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The Hillbilly Problem
THIS IS NOT A HILLBILLY HATE OR HIT-PIECE
Since nobody is properly reading this, here's a small sunmary for you so you can stop with bad criticism to shut down discussion:
- I'm not calling for changes or nerfs, besides insta-saw
- I'm not saying Hillbilly is OP
- I'm looking at his skill floor, not celing. Don't mention curves or flicks.
- I do not believe Hillbilly to be this "gold standard of balance".
So, with recent events, it seems that Hillbilly is now in the spotlight for everyone's hate. It was Nurse, then she got re-worked. It was Spirit, then Prayer Beads and Phasing body-blocking was removed.
While both Nurse and Spirit had actual problems, and I know that I personally hate on Hillbilly all the time, but I have a very serious issue to bring up that really is a genuine cause for concern. And that is that for the very little mechanical skill that Hillbilly does actually require, he's WAY to strong. And potentially the single STRONGEST killer in Dead by Daylight.
Hillbilly is a very straight forward killer, you have a chainsaw dash that will destroy pallets in (roughly) a 5th of the time it takes to break them normally, you have an incredibly fast dash ability (faster than a Survivor "Haste" effect) that can be sustained across an entire map and it's all tied to an instant-down ability, that only requires you to hold an activation button. With base killer statistics. And the coolest camera animation for movement.
Nurse is literally slower than Survivors, but her blink ability is very good at shortening a chase and can bypass the map. A small price to pay. She does also have the shortest lunge attack range, and that is actually a problem right now for, what I can assume, is a lot of people.
And yes, I play her. On console no less, but at lower ranks for now as my main account, a low green is getting paired with nothing but high purples. Super frustrating for a stealth killer main.
Spirit has the smaller killer stats, and a fantastic chase power. Being able to traverse the map with great speed and being almost undetectable is quite good, but you have a trade-off of you can't actually see anyone. Only their scratch marks.
Both of these fine ladies who ruled the top ranks are both "M1" killers, and I hate that term since it's only a PC thing. Myers, Oni and Ghostface all have an instant down, but require some sort of interaction and a build up. They sacrifice time chasing or damaging generators in order to get their instant down. Otherwise they're just a basic attacking killer.
Now, a lot of people are going to cry "JUNGLE GYMS!" or "INFINITE LOOPS!", but we can't always use them. Not every Survivor is a running god with map knowledge over every variation of the maps. Some are more easy to mind game out of their hiding spots, or cut off loops.
There is also a concern of the player base for Hillbilly. With that amount of mobility, it's easy to exploit perks like Kindred and Borrowed Time so that they don't proc, while still camping and tunnelling. Nor the concerns of those who actively body-block with the chainsaw revved in order to score a cheap and easy down.
I am NOT saying at all that Hillbilly should be put on the level of Legion or Old Freddy, and I'm NOT saying that we should make killers even worse, but for such a killer who has one of the lower mechanical skills, and is so rewarding compared to Spirit, Nurse or Huntress, there is just no denying that there is a legitimate problem here. We should be rewarding those who are playing higher skill required killers.
Hillbilly is rated "Difficulty: Easy" on his character profile and after playing him for a while now, I believe it.
Make difficult killers great again.
Comments
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I am expecting so much hate for this.
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I stopped reading when you wrote requires no mechanical skill because that is where you are wrong. Hillbilly is next to nurse the only killer which do require any sort of mechanical skill in the game to begin with.
Curving is something you will have to learn for tiles etc.. since you claim it is so easy to do and there is no requirement, i suggest you play now 50 matches in red ranks. You go 4k each game, only use the saw. Record and upload.
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Did I forget to physically write the IMPLIED "Compared to other killers"?
And yes, I acknowledge curving. Also, no I will not play in red ranks. I am not that sweaty. I am talking about chainsawing someone who is 5m in front of you.
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There are simply no other killers aside from billy / nurse where any mechanical skill is required whatsoever.
Funny, that you do not want to play in red ranks.. i mean why? According to you he doesn't require any mechanical skill so just chainsaw everybody 5m infront of you. Should take you 3-4 min per game.
Even compared to other killers, he requires more mechanical skill than others aside nurse.
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Then why is he labelled as an "EASY" killer to play, where as someone like Doctor is labelled "HARD"? Shouldn't those labelled "HARD" require more mechanical skill, and therefore be more rewarding/powerful? THIS is the main point of my argument.
Yes, a lot of Spirit's power is in the mind game, but that is due to how her power is based. Myers, Plague, Pig, Freddy, Trapper and Hag all require some level of resource management.
