The Clown Problem
Yes, I'm doing another one of these, and no I didn't learn my lesson from last time. Ok. Good? Got what you wanted? Fine. Begone with you then.
Right. Now that the serious people are staying, I can get on with the topic at hand.
Before we go on further as well, I'm not specifically talking about the highest levels of gameplay, I'm talking for the average, almost casual player. The one who picks up the game for fun after a long day and wants to do something a little different. This thread however, is aimed somewhat more at the higher levels of play, but the whole of the The [Killer] Problem series is to be for a Green-Purple focus.
Clown. Great killer in theory, kind of a mess in today's meta.
His power to slow survivors with an area of effect power that also has a vision impairment effect on a survivor is, on paper, BLOODY FANTASTIC. You easily shut down loops, get downs and even easy information about survivor locations within one simple power.
Clown was easily one of the stronger killers at the time of his launching, and even during Patch 2.3.3 was considered within the A-Tier of all killers.
So, what's the problem? Another killer just too good for you, potato survivor? Pffft. No. Quite the opposite.
There are two killers that Clown gets compared to the most as of late: Freddy and Doctor. All three of these killers have a similar effect: They have the power to shut down Survivor looping tools. Freddy has his Blood Snares, a small AoE that slows a single survivor, Doctor has his Shock Therapy which stuns a Survivor preventing vaults and pallet drops. Clown's power is better, since it's a more ranged, large AoE effect, right? Yes. It IS better than those two abilities. However all 3 of these killers share a similar problem.
How is Clown now considered the weakest killer, as of 3.5.0, by just about all members of the community with a decent length of time in the game. So, what changed?
Survivor knowledge and skill.
Survivors learnt how to counter the Clown's power, and with no other skills, What Clown DOES have going for him also has massive drawbacks.
Survivor Knowledge: If there is one thing that Survivors have to do more of before complaining about a killer's power is adapt, and OH BOY have they adapted over time. There are now two major things that counter a Clown before adding perks or items into the mix: Stealth and throwing a pallet early. If the Clown cannot find you, he cannot chase you. He cannot rely on his power. You play stealth, there is a good chance you'll survive quite easily.
As for in chases, similar to Freddy and Doctor. If you see them charging their power as you're near a vault or pallet, YOU USE IT! This makes it so that the killer then has to waste valuable time going around an obstacle, or breaking a pallet. Precious seconds that you can use to simply dash off and hide.
Clown's own drawbacks are pretty numerous within his base kit. For starters, there is a slight, yet severe slowing of the Clown as he's throwing a bottle, and people have tested that you are no better throwing your bottle as you are just running at a survivor in a straight line. This is probably negated when walls come into play, but if there's a vault nearby, then too bad.
Reloads also take forever, since it's the same cooldown for ALL of your bottles, versus just one. As far as I can tell, your movement speed is also slowed a small bit. This means that you have less mobility on a basic killer, which means more time between patrols, and more time for survivors to finish them and scarper off.
Map pressure is also virtually, VIRTUALLY, non-existent with Clown. Don't lynch me. Let me explain, and listen. I will not have this turn into Hillbilly 2.0 the thread. Outside of a few cases of slugging, or spawning in a smaller map, you have a standard Large killer profile: 32m Terror radius, Large height and 4.6m/s movement. What do you have outside of that and a power that is good in a chase? Nothing. You have a standard terror radius, that any Spine Chill Claudette has used to disappear into the scenery and any other survivor to have moved on to the next generator. You can gas the area, but now you've used up half your bottles, and there's no screaming. Time to move on.
But wait! Quite a few of these problems can be solved by perks, can't they? Well, yes. Monitor and Abuse can help you start a chase quicker. Thrilling Tremors can lock down generators and give you information, and you have Pop Goes the Weasel as one of your teachables. Distressing and Coulrophobia or Unnerving Presence can be quite effective perks combined together for Terror radius map pressure. Play With Your Food can increase your speed, so that it is easier to catch Survivors in general. However, we only have 4 perk slots to deal with, and there are some perks that can just be ignored.
