The Artist is Unfair and Unfun, But Not OP
While I understand people saying that The Artist is unfair and at times unfun to play against, she is not overpowered, though she’s a bit close to it.
The Artist has a few annoying mechanics that at times can create binary decisions for survivors, or put survivors in lose/lose situations. Putting a crow at certain loops can make it completely useless, forcing those survivors to run away. If the loop is small enough, the survivor won’t have enough distance, and they’ll be hit anyways.
Her hook defense is equally as annoying and oppressive as Hag’s as well, allowing her to either keep survivors off of it for a while, or force them to reveal themselves early by running through the crows, otherwise, both the unhooker and unhookie will be hit by the crow.
Cross-mapping survivors with crows can also feel frustrating at times, though much of this is due to the seemingly large hitbox the crows have. Sometimes it feels like there isn’t ample time to move out of the way of those crows because they cover such a wide area. It feels like The Artist is just getting free hits if she has another crow.
Here are some of my suggestions to scale back on some of these frustrating mechanics to make her a bit more healthy, while retaining as much of her strength as possible.
- crows within 20 meters of a hooked survivor immediately dissipate when the survivor is unhooked (this includes crows that are moving)
- reduce the width of the active crow hitbox by 30%, forcing The Artist to be more accurate with her shots
- Increase the duration of the movement speed penalty after The Artist places a crow by 1 second.
yeah i can tell i’m going to be yelled at
Comments
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What are you proposing she get in trade? This isn't a PVE game.
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Artist now doesn't have legs and can only crawl on the ground
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Just straight nerfing a killer without compensation that isn’t even S tier? Yikes.
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It wouldn't be the first time.
*Cries in Wraith. And Cenobite. And Slinger. And Billy.*
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She's not fun to play against and generally denies the most enjoyable part of the game, chases. No, she's not the strongest, but I consider her a failure in design, too. If the best choice a survivor has is holding W, the killer is a failure.
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That's how she was designed. It's a feature, not a bug. How she plays isn't some unintended mess up. People could suggest how to make her more fun to play but all that gets suggested is massive nerfs to make her basically unable to win. This isn't a PVE Co-op game. Just nerfing killers across the board with no compensation is awful and is what you'd do to an NPC controlled enemy, not a player character. That being said, it is behaviors prefered method of balance, so it will probably happen.
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Artist doesn't need nerfed, she's fine as she is. Leave her alone.
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It seems to be part of the Survivor Bible that survivors use the word 'Unfun' when they want a Killer nerfed.
Probably because they're aware that saying 'Nerf Artist because I hate her' is not a valid reason, so they hide behind the ever-useful smokescreen of 'Fun', and hope the devs will fall for it.
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Survivors realized that they don't need actual reasons to get killer nerfs, so anytime a killer exists that requires survivors to play slightly different it gets met with "unfun pls nerf"
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Oh, no. The killers who deserve a nerf got hit with it!
Every single example deserved the changes they got.
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I struggle to understand how she is "unfair" to go against but not OP. If a character can't be countered, it sounds like they just might be OP. I just came back to the game and I've only gone against her three times, but she's had 4ks in every game, and I can't figure out what to do against her yet. I can't use pallets or Dead Hard or windows to prolong chase against her. A killer who takes away everything survivors have certainly seems OP. I guess just being immersed and never interacting with this killer is the way to go. Fun for everyone!
I can certainly see why killers like her though.
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'I've just returned to the game' So your skills are rusty.
'I've only gone against her three times'. And that's enough for you to determine she's OP?
'I can't figure out what to do against her yet.' Because you've only gone against her 3 times.
And yet; you call her OP. Because you've returned to the game, and faced her a WHOPPING 3 whole times! Yep; normal Survivor main.
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Nerfing a killer because they're unfun is just as invalid because the definition of what counts as fun changes from person to person. There is absolutely 0 way to rate fun for what it means for everyone. The fact that people think the devs should balance around fun shows they don't know how to balance and, although I don't think all suggestions made based on the idea of "fun" are bad, 99% of the time the suggestions made are made to kill a killer or survivor mechanic.
If the suggestions this person is making went through, the devs would literally kill this killer.
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Not sure why B and C tier killers need nerfs. "My fun" isn't an argument.
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I don't find Artist that hard to deal with. She's a killer that you need to constantly look at behind you in chase. Pay attention to where the crows are aimed at and avoid them - you can even fake them and bait a bad shot, if you have enough distance that this isn't suicide. Use normal looping tactics when she wants to M1 you, and when she starts setting up at a loop, bail. Hold W. Use elevation changes. Don't let her get clean shots through open air; use obstacles so she only gets swarm shots and she has to guess where you are. When repelling, she only really has one chance to hit you with another wave of birds before you get the things off - she has no chance to hit you if she fired three birds on the wave that hit you, and her window is miniscule if she used two birds. This can lead to long and unproductive cycles where the Artist thinks she's making progress in a chase but really isn't getting anywhere. She can often waste her own time this way.