There are respectable Billies out there, but I've faced so many that his image is permanently tainted, but it does not influence the bias of what I am saying. I never supported the Devs with Nurse changes, but I understood why they needed to happen. I supported the Devs in their Spirit changes, with body collision and Prayer Beads because they were a necessary change.
And I personally find that curving Billy's saw is more about reading your opponent, and the occasional good weave, rather than mechanics.
Can we both agree though that we'd all rather see a good Hillbilly than one of those obnoxious camping Leatherfaces, though? I hate him way more than Hillbilly.
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I think Billy is rated easy because
- A new player will enjoy success using his chainsaw purely for map control and rely on his M1 for attacks
- A veteran player has the both incredible map control and an instadown with no cooldown, plus an almost limitless number of instasaw addons
Old Doctor on the other hand is rated hard because
- Very tricky to get used to the stance switching for a new player
- Very difficult for a veteran player to beat good survivors using poor underpowered doc compared to other killers.
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I get that, but it just feels bad that Hillbilly can so easily out-perform old Doctor. I do see his new iteration as more of a Freddy than a Nurse.
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Well go figure why, doctor has/d a lackluster power which did not help him really in chases or to an amount that it is really viable which probably is the reason why I didn't see a single doc for months.
His power was so bad that even when he used it, there was an empty field in front of him so he would miss because reasons i guess. Also the fact that in order to prevent a vault, the survivor could not be locked in animation so when the shock arrives a little bit too late, survivor will scream during the vault but can still vault. Will see how things are now that he doesnt need to switch stances anymore.
Docs power is/was very addon dependant, like you could have completely diffrent effects depending on the addons used.
Compare that to billy, even when the player is not able to play with the power he will is able (on certain maps) to traverse the map and have map pressure, something every killer needs badly. His addons are quite straightforward. Simple&Good.
Trapper is labeled as easy too but i doubt that noobs are able to perform well with him. In order to perform well with trapper, you need to have a strategy, deny loops etc.. how should a noob know that?
Also the ratings (easy/intermediate/hard) do not really express mechanical skill required in order to play the killer but rather to learn to use the power effectively.
Oh and if you think billy is easy to learn, just pick him up, this also something i always do recommend for people who struggle against a certain killer. Play the killer and see what other people do against you because sooner or later you will find people that can play well against him (might take a while with the amount of potatoes).
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Thank you.
Now I don't have to read the post.
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You try and do something thoughtful...........
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What do you mean?
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I mean that I spent time trying to say how one of the easiest characters to pick up and play, and one that also has the largest amount of utility in one power, is kind of a problem.
I outline how I have come to this conclusion and my own personal struggles against them, and I get dismissed as a salty player. I even say how other killers who have a higher skill floor are currently less rewarding than him.
I even say "I WANT STRONG KILLERS, but I don't think that Hillbilly should rule the game as Nurse or Spirit has before." I don't mind him being good, just not THE best killer in the game.
And I get dismissed, told to try ridiculous challenges, offered no explanation as to why Billy should be stronger than other former top-tier characters.
But no real feedback. Nobody actually considering that I might just have a point based on the comments here. Just people explaining to me things that I already know about how the rating ssytem is wrong and why. Or that what I've observed is wrong simply because one other person hasn't.
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I wouldn't use the word salty. Uninformed is more accurate.
As soon as I read the phrase "Billy requires little mechanical skill", I stopped reading because that's all I needed to know from you.
It's common knowledge among veteran players that Billy is one of the few killers who requires a fair amount of mechanical skill to play optimally.
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Hillibilly is overrrated.
He has mobility, and onehit if he gets people outpositioned, yes. But since maps are littered with ultra-safe braindead loops, he just eats pallets like every other M1-killer. He is a noobstomper, since new players don't know how to utilise the loops, which will most likely get him nerfed in the future. However any semi-experienced player will never get chainsawed by Billy at all. He has to M1 good players, because curving does not work on the vast majority of the loops.
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Devs stated multiple times that Billy is their go to when it comes to balance. Its not that he is too strong, its other killers that are too easy to bully with second chances and bodyblocking. Oh you bodyblock? So you get the chainsaw, enjoy. He is what killers are supposed to be, dangerous during every stage of the trial but not broken.
You can 360 chainsaw and that is not too hard. Smart Billy will just wait but answer to this is not doing 1 spin, just 360 until he uses it. He is also weak to looping, if you know how use 4 major maze tiles you are safe. When you do stupid mistake though he is the killer that will punish you, just like Myers and Leatherface. But the truth is, you will have much easier time against Billy than Trapper or Clown (anti loop specs). If you are good survivor. If not then you are easy prey while other killers have to hit you twice, wasting much more time on you.