So, back to Freddy and Doctor. Two of the best killers in the game right now, and what do they have that makes them so top-tier? Other abilities to place pressure on Survivors, and less severe drawbacks with their powers, to the point of being non-existent. Freddy's Dream World is a massive problem for Survivors, since he has a lot of add-ons to affect the Dream World and statistics in there AND he can teleport to generators anywhere on the map, provided they aren't complete. Doctor and his Static Blast is an area of effect with massive information benefits, that also adds a tier of Madness to Survivors. Combined with BBq & Chilli, you have locations of every single survivor NOT locked in a locker.
What does Clown have? Nothing.
Clown has been weakened over time by a shifting of understanding. Survivors can beat his power, and a lot of other killers who easily surpass him have ways of using a power outside of a chase that allows them to affect survivors in other ways. Clown relies on the chase, but can't always get that option and therefore has slipped over the years into being the worst killer in Dead by Daylight. As new killers are added, and formerly weaker killers are re-worked into newer, stronger versions of their original concept, they've added more elements to deal with all situations: Demogorgon's portals and Shred, Freddy's teleport, Doc's Static Blast, Pig having Dash and the RBT. Hell, even Trapper and his Bear Traps have more overall threatening map presence than your average Clown.
There are so many small changes that could be made, but they would only put him within the lower areas of the mid-tiers with all likelihood. It's just ironic that the literal clown is now the laughing stock of all the killers in the game.
Make strong killers useful again.
Comments
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You do have a lot of free time, dont you.
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This comes from a guy who thinks, that the killer usually has the upper hand:
I agree with pretty much everything you said there. You can not loop a decent clown for a long time.. thats true, so just drop the pallet early and he does not have a lot to work with.
He suffers the most on big maps like red forest, since his throwing and then reloading time of his bottle takes quiet a long. His mobility and map pressure is really bad.
How to fix him?
Difficult. I would not start making a 2.0 Freddy by giving him tons of extra abilitys, but rather i would buff his ability.
Make it that
- If you hit a Survivor with your bottle directly, the survivor suffers from an extra hindred effect and is almost blind for a short period of time
- If a survivor comes in contact with the gas, the clown gets one stack of bloodlust for 3 seconds. Can stack up to 3.
What do you think about that?
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Occasionally, yes. These normally are written over an hour or two, generally with an alcoholic beverage and many hours of prior contemplation.
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Not my place to call for that sort of thing. I want this to be a discussion on how waiting for natural counters to surface over time can lead to seeing a killer's TRUE worth. Rather than complaining a week after release.
In the two(?) years since Clown's release, I have not heard of a single change to him, and look at his decline. The Clown Problem.
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Wow someone puts a lot of effort into an insightful post and that's the response you give.
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What if the generators emitted his gas for a set period of time whenever he hooks somebody. Causes survivors to scream and stalls them in repairs, also gives them exhaustion if you are running the addon etc.
And I agree with the above that direct hits should deal a greater Hindered penalty.
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Clown has 1 power: chasing. The problem is that he isn't even good at chasing. Any time his power might save you in a chase is lost via reloads and map pressure sacrificed by selecting Clown. You need a Starling Feather or Flask Of Bleach for his power to even do anything productive. He's stupid. I don't understand why slight tweaks to hilariously awful killers like Clown can't happen regularly. It's pretty low hanging fruit to just tweak the cooldown on bottle throws to something that doesn't make his power useless. Not sure why that can't happen at some point in 2 years.
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Just out of curiosity are you going to make "The <insert killer name> problem" for everyone on the roster? >.>
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Clown needs more abilities. Just being good in chase doesn't cut it imo.
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I think it could be nice if he had a secondary power which allowed him to sniff some of his "substances" to get some temporary buff, like increased movement and action speed.
Also the reload must be reworked, 5 seconds of extremely reduced speed is too much.
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I stopped reading when you sayed that stealth is good against an killer
can you pls stop with: aAhHhH, kIlLeR iS oP, bIlLy Is Op, ClOwN nEeDs An NeRf
pls
i hate using this meme, but its needed
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I play clown a lot. The only thing I would really give him is a really tiny red tricycle he can pull out with left ctrl that plays circus music and helps him move faster. Maybe he can't throw bottles while using it and laughs periodically while riding it.
