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A compilation of why the Billy nerfs should never have gone through
Comments
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It’s not a good video I understand what you’re trying to say but the guy playing sucks I can tell he’s purposely overheating and it’s more the game and his fault not Billy’s
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Here's the thing. Even if Coconut sucks, the overheat mechanic discourages new Billies - i.e. people who suck at Billy - from actually trying to use his power in a fun way. They just backrev since you overheat way quicker by continuously trying to curve.
That and overheat is just a stupid mechanic anyway, especially on a killer who was almost universally considered the epitome of balance.
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this video is trying to show why Billy’s overheat is terrible but all I see his him making such little mistakes that I can’t take him seriously
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My man Coconut just made an epic fail compilation for Billy. I can honestly relate to him, oppressive Billies are in pain rn.
BHVR please change overheat.
Also I think https://youtu.be/xELkqkQjJ6w?t=347 is the best example of overheat being braindead in this video. Timestamp btw.
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Again - overheat is terrible to both skilled and unskilled Billies.
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Tbf the first map was Hawkins which is bad for billy regardless but as of right now overheat is definitely too punishing
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I played Hillbilly a lot after rework. It's mostly the same killer, but overheat actually make him unfun. If I played like there is no overheat, I would get overheat every 2 minutes. After rework you have to manage your overheat and sometimes chill your chainsaw and go boring m1.
He was one of the most picked killers at red ranks before rework. Now he is rare as unicorn on any ranks.
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Yeah, that's the thing. He gets punished for using his power too much. And his power is one of the more fun things in the game, for both sides, according to most people. So why the hell does he need overheat? Were they trying to do an addon pass, realized they had no ideas for new addons, and then came up with a stupid mechanic to put addons in around it?
If that's the case, why??? The only things that needed a nerf before were Tuning Guide and making his charge speed addons not stack.
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I remember going against Billy pre rework and it was just a nightmare, the guy had good map pressure on top of having an insta kill he could spam over and over, it simply was too much.
While the rework clearly weakened him, you cant deny it was needed, maybe tweak his addons, but allowing him to go back to being able to use his chainsaw how much has he wanted shouldnt return
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This. I also didn't find Billy fun nor did anyone I knew personally.
He was just everywhere. Doing a gen? brrrrrrr. Got a save? brrrrrrrr. on the gate? brrrrrrr. Trying to heal? brrrrrr. In chase brrrrrrr. Spamming one shots all the time.
I don't want "haha chainsaw go brrrrrr" back again. He's still a very strong killer (imo), he just can't spam the entire match anymore. With a power that one-shots, breaks pallets, and lets you zoom at the same speed as Blight for strong map pressure with no requirement besides holding a button, I think that's fair.
Old Billy wasn't balanced. His current add-ons might need touching up, but don't bring back spam Billy.
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100% agree billy didn't need nerfs to his saw 1 bit just simple changes on the add ons would have been more then enough. As well as there being a skill cap to billy It was rare for you to see a really good billy who was hitting curves.
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I will forever be pained by the irony that Billy was nerfed for being "too good" while Nurse sips from her glass of wine atop her tower of power.
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Well she did got nerfed, but the issue with Nurse is that she breaks the game, the obstacles which are the main defense for the survivors mean nothing to her, only a few other killers can get around them but nowhere near the same level as her.
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I can absolutely deny it was needed. It wasn't. Especially when Spirit, Nurse and Blight exist.
As for "spam billy", if you couldn't get to a pallet or window during his cooldown animation in the several attempts he made to hit you, then honestly? That's on you.
#JusticeForHillbilly
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Yeah, absolutely. The only problems with old Billy were instasaw and crack, both of which could be removed literally by just nerfing Tuning Guide. Or making charge addons not stack. Or, you know, reworking Tinkerer. Which they did!
In fact, through all the nerfs BHVR gave him, crack billy literally still exists. It just makes you 110% now. So in classic BHVR fashion, they touched everything that didn't need to be touched and left the ######### that was actually a problem.
Billies need to be encouraged to use their chainsaw more, not less. It's almost universally acknowledged as being more fun than just W+M1 bamboozle endfury, which is what the vast majority of Billies who play him now do.
