Pyramid Head Buff Thread.
I know many will see the title and instantly scream that PH is already really strong, but the point of this is to make his power actually usable in the intended way and make him more fun to play as and against, instead of just constantly zoning people out of places.
So how would we go about fixing his power? First we must address the main flaws with it and work from there.
It's too easy to dodge and too telegraphed to actually hit anybody paying attention. There's an audio notification, an animation and a giant red rectangle saying "DON'T STEP ON ME :))))". This means that, even if you do play him well, you can still be punished by good survivors. Because the amount of time to react is absurdly long for a static attack. Then you enter a long animation lock whether you hit or miss, giving the survivor a lot of time to get away. His power if filled mostly with downsides when used outside of animation locks.
So what fixes would I make to him? There's two routes for this: A & B. But there are also changes that I would implement into both routes, which is: Torment applies on POTD, faster recovery on successful POTD hits, and full turning control (or at least better control overall), along with faster travel time for POTD.
Route A:
I feel like BHVR wanted him to be a prediction based killer, so his power should be changed only slightly to meet this and is probably one of the easier fixes.
POTD is now 12 meters in length, this ensures you have enough reach to properly hit through walls. POTD also now has a bit of a thicker hit box, being the whole rectangle and not just the center of it. PH now has a longer cool down on deactivating his trails. This is just so he has to actually use his power and remove the free zoning.
Route B:
PH only has the base range, but now his POTD is twice as fast in activation, with full control during the animation. This would make it a scary anti-loop ability that must be respected. All of the telegraphs such as the audio, animation and red rectangle still remain to give survivors a chance to react. The point of this route is to turn him into an aggressive anti-loop killer that must be respected.
I've been very critical of this chapter but that's only because I want it to do great. I love the Silent Hill franchise but PH blows ass in this game.
Comments
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Its all about the mindgames.
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PyramidHead is fine as is.
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90%? Way too low. He doesn't need a nerf.
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If I were to balance him I would give him a short period after coming out of his power were he can't attack but he isn't slowed or anything and he can still kick things, vault windows, etc it would just stop him from attacking
But in turn I would make his ranged attack more usable and less punishing
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I was hoping to remove his zoning and reward genuine skillful plays with the ability. Also he already moves at 90% in POTD stance.
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I know that but mindgames aren't reliable when good survivors expect them. You cut corners wider and take weird pathing and his ability is useless.
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lmfao 90% movespeed, might as well just delete him from the game at that point because he's dead.
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Here's what bugs me here, it's the hypocrisy.
- Play M1 killer and chase a survivor towards a window, survivor taps E for distance and now makes the window safely. Zero counterplay.
- Play Pyramidhead and get the hit at the window "omg devs PH OP Nerf plz!!! 😫"
- PH hits down a tormented survivor who has DS active and sends them to a cage "omg devs PH OP Nerf plz 😫"
- Play any other killer, survivor sits on a gen in front of you, as soon as you get close they jump in a locker for immunity "fair and balanced 😎 just git gud babykiller"
As always all the counterplay needs to be on the killerside but it's fine for survivors to have none, even though it's a 4 vs 1. It's this blatant hypocrisy that is irritating.
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@ClickyClicky those are completely separate issues that need to be addressed in another thread. I say that the devs should balance on what is fun and I find pyramid head and spirit very unfun killers to verse simply because they ignore any sort of looping so that a rank 20 would still go down in the same amount of time as the best survivor in the game no matter what the survivor does.
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What is the problem with being punished by good players? The whole point of being good is that you have the ability to naturally counter other players. How do you see that as a problem? Should you just be guaranteed hits? Pyramid head's punishment ability spans the width of two rooms, goes through walls and objects, is a pretty much guaranteed hit if someone is vaulting a window or flipping/vaulting a pallet, and the telegraph you're mentioning is a quarter of a second before the attack actually launches. The attack can be thrown even mid-carve, can hit multiple people, and it has almost no cooldown. The only true downside of it is the fact that it is difficult to aim and takes practice like any other killer with trick-shot abilities. That seems to be a fair trade-off for what it actually does. Pyramid Head is pretty much anti-loop GOD, which means that a player's only real option is to hide, because he's already faster and still gets the bloodlust boost every 15 seconds in a chase. Survivors HAVE to loop killers to win chases. If they can't loop because they are either bad at looping, or because a killer can literally prevent a loop, then survivors will always lose a chase. You come off like you're asking for an instant-win by literally complaining that "good survivors can avoid your abilities." That's the whole point of being good in the first place. Are we going to complain that good survivors can avoid Huntress' hatchets, or Deathslinger's spear?