Can still hit people though. Tricycle for long stretches, bottles for loops.
Honk honk.
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Possibly. There are some that are fine, but I can probably find something to say that there's a prpblem about.
I'm thinking that next should be Bubba, Pig or Ghostface.
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I literally highlighted in a post that took me an hour to write that Clown is THE WEAKEST killer in the game, highlighting every single problem.
And you reply with this.
Get off my thread. You do not want to contribute to the conversation and you are not wanted here.
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Bye then
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Just give him instadown bottles as basekit.
Once you hit a survivor you don't have long before the exposed effect wears off so you need to be very close to hit them. It's also quite hard to land them as most survivors will wiggle and shake about. If you miss too many times then he needs to reload.
I don't see why walking close behind a survivor and being able to instadown if he hit's a survivor trying to 360 like crazy would be any different to the most balanced killer on the roster, good old Billy.
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Encase you do make one on GF I have something to say.
Survivors, stop trying to break him out of stealth. If you see ghosty, treat him like Myers and run the hell away from him. Don't stand 2 feet from him trying to reveal and then get mad when he one shots you.
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They say the devs hate killers and yet they tolerate them and permit them to just enter threads like this, not read a single part of your post and then start screaming about something you never even typed.
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Well, the main problem for GF is actually the PLAYER BASE of the killer. His detection mechanic is completely broken though. If and when I do the GF Problem, it'll all be in there. I'll probably also do it as a special double-issue, since Wraith shares the same core problem, just without a DLC pricetag.
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Ew you just told everyone how to counter me. You're absolutlely right though. Clowns main weakness is he has nothing above his toxins, compared to the likes of Doctor and Freddy.
However he does have one thing, a throwable power like Huntress. Which is the Killer I actually compare Clown most to.
Huntress has the ability to throw hatchets, and if they connect with the survivor it deals damage, unlike Clown where if his toxin connects with anything - it causes an area of effect that makes it difficult to see, or move in. Both Unique in their own way, and makes them good at one thing in their own way - creating a unique mind game at loops. With the huntress you have to force obsticles between yourself and her ability to throw hatchets. Clown you have to try and predict his movements with impared vision and mobility. To me these pretty much makes the killers balanced to one another.
Now why is it that Huntress is a higher tier killer used by many top red rank players as a main? Well two reasons;
- Huntress has no limitation on the range of her hatchet. She can fire a hatchet across the entire trial if she wanted so long as there wasn't an obsticle in the way or the ceiling (thanks Red Forest)
- She is faster at reloading her throwable power.
I don't care about the distance I can throw bottles - though it would be awesome if I could aim high and hit that generator across the map and get a scare out of the survivors trying to finish it - like the Huntress can.
What I care about is the fact that I can't reload my bottles in time for chases, I can't reload my bottles in time to reach generators, and I can't reload my bottles in time to have enough for long chases.
That is where - in my opinion - what is stopping Clown from being a strong Killer.
How do you remedy this?
Just remove the damn slow to his movement when he replenish's his toxin. Like god damn, why is that even a thing? What a stupid idea. "Oh here is an intimidating clown, oh so scary - MOVING SLOWER THAN A ######### SNAIL WHILE HE TRIES TO RESTORE 4 ######### BOTTLES"
Anyways. Yeah remove the slow, and Clown is balanced. There you go.
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There are a LOT of slows that have got to go. I'm no balance expert, but there are so many minor changes that could be done, but I don't think that he'll move out of the lower tiers, though.
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To be fair when I started playing. I made it to red rank first with just Clown and Legion (really wanted that Pop Goes The Weasel). I got over 1000 hours in this game since Novemeber, following it since 2017. All I ever wanted to see is Clown balanced, and I wouldn't like him at the level of Freddy or Doctor (though really that should be the objective of all Killers). If he becomes just as good as huntress, then i'm happy. All I can see - even playing him today where I got one match with 2 kills, and another match where all 4 escaped becaues of DS and bodyblocking. The only thing holding him back is the 5 seconds it takes him to reload his 4 bottles. While Huntress gets 5 hatchets (one more than clown), and reloads in 4 seconds (faster with Iron Maiden - which most Huntresses take for that reason).