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Getting good results by holding a button? Hmmm, that sounds familiar!
Flickbilly is definitely more than holding a button, and his chainsaw isn't exactly helpful in a chase if you don't flick with it - unless the survivor gets caught WAY out of position, in which case Bubba does the job better anyway.
If you want to bring "I also didn't find Billy fun nor did anyone I knew personally" into it, then I raise you pretty much most of the rest of the DBD community. We miss him, man. I'm sorry you didn't have fun playing against him, but a lot of us loved a good flickbilly match.
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Btw, I'm sorry if I come across as angry or condescending towards you. I'm not trying to be, and I'm not really mad at any of you who disagree with me. Discussion is healthy. I'm just mad at BHVR for "mildly tweaking" a killer that they themselves admitted they were happy with, just for the sake of changing him. And then going completely silent on it.
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"Getting good results by holding a button? Hmmm, that sounds familiar!"
Are you talking about survivors on gens? Because if so yeah, that's also dumb imo.
Yeah Bubba will down a survivor easier in the open, but he doesn't have the map mobility Billy has. Honestly that was my biggest gripe with him, just being all over the map as soon as the survivors did anything, especially if you had tracking perks like Tinkerer or something. If you want the chase potential back then sure, but I don't want him all over the map all the time like before. As for how you'll do that, I don't really know.
I just disagree with him being fun before, and with no one I know or meet having any fun with him either it was always so strange to me to hear these people on the forums that supposedly had fun against him and makes it hard for me to understand that viewpoint. I understand that's subjective though, I'm just sharing my experience.
Ideally a middle ground would be reached that both sides are at least ok with, both those that liked and disliked him. If one side wants flicks back then alright, but we don't want him all over the map all the time, just as an example. Again, as for how you'll do that, I don't really know without some form of cooldown (which is what overheat basically is).
Its all about compromise imo.
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The overheat doesn't punish you for "spamming" the chainsaw, it punishes you for even trying to use it in the first place. What you're describing really had to do with the add-on stacking which was very easy to do considering that even his low rarity ones were pretty good. Having a fast charge while also recover almost instantly was the problem, not the fact that the chainsaw didn't have any cooldown mechanic.
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I don't understand, how does it punish you for just using the chainsaw in general? it only matters if you max the meter, its not like your chainsaw progressively gets worse as you heat it up. You only overheat if you're spamming the chainsaw. So doesn't it punish you for spamming?
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Funny how you use this timestamp and not this:
Where he messed up and got 360ed. Which is the main reason why he has so much Heat in his Chainsaw to begin with.
And the Survivor being smart to bodyblock with BT is not really a problem with the Overheat-Mechanic. In fact, the Overheat-Mechanic is finally shown to be doing what it is supposed to do - punish people who play badly with the Chainsaw. And he played bad.
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That timestamp is pretty much why people don't like overheat. It made some of Billy's counterplay even more effective, which was unnecessary because his counterplay was fine. You can't expect people to play perfectly.
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Try playing Flickbilly with engravings.
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Yeah, but you were hiding this. Like, he deserved to Overheat, he was trying way too much and he played bad. You cannot really deny this.
He messed up at least 3 times (getting 360ed, when Nea unhooked the other Nea and when the unhooked Nea bodyblocked (he should have known that this is gonna happen, he is a very experienced player)). So after making 3 mistakes in a row, he should be rewarded with an Instadown?
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Ok i know dbd community is famous for gate keeping but please listen to yourself. Are you implying that he missed a saw so his power should be on a very long cd. If so explain to me how that is good for players learning billy. How am I encouraged to go for difficult saws if the consequences are so high.
There is no killer with a cooldown as long as billy. You can't just make a killer who appeals to those who have learned him and is unapproachable/painful for beginner/average billy players. It's illogical because then you get abyssmally low playrates for a killer the commumity has gone on record as saying it one of there favourites to play against.
This argument get's raised every time but people casually ignore this because hur dur git gud meanwhile the payrate of the killer tanks further and further.
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Then don't play flickbilly with engravings. If its only with that add-on that its a problem, that sounds like an add-on problem.
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You know that Bubba exists right?