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A couple his add-ons should be changed the lead ring could be changed into an exhaustion add-on when afflicted by torment,this would fit better with the lore of the character because you end up in a chase with PH after using this ring
The Forgotten Tape could be changed to increased the POTD but moderately decreases the recharge rate
I don't think he needs to be changed in any other way,people want to lock him in his ROJ but that will destroy any viability of the character.
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What? One of the dumbest things a survivor can do is Dead Hard straight into a vault.
The counterplay argument goes both ways, you know. Killers who get off on camping and tunneling insist that survivors just git gud, but when the devs introduce perks to help mitigate campers and tunneler for just a few more seconds, killers lose their minds. Personally, when I play against PH, the only time I ever get tormented is 1) if I run through an invisible trail, because his trails are still bugged and don't show up like they're supposed to, or 2) I get randomly afflicted 30 seconds into working on a generator, which is also a bug. The trail is also wider than it appears, so the only other time it is even remotely frustrating is when he can drag it down 2 or 3 halls at one time, meaning that you can't go anywhere without guaranteed being afflicted, unless you want to crouch walk for a minute and a half to get down a hallway.
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I mean with all that was stated you don't see any flaw in his power ,even if it went across the map you would still see it coming, most survivor's I play know exactly how to counter PH.
They wait for the que then dodge if not absolutely sure about the prediction, the hole point of his power was for him to be an anti loop killer. Most survivor's create distance when facing him a regular chase extended to 180s when you're supposed to be able to end the chase around 90secs that's three gens you lose on a single chase not to mention, they've already nerfed his turning and m1 right after POTD
115 ms killer 15 secs of blood lost is nothing compared to DS,BT, Adrenaline x3 .
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That's really funny the only three killer's who can stop loops are not fun to play against lmao
I mean four
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THE ONLY BUFF MY PYRAMID HEAD BOI NEEDS IS HIS BOOTY CHANGED BACK TO HOW IT USED TO BE! DOUBLE CHEEKED UP ON A THURSDAY AFTERNOON, HELLA ASS! 🍑
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Most pyramid heads I play don't spam it in the open, and wait for you to be in a loop where you literally can't dodge one way or the other. Or they use it when someone is vaulting. They also don't hold and aim, jsut like most players who are decent with Deathslinger don't aim and turn, they quickscope. If PH is good, he can quickly throw it, and you get almost zero change to react to it without it still grazing you from the side.
Adrenaline is a one-time perk that only applies once all the gens are completed, and apart from the healing, the speed boost goes to waste if you aren't already on a hook. Most killers camp hooks once the gens are done, and I don't blame them for that, which is where BT comes into play. Even then, the killer can usually trade because the person going for the save should take at least one hit. A killer like PH can ready his ranged attack and actually hit both survivors at the same time, before the hooked survivor even has a chance to regain control (since you don't regain control of your character immediately after coming off the hook). DS is one of the most easy to avoid perks. If you assume someone has it, and you haven't tunneled them right off the hook, the timer probably already expired. The only time DS is really a pain is if the exit gate is open and they're crawling toward it, which FORCES you to pick them up. If they jump into a locker in front of your face, don't assume they're just stupid, and don't open the locker for a few seconds.
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So far only PotD and the lack of RoJ cooldown has been discussed.
Just to mix things up, let's see how we could remix both Torment and Cages of Atonement while we're at it. Here's a few considerations I've brainstormed so far:
Torment:
- In addition to the barbed wire trails, the Torment status also makes your survivor's breathing and grunts of pain 15% louder (like a mini-Stridor). Failing a skillcheck of any kind while tormented will make your survivor scream and inflict Blindness for 20 seconds.
- Torment can now be applied by a successful Punishment attack in addition to Rites of Judgement trails.
- Torment lasts for 60 seconds by default instead of an unlimited amount. Stepping on a Judgement Trail or being hit by a Punishment attack while Tormented will apply an additional 30 seconds of Torment to the Torment Timer (cannot exceed 120 seconds).
