Some ideas on how to improve Legion

SneakyAlbaHD

So, as probably a lot of people have said already, Legion is not the most interesting or powerful Killer, and, with a couple of tweaks and additions, I feel like that could change. I’m here to propose some ideas that may prove to be an interesting way to make everyone’s favourite gang just that little bit scarier (and not nearly as broken as they are atm). Please, let me know what you think below, and I’ll get started.

Part 1: Identifying Legion’s flaws

As you may be aware of by now, the biggest weakness of Legion is their inability to down Survivors effectively. As a 110% movespeed Killer, the use of their power when chasing survivors is encouraged much like The Huntress, The Hag and The Spirit. This would not be much of an issue, if it weren’t for the fact that using their power actively prevents them from downing Survivors in the first place. Again, this would not be so much of an issue thanks to the reduced terror radius; Legion players could equip perks that further reduce their terror radius and swap from playing quick and aggressively to playing slightly slower and stealthier coming out of a Frenzy. However, by doing so you must compromise one of the most powerful aspects of Legion’s kit, as Killer Instinct does not trigger on Survivors outside of Legion’s terror radius and thus makes changes to Legion’s terror radius in either direction can be severely punishing.

Another huge flaw of Legion’s power, as pointed out by the wonderful forehead king, BrickyOrchid8, is that many Killer perks are simply not viable or do not work on Legion altogether. His video discussing the topic goes into more detail, but perks that take advantage of the Exposed status simply do not work on Legion, as Frenzy remains unaffected by the status, and perks that influence healing does not apply to the Mending action, which will always be forced upon a Survivor when using Legion’s power successfully. Combined with the disadvantages of terror radius change limits Legion to only a handful of perks, many of which are considered “bad” perks and are not viable even on the strongest Killers in the game. This seriously detriments the number of ways that Legion can be enjoyed and decreases their value as a Killer. We’re not in Freddy Krueger territory of play yet, but we are uncomfortably close.

Adding yet another layer to the cake we have some of the strange design choices around Deep Wound. The strength of such a state is that it puts the Survivor on a time constraint; they must break chase and heal or otherwise be downed and rely on being rescued by a teammate. This is what made Borrowed Time such an interesting and powerful perk without making it overpowered. Legion, when using their power correctly, can apply this trait to all the Survivors in the match in a very short space of time, which would make them extremely strong and would punish Survivors for not trying to break the chase quickly like Borrowed Time. However, there are two main changes to this status that prevent this from being so; the addition of the Mending action and what I like to call Pause-in-Chase. Pause-in-Chase punishes Legion for chasing a Survivor afflicted with Deep Wound, as doing so pauses the timer and makes that the status worthless, but the Mending action removes the affliction and can be performed if the status is in effect, meaning that Legion is punished for letting the timer tick down as well. Legion's optimal playstyle forces them to apply Deep Wound, and simply follow around Survivors without starting a chase, denying the Survivor any counterplay and obliterating fun for either side. There is no purpose to this status as it is currently.

Clearly there is a lot that needs to be worked on here. This brings us to the next section:

Part 2: Addressing Legion’s flaws

Despite the long list of issues that Legion has, there’s not a lot of changes I would propose to raise their place on the tier list. Right off the bat I would have to address the long time to down by reducing the number of hits in Frenzy to down an injured survivor from \~5 to \~3. I’d change the power to work as follows:

• The first hit on a Survivor will put them in the injured state (if not already) and apply Deep Wound, refilling the Legion’s entire power gauge and triggers Killer Instinct. This gives Legion an incentive to spread the pain.
• Any follow-up hits would remove half of the total time on the Deep Wound timer but will not refill the power gauge or trigger Killer Instinct. The Survivor will gain a sprint burst as if they'd been hit from healthy to injured and Legion will perform the non-frenzy hit animation (slowdown included) to put some space between them and the Survivor. Landing the second hit now forces Legion to choose between using the rest of the power duration to close distance or hit another Survivor.
• Any hit that results in a down will completely deplete Legion’s power gauge and ends the power. This will encourage to act on the Survivor they just caught instead of slugging like Freddy. Of course, they can still choose to slug if they feel the need to, it just won’t be ideal use of their power.
• Any hits on a Survivor while Frenzy is not active will not deplete the Legion’s power but will force the typical successful strike stun to be completed before re-activating. Legion should not be punished so harshly for not using their power considering the added difficulty of hitting a Survivor without it.
• Allow Exposed to work with Frenzy. This way Legion is made consistent with other Killers. With the aforementioned changes included you wont see Legion chain-slugging the entire lobby with Frenzy.
• (Perhaps) increase the Frenzy movespeed to be in line with Billy’s Chainsaw Sprint and tone down the base movespeed even more to further encourage power usage.

