After Playing The Knight Enough to Get his Achieves:
I feel extremely disappointed in him. He sounds like a killer I'd have a ton of fun with, sending guards to check one direction while I go another, split the pressure, snowball potential, all that jazz. But his original state, and especially after PTB changes, show that that's not how he's intended to be used: rather, he's intended to be coordinating with the guards in chase. Unfortunately the practicality of the matter is you do not have time in a chase to set up a patrol and corral the survivor into it: it takes too long and you're stood still while you do it. Instead, to use the term I've seen and heard a few places, the smart and most effective play is to (poop) out a guard as quickly as you can at a loop in chase to force the survivor to leave the loop. If it's Carnifex or Assassin, a smart survivor will be out of range of their detection before they can detect them, Jailer's a bit harder but is the weakest in chase. It was rare to actually feel like I was outplaying survivors with my guards, rather the value I got from them was survivors misplaying when they saw the power come out.
This is extremely stale gameplay after even a short time. I attempted to play a game where I used the guards as independent pressure and didn't get a hit with them all game - even the Assassin, the one who is supposed to be the best in chase, cannot keep up with the good old hold W. I don't fault the survivors for it, it's how you play around the power safely, and that's not good design.
The one game on survivor I played tonight that was against the Knight (and frankly how few Knights I saw tonight when playing survivor speaks volumes about how the community is seeing him, including a 100% BP incentive on KILLER the day of the release for a while) the Knight got three downs all game. I can't speak to the first or third, but I was the second, and both of his hits came when he decided to not use his power but rather M1 killer me, because every time he used his power I just left the loop, putting him precious seconds behind and rendering him powerless for a while.
It just comes across as an unfun design at this point, honestly. I want to like him so badly, his aesthetic is something I've wanted to see for such a long time in this game, and now that it's here...I'm relieved I'm done with the achieves so I can drop him. Not because I can't win, but (pooping) out a guard as quickly as I can is genuinely boring to do every game, and I can't find a good use for his power as a scouting pressure split mechanic because the guards without backup are nigh on useless in a chase.
I know that now that he's out we're not going to see balancing for him for a while, but I honestly think he needs a Freddy level rework: something that gives him gameplay that is interesting to play as and against. Not "deny the loop and see if the survivor recognizes it, otherwise you're an M1 killer hoping the survivor misplays into your power, have fun everyone!" because that's what we have right now.
Comments
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He's god awful. Play Myers and stay in tier 2 all game, don't use tier 3. That's what this killer is. M1 killer with a power that absolutely sucks. I've been getting trolled by survivors all night using this killer. I even see survivors running into the guard territory on purpose and not getting hit. Total sham. Run in a straight line, no anti loop because the survivors just run away from the loop. No counter for pallet looping . Garbage.
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I dont think freddy is a good example here.. do people really think his power is fun to play as and against? His whole power is literally puddles or fake pallets and a slow teleport that gets worse as the game goes on, and his dreamworld is practically useless and even helps the survivor by being able to see better.. why even bother waking up?
Im not sure at all why you used him as reference lol
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I use him as a reference because original Freddy was another killer that was really interesting flavor wise but useless against good survivors. He had to manually put you to sleep, and there was a timer before you actually fell asleep after he triggered it, and couldn't hit you at all until you fell asleep. Once you were asleep, though, he could see your aura at all times if you were outside his terror radius, which was smaller than normal. No clocks either, so you were failing a skill check to wake up or using a teammate to do so.
Reworked Freddy may be weak and not all that great in the current climate, but when he got reworked he was quite strong. This was partially due to add ons making Forever Freddy possible, but in general in the way the game was played at the point he got reworked, he fit into it much better and was much stronger than he had been. That's not to say people didn't miss Old Freddy, as he had some thematic flair that was absolutely lost when he got reworked, but in terms of effectiveness there wasn't any question that reworked Freddy was stronger.
That's why I use him as an example of level of rework - the base premise of the Knight as he currently stands does not do any of what his kit seems to have been built for - you can't effectively scout with the guards and the only consistently effective way to use his power in chase is to (poop) out a guard as quickly as possible when the survivor you're chasing hits a loop to force the survivor out of the loop or take advantage of the misplay. Just like how original Freddy his strength turned out to be he ignored BT with how it worked at that time, which was based on terror radius, since he only had a TR when you were asleep (which got reversed when he was reworked so BT was valid, even as BT was changed later). It ignored a lot of the flair that they intended with Original Freddy and wasn't fun to do or go against, very similar to how I and at least several others feel about the Knight currently with his current optimal play.
Artist is similar to the Knight, but at least you can attempt snipes across the map rather than setting up and forcing a loop leave. Knight doesn't even get that or similar because the guards cannot reliably chase someone unless they have active Knight backup. Which is why I think he needs a rework at the level of Original Freddy. His power is really cool and flavorful in concept, but the fundamental truth of the weakness of the guards and speed at which a true path can be made in chase make his effective playstyle ignore all that and kills a lot of the potential fun of going against him or playing as him.
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Oh that makes sense i suppose but he honestly doesnt need a whole rework, just a few numbers to be tweaked like the default guard speed 105% and the assasin 110% or 115% as well as extended patrol times and the ability to cancel patrols remotely instead of hitting them with a basic attack
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I think the fake pallets are really cool and it'd be interesting to see them expanded on as a bigger and better part of his kit.
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