You can't vault or throw pallets while repelling, but if you're not repelling, she has wallhacks on you, so repel ASAP unless you're coming up on a vault or pallet that needs to be taken. Throwing pallets is risky, but she can't set up and fire as quickly as Pyramid Head, Huntress, or Nemesis - you can probably pre-drop and then bail to the side before she fires her crow. If you have to run straight, yeah, you're boned; either stun her with it or don't drop.
The wallhacks from repelling last... 1 second after you begin the action? Fake this like you would BBQ & Chili. A clever but not galaxy-brained Artist will set up another shot for where you'll be on your current movement path, so if you have the benefit of distance and a wall, repel and then change your direction after a second.
Outside of chase, remember that being close to a bird gives her killer instinct and dodging a shot at your gen doesn't mean she didn't see you there; you had to avoid it by a wide margin. But if you do successfully dodge it, you've probably convinced her there's nobody at your generator. She struggles to check gens on second floors or on maps like Swamp and will likely prioritize the ground-level gens.
Three games is not enough to learn how to play against her - and that should tell you something in and of itself. If she were as some strong as people say she is, she'd be played a lot more than she currently is.
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I have played her exclusively since release and survivors at my level no what to do in chase. When she starts dropping crows go to a different Loop the crows are not that hard to dodge as some of you are claiming.
Small loops if the Survivor stays in the loop she can get them down pretty easily but so can clown, trickster, nemesis, huntress, and everyone else who has some form of anti loop. You get an audio cue and can see the crows in flight (unless an add on is used).
The game is catered to bad survivors so I'm sure you will all get your wish for nerfs and will be bullying and tbagging her in no time.
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I'm going to be considerate and ask for justification considering the fairly heavy-handed nerfs you are proposing.
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Or you know we could stop asking for killers to be nerfed cause every time people spam these threads the killer gets gutted and then months later everyone is always like where did this killer go
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At specific spots you are trapped? Maybe that is bad positioning of the survivors or extremely good herding by the killer.
Cross map shots free hits? Not ample time to respond? That means you are extremely predictable, don't repel crows or she went for a high risk move and you greeded.
Hook radius is fine and the crows are easily enough avoided, it isn't even remotely as good as the Hag at this. Removal of well timed moving crows?
Punish her more for placing down crows? Are you telling us that 2.5 seconds with her dropping below survivors speed isn't enough. It feels clunky as is...
People, maybe go play the killer first at a decent level before they try to make nerf suggestions. She is skill based, she has counters and you state she isn't OP... which means she is actually fair? Because that is what that means.
Facing an artist learn to repel instantly you don't lose speed doing so, move more unpredictable and bait shots and know when to leave a tile, positioning and all that. There is gameplay to be had on both sides.
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Artist is already largely countered by holding Shift W, increasing the duration of the speed penalty for using her power would just make her feel even more lethargic when survivors run to the next loop. Plague just recently had her penalties drastically reduced because as killer, constantly being slowed down because you try to use your power is incredibly unsatisfying to play.
Decreasing the hitbox of the crows is also a terrible suggestion as they already require a lot of precision, and anyone who plays Artist will attest to the fact that quite often crows which appear to hit survivors directly will only register as close misses and give killer instincts.
I think she's in a really good spot at the moment. She has counterplay, her crows are highly telegraphed allowing survivors to play around them long before they launch, and she has a relatively long cooldown for a power which is meant to be used for basically every hit. I've had pretty good success playing her, but coming up against good squads of survivors they're definitely able to dodge a lot of shots and waste time effectively.
You have to remember that the killer is a player too, something feeling "unfair" because you weren't able to dodge 100% of hits doesn't make sense, the power SHOULDN'T be easy to avoid every time, and her design as a killer is to make strong points on the map more risky, or to push you into making bad decisions.
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So you just want her to be Straight bottom B tier?
She don't need a single nerf, if anything... a buff or some QoL that's it..
Lest you just want only 3 killers at S tier and everyone else F tier...
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I dont think she's unfair or unfun to play against. I personally like the idea of having to pay attention to the crows and their positions, its similar to Huntress and her hatchets. Now if you're a player who doesn't really look behind themselves, then yea she's ultra punishing.
I've outplayed numerous people playing her and I realized pretty quickly where she slacks heavily. She stops loops, she doesn't stop chaining tiles. For ex, you can loop shack once and because she thinks you're going to use it more, she'll start setting up her crows, which is the moment you break off from shack and move somewhere else, so she has to set up crows again and again.
I don't find them as strong as you do, I guess.
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If The Artist still had her insanely pea-brained strategy of trapping windows with crows for free health states, I think she'd be overpowered.
