The Knight TTK
After testing him for about 20+ games I think I had a good overhaul of his average game. The power is effective at what it does, if you take the time to lock survivor into choosing between 2 paths. He probable does this better and more reliably than the other setup killers, but it takes way to long to do anything productive.
If I do a perfect usage of the power, I still end up to play a losing game with stupidly harsh 3 gen strat were if i do the same on Wesker I end the game before 3rd gen pop.
He's a killer that has no way to control the map were all others previous iteration of this gimick had been granted with secondary map traversal ability.
In theory you can use the gards to control the map for you but all their numbers are too low to do that. So, you can only use them to chase away One surv from a gen as map control. Like a shorter vikor that does not injure.
Conversely, if you chase and corner survivors a bit, the power is so oppresive. They can't do anything to counter the gards in loop.
Moreover, the power can be spammed if it hits making the Knight a very good camper in tight spaces.
As of now, this killer will probable see use against weaker survivors but good ones will leave him no chance (not even gonna talk about swf which can cancel his power if they help each other in chase because every setup killer has this problem).
Even for fun he may see no play since he's the least skillfull setup killer and the other ones are already pretty much dead once you get pass MMR cap.
I think they should buff his ability to send gards on patrol to disrupt and play the map with sneak attacks from the Knight and nerf his utility to shut down loops.
Like, buff patrol time (and let us cancel it whenever please), buff the duration of the ghost once in chase and give them more speed so they have a chance to catch someone by themselves (also a palet drop should despawn them).
TLDR: He needs to get an other niche than just setup because setup is boring but when a bot do the job for you it's even worse.
Comments
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In my opinion the Knight needs 2 key changes:
- After he activates his power, he can not deactivate it for 1,5 seconds or so. This would weaken his loop trapping playstyle a lot, because survivors would have a lot of time to just run away.
- Survivors can no longer see the green orb while the Knight is creating a patrol path. This is the biggest issue with Knight right now in my opinion. The fact that survivors can see where you are creating your path makes it way too easy for them to just run away from that path.
He might need a few additional buffs as well, hard to say. But in my opinion these are the two main changes he needs.
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I don't know about the green orb. The problem for me is not to get them to be chase, since the detection radius is large enough that they can't outrun it if you spawn it on top of them, but to have some benefit from it other than incapacitate a surv for 15s top.
I Agree that some help to target his power would be a Nice qol but it won't make him more interesting to play. Maybe he should just see scratches like Spirit and it would be enough to always get close enough rather than gessing as now.
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This doesn't solve the problem, because he also heavily telegraphs that he is using his power, so during that 1.5 seconds, the survivor just holds w in the opposite direction to the next loop. The problem is they need to do one of 2 things.
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The guards need to actually be a threat and able to catch a survivor on their own, even the assassin, the survivor just outruns them for the duration because the assassin only move at 110% movement speed and chase for 12 seconds. The others are even slower at 102.5% People never think what that actually means when looking at movement, they just thing "oh a 110 killer like huntress"
What this means is, if for the 12 seconds, the survivor just holds "w", the assassin will gain 0.4 meters of distance on the survivor per second, which over the course of 12 seconds, is 4.8 meters of distance. A killer lunge range ins 6 meters. This is ridiculous. The guards will never catch the survivor. This means that all you have to do is hold w to run away even from the one that is supposedly the good one at chasing.
This is fundamentally the problem, because the only good way to use his power, is to go to a loop and "#########" out the guard, and hope the survivor doesn't have a connected tile to run to. They need to encourage the gameplay that actually makes the guards a threat so that survivors don't hold w, while discouraging the quick use at a loop.
OR
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Do away with the orb thing entirely and make them work on command. You tap your ability button at a thing to summon a guard to do a thing. You can basically do this:
- If you are highlighting a survivor, the guard chases that survivor.
- If you are highlighting a gen/wall/pallet, the guard breaks that thing (make the gen kicking at least apply the 2.5%, maybe consider perks too if its the carnifex)
- If you hold the button, it creates a circle zone, when you let go, the guard patrols that circle zone, and works like they do now.