- Torment can be reduced through altruistic action. Safely rescuing a survivor from a Cage/Hook or taking a Protection Hit for another survivor will increase Torment recovery speed by 100%. Fully healing another survivor will increase Torment recovery by 50%. Torment recovery is capped at a maximum of 200%, which would shorten 60 sec of Torment to 20 seconds (or you'd recover from 3 seconds of Torment every second at max recovery speed). Becoming Re-Tormented removes all Torment recovery boosts.
Cages of Atonement (and Final Judgement):
- Pyramid Head can loosely control where a caged survivor will be placed by facing that direction before initiating CoA. All the existing mechanics that randomly move a cage if PH gets too close remain in place. Cages also hide the aura of the survivor inside from the killer.
- Cages of Atonement are changed to be considered Hook Actions. Meaning they can activate hook perks and count towards the Devout Emblem.
- A survivor who is caged is "Locked Down" for 30 seconds. During this time they cannot be rescued or sacrificed. *Insert more interesting mini-game than skill checks or button mashing here*. Survivors who perform well in this mini-game can reduce the duration of their "Lock Down".
- Final Judgement cannot be used on a survivor who had not previously been caged within the trial. If this survivor is on their final hook, they cannot be caged and must be hung on a sacrificial hook.
But these are just a few suggestions I came up with in a few minutes of thinking about it. They obviously aren't the end-all be-all of improving Pyramid Head's "fun factor", but they'd hopefully accomplish my goal of making Torment a more interesting status effect and making the Cages both more valuable and less exploitable of a tool.
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These are all negatives to the killer,and would make his power even more difficult to use and pointless
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Often in my games if it comes down to 4 man still remain DS is the common factor of thier escape the person, who goes in for the save will often be bait ,So if this survivor's gets hit he gets a speed boost,and runs to the exit gates ,has DH often,now I'll try to go and get the injured survivor but I can't you know why because he has borrowed time and if he's not tormented because you can't put torment near a hook, I can't send him to cage to avoid DS, yea so the entire match of me trying to get predictions doesn't work on everyone when you take time to adapt and not claim that he's OP because you got hit in a window vault or at pallet because that's literally what his power is supposed to do.
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Explain how more frequent application of Torment (meaning more opportunities to use Cages) along with minor control over Cage vicinity and the ability to guarantee a survivor is out of play for at least 30 seconds is negative for the killer? Plus you gain back hook perks from cages (and PH loses his free tunneling ticket) and wouldn't get Emblem-punished for using your power.
Literally the only things I added that should be construed as nerfs are the Torment Timer and the minor restriction on Final Judgement.
I don't see why this would make him more difficult to use either, these are mostly just minor embellishment-buffs to some of his other abilities. I didn't mess with RoJ or PotD at all (y'know, his main active powers).
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Not true at all. Especially with PH. Watch a really good survivor and they will bait him and play around his hit. Check out the tournament where good survivors could avoid his hits.
Same for a Spirit. There's a huge difference between how long a good player lasts vs a rank 20.
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You can tell if you're gonna get hit when you vault, so you dead hard a little early which now gives you the distance to make the vault safely knowing you won't get hit while your hitbox was still in the window. You don't DH directly in front of the vault obviously as that would force the medium vault. If it's a strong window it hurts your average M1 killers really hard. No counterplay but it's on the survivor side so it's fine apparantly.
I don't complain about BT/DS. Yes they were overpowered when used offensively. My point was just that there is no counterplay to it. If a survivor is unhooked you let them run off and heal fine but some just sit on a gen in front of your face and then dive in a locker when you get close. It has no counterplay but apparantly no counterplay is only an issue when it's on the killerside.....even though some of these killers can be played around.
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Why? Add a little extra turn control and a slightly faster shockwave speed and you've got a solid killer. No more brain-dead zoning, now the killer actually has to hit you with POTD instead of getting an m1 for free.
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and then maybe they could go through and fix many of the maps so that survivors don't have any brain dead looping against the older killers anymore and have to use more skill? oh wait that will never happen.
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- In addition to the barbed wire trails, the Torment status also makes your survivor's breathing and grunts of pain 15% louder (like a mini-Stridor). Failing a skillcheck of any kind while tormented will make your survivor scream and inflict Blindness for 20 seconds.
- Torment can now be applied by a successful Punishment attack in addition to Rites of Judgement trails.