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There is also no other Killer who has such a high mobility-advantage. You cannot just focus on the Overheat and ignoring Billys strengths.
And as I wrote in my other comment, he messed up at least 3 times before overheating. He should not be rewarded with an Instadown when playing that bad.
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Jeez, a chase doesn't need to be that long.
Also, I thought overheat was meant to punish facecampers?
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RIP a fun part of Billy.
Not just that anyways.
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No other killer, sorry what? Wraith, freddy, demo, hag, oni etc. Yes the mobility comes in different forms with different limitations but so to does billies. His relatively straight movement means a lot of the reworked maps limits his traversal with all the added debris. Hag can teleport on top of survivours but requires prep. I can go on with each liller named but you get my point.
On the note of missing three times isn't the fact the player has commited 3 times to trying to saw and failed punishmemt enough. That is a lot of wasted time. Imagine if blight had a bounce meter that was disabled if you missed three hit with your power that would be unecessary why is billy the exception. Or made it so oni lost large portions of his gauge for missing. The punishment for missing a saw is time loss locking them out of there power for a prolonged period of time is overkill.
Billy has almost disappeared from dbd in terms of play rate. You can't sit there say there is no fire whilst the lad is fading from dbd and expect us to buy these changes were excellent decisions.
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I wouldn't say RIP, its not like you instantly overheat. You just get punished a little harder, so you have to be a little more careful. Again, punished for spamming.
Doom engravings just changes your charge time from 2.5 to 2.8, or 12%, its not like it makes him overheat twice as fast or something.
I'm just saying if you don't like playing with doom engravings, then don't use doom engravings.
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Punished for spamming.
Soooo you're saying Billies should be punished for using their power the way they want to? I understand camping but not this.
Also, if that's the case, try it! Play Flickbilly!
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Billy still is one of the best killers regarding map control. The overheat makes sure that killers have to use their head using his saw, which is a good thing. Spamming his saw is not fun for anyone.
Almost every killer with such a good map pressure has cool-down on their ability, why shouldn't Billy? Nurse, spirit, Freddy, demogorgon just to name a few.
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Here's the thing. It's less about compromise and more about what ends up with Billy being objectively balanced, and fun to as many people as possible. Everyone has different conceptions of fun, so the approach is to appeal to the largest amount of people - something old Billy did very well, provided they weren't a shitter Billy with no one escapes instasawboozlefury. Which says more about the player than the killer. That's not to say the minority opinion should be completely discarded; it's healthy to listen to people who didn't like playing Billy and try to find out why. But if there's a conflict that can't be resolved through reasoned discussion, then on something subjective like fun, it's just logical to follow the majority. Especially when the alternative is nerfing a killer almost everyone considered balanced, even if they didn't personally enjoy going against him.
The current Overheat doesn't really punish your map mobility. If you overheat during a sprint, you keep going anyway - there is nothing about overheat that hurts his map mobility, only stuff that hurts his flick potential. So I think we should revert the Overheat mechanic entirely, then add some more debris to make navigating the map harder with his limited steering. Hell, they already did that not long ago - there is way more stuff in the way on most maps, like trees and random rocks or tiles, that limit you to maybe getting across half the map in a single sprint. Do you think that'd be fair?
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I'm saying he shouldn't have no significant downside or cooldown to his power considering all it does. I think a cooldown so you can't spam it when it one-shots and has great mobility is fine. Also on the camping note, yeah it helps with Billies who used to camp with their chainsaw revved all the time.
If you can land your chainsaws and flicks its not really a problem, as you wont need to spam it.
I could go play flickbilly, or I guess more specifically Doom Engravings sure, but I'm not sure what that would accomplish. I already know what it does and I'm fundamentally not against the overheat even after using it. That's not going to change because I charge up .3 seconds slower in return for 20% more speed.
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It depends on how you define "spamming." In general, killer powers should be designed to be used as much as possible, especially one with ample counterplay like Billy's. Imagine if Demogorgon overheated after Shredding too much and died of heatstroke. We should be encouraging Billies to use their chainsaw more, not forcing them to W+M1 imho. If not more fun, it's a lot more interactive in terms of how you can dodge the saw and use the cooldown to get to a safer area.