Imo he is the strongest when comparing time to learn to effectiveness, but good Nurse (even this ######### nurfed crap we have now) will outperform Billy against smart survivors. Problem with Nurse now, she is way harder to get into than ever and actually not fun to play even if you go into her.
Edit: If you think something is overpowered but not because of a bug then abuse it. Best argument is always and example showed.
Edit2: @ABannedCat I agree with you but I don't think he is overrated, even with m1 only, his mobility on bigger maps is a winning factor and shear possibility of having that instadown on cramped maps prevents survivors from stealth play (i really have good time as Billy on Lery's because of it).
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I'm not denying that pros can do some fantastic things with Billy, but it's like Mercy or Lucio in Overwatch. Very little is required at a basic level, but there is build up. Just not enough for me.
I'm not exactly new. I've been playing since Legion's release, but not all of us can exactly recognise god-loops. Or run a killer for days.
I'm at rank 5 on console at time of post playing stealth. Not much looping.
And balancing every other killer around him says a lot about the state of the game then. I do want every other killer to meet Billy in power, but as a baseline, he has literally everything except Stealth. I'd rather see Freddy as this golden standard.
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@PigMainBigBrain I like Freddy, he can make fun plays. Thing i like the most is he has "high mobility" without making him so strong in chases like Nurse is, and since she is no longer high mobility we have kind of a balance.
But honestly i think Freddy is stronger than Billy on higher level play. If survivors make no or very little mistakes his power actually helps securing the hits when Billy would be helpless. He is bullyable once exits are opened while Billy is not, so i like Billy more, he punishes recklesness like noone else xD.
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Billy and Huntress rely on survivor mistakes to use their ability. Thats why they’re not the top killers even though they absolutely can devastate a survivor’s mistake.
Spirit and Nurse were top of the chain because survivors (at least pre-nerf) couldn’t really stop the killer from getting them. OP, the players in this thread are trying to explain this about Billy.
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I love the hidden complexity of billy's power. As I get better and better as killer I have begun to prefer him over GF because GF is good for memes but is pretty basic.
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I agree with you totally. Very well thought out post, you put the argument across really well.
Firstly I need to clarify that this isn’t a co-ordinated campaign to get killers nerfed. I know it looks bad after Spirit and Nurse got hit but the DBD community is not a hive mind we all have our own opinions. I was actually defending Spirit before her nerf on other websites however I’ve always thought Billy needed a nerf. As for Nurse I was in the camp that would have been happy if they just tweaked her add ons. People that wanted Spirit and Nurse nerfed aren’t always the people that want Hillbilly nerfed.
As you say Hillbilly is probably the easiest to use out of all the strongest killers. He has too much strength for how easy he is to use. Nurse takes practise and Spirit is slow, Hillbilly is a bog standard killer so lag and bloodlust mean even if the player isn’t a pro he should still be able to do relatively well. Add to that his extreme mobility and camping potential.
I’m glad you mentioned he has the potential to be the strongest. It’s that potential that is the problem. Hillbilly can put a survivor into the dying state faster than anyone else in the game. Will he always do it? No, but it happens more frequently than you think. Just zoom over to a survivor, catch them out of position and then instadown. The fact that a killer can have a survivor on the floor 15-20 seconds into the game is absolutely ridiculous.
His snowball potential is too high and too frequent too. He has no cooldown on his mobility or instadown. So at a moments notice he can instadown one survivor, sprint across the map and then instadown another and suddenly the survivor team is in a lot of trouble. These kind of situations happen far more with Hillbilly than any other killer.
Theres no respite in a Hillbilly game. He zooms on top of you within seconds and you better pray you’re next to a pallet otherwise you’re going down. Then he just swings and swings and swings that instadown until he hits you because theres barely any punishment to missing it. If you manage to make distance he just chainsaw sprints back to you and then its swing, swing, swing with the chainsaw again. There’s no break for the entire game.
Oni was a much better design. He zooms around the map slugging survivors and building pressure like Hillbilly.....but then he goes on cooldown, and it buys the survivors a chance to make a counter attack. Theres a better flow there.
Hillbilly needs something so that he cant zoom anywhere he wants with no cooldown and then just keep swinging the chainsaw until he hits someone. Either give him a stamina meter or something so he cant go from one side of the map to the other and then immediately back again, or give him more of a penalty for chainsaw misses or slow him down a bit while charging like Leatherface.