In my opinion, this would be enough to bring Legion to the same level as that of The Spirit without requiring a major rework or changes to addons. However, we must still address the issues revolving around Deep Wound. Thankfully I have a few suggestions for this:

• Remove the Pause-in-Chase trait.
• Make Mending (alongside Snap Out of It and Wake Up!) a healing action and influenced by perks.
• The last quarter of the bleedout timer counts down slightly slower to increase the number of "last second" heals and really get the blood pumping.
• Extend the bleedout timer to that of pre-chapter Borrowed Time (not 100% if that still lasts the same duration post-chapter).

Or

• Remove the Mending action. To remove Deep Wound a Survivor must be healed into the Healthy state.
• Self-Care healing is now possible without the need for the perk while afflicted with Deep Wound.
• Deep wound still retains the Pause-in-Chase trait, but the bleedout timer will only count down if the Survivor is outside the Killer's terror radius and not in a chase.
• The last quarter of the bleedout timer counts down slightly slower to increase the number of "last second" heals and really get the blood pumping.
• Extend the timer to that of pre-chapter Borrowed Time.

Or

• Remove Deep Wound, but make Legion apply Broken instead for the same duration. This is much less exploitable than Deep Wound and would still allow for a "between" health state in Frenzy. Considering how easily Legion can catch Survivors with Frenzy, it is unlikely that the Survivor will be able to make the chase last the full duration of the status, again emphasising stealth and giving Legion some time.
• Legion will only apply Broken to injured Survivors without the status. Otherwise, they will injure the Survivor if healthy and down them if they have the status. This provides an incentive for Survivors to heal against Legion, which at time of writing is surprisingly scarce.

Any of the above changes addresses the issue with Legion’s power revolving around this state; the fact that they are punished for chasing and letting a Survivor go as soon as it is applied. This adds a Pig-like aspect to Legion’s power in that if ignored it can be punishing, but the process of removing the status can be dangerous and gives the Killer more time.

In my opinion, the second and third options for fixing Deep Wound would be preferred, as this opens a much larger array of perks to Legion when combined with the proposed changes to Frenzy while still retaining the core elements of Legion’s gameplay and making them a much more viable at higher ranks of play.

Part 3: Other potential avenues to explore

Of course, this is not the only way that Legion could be buffed and made more interesting. Below are a few suggestions that will change how Legion is both played and played against, and thusly I do not expect them to be applied in conjunction with the above:

• Include each of the 4 gang members as a passive power: Although AI in Dead by Daylight is probably out of the question, I still firmly believe it is possible that Legion can play as a gang by adding interactable map features that spawn when Legion is in play. On various tiles with the geometry to support them, spots for the other gang members to hide in could be identified and filled with a randomly selected gang member. These gang members will not be able to harm Survivors, project a terror radius or stain, and will instead act as the Killer’s lookouts.They could hide behind a wall or corner and peek out as Survivor’s approach, alerting the Killer if one walks close enough to be detected by their cone of vision. They will also be alerted if a Survivor makes too much noise in a set radius around them or gets too close in general. These “Sentry Legions” will not detect players that are downed and will be less effective on Survivors who are sneaking around.If so desired, we could also add the illusion of motion by having the Sentry Legion teleport to a new location once they detect a Survivor or the Killer wanders too far away. A system similar to The Doctor’s phantom pallets may be ideal here, but with a hard-coded radius similar to that of The Huntress’ humming.If we wanted to go the extra mile, we could add a small terror radius to the Sentry Legions to indicate that Survivors are getting dangerously close, but the presence of the Killer would help mask the Sentry’s locations. The addon Fuming Mix Tape could be altered to give Sentry Legions a terror radius equal to that of the Killer, and allow any power traits, perks and addons to take effect in the Sentry’s radius as if it was the Killer’s, while still retaining its original effect.
• Allow Legion to take their mask off: This could be used as a way of sneaking up on and catching Survivors hit during a Frenzy. Taking off the mask would allow Legion to hide their stain and reduce their terror radius to around 6-8 meters, at the cost of not being able to attack or move beyond 105% movespeed or so in this state. The transition should be quick, as to retain its usefulness. Inspired by the cinematic teaser we got for the new chapter.

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And… that’s it! I’d like to say thanks for reading through this wall of text and hope that you find my suggestions interesting. The goal of this post was to try and get people thinking about the multitude of ways we could go about buffing Legion without going to extremes or making them another 115% movespeed Killer. Of course, if you have any ideas, feedback or suggestions you can submit them below and I’ll respond to them best I can.

Special thanks to Reddit user ShadeCrenshaw for the idea of having the other gang members alert the Killer on the map.

I’ll see you in the fog.

EDIT: Formatting.

Shad03

I created this account purely to say this is actually a fantastic idea. Now the only question is on the topic of the third option you presented, specifically regarding on removing the mask, would you have to press a different button to activate this ability or would it replace/share the same button as the normal Frenzy button? Again this is one of the better suggestions I have seen, and I had read a lot of them (okay maybe only like five... BUT STILL!). I hope someone in the higher ups reads this.

SneakyAlbaHD

I was thinking it would be assigned to the secondary power, similar to how The Pig's crouched mode is handled. On PC, it would be bound to CTRL by default.