- If you tap the button, the guard stands there, and works like they do now.
This would allow the knight to do multiple things at once, the power can remain "weak" by itself and be used either as anti loop to strengthen it. Or it can be used as map control, by sending a guard somewhere else to delay the survivors while you do something else.
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They'll never do 2. because it's way to much work to get there from where we are now.
Giving better individual chase potential should be the way to go. Make guards faster and last longer so that they can hit survs or force them to throw palets.
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its not just telegraph, its fact that his power has 3 cast times.
1) He has cast time for placing guard for drawing path's(Losing distance with main killer).
2) He has cast time for guards to make detection radius.
3) He has cast time for guards to begin the chase after detecting the survivor.
With so many cast times, its obvious to why shift-W is strong vs his power.
The blue survivor can be detected, run the opposite direction and the guard will be like 14+ meters behind the survivor. Its statistically impossible for guard to hit the survivor running forward with current guard movement speed and current guard activation system. Its also why drawing long path makes no sense for knight because he's just slowing himself down for doing so.
The way knight needs to be like is how spirit phase-walks. you should need to place green orb hitting the survivor or place the guard on top of the survivor. When the guard is placed this way, The guard should have no cast time for spawning in, Skip the entire green circle detection procedure, Skip entire 2.5 second of starting guard chase and instead, All the guard movement speed are increased by 10% and the guard chase begins right away with corresponding survivor that knight spawned the guard on. This is how his power should work.
Your suppose get low rewards for using the default patrol gameplay but bigger rewards for placing guard properly so that there is skill-cap to using his power.
Your changes still nerf knight's only redeeming gimmick and add nothing to fix his problems for why his guards are trash. Your making him an F-tier killer. Not seeing orb or seeing orb makes no difference to power-level of the guard.
The only difference between seeing orb or not seeing orb as survivor is whether you want to knight's orb to be mindgame or to be something that survivor can react to. In general, The game is suppose to be about mindgames... but any time killer do have mindgames, Survivor complain about the mindgames. Current issue is reward system for guards.
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Perhaps if they made the guards an actual threat, chase longer, and make it so you can't just "hold w" but they can be "killed" by dropping a pallet on them, basically, they have to actually be looped, give them better AI. Make the counter for them to be that you have to basically deal with getting chased by a "second killer", drop a pallet to kill them, or grab the flag. But then, make it so that no only do you have no collision with the survivor, but you also can't hit the survivor while they are being chased. Make it so he basically is 2 killers at once. The only downside to that, is that it makes him basically a killer with an "AI" power. But at least it is different and better than what we have now.
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I think it could work yes. M1s killer can only be viable if they have base kit slowdown. The ability to chase 2 at once and by doing so getting rid of pallies quicker would give him a nice niche. He could be like Pig, a bit slow to down but the game take 30-50% more time to complète. Nonetheless, I still think they should buff every aspect of drawing paths too. Like, why does he has less time in his power than someone like spirit who travel with it ? Why certain guards can't even do a full path before running out ? Couldnt they auto kick gens and palets they find in their paths ?
Idk, something to make you truly feel like you're against 2 m1s killer
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There already isn't collision while someone isn't being hunted, and the hunt does end whenever the survivor is injured by the knight or the guard
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Yes, that's why i said "make it so that not only do you have no collision with the survivor, but you also can't hit them"
So in addition to having no collision, you can't actually damage them.
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So nerf the Knight? Really?
It's hardly a problem anyway, especially since Hunt lasts so little time, guards would never get a hit unless the survivor is dumb and think you can hit them during the hunt
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Don't worry, It was suggested with a bunch of other changes including hunt time and guards speed. You could argue about the purpose of those change but try to read the whole thing first ^^
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that makes banner a 100% endurance+haste effect every time. that is like old freddy that cannot hit the survivor. that would be worse then current knight.
