It's a buff so it can't be bad, right ?
So, the new clown rework is out and it didn't take much testing to see how effective the new "Afterpiece antidote" (which shall henceforth be called "Sonic tonic", I love some people on these forums, omg that name made my day) is and which is the most likely usage it shall have when used efficiently.
The antidote is actually pretty usefull but not in the way devs probably wanted or should want to be. I believe that it was intended to help clown with his overall mobility and have less impact on the chase (which is why it has 2,5s activation time and cures intoxicated effect). Unfortunately, I don't see that happening, at least not in a impactful way. The additional speed is, let's say usable for mobility but 10% isn't significant enough to truly help with map mobility when compared to the other good mobility powers in the game and as it's not a passive effect which also depletes your ammo for chases causing you to relod more often which slows you down a lot (even when at 3s) you just shouldn't be using the sonic tonic for mobility, it's not worth it with the exception of some edge cases.
On the other hand, sonic tonic makes clown I'd say even twice as good at chasing. If clown properly sets up both his gases he gets overall movement speed bonus so big that you get his almost guaranteed unless you always pre throw the pallet extremely early (which still might not be enough to outpace him now, not enough testing yet) or have extremely favorable loop spawn. Devs literally improved almost only his chase (which was already good enough) and made him more opressive in it. Yes he's still clunky and doesn't always have enough room to properly use his gases but when he does, you can do very little about it as setting up gas isn't hard at all.
Overall, it is a good buff to make him stronger but I believe his fun factor for survivors dropped even lower vs him. He'll still be immobile, 0 stall or snowball, good at chases overall but has hard time with pallet pre-dropping killer which doesn't cut it to reach higher tiers. He's better but I hoped that he'll get updates to other parts of his kit besides chaes and I can say that this rework mainly improved his chase which he didn't need.
These are first impression so they are bound to change with time but I don't see how can someone make sonic tonic work while gaining overall net gain on mobility.
Comments
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Don't forget about the massive reload speed buff! That's a huge factor since it makes using your bottles much less costly.
My first impression of the sonic tonic has been a really good one. I absolutely love the idea, and as I was reading your post, I was already thinking up some bottle placements and movement strategies for some loops.
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Yes yes, it helps a lot but the more you relord overall the more time you waste also. That's why I think it can't ever be viable to throw bottles all the time to get better mobility when you then don't have bottles for chases. A lot of reloding is bad for clown even when it's faster then before.
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I feel like that's with a lot of killers. You don't really want to spend all your power as spirit to get places or nurse blink.. well, unless you use recharge addons every game. You don't need to rev your chainsaw at every pallet. but I do agree that nothing much has really changed with clown. just a straight buff, but survivors are still going to pallet camp against him because that's all they can do.
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I think using the bottles for mobility is not terrible but NOT using them to cross the map. Instead you throw one ahead of you when you're closing distance with a survivor, you may be able to reach them before they get to a strong loop or cut them off to coral them into an area where there are no pallets, etc.
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Agree but when you already see survivors where you can throw a bottle at them means you've already crossed the map so it's a chase power a that point, not a mobility tool. It's the same when huntress lands a map /half map long hatchet, kind of mobility but not really.
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From what I've seen and then experimenting myself a little bit, I pretty much agree with everything you said.
This is a buff to what he was already good at, without really changing what made him frustrating to play as and against.
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I'm kind of personally on the fence about the Sonic Tonic. I have played against it, and I have played with it. I have yet to see a player use it effectively which is only natural since the PTB only came out LITERALLY today, and I've honestly been kind of potato-ing over the new rework. The VHS Porn add on is slightly confusing, so that'll take some time to get used to, but I think maybe as time goes on we can start to see more people coming up with strategies and ways to effectively use the Clowns Sonic Tonic! (Still love that name by the way.)
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I think you have it round the wrong way. As a Clown main I immediately knew this new ability was to make Clowns chase and anti loop dramatically stronger. Never once did I think it was for faster traversal.
Clown doesn’t need map mobility. He just needs fast downs and regular slugging.
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Well devs literally put a lot of work to make the antidote as clunky to use in chase as possible. If it were intended for chase why not make it like 1s delay and not disable the other tonic. I don't think they wanted to make clown stronger at chasing, he's already good at that.
Every killer needs mobility, it's what helps you pressure gens & find survivors to chase. You can make clown as good at chasing as you want but it won't matter if he loses all his gens because he has to spend 3/4 of the match traversing the map.
Having fast downs with clown is possible mainly when survivors don't pre-throw pallets and swarm him otherwise he stuggle to keep up with good teams no matter how good his chase is which is still not great compared to other killers with chase oriented power.
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"It's a buff so it must be good"
Brb imma go cry in Trappers new traps
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I think the devs didn't want to go overboard because he is already a middle of the pack kill rate killer at red ranks. He isn't really struggling all that much in that regard, so they gave him some minor stuff to just help him a little, but not make him A-tier or anything.
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I already hated clown enough because it's so hard to win chases against him. Good to hear that I am never going to escape from Clown ever again.
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Devs heard complains that clown is annoying at chases but lacks everything else so they made his chases stronger. Pretty good job so far I might say.
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Clown is suppose to be a chaser killer. when you face clown, you should feel like your facing deathslinger or nurse or spirit. whatever you consider a scary killer to get chased by. Chase killers should have fast chases.
Does clown have fast chases? Not really. He has to hit twice, LOS is required to landed hindered bottles and even when you suffer from the bottles, often loops are close enough to be strung together. The extra speed or should i say, lack of speed often does not change the safety level of the loop nor is it enough to hit people between loops. If you want to play a killer who excels at hitting people between loops, Play Blight, he moves at like 230% speed. This isn't even talking about large amount of negatives that these developers put in killer kit which in clown case are Reload mechanic(Limited bottles) & weird activation times to use his speed up.
At best clown makes eat pallets faster, at worst power does nothing and is active sonar OoO for non-swf teams from all map-wide screaming. Clown's chases are just too long for a chase oriented killer. He's only good vs inefficient survivors at gens and survivors with bad routing. Its only reason why on PTB he looks good because survivors do not really try hard in PTB but guranteed that he still be same joke he is on live, perhaps worse given removal of Undying+Ruin and worse add-ons like solvent jug.
I propose change on forum at one point that if clown hit you with direct bottle while intoxicated, the follow-up hit when healthy does not grant the survivor a sprint burst. It would give some much needed lethality and give some fast chases if the survivor is really out of position as base-kit. It would also reward clown for getting direct bottle hits rather than just throwing bottles arbitrary at survivor and hoping for the best.
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