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Of course, he messed up and got 360'd. So he bonked into the wall and gave the Nea several seconds to reposition herself. That is Billy's punishment for missing; he gives the survivor an opportunity to gain distance and waste more time. Ultimately, the only time you ever get a hit with the chainsaw is when you play well enough to land it, even if it takes you several attempts - because every time you fail an attempt, the survivor has another opportunity to reposition.
That's the main reason we're so pissed about Overheat. It was totally unnecessary. Now, to punish facecampers? Sure. Make it so that Overheat goes up when revving, but immediately dissipates when you start a charge (since you can't exactly facecamp someone while moving at 230% movement speed). Do you think that would be more fair?
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Engravings aren't strictly necessary for Flickbilly, but they enable him to pull off so much more crazy #########. The extra charge time also makes it much harder to backrev, which I think most people agree is much less fun to be hit by than a crazy flick. If anything, make them both basekit - crank his saw speed and make it take longer to charge, then remove Overheat.
Edit: This is also kind of a flawed argument, even though it's understandable logic. The addon doesn't cause a problem, it exacerbates something that's already a problem. So while it makes sense to say "if this addon hurts you then don't run it", the addon's effect isn't the issue; the stupid mechanic that makes it hinder you is the issue. So that's why we should remove Overheat. ^^
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Pretty much see previous statement; he only gets rewarded for landing the saw, even if it takes him a few attempts. When he plays badly and misses, he gets punished with a cooldown. When he plays well and hits, he gets rewarded with an instadown. Unless you're an absolute chad running Speed Limiter.
Contrast this to Pyramid Head, who gets rewarded for... pretending to use his power and zoning. Spirit, who gets rewarded for literally standing still. Billy without Overheat was possibly the best example of a killer who rewarded you for trying to use your power in a creative way, even if it means failing the first few attempts. I think we should be trying to encourage that behaviour (no pun intended) instead of the boring W+M1 noedboozlefury stuff. Wouldn't you agree?
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I just got my adept billy today, it was my last and most tedious. Killer has a high skill floor and not rewarding when you're good at it.
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This whole "punished for spamming" thing seems to miss something - we want Billies to be constantly using their saw. It's a lot more interactive than W+M1, so we want to push newer Billies toward sawing more than M1-ing. Billy was most definitely one of the most balanced killers in the game before the nerfs, so there's no real reason not to.
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While not directly effecting his mobility, it does so indirectly because the player has to make a choice of "do I sprint or save this for the next chase." Its the same reason why Legions power is bad for map mobility, you won't have it when you get to the survivors and need it.
The problem with the debris issue without the overheat is he can just stop, take a few steps to the side, and sprint again. You'd have to make sure theres so much debris that he needs to spend a significant enough time to get around it all. At which point whats the point of even having it outside of chase.
While in a vacuum and on paper, sure I don't see a problem with this, you'd have to do this one every map and then you have to worry about how this effects every killer that needs LOS. Like Huntress would become a nightmare to play and all the stealth killers would be buffed a lot (which tbf honestly they could probably use). Its the much better option to limit/change him directly someway than to change the whole game around him imo.
Fair to him? Maybe. Fair to other killers? No.
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I think the best way to describe this isn't that these killers have cooldowns, more that they have limitations. Nurse has a cooldown because she can ignore pathfinding completely. Spirit has a cooldown because survivors get very little information when she uses her ability. Freddy has a cooldown because he also ignores pathfinding and just teleports straight to a generator. Demogorgon has to set up his teleport first because he can teleport to wherever he wants. Wraith can't attack while cloaked because he has full control over his ability. Blight has to weave between debris because he can cover large amounts of ground.
Billy's saw already had limitations - he couldn't turn well, and he didn't (still doesn't) have the maneuverability of Blight's ability. So if there were obstacles in his way, his map pressure already took a sharp hit.
Also, see one of my previous comments for why Overheat doesn't hurt his map pressure, only his chase potential (which is exactly what we DIDN'T want to nerf in the first place).
