Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on these and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
We encourage you to be as honest as possible in letting us know how you feel about the game. The information and answers provided are anonymous, not shared with any third-party, and will not be used for purposes other than survey analysis.
Access the survey HERE!
Clown isn’t weak, he just needs brains 🧠
Clown isn’t for everyone.
And that’s ok.
He was never weak before his update, and he most definitely isn’t anything remotely resembling weak now.
Clown has always been deceptively simple looking, but beneath the surface has been rather complex (in comparison to the other killers) because the Tonics TRUE power has always been the ability for the killer/player to CONTROL where a survivor goes in a chase.
But of course in order to achieve that it requires some damn quick thinking and the ability to almost constantly focus on more than just the survivor in front of Clown.
The Antidote, namely Clown Invigorating himself amplifies just how deadly accidentally running through a Tonic now is for a survivor. If thought is put into set ups with both Antidote & Tonic, Clown creates many, MANY “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” circumstances for a survivor whether they’re successfully diverted away from somewhere or if they’re successfully forced through a Tonic in their last desperate attempt to reach a pallet or vault.
That’s simply too much to think about for some players. So many posts claiming the Antidote is pointless, or mistaking it as a mobility tool and lamenting its still not good for traversal is evidence that many “still don’t get it”.
And this is ok. Not every killer is for everyone. I’ll never be able to wrap my head around the precision required for Nurse, despite Clown teaching me the ability to reliably predict where survivors are going. And that’s ok too.
I’m not attempting to be arrogant. I’m not implying that those that don’t get Clown are dumb. Clown rewards the ability to strategise over precision.
If you can’t see the ways to strategise with Clown, that’s ok. He’s just not for you. But that isn’t grounds to claim he’s weak.
Comments
-
Nah he’s still pretty weak. You predict where you need to be a few seconds in advance for a 10% speed boost?
Why not just play spirit and predict where you need to be with a 60% or up to like a 150% (with addons) speed boost?
28 -
Because Clown can control where survivors do and do NOT go.
Did you even read my post?!
It’s not just a 10% speed boost. Both bottle effects are meant to be used TOGETHER. Antidote first, Tonic second.
8 -
Honestly as someone who plays him he’s not too hard. You throw bottle one side and run the other side. Otherwise you throw bottles ahead of survivors to corral them away from loops.
I’d say his difficulty is comparable to huntress or Myers
8 -
Ok? And the sum of both of those is a 30% speed differential. 20% slowdown with bleach, 10% speed up with an antidote bottle. Assuming perfect execution.
That’s still worse than a basekit spirit phase.
13 -
Can you post gameplay? Its easier to understand this way. I understand what you mean, but gameplay would help me adapt this playstyle better.
9 -
Yeah, but most people just want to mindlessly hold W and get free hits. Clown isn't for them and that's okay.
He's incredibly powerful in the right hands though.
2 -
So Clown is a zombie now?
2 -
Clown is weak when compared to almost any other killer but more importantly he was boring which is why he was changed. The issue is i enjoy his new power more as a survivor than him. Which is all fun and games until probably today where people stop playing him and using the yellow bottles at all. Its like twins and blight, theyre fun to play against but who cares no one plays them, idk why they keep doing this
Anyway i think this post is just a self jerk but its confusing you're personally offended at people calling him weak. Like it reads as if you are clown which is funny, buts just weird because wouldn't the fact that he's weak make you more proud of using him which is really all this post is about lol
5 -
He's not necessarily weak but rather outshined by quite a few killers who are better at chasing then him. He's still I'd say in the middle, nowhere near the absolute bottom as people like to rank him.
And even if you are a great clown, you still need to do 2 hits, always catch up, do basically no mistakes while giving survivors head start with 32m TR to down them. Not even talking how hard pre-throwing pallets can make that with survivors who split and rush gens.
1 -
Wha....?!
Oh, you got me there 🤣
5 -
I’m not personally offended at all.
0 -
Oh you sound like it lol
0 -
He was always weak, because he had no map pressure. Strong in the 1v1, weak in the 4v1. Can players make it work? Sure. I can make Plague work in red ranks, even though that's a wall of frustration getting there. That doesn't make her, or Clown, stronger than they really are.
As for his buff, they just gave him a bit more control in that 1v1. That's fine, but again, that doesn't help much in the 4v1. I do like his quicker reload. . .
I just see this as Tru3 claiming Wraith is top tier, Everybody has a niche, sees things differently, and can make certain things work, but that's a 1 in 100 case scenario. Simply because one person can do the seemingly impossible, doesn't mean the subject is suddenly good.
Still, the fact that you make him work is a miracle. So kudos there. Since I'm getting back into survivor more for the rift, not looking forward to running into actually good Clown players.