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Bubba being able to instantly down everyone in 1 second means he will always have the highest downing power potential in the game.
Even oni has a higher downing potential then billy having effectively the same charge + it has AoE.
Saying billy has the highest downing potential is always going to be factually wrong as long as there is AoE instant downs.
Also billy does have a CD of about ~2.5 seconds after he charges as he has to wait for his chainsaw to finish swinging slowly and de-rev.
I do however agree that him missing his chainsaw short range(Less then 2 seconds into his charge) should put him on a longer CD but him chainsawing you from the other side of the map while in the open moving in a straight line is your own fault.
So how about this nerf compromise: Billy's ability bar is red while within the first 2 seconds of his charge.
If Billy misses hit chainsaw(But didn't bump into a wall/pallet) while his bar is in the red he should stumble making him have the same ~4-5 second cooldown as if he did bump into a wall to stop billies from being too greedy with instant down saws.
It doesn't stop his mobility(His main gimmick) but does help punish overly greedy billies who try to constantly fish for only instant downs.
Edit: When I say Cooldown I mean his self stun where he can't do anything
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@ClickyClicky bro you complain about Billys potential to snowball, how about Plague, Myers or Trapper? GhostFace even, stalking to 99 and then activating it for one second as you touch survivor before anyone can flush you out of shround. Super out of character and logically stupid mechanic not making sense what so ever, unlike Myers. But it is in game, otherwise noone would play him. If survivors make mistakes Leatherface has the biggest punish and snowball potential, why not nerfing him? Because he is laughable if survivors are decent.
Edit: Early downs, how about Myers grabs, op?
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lol I've been playing billy in red ranks without perks or map offering for the past week and I have gotten nothing but 4ks.
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I'm not even good at killer and I can still 4k with Billy lol.
He is pretty ridiculous sometimes.
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yeah people act like he takes skill. I literally never played him before this week and I'm getting 4ks every game.
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want proof
what's your sc? insta? let me send you some pics.
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Nah make 5hrs livestream, i will check the vod.
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what? you're crazy. you said doubt and I'm tryna send you proof.
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Why crazy? :O Just want to see those matches :)
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@Endstille here you go. im not wasting my time streaming just to prove some stubborn dude wrong, you said you doubted i 4ked and this is proof i did.
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Now, a lot of people are going to cry "JUNGLE GYMS!" or "INFINITE LOOPS!", but we can't always use them. Not every Survivor is a running god with map knowledge over every variation of the maps. Some are more easy to mind game out of their hiding spots, or cut off loops.
I'm not sure if this is a "nerfy billy" thread or a "Buff other killers thread", but I came in here to say that Billy is easy to counter if you know how to, and then you mentioned this line. Which confirms it. So yeah. Billy is easy to counter if you know how to. I know that OhTofu on his stream will play billy for 1 match to squash a whole team of potato's then gloat around like as if he's good, or that everyone's right billy is too strong, but that's the problem. He squashed potato's. Billy is easy to learn, and is strong when you play him well, but a good survivor knows how to counter him. Starting with getting out of the way when they hear the chainsaw - you lose a few seconds on a gen moving off to make sure he's not charging at you, but that's the first step to countering him. Then it's just tight corners, and good looping skills.
I agree entirely that Killer's need buffs to be as strong as Billy in the right hands though. Like Clown, or Bubba (that's right I said Cannibal don't @ me).
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i sent you proof, i dont have a twitch so i cant stream. but even if i did it obviously wouldnt matter, you seem like one of those people who gets hit by facts and still continues to argue. Im done arguing with you, i hope you have a great day.
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First comment starts with your opinion is wrong...
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None of them can snowball like Billy. None of them.
How often does Myers get a grab? Very very rarely. Once he tiers up though that stealth is gone. He can snowball but like oni, after a while he reverts back to tier 2 and the instadowns stop. Hillbilly has those instadowns all game 24/7 and then he can cross the map and back again in seconds. Myers cant.
This is the difference between all those killers and Billy. Billy has the instadowns permanently and on demand. The rest only have them for a limited time and have to do something to earn it.
Leatherface doesnt compare because his chainsaw is harder to hit since it slows him down and he suffers a far bigger penalty if he hits a wall.
Ghostface is BS but thats another story for another time.
None of them compare to Billy. Billy has his snowball potential from the start of the game until the very end. One mistake and its curtains for the survivors. Myers and Oni only have their chance at certain intervals, Trapper is more of a late game snowball.....again Hillbilly is an overwhelming threat right from the start of the trial.