This is all you given the killer and once again putting the power back into survivor's hands ,the second one is terrible and will imo take away the fun in his power ,you literally just making where survivor's will get a free chance if the killer doesn't apply the standard rules of this ,you already have to be hooked twice for final judgment and tormented, which survivor's seem to avoid pretty easy,you're basically giving cages built in camaraderie,which isn't fun to either side so you cant interact with a cage for 30 seconds, giving the player ample time to find the cage and chase or camp it ,dude pyramid head is find how he is he just needs some better common and uncommon add ons.
Not to mention they already nerfed his cages @APoipleTurtle
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The Whattaboutism is strong with you, isn't it? You can't focus on what's at hand, you have to moan about everything else. Can't even provide a proper dialogue.
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The desire to ignore the reason why people are moving to killers that you complain about instead of asking what's wrong with the older killers is strong with you.
Maybe if the other killers didn't have masses and masses of counterplay while survivors had relatively little then perhaps people would be more open to using the "fun" killers.
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you have to realize that devs are wildly disconnected between rank 1 balance, rank 5-10 balance and 10-20. Pyramid is perfect the way he is now because his ability has counter-play, but its not wildly impossible for him to outplay his opposition. Current Billy and Blight are perfect examples of disconnection where landing a chainsaw vs good rank 1 survivors or using blight power beyond traveling point A to B is nearly impossible because the counter-play is so severe survivor sided that you end up being an M1 killer for majority of the game.
Hopefully nothing big changes on Pyramid head and big stuff happens to clown as clown is... another level of terrible in terms of playing killer.
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Hopefully nothing major happens to PH. I'd give him more flick on POTD to make it more skill based but give him a speed curve when putting the sword in the ground and picking it up so he doesn't have risk-free zoning capability.
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Personally I see no problem with him other than getting rid of the sound notification when people in cages get saved.
Players need to stop trying to loop him like he is an M1 killer.
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Not just the sound notification; he also sees the aura of the person going into the cage if he looks in the correct direction. It's far too easy to tunnel people out of the game lol but tbh I can live with that aspect of his kit; his actual power in chases is so boring.
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From my understanding that isn’t possible unless the survivor has OoO. Which in that case it is working as intended.
I actually think he is a lot of fun, and maybe it is because I main him that it has given me an understanding of how to run him. Which is why I say people need to stop running him like he is an M1 killer. You have to be ready to zone yourself out, fake pallet drops or windows and not get greedy at loops. Because that last one is people’s main complaint. Which is weird cuz you and I know that if you get too greedy and drop a pallet while a Huntress is holding her hatchet you will get hit no matter what. It is the same concept with PH, and yet no one complains about Huntress being able to do that.
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Whenever I play him I look toward the opposite end of the map when caging and see their aura rise up from the floor until they're inside the cage. I don't like to play him much, though.
As for chase with him? Nah, there isn't much you can do. If you drop the pallet, you get hit; if you fake dropping, you get hit. If you vault, you get hit, if you fake vaulting you get hit, if you fake not vaulting and then vault, you get hit. It's all pretty monotonous. He's just another killer that forces survivors to play W simulator as he essentially disregards skill. The only saving grace, similar to that of Deathslinger, is that he's not hypermobile like a bunch of other killers, so you can just play M1 simulator to get out as soon as possible. If I'm playing survivor and it's one of those two killers, you know damn well I'm going to be as efficient as possible because I want out ASAP since it's boring as #########.
As for huntress...not really. Their are a ton of mindgames to be done. Of course, if it's a Scott Jund level huntress, it can feel helpless if it's not one of her terrible maps, but most maps it's pretty easy to avoid getting hit with hatchets, even with dedicated hits being so common.
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If you are seeing that, that is a bug. They took his ability to see auras in a previous patch.
I feel bad that every fake vault, pallet drop hasn't worked for you because it has actually worked for me. In fact, they use their power, miss and have to wait a whole 2.75 seconds... in which the survivor could easily gain distance or even drop the pallet on their face and stun them if they are close enough.
For me boring is running around in the same circle and dropping the pallet once you think they have Bloodlust built up. There is nothing interesting about that.
So, going back to Huntress and since you say there are so many mind-games. What can you do about a Huntress who has caught up to you at a loop and there is a pallet between you and her while she has a hatchet charged up?
Your options are:
• Fake the pallet and keep running, and she will simply cancel her hatchet and M1 you.
• Drop the pallet and go down.
These are the same options you have against a PH who has already caught up to you and can M1 you. The only reason she holds her hatchet and he holds his knife down is in the off chance you drop that pallet.