You make that the same as Huntress, and you will suddenly have a just as strong Killer. Even change his redheads finger to be an instant down instead of just exposed. Then he has an iri equivelent. It'll be great!
Edit: Quite literally it looks like they took the huntress, copied it to clown, and made it weaker.
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In the beta apparantly even the devs noticed:
"A slowdown ability is useless if it slows you down too."
Clown is weak because he has only weak utitly.( Which is arguably easily dodged too, if this were a pro discussion.)
Aside from big fixes , there are easy theoretical ways to help clown.
- Just tweak some variables (nnumbers) in his kit. Survivor slow, gas spread speed, maximum duration, maximum aoe or even how long it lingers etc.
- 1bottle/xseconds channeled reload instead of all bottles reloaded after that long casting time.
They could also tweak the ability in itself. If a weaker version of the gas lingered in a bigger aoe after the main cloud dispersed, it might be useable to create deadzones for survivors to avoid.
Or setting traps... might be too close to freddy.
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This isn't a discussion regarding Survivor or Killer skill, but the fact that the AoE is so easily avoidable is something to consider. It doesn't take a Rank 6 to learn how to avoid the large gassed area. Rank 16 maybe.
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Every time I face competent survivors they never have trouble breaking me out of stealth. So I'm going to vote the majority of the player basis just doesn't know what to do.
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I genuinely appreciate the time you take to try and clearly convey a concise statement/debate/etc for all of us to read. I know there are people that won't take the time to read, but I have, and I wish I could give a nice conversation in regard to it -- but I have not played Clown. I am going to get him once I have shards (Mr Puddles being the only incentive lmao) so instead, I want to say this;
For those that have played Clown, or for those who have gone against him a lot (as even myself, I have only actually gone against him 30 or so times since I started playing. I started a month or so (roughly) after his release.) May have actually been closer toward Spirit's release, it's been a while. What I mean is, I don't understand him as well as some do, so take the time to read the post and give your feedback. Be genuine as well -- don't be a pain.
If you do a The Hag Problem, I will be all over that lmao.
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I don’t want people making stupid comments on my idea, but here is mine:
Remove the slowed movement speed when removing, keep him normal speed or 110%
Make a secondary ability called gas traps, clowns do tricks and should be tricky so the clown can set up a gas trap on a generator, he has 2 with add-ons to get up to three and whenever someone gets on that gen he can teleport to it, the transfer time would be about 4 seconds and the survivor would be revealed for 2 seconds after it is done, clown cannot fake the teleport. This would give him great late game pressure. The teleport cooldown would be 25 seconds
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Hello, anyone from PS4 down to play?
My ps is: TiagoC15. It's me and another friend. We are having trouble finding games and if there are 4 of us I assume it is easier.
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I don't doubt that Clown is extremely capable as a killer, in the right hands. Otz proved that with his Ninja Clown video recently. It's just that for The [Killer] Problem, I'm taking a look at this from a neutral perspective and from the view of the "average" player, around the sort of Purple and Green ranks where a majority of the playerbase should be in.
Most people this is for are not going to be like you who devote time to one killer to learn all their nuance, and that was something a lot of people missed with The Hillbilly Problem. Your comment here is good though for those who are looking to improve their game with the Clown, and welcome advice for all!
Even with your way of playing him, though, I still think that all of his slows are indeed just too much against him. They do need to be lessened.
Next up is actually Legion and "balancing the unbalancable" with his power either being super annoying and somewhat strong, versus the second version which is considered one of the weakest killers in the game.
Hag will be an interesting one, but I'm going to focus on her kit encouraging what is described as an "unfavourable" playstyle with an overwhelming majority of players placing at least 3 traps at a hooked survivor, basically proxy-camping, rather than true map pressure.
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Ahhh the worst hag style 😢 but I understand. I play her very differently, overall. Hurts my soul seeing traps being placed inefficiently.
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