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I think the thing is, against a good survivor in a decent setup, his chainsaw requires an incredible amount of timing and mechanical finesse to land a hit. It's incredibly likely that you'll need multiple attempts to land a hit like that - and that is the significant downside. There hasn't ever been a Billy in existence that can just perfectly line up a flick every single time they try, especially since there's the added survivor counterplay of moving away from the loop/outside your general pathing to make the Billy whiff. Billy was already punished enough for missing, even with how theoretically strong his power could be.
Same reason most people hate Spirit more than Nurse, even though Nurse's power is to ignore pathfinding entirely. The amount of skill it takes with Nurse to get to the point of having exactly zero counterplay is more than the skill of any Nurse main I've ever seen. Even SupaAlf, a 5k hour Nurse main who used to play on console, gets juked quite frequently.
Billy is the same. His power is ridiculously strong on theory, but in practice, there exists no Billy skilled enough to justify Overheat being a mechanic.
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Okay, then don't change the debris at all and just remove Overheat. While all you said is technically true, I disagree that any of it should be true. Billy's chainsaw had enough limitations before Overheat, apart from maybe being able to facecamp too well. (And if that's the issue, then Overheat should build up quickly by revving, but dissipate completely once you start a sprint. Wouldn't this solve the problem of facecamping? Also, Bubba.)
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Yeah, definitely. Especially since landing a saw hit punishes your emblems, since you only get 1 hit instead of 2. You basically have to be a M1lly for adept.
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Ngl he doesnt seem like a great Hillbilly, he made a lot of mistakes throughout that one game.
Additionally the clips before the game, why was he deciding to use his chainsaw when it wasnt necessary...? Playing M2 billy is almost as bad as playing M1 Billy with his power for transport only.
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Well, if you want the saw to be constantly used it can't be as strong as it is. You can't say "yeah we constantly want to one-shot, flick round corners, break pallets, and cross the map all the time with no limits." Blight has a lot of limitations and he's very strong, and his power doesn't even one shot. So would you be ok losing something else? Like ok the saw can't break pallets now or hit through windows or something? It just does too much to be unlimited.
"Billy was most definitely one of the most balanced killers in the game before the nerf"
That depends on how strong you consider "balanced".
IIRC, I constantly saw him toted as the 2nd-3rd best killer (or at the very least top tier after Spirit got added) and one who could deal with very co-ordinated teams. So if that's what you want the killers to be than sure. I think that's just a little bit much. I would like killers around the Huntress Level.
To me, he was just a little over the top and needed to be toned down.
I understand that it probably went a little too far, so I'm not opposed to improving him a bit. Its the how that's a problem. Completely removing overheat and that's it would be too much. He's still good/decent, he just needs some help to deal with the better teams.
"Billy was already punished enough for missing"
I mean, kind of but not really. The problem is if he missed he could just try again and again. Since his chainsaw one-shots, unless he tried like 8+ times or something he would down you ages faster than most killers. If you're trying that much you're probably not a good Hillbilly or got screwed by map RNG/design (which is a whole other issue). Then on top of that you had his map mobility.
From what I understand, most people aren't ok with Nurse because she's hard, they're ok with her because you rarely see one, let alone a good one. I believe most people agree Nurse is fundamentally broken and uncounterable, but since it only one every so often its not a priority. A good Nurse will win. Not even a perfect one, just good. If Nurse was getting played all over the place like Spirit, people would be complaining. If every killer was Nurse/Spirit levels we would have a problem, that should not be our balance point, Nurse and Spirit are not ok balance wise.
"Okay, then don't change the debris at all and just remove Overheat" Ok so all the problems I lined out before still exist.
I don't know what you consider "enough limitations", I felt like it didn't really have any besides "don't miss too much", and I didn't feel like it was particularly hard to land, especially compared to the payoff.
For the record, I don't see camping as a balance issue. No its not fun, but its not unbalanced. I was just saying it helped with the camping concern that was brought up.
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So really, you should be having the same issues with Billy now, because a good Billy hasn't changed and he'll still be on top of you almost no matter what. Why is he suddenly fine now that Billy can't "spam" his power, when that didn't matter to good players (the ones you don't like playing against), and also didn't matter to bad players because if they were "spamming" the saw they weren't getting anything done and it's not hard at all to play around a bad killer.
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