get the job done, and she still has plenty of options if she has been diligent in her Web setup (Which itself is stronger with extra traps and the ward protection).

Overall I feel like these changes give her some nice QoL, and bring her a little more up to date, while still maintaining the core of her identity (and removing the main thing that totally kills her viability)

It also removes some of the more frustrating and irritating elements of her kit for Survivors, to nudge her more towards the more fun and engaging elements of her kit and generally make her more interesting for all.

Thought and feedback more than welcome!

However while watching JRM yesterday, as much as I love the man, he dropped this little nugget about Rusty Shackles and S-tech, that I've clipped.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7aLWH_4xRQHJcfuZ0tWx6Zj1THNSw8aQ?si=6g_4fRd1glm4tVAM

Some people love S tech... but I dunno, I don't feel like this is the image we should going for with Hag...

Please BHVR... S tech kills this killer, she's an utter joke while it's in the game... and Rusty Shackles is the only way to get rid of it, but is such a painful add-on to play against (please don't make this basekit...).

The cliif notes version of my suggestion was to

• Cap the turn angle of the trap jump scare to 36 degrees, so you can't use the trap the immediately 180 by looking away.
• Change Rusty Shackles to spawn a smaller amorphous dirt mass that doesn't yank the camera...

I have other changes, but this should be a minimum...

I know Hag is a rare killer and you have bigger fish to fry, and I don't care if my suggestion is the form this issue is resolved... but let me know Hag and S tech is at least something on your radar? 😭