Why the Engravings nerf is totally unnecessary and overkill with 4.1.0 changes

Xpljesus

So firstly, I'd like to clarify to anyone who doesn't know, engravings for both Billy and Bubba were shadownerfed in this update while not even specified in the patchnotes. The changes applied are; Doom Engravings speed increase is now 7% down from 20%, Death Engravings speed increase is now 3% down from 10%, The Beast's Marks speed increase is now 1.25% down from 10%, and Knife Scratches is now 0.5% down from 5%.

Engravings were already commonly considered fine addons in isolation, and with the changes to other addons aswell as basekits (mainly billy) - I want to discuss why these nerfs are unneccessary and should be perhaps fully reverted, and at minimum tweaked on Bubba and even as far as a full revert + small buff on Billy.

The most important thing, which applies to both killers, is that neither killer has any charge speed increasing addons (other than the useless Billy one that has too harsh a downside to be worth using, but that addon isn't the topic focus). This means that Engravings now actually have their downside of increasing the charge time, whereas previously these addons would be combined with things like The Thompson Mix, Carburretor Tuning Guide, Primer Bulb to compensate for or even still overall buff charge speed. I can totally see why this was considered too strong and would understand the engravings nerfs if this were still this climate. However, now that the addons essentially now actually have their downsides (old double engravings wasn't even actually that good compared to one + charge speed, at the full 30% speed increase, and was only utilised by very skilled Hillbilly players - it was a doom engraving combined with another charge speed addon that was actually extremely good and possibly could be considered unfair).

Bubba obviously got a basekit speed buff, so I can understand a small nerf here so he does not get too ridiculous, but the current double engravings on bubba are actually slower topspeed than the old bubba with one of The Beast's Marks, while having two increased charge time penalties compared to the fact you could stack The Beast's Marks with Spark Plug for base charge time before. While obviously the chainsaw is far better (2x as long duration max) - considering the aspect of the downside to engravings which was prior always mitigated with charge time addons, and even then they were not insanely good, I think Bubba's engravings should be tweaked to values closer to the old ones (maybe 5% and 2.5% respectively) - I can understand a full revert may be too strong due to the overall increased duration and speed of the basekit saw, but right now they are just so worthless you would 100% be better off running nothing, they increase your charge time for a much too small effect.

As for The Hillbilly, not only would I do a full revert as they were very hard to use and now have the full downside of increased charge speed, I would also make them slightly decrease the overheat gained on the chainsaw to compensate for the increased charge speed.

Personally I have only seen a Billy with double engravings actually overheat since the changes to the mechanic from the PTB, and this is pretty much due to the increased charge time as well as the nature of the addons requiring you to hold longer, going for skillful flicks with your chainsaw to down survivors.

I feel like with the nerfs to engravings, that skill required to use them effectively (on Billy), as well as the fact they now actually have downsides which were pretty much always negated by a second addon in the old versions, as well as the new overheat now relatively overpunishing punishing engravings users unnecessarily (again, already increased charge time as a debuff, and also going for difficult flicks requires you to feather the saw more) need to be considered as the current iteration of engravings are borderline useless but more importantly, unfun, while they used to be the most fun and skillful addons on the old Hillbilly.

TL;DR Bubba's engravings got overnerfed and should be something like 5% + 2.5% speed increases to compensate for the basekit buff as the impact is too minimal right now.

Billy's engravings didn't need any nerf and should be fully reverted due to the fact there are no charge time addons anymore bar the one with too much of a downside to be useful, plus they weren't overpowered and required a lot of skill to utilise. Should also now reduce the amount of heat gained as skilled Hillbillys are unfairly punished with more heat due to the increased charge time + requirement to feather the saw for flicks