She is very unfun to go against, however. These nerfs, though, are way too much and unnecessary.
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How even? I'm going to focus on Wraith, because his was somehow the worst possible idea for a nerf they could have done to him.
His extended lunge was an anti-looping tool for a killer with no anti-loop. Wraith is a lowbie stomper who suffers greatly in higher MMR when survivors know how to evade the killer. When they can loop, he has nothing, but for a brief time, the extra lunge let him play around shorter loops and some windows (such as shack window.) He was still quite loopable, always finds a mortal enemy in windows, but had more options in some loops than playing Benny Hill Simulator. When survivors can't loop, he destroys them, because he counters holding W more than anyone else, has high map presence outside of chase, and can't be seen until he's close. Less skilled survivors struggle with attentiveness to surroundings and utilizing map resources, so Wraith is newbie kryptonite.
Killing his lunge destroyed his only tool to compete with stronger teams while doing diddly squat to his ability to massacre weaker players. It lowered his skill ceiling without affecting the skill floor. When it first happened, it was a rare buff where it didn't actually make the killer harder to deal with at the bottom of the game, while noticeably improving performance in middle and upper levels (because if you don't run for a window or pallet, the extended lunge damaged you a second faster than it will now - but that isn't really significant, you're still getting caught.)
I can argue the issues with the others, too. Everyone liked Billy except for a few addons and they completely gutted all of his addons in response, in addition to overheat, making it easier to read him in chase, and giving his FoV drunk goggles. Cenobite was similar to Wraith; pub stomper who had his tools to deal with stronger teams taken away, though at least his changes did make it easier for the pubs to handle him (though solo queue still suffers in general against him, because lack of info is enormous against his box.) Deathslinger was annoying in the 1v1, but his 1v4 was always terrible and now he's worse than Huntress in every conceivable way because everything that differentiated his playstyle from hers got whacked with the nerf hammer. But seriously? Wraith was a wee bit OP?
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Your post would have been better if you just called her OP anyway. It's just stupid saying she is not OP and then suggesting completely gutting her anyway.
But just to dismiss your point:
1) There's no way to get damaged by crows while unhooking. The damage path is only 8 meters and she can't place them 10 meters from the hook. She might try to align them from away, but then you can tank the first crow and dodge the second.
2) The hitbox is generous for the same reason Huntress' hitbox is. You can clearly hear her lauching the crows and see their path auras. Getting a cross map snipe is more a problem of the survivor messing up.
3) She moves slower than Nurse while placing the crows. On 90% of the occasions there's enough time for you to chain another tile while she places the crows. The cooldown doesn't need to be longer.
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Because she straight up is not fun to face, due to her creating binary lose/lose scenarios for the survivors while denying the most engaging part of the game: chasing, in favor of survivors just running away and mindlessly dodging in hopes that they aren’t caught. I’m not saying she’s too powerful, but she’s a design failure, and something needs to be addressed to mitigate that.
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I get all the people saying that she doesn't really deserve a nerf since she's nowhere near nurse level but at the same time I think we can all agree that this a problem because she's just not a well designed killer to begin with
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eww clunk.
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I don’t see how you find her sending crows across the map is frustrating. You can literally just move away from the gen (because that is where most of them aim for) additionally get in a locker and crows will auto clear.
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I don’t agree with this. Both Freddy and Wraith got the wrong end of the nerfstick. Though Freddy was really unfun, he didn’t deserve that. It was more because of his design.
These are proposed with 100% certainty of course. I just believe that by design, The Artist is not good. Her power can create scenarios in which a survivor can’t really do much. I don’t think her power should be 100% avoidable all the time, super slow, but I think she needs some tweaks that scale back some of these frustrating mechanics— and of course, she should be compensated.
This isn’t a dedicated rework suggestion, they’re just some ideas. I feel like we’ve interacted enough for you to know this Gann lol.
If I WERE to propose something in return, WITH the clarification that not all of these need to happen, and that I’m not proposing something like this with 100% certainty (they’re just rough suggestions— which is why i didn’t put this in feedback), I say something like having her crows speed up even more with distance, slightly reduced power cooldown, etc.
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Then stop designing characters that way? There's a serious issue with designing characters with the intent to be like this and then nerfing them to uselessness for being exactly how the devs designed them to be. "Let's just nerf/delete the character!" isn't a good solution.
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I have played Artist— so this is an odd insinuation that I haven’t. I win with her a lot. I guess I face “good” survivors. I have the same problem playing as her as I did with Spirit. She’s too easy.
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She’s my favorite killer to go against. I don’t see an issue with her
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If I had it my way, she’d be completely redesigned. However, being (BHVR) realistic, she needs a few tweaks. Some nerfs, and, of course, some buffs in return.
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What are your ideas for compensation?