7 -
Hmm,i agree that Clown is definetely better than most people would think.
His anti-loop is really good.
Many people say "But he doesn't have any map pressure/mobility".
Yeah,he doesn't have map mobility,but so does the majority of the killer roster.
I would say that killers like Myers,Trapper or Pig are weaker than Clown.
1 -
You're such a troll.
I love it
2 -
Losing the exhaustion bottles was a huge blow to us. The speed difference with the bottles doesn't mean much when the survivor can press E to Crutch Hard to the pallet and make our power useless. The only real upside we got this update was the mangled bottles being permanent until healed, but Id still rather have the exhaustion bottles.
3 -
Clown is weak though in the grand scheme of things compared to many killers.
- He has troubles mind gaming at windows because the grunt he makes when vaulting is easy to listen to from a survivors POV
- He has no proper map pressure and relies heavily on snowballing - There's nothing inherently wrong with this just other killers do this much better.
- Any mistakes with his power is punished more than most other killers through the loss of time because the slowdown he gets while reloading and the actual reloading. Considering his new tonic shares bottles if you use it without downing a survivor you basically have double the downtime with his bottles if you're trying to use both.
- He pretty much has to brute force every chase because of how big he is which forces you to more so rely on the purple ones.
Like can you absolutely dumpster survivors with him? 100% no one is saying you cannot. In the grand scheme of things though he is weaker than most killers and I'd still say against good survivors he's going to suffer heavily from how predictable his power is to play around. That could be compensated if he could mind game easier but you need to use your bottles to make up for the fact that it's much more difficult with him. Which leaves you prioritizing the purple bottles over the yellow ones.
Was the PTB a welcome change? For the most part yeah. Is Clown in a better spot for it? 100% Yes. Does he need a bit more love? Still yes but I feel he's in a better enough spot now that he can wait a bit for more changes.
Personally for me Clown is one of my favorite killers because he has a similar playstyle to Trapper where you herd survivors. However due to bugs and his lack of viability I choose not to play him anymore. I more so main Nurse and Huntress now if I want a stress free game. I'd love to play Trapper more and I'd love to play Clown more I just don't see the point when there are better killers available but do the same things better.
0 -
Huntress? Stress-free? Tell me your secrets. I just find Huntress so stressful against red rank survivors, she seems to just get demolished on certain maps, it almost seems like hook camping is necessary to do well with her (although, I suppose against real efficient teams you have to do a bit of that occasionally).
0 -
Guess some of the best clown mains and best killer mains in DBD don't have any brains then.
Trapper requires more thought process than any other killer in the game, doesn't mean they are a powerful killer.
3 -
I disagree, that’s probably hag or blight.
Trapper once you know the good trap spots doesn’t require too too much thought. He’s also very mechanically simple.
Blight you need constant predictions and to be thinking of new attack angles based on what is nearby, in addition to him demanding a ton of mechanically difficult bounces.
Hag I don’t think is that mechanically difficult but definitely requires a ton of rapid decision making and planning each game.
0 -
I'll just stick to bubba oni and nurse all can be faster 2 can one shot and the other can ingore everything
1 -
Thought process idk about that but long term predictions yea
0 -
You can say this about all killers it just takes brains and they are good. To master fully then Hag is perhaps the killer that needs most brain, and I don't know if anyone can master Hag fully either. But there are some great Hag players out there of course.
3 -
I may have underrated huntress due to her hitboxes
0 -
W I'll ask you an easy question, would you use the clown against a swf or in a dbd tournament?
0 -
I only have 1400 hours in the game, and I go against 5k+ hour swf's all the time. I generally win, sometimes I lose. Clown is fine if you know how to use him even against some high tier swf's. You need to slug though to keep pressure with him with swf's like those.
1 -
Agreed but there is more to clown than that. Bottle conservation and trajectory come to mind
0 -
In comparison to a lot of killers yes she's relatively stress free. I just don't have that many issues aiming with her and predicting survivor movement. Granted I know with her and Nurse I'm a bit above average with them because a lot of practice over the years / muscle memory so I have less issues. I know I'm not 10/10 in terms of skill level with them as I fumble on occasion and have my games but yeah for the most part I find them both stress free. I play both without addons too.
Main thing with Huntress is I understand how collisions work with BHVR's art assets and I know the shape of the hatchet collision so it's easy for me to toss hatchets over hard to reach spots. That's usually what makes my games as Huntress specifically easier. Most survivors don't expect to get hit over certain props.
0 -
You could literally ask that question with any killer other than Spirit or Nurse
2 -
No I agree just clown takes more skill than what you said is all
1 -
I'm sorry but. against good and actual legitimate survivors. Clown does not compete against them in the slightest, just pre-throw pallets and make the clown waste time by going around it, plain and simple..