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No killer deserves a nerf. Billy is fine right were he is. Without ruin he is more valuable than ever.
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Truth hurts 😰
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I don't get the argument that survivors can't always use Jungle Jyms or Infinite Loops. Of course that's not the case cause otherwise killers would be useless. I mean infinites, if one wants to call them like that, shouldn't even exist. But Jungle Jyms and other good loops do exist, and Billy doesn't have much in form of anti loop, which makes him balanced in my opinion. If survivors were able to use jungle jyms all game, he'd be pretty useless.
Even at mindgameable pallets, if you play it right, you'll only give him the possibility to M1 you and that's it.
In my opinion, Hillbilly is perfectly balanced. He has really good map pressure, an instadown ability which is good, and small mindgame potential at pallets with his chainsaw. Pallets and vaults are still very effective against him, as he can't really counter loops. I also disagree that he takes too little skill. You still need to know how to run tiles and counterplay at loops with him just as with any other M1 killer, controlling his chainsaw optimally and insta downing survivors can also be a bit tricky, and curving is very hard to pull of.
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It's really more of a "Why does such a low skill floor killer have literally everything except stealth, and rule the game?" kind of post, which is more of a "Buff Killers all around" kind of thread if I had to categorise it as one of those.
And I will make this clear now for any future readers: I am focusing on Skill FLOOR and not ceiling.
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Well better take this to bhvr devs and explain why billy is totally op. I don't know why but maybe has something to do with people being in ranks where they do not belong. You will ofc object to this and say this has been the superduper topskill of the game, i doubt it.
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oh I agree matchmaking is trash. however that was only 4/7 matches 3 others I 4ked .
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also either way I was right , I 4ked while being red ranked. not my fault matchmaking is trash. you said you doubted that a 4ked but i did :).
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Well i'm glad i don't have to type this.
Apart from his addons which will probably get changed anyway I think base billy is one of the more balanced killers.
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It would be great if killers could stop getting nerfed for one moment. There's already an imbalance due to match making. Even looking at your pictures, you might be red ranks, but barely any of the survivors you went against were.
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This thread was a mistake. Killers are already heated and now you want to do this. Great job kicking an atomic hornet's nest full of radioactive demon hornets. Demon hornets aside, I love how you people want every strong killer to be a rubik's cube in return for their power but you also seem want survivor gameplay to be as smooth and easy as holding M1. Because I NEVER see threads asking for more complex survivor gameplay. Just people wanting to "raise the skill floor" for killers. And the sad thing is, the devs seem to agree with you lot and I'm sick of it.
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So any killer with snowball potential should be nerfed to not have snowball potential? Got it. Maybe the trials should start with all of the gens 99'd while we're at it.
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Is it a crime for a killer to be easy and good at the same time or something? Freddy is stupidly easy to play and I'd argue you get even more value out of playing Freddy than you do playing Billy. You have a built-in slowdown with survivors going in and out of the dream world, a teleport and a snare ability that a baby can use effectively (not this patch because of the snare delay bug he currently has but that's irrelevant, we need to wait another month and a half for his snares to be good again).
You can easily pick up and play Freddy, but you at least have to try and physically chase survivors as Billy because he loses to the basic rules and mechanics of the game as well as stealth. Do you miss point-blank chainsaws? No, it's super easy and auto-aim essentially does it for you (you shouldn't really be getting the opportunity to hit point-blank chainsaws to begin with that's on the survivor's end for being out of position and bad at the game). But do you miss curves around loops? You probably miss them more than you hit them because that's the actual hard part.
Also, you get "rewarded" for playing Nurse and Spirit well by winning every game because the survivors can do almost nothing to win against you. Main point is, Hillbilly is one of the most balanced and fair killers in the game when you actually know how to play survivor, and also one of the most fun, and strong+fun killers are what we need right now because we're losing them fast (I suppose Oni's back now so we gained 1 more last patch).
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In low rank / inexperience survivor only know run in straight line. Hell ya i agree ia easy to play against them with hillbilly.
Against those experience survivor. Hillbilly need to learn how to chase then out from tight corner. How to lure them into straight pathway. How to stick to survivor and timing the chainsaw hit. All of this require a lot of practice and luck.
Since u r complaining. I can only assume your are low rank / inexperience survivor.
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I thought playing killer was difficulty enough but you guys want even more. Why not make gens and throwing pallets more difficult? I want equality.
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It would be such a shame if they nerf billy. I wouldn't put it past them to do it, though. The change to ruin makes it clear they aren't aware of what games look like at high ranks.
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