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Also @not_requested49
You missed the part right above that, where i said they massively buff the guards to actually be a threat. So instead of his power being a boring: "go to a loop, plop it down, then the survivor runs away from the loop" gameplay. It at least is somewhat interesting because his "power" is that he can chase 2 people at once. It was one of my suggested fixes to the knight to make him more interesting.
Alternatively, they can do:
Do away with the orb thing entirely and make them work on command. You tap your ability button at a thing to summon a guard to do a thing. You can basically do this:
- If you are highlighting a survivor, the guard chases that survivor.
- If you are highlighting a gen/wall/pallet, the guard breaks that thing (make the gen kicking at least apply the 2.5%, maybe consider perks too if its the carnifex)
- If you hold the button, it creates a circle zone, when you let go, the guard patrols that circle zone, and works like they do now.
- If you tap the button, the guard stands there, and works like they do now.
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the assassin is 110% m/s. It does not matter that he is 110% m/s because the survivor can still make it to the flag every single time by rotating any loop. Changing the flag from 2 second to 5 second spawn makes zero difference for the knight in term of using his power for two 1vs1 chases.
The flag banner mechanic removes any ability for knight to 4vs1 split pressure any survivor like period. Until flag banner mechanic is entirely removed from his kit, The guards are completely useless if the knight is not chasing the survivor. Removing the ability for the knight to hit the survivor during the guard chase is 100% free banner endurance banner and 100% free speed boost. Its strange because survivor are still not using this mechanic properly to instantly destroy the guard. This is just something that survivor will learn over-time and master instantly destroying the guard when not being chased by the knight.
I think guard order action would better be reworked to use Freddy generator teleport control scheme. It would be better if you just look at a pallet, you get red icon and then you just press secondary ability(Control(CTRL) on Keyboard) button which order the guard to break the pallet. It would also be better if you could do same with generators, you could look at a generator from 75 meter away and press secondary button to order the guard to kick a generator. The killer player would be more time efficient at deploying the order action.
The current smart-casting order guard action on orb forces the killer to kick pallets they do not want to kick it and removes control from the player using the ability. It is not time efficient either.
In term of orb summoning the guard location, that part is ok but there is currently no reward for guard to place their power "correctly" because there is no correct way to place it because guards physically have poor m/s statistic, large summoning cast times, detection cast times and chase activation times. The survivor's counter-play towards shift-W the guards and the main killer is too strong. This is why I said that best way for knight's power to have counter-play toward shift-W is to make his orb remove all cast times and buff movement speed of guards if the knight places the orb on top of the survivor's location(Let us say 2-3 meters in area of effect(AoE). This would allow the guards to reliably hit the survivor if the knight places his guards correctly. He would be rewarded for accurate long distance guard placements. The survivor would need be more mindful of their movement such that they avoid the visible green orb when the knight uses his ability to avoid empowered version of his guard summoning ability. The knight would have counter-play to shift-W, but the survivor can avoid his ability through clever movement as the knight is blind when using his orb ability.
Anyhow, changing his order action and how his guard summoning reward scheme works is something you would do in the design phase of the killer. The knight has already been released. If they were going change him between PTB & live. He needs mini-rework. Its unlikely they will change the knight. Right now, they need hotfix bugs like losing your power for the entire game and these graphical errors such as having all these green energy beams all over the place.
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That second suggestion doesn't sound good to me, because I fail to see how that would take any skill. And killers should take some skill to play effectively.
The idea is that, because survivors can't see the green orb, you have a chance at counterplaying them holding w. That's the gameplay that should happen. You activate your power, the survivor sees that, runs away, and now you have to try and predict where they'll run to, and catch them off guard with a well placed guard, meanwhile the survivor tries to predict where you'll place your guard.
However, I certainly wouldn't mind a small speed increase for the guards. The Assasin could have their movement speed increased to 110%, and the Carnifex and Jailer increased to 105% or so. Maybe also increase their chase duration by 2 seconds or so. So if you do get your guard to detect a survivor, you actually have a very fair chance at getting a hit.
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