Fixing Hex builds
In the Discord Dev livestream they announced that they will be increasing the distance you can see the Judgement's laser so that people on totems (because of how strong totem builds are on the killer) can have an easier time dodging them. The little I played the PTB showed me it really wasn't that hard to dodge once you got used to it, maybe they could increase the visible range a bit more but from the looks of things you can basically see it from across the map now.
I think if both the Judgement and Jason back-to-back are problematically good at utilizing Hex builds, I think we should be looking at how totems are designed themselves. The problem is that some killers are extremely good at defending totems (Jason, Judgement, perhaps Artist, etc) while other killers, especially ones with little mobility, have no real way to defend them and are way more likely to get no value. Hex builds are meant to be strong but risky, but when some killers can pretty much mitigate the risk it just ends up being insanely oppressive.
The solution: make totem cleansing progress regress over time similar to gens, just faster. If a totem has 14 charges (because it takes 14s to cleanse), when not being cleansed it can regress at, say 0.4c/s (which would take 35s to regress from 100% to 0%). This means if the survivor is briefly scared off a totem, or is pushed off the totem but is able to get back on after, their progress does not just disappear. It also gives the chance for another survivor to swoop in and finish the cleanse. Alternatively, the regression rate could be slower but getting off the totem would instantly regress the progress by 10% of the total. To compensate for either of these changes, maybe totems could take a few seconds longer to cleanse, guaranteeing a bit more wasted time for any killer running Hex builds. These changes could also be applied to boons if needed.
Comments
I dont think that Hex builds worth deleting for just because people want to abuse the new killer for sniping, if not for hex build it would have been used to snipe gens. So the nerfs for her right thing to do.
This would not be deleting Hex builds, especially if totem cleansing was made a few seconds longer. On the average killer, it would in fact buff them with that increase in time, as the average killer probably won't interrupt totem cleansing that often. It would just make it 10 times easier to balance the game without worrying too much about a killer being way too strong with Hex builds
just get rid of Thrill at this point
Again, streamers already said they would do nothing but long range snipes to keep game hostage with hexes or gens, this was a forced change regardless of hexes, it would be never acceptable to keep gens hostage with constant long range snipping, many people said this will be problem, so bhvr just stopped the issue with the change
how is killing survivors considered hostage taking? if so, what's the difference between any other killer holding a 3gen? or if it's 5 gens is that not just survivors going afk? what are they doing?
What I mean here, that survivor players would complain that too hard to face, and you can check yourself lot of streamer idea was to never let survivors cleanse or do gens with constant snipe attack. She would have been the new skull merchant.
It isnt my issue, its just a casual game and survivor would nerf her to ground based on this.
I'm really not sure how this is considered taking the game hostage, but either way you're wrong, their change to the Judgement did nothing to actually solve the issue. Hex builds will still be just as strong on the Judgement, the killer just won't get as many free injuries on totems. However, it will still force the survivors off the totem, therefor wiping out all totem progress they just got and forcing them to restart, until 30s later (because of course there will be Thrill of the Hunt) the killer sends another Judgement laser at them and resets their progress again
Maybe make survivors immune to her beams, while cleansing totems?
I don't think that solves the issue with Jason though, or Artist, or Knight guards, or Nemesis zombies, etc (although the last one isn't as problematic as it's just RNG and the killer themselves don't have any power over it). They could also make it so Jason can't se survivors cleansing totems in OE, and Artist crows don't affect survivors on totems, etc, but how many killers would you have to change for that? Personally I think the solution in the OP works pretty well across the board, and doesn't really nerf Hex builds in any way except for on killers who can heavily defend totems from across the map, and in fact would buff the average killer's use of them if cleansing was made a bit longer by guaranteeing more time survivors have to spend off gens. The rate of regression could always be changed from what I made as an example, but even in my example you're much more likely to get kicked off at something like 60% rather than 99.99%, and it would only take 21 seconds to completely regress that totem. Even if a survivor hops on within 15 seconds or something, most of the progress is gone anyways. This would also help the one remaining issue with NOED which otherwise is a fine perk, and that's the ability to puppy guard the totem near a hook.
Hex builds are that good at high mmr still? I though its old news, and thrill nerfs kills any use of them
Even though Thrill is being nerfed, even at full power it's the difference between 60% slowdown and 50%. It's really not a huge nerf, it just shaves a few seconds off. Ironically Thrill would be easier to balance with adding regression to totem cleansing, as adding a couple seconds to cleanse totems would buff it (because that's a few more charges Thrill can slow down) while keeping the progress of the totem like a regressing gen would make it so killers who interrupt the cleanse cross-map would only interrupt it for a second before the survivor is able to get back on and finish the cleanse.
Right now Hens' "unemployed build" is running rampant, especially on Jason, and there's a reason why. Especially against solo queue teams that have a bit less coordination, it is by far the strongest build to run on Jason and other totem defense killers so I see it every few games, and it'll probably be the same with the Judgement if something isn't done soon.