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Something like a reduced power cooldown, increase flight speed for the crows, etc. And to clarify, NOT ALL of my ideas are necessary. I just think something needs to be tweaked for her to feel a tiny bit more fair for the other side.
It’s my fault for giving the ideas numbers. When DBD forums users see a number they immediately go feral.
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Yes, cherrypick Wraith specifically. I have him P3 Level 50 and could regularly beat SWF while stacking multiple slowdowns like every other killer. Wraith is one of the easiest killers to play within the game. No, he shouldn't be given free Coup De Grâce for spamming his bell cloak, which is a stealth tool.
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She isn't any of those things. Killers that make you think when you play against them are always fun to go against. She's also not unfair because her power takes as much precision as Pyramid Head, but also takes 2 hits. If you miss one of those hits through the wall, the chase resets because they get the birds off.
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Her fundamental design just isn't fun, the main aspect of her power denies looping in a way that isn't even interesting or interactive.
Place birb, survivor has to run to next loop, place birb at that loop, rinse and repeat until you can get an M1.
It's just insanely boring. She needs a rework to change anything.
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I addressed the other three too and you're free to challenge them as you wish (really, I would like to hear how Deathslinger's current incarnation is remotely valid when Huntress exists); Wraith's just the one I think is the dumbest, for aforementioned reasons. And "I can beat good players with x killer so they aren't weak" isn't a good argument. I could also 3k/4k SWFs with Wraith. Anyone who knows how to play the game can do that, because few matches are perfectly optimized and humans make mistakes (and Wraith, as you say, is one of the easiest killers to play as.) Until we create perfectly consistent yet still dynamic survivor AI, it's not about whether it's possible, it's about how often it happens relative to other killers. Wraith is on the low end of high gameplay because he's an M1 killer with no chase power and therefore very vulnerable to the predominant playstyle at those ranks.
Coup De Grace? Wraith going cloaked in chase means he's helpless at most windows and straight-up hands double stuns to you at pallets if you need a little extra time to move on to the next loop. Which was typically the solution if he was cloaking for a lunge around a short loop - don't bother, just bail, and you get his uncloak time as a cushion to work with wherever you reach. You were only hopeless if you ended up on a deadzone map like Shelter Woods, and let's face it, you're screwed against most killers in Shelter Woods.
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Completely agree but the community arguing against themselves pisses me off since the real problem is that bhvr doesn't seem to know how to design good killers that can be fun to play as and against anymore. I haven't enjoyed a killer since blight and I love going against him, if you take out all the exploits he has that allow him to actually ######### flip around a 90-degree corner(that shits unhealthy for the game).
This is a big reason why I haven't played since September, also being fed up with BHVR's general direction they are taking the game in and not doing anything substantial about problems that have been in the game for years like horrible map design, which has only gotten worse with realm reborn and RCPD. Plus CoH seems like hell to go against so I'm not planning on going back anytime soon or maybe at all since I'm still pretty annoyed about the whole NFT thing.
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Unfun =/= Needing a nerf
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I agree with OP. The Artist is quite annoying and the counterplay isn't interactive. Pre-drop and hold W or eat a bird/M1. I think the spammable swarms are really annoying as well. The noise, having to repel them constantly, etc.
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To play devil's advocate, it also doesn't mean we shouldn't look into making the Killer more fun.
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I feel like the fun of they player using the thing should be considered first.
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The main hesitation I have here is that when survivors focus on what they consider to be fun, fair, or interactive counterplay - by far the most common answer is looping. And if you ask me, looping a competent survivor without antiloop tools is some of the most tedious stuff in this game. There's just too many safe loops baked into map design and they can be run so precisely - whether that's a cause or an effect when it comes to antiloop killers is hard to tell, but considering the state of the game from the start, I think it's a cause.
It can be very difficult to balance fun in an asymmetrical game, because both sides don't have the same direct opportunity for fun, and one side having fun usually means the other is having less.
I do agree that the noise is annoying, though. Tone that down. There was one point I had Severed Hands and I ended up farming with a SWF, and they all contagious'd themselves with birds and were running around in front of me and it was unbelievably horrible. One person kept infecting people that tried to repel. I had to down them just to get the screeching to end.
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I, for one, find anything that leads to running loops "properly" to be mind-numbingly boring at best, and just aggravating at worse. It sucks all other skill, map knowledge/memory, and survivor awareness out of the game and just turns it into "which of you has memorised these tiles and the correct way to go around them best".
Even mindgames devolve into weird "I know you know I know" malarkey...
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The Artist is the first killer to ever respect my intelligence about each map's layout. While some survivors might genuinely "just hold W," I am using all of my brain to pinpoint what loops will be best to kite her towards, and in what directions I need to run to get the most out of my chase.
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Artist isn't particularly fun to play as either.
The second you place a bird, Survivors hold W.
Far be it from me to tell you shouldn't have fun. Just not my cup of tea.
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I can respect that.
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