0 -
Yes.
0 -
Bottle trajectory does matter if the goal is to hit the survivor directly to interrupt or prevent an action.
0 -
I’ve already clearly stated the ways Clown can get hits in on survivors before they even have chance to reach a pallet in the first place.
Staying injured against Clown is a death sentence.
0 -
Of course... This is why I'm not good at Clown.
0 -
IMO CLown is one of the most underrated Killers. He is actually in my book mid B tier even with his new update, he's still strong, I can do Red ranks and dominate the hell out of decent players, I tend to get #########, How did you do that, in end game chat as Clown, so yeah I say he is nowhere as weak as what people make him out to be.
A bit off-topic, but I really wanted to know what your headcanon/ what kind of person do you think he is and how he treats his victims. I personally compared Clown to Jack Baker in how abusive he can be, but that's just me. I wanted to know what you would've thought about it.
0 -
Ok, For you the clown is at the level of the nurse and spirit or Freddy. Good luck. For me it is not at their level and I have 4000 killer hours. Gg
0 -
Even if you Do catch up to them as clown. they will always Pre-run against a clown and make it to a loop waaaay before clown catches up, Why do you think Clown can't compete with survivors that can actually run, and not mindlessly hold W against him..
0 -
Always good to start the weekend with a laugh :3
2 -
So I keep seeing you talk about how clown is great, but I never see you post any gameplay? I know you play on the new consoles and those have built in video capture now, so why haven't you uploaded any videos to show examples of how clown is awesome?
3 -
I could debate blight given one is more long term but light requires some on the fly thinking- but hag? No way. Not even remotely.
0 -
Let's make it simple.
Better killers than Clown: Spirit, Nurse, Freddy, Pyramid Head, Oni, Myers, Hag, Deathslinger, Huntress, Blight, DemoPls, Leatherface, GF, Doctor, Twins.
So where is Clown? Fighting at the bottom with the rest ones.
Against decent teams, Clown is gg most of the time.
Against potatoes, every killer is OP.
BTW, i read something about picking Clown in a tournament? You will get ABSOLUTELY destroyed in little pieces. Tournament teams are not a casual swf. It's completely new ball game.
3 -
Clown is ok. But he's still weak imo. To say that you need to do rocket science while playing clown is just silly. You just throw bottles and occasionally yellow ones. His yellow bottles changed absolutely nothing. It might make him move to gens 10% faster or help in certain loop tiles but he's not that great. Theres many other viable and interesting killers rather than clown.
0 -
You don't need exhaustion add ons to make a killer good, Clown is good without it and he still has Flask of Bleach which is really good for a green add on. Huntress has exhaustion add ons as well, and doesn't need them to be good.
0 -
I play injured all the time vs clown when I use iron will build. he's not scary when injured. The only killers i really fear when playing injured are Nurse, Spirit, Twins and Oni. Clown is super loud, you can almost always get to a pallet/vault in most cases with good routing. The only time clown's power effectively works at denying chaining tiles together is when the survivor is cornered but most killers profit from that situation. It is not exclusive to clown.
I find it very impressive that even when presented with evidence empirical evidence regarding clown's speed differential between both bottles that clown's power is not amazing, you still state opposite. I get clown is your main but for clown main, I feel like your way too proud for clown.
2 -
This post might be becoming a copypasta.
I'm happy to have possibly contributed.
5 -
Copy pasta on dbd streams. I'm down. Seems promising.
2 -
I'm completely with OP on this point. standard/bad clown players play him thinking about the immediate and simple terms "bottle = slow down = hit survivor with bottle = profit" whereas good clown players see a loop a survivor is headed to and immediately think "slow down bottles make survivors avoid where I throw them, and speed bottles allow me to catch up quick" and proceed to zone the survivors to make them run away from otherwise safe loops. The mind games Clown can play with most decent or good survivors typically earns him more downs and kills, but only for those thinking 2 steps ahead of the survivors. In the right hands, clown can be significantly formidable, in the average players hands however, he's trash, but that fault lies with the players... not the design.
1 -
Except that ISN’T happening in my matches.
Survivor spots me and flees.
I throw Antidote in the direction I predict they’re running.
They get nothing out of it.
I Invigorated myself, and during this time I’m also throwing Tonics at crucial zones to prevent safe access to a vault or pallet.
I either hit them when they change direction, or they’re forced through Tonic in their attempt to still try and reach a vault or pallet, except I close in on them while still Invigorated, and smack em before they even have a chance to reach the pallet or vault. If they’re already injured, it’s an incredibly short chase.
0 -
Can you please record some gameplay so we can see what you're talking about and going against? I am unironically intrigued on how your matches go down and how to play clown.
1
![[Deleted User]](https://forums.bhvr.com/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