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Lmao he’s dead. I was wrong, the devs really do cater to entitled survivors.
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Did you not read the explanation that it's a lose-lose situation when he fakes his power? It has been a problem since his release.
Boo-hoo, Tunnelhead players actually have to use their brain now.
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and yet dead hard for distance to a window/pallet vs an M1 killer is perfectly balanced and requires so much skill from survivors right?
Oh wait....
I can tell you now survivors will be able to bait the window, have PH put his sword in the ground, then when he pulls it out but can't attack they'll just fly out of the window anyway.
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I like the direction the devs are going with him- increase the cooldown on cancelling rights of judgement, but lowering the missed attack cooldown for punishment of the damned.
Now, his power actually requires forethought and not just "lemme stick my sword in the ground for free zoning and hits."
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Next up on the chopping block is Spirit again I guess.
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Actually we already do. I don't even fake the power because I usually like going for cool shots. The only reason I will is if someone is getting too greedy at a loop.
All I have to say is be careful what you wish for, because now all those times where I wished I could use my power right away again has come true. I am willing to bet this is the case for other good PH players.
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He is not dead, but I am willing to bet that players are now going to complain about how often he uses his power.
2.75 seconds was already not a long cooldown, so I am interested to see how low it is now. 😈
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2.25 - 2.5 I'm guessing.
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I'm really curious why they left that part out.
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Survivors have plenty of counter play. It's all about forcing them into mistakes.
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This.
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What does Dead Hard have to do with anything? I never even use that garbage perk and it's easy to bait anyways.
Also, yeah, that's what a proper mind game is? The survivor is actually able to bait the attack and not be punished for it AKA hit with an instant M1.
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Yes you need them to make mistakes whereas killers just have much more counterplay.
The 1 needs the 4 to make mistakes. That's why so many of the killers are unviable.
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We're talking about when it's used for the distance boost to a window/pallet. There is no baiting it in this situation, and it's not a mindgame. It's just "Tap E for extra distance" with no counterplay.
You sound like you're going against green ranks who just use it in the middle of nowhere and go down.
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So:
A - Pyramid Head's power was NEVER in the survivor's hands. I think you've somehow mixed him up with Plague.
B - Nothing I've said gives survivors complete control over this power. I just suggested some ways for them to alleviate the effects through skilled play and altruism. Altruism encourages good teamwork from survivors and creates more interactions with the killer (meaning it is a great thing to emphasize).
This would be a buff to Torment. It is currently an absolutely pathetic status effect right now that realistically serves almost no purpose beyond Final Judgement (or getting an unpunishable tunnel-hook). This allows you to apply it by using the Punishment attack in addition to making it more heavily punish survivors affected by it. 60 seconds is a generous timer too. If you Torment someone you're chasing and literally can't down them within 60 seconds, then you've messed up somewhere as the killer.
My changes to the cage were to make them a more desirable tool to use and you seem to have misconstrued the buffs. The survivor is "Locked Down" for 30 seconds or until they finish the (still not thought of) skill mini-game to "Unlock" themselves for rescue. They cannot be rescued or self-sacrifice during this time, but the hook state timer will still wind down (meaning at worst, there would only be a 30 second window to save them after Lockdown). Plus once again, Pyramid Head would be able to direct where the cage would go. I left the other nerfs in place so that he couldn't abuse this to camp/tunnel super easily.
I tweaked Final Judgement to force PH to actually make a real effort to use it. Most Pyramid Heads like to torment a survivor once at some point in the trial and never cage them so that they can be tunneled and killed right off of their second hook (literally as a build in mini-mori). Final Judgement is a great ability, but it would need to be toned down in some way if they ever made Torment easier to apply.
This is a "buff Pyramid Head" thread and that's what I suggested. He's at an okay power level as a killer, but kind of bland to play and not particularly fun to play against (he's basically just a weaker equivalent of Freddy). Maybe he's "fine as he is", but why can't we try and make him better? Why leave him at "fine" when he could be "great"?
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Im ok with this changes but they shouldve added Exhaustion addons when survivors step in the Trail for example. Because DH is braindead easy vs Punishment of the Damned
And since the gameplay is gonna be more about cool shots than zoning out DH gonna give a free pass through PotD every time when its about to hit you. I play PH a lot so i can already imagine how frustrating its gonna be.
Post edited by SadLegion on0
