Suggestion: Killer Class System
There's no lying that DBD killers have massive problem; the killer powers aren't equal in their powers. Some overperform, some underperform. However, despite all of this, the game treats all 31 killers as mostly equals. This sadly isn't helpful, and just further embraces the imbalance between different killers (most notoriously, M1 killers and movement killers). And because of how widely played these popular killers are, most of the perks tend to be balanced around them. For example, remember the Awakened Awareness getting nerfed just because how it overperformed on Nurse? This left with all of the killers that aren't Nurse with a weaker perk just because one killer is overpowered.
As such, I propose that the line between different killers is finally made. There's 31 killers, more than enough to find similarities between multiple killers, and catagorize their powers into the same category. I have a proposition of how I'd catagorize them, as well as the passive buff/nerfs that change them for the overall better health of the game.
I will start by telling the name of the class, then the describing the role of the killers in this class.
I will also point out what killers should go in it, what base movement speed of all killers in that category should be, their terror radius and well as possible passive changes.
One of the passive I propose is to let everyone have different action speeds. This is the breaking action speed (kicking gen and pallets), stun recovery speed (including pallet stuns, head-on stuns, and DS stuns) and M1 recovery speed. I won't say exact numbers of how many seconds I think their action speeds should be, but I will give a small reference using pre and post patch 6.1.0 speed.
That means:
Slow Breaking Action = 2.6s (pre-6.1)
Normal Breaking Action = 2.34s (current)
Fast Breaking Action = 2.15s
Slow Stun Recovery = 5s
Normal Stun Recovery = 4s
Fast Stun Recovery = 3s
Slow M1 Recovery = 3s (pre-6.1)
Normal M1 Recovery = 2.7s (current)
Fast M1 Recovery = 2.5s
NEW CLASS: Area Controllers
These are the characters who specialize in controlling the map and zoning survivors. In return, this makes their abilities easily avoidable by experienced survivors and leaves them the most depedant on their M1 than majority of the other killers in the game. Some even have the M1 as their only way to damage the survivor. In my personal opinion, these are some of the most unfun killers you can play as, and the only way to make them fun is to make the game extremely unfun for others with tryhard builds or cheesy tactics like 3gen and camping.
Killers: Trapper, Hag, Nightmare, Knight, Skull Merchant
Base Movement Speed: 4.6 m/s
Terror Radius: 32m
Action: Quicker recovery from stuns, quicker breaking action, faster M1 recovery (Note: Slower than Endurance and Brutal Strength)
Possible Passive: Basekit 1m of Corrupt Intervention OR something similar to Wesker's passive
Reasoning: These are some of the weakest killers in the game, with a lot of them requiring some setup to fully utilize their powers. However, setting up gives survivors a massive advantage to either leave the loop or finish generators, which leaves players trying to play these killers. When players talk about killer being weak, usually these are the killers they're talking about. Most effective way to win as these killers currently is by resorting to unhealthy tactics like camping (Hag setting up traps near hook for example, or Knight/Skull Merchant patrolling 3-gens). They would also most benefit from some universal passive that lets them catch up with survivors easier, giving them more chase potential.
Of course, to justify a buff of this size, this would also require some balance changes for certain killers. I'll skim quickly through some suggestions.
Trapper: No longer has to collect traps all over the map, instead he should either start with all of them and work similar to Hag, where the after placing X amount of traps, the oldest trap you placed gets destroyed by the Entity. Alternatively, Trapper could also work like Trickster of Huntress where he can resupply his traps at the locker instead. Its a massive inconvenience having to walk to the side of the map where there's no objective just to pick up your trap and this issue should be addressed.
Hag: Increased movement speed to 4.6 m/s, can no longer place her traps near the hooks. Hag is currently one of the least picked killers according to nightlight.gg, with a pickrate at 1.05% and coming second after Twins, and the only viable way to play her is to camp with her traps while keeping your distance from the hooks to provide survivors with false sense of security. Her 4.4 m/s speed also ruins her chase potential.
Skull Merchant: Lower her drone count to 3, and give them a duration so they don't last the entire trail. Her current kit is too oppressive at 3-genning and with the nerf where all 4 survivors have to disarm her drones to remove all of them, survivors are in a pickle. Good suggestion would also be to remove her drone whenever a survivor is killed, due to the claw trap interaction.
Nightmare could use some more buffs but I have no clue how, while I think Knight might be in a rather good place.
NEW CLASS: Rangers
These killers specialize in long range combat against survivors, meaning they don't have to be close to the survivors to effectively fight them. When not dealing with bad ping, these are some of the most balanced killers you can face, these killers sacrifice superior movement speed for an ability to harm them from further than melee range, forcing survivors to adapt to a new play style that requires them to break line of sight as quickly as possible.
Killers: Huntress, Trickster, Deathslinger, Plague, Cenobite
Base Movement Speed: 4.4 m/s
Lullaby Radius: 40m
Action: Normal breaking action, longer stun recovery, longer M1 recovery
Possible Passive: Lullaby for every one of them
Reasoning: These killers usually don't have to be as close to survivors to attack them, making them immune to pallet stuns most of the times. As such, I believe that survivors that manage to stun the ranged killers deserve to be rewarded by applying longer stun duration on the said killer and an opportunity to get away faster. I also believe the killers should be punished for using their M1 with a slightly longer recovery from successful hits. This allows survivors to easily loop killers as getting in their face would be a viable method to counter them. It also encourages the killer to use their power to damage the survivors as much as possible.
Just like with controllers, some of these killers would also need slight balance tweaks
Huntress and Trickster don't require any changes be made, since this change would barely affect them.
Deathslinger should get the range of his harpoon increased to 20 meters, while also reducing his terror radius to 20 meters. Instead of relying on survivors to hear his terror radius, they'd be required to listen for his lullaby to know if he's close by, with the terror radius being a warning that you are in his harpoon range and should watch out.
Plague is a hard one since she is currently one of the most balanced killers in the game, and her downing ability with the power can be completely denied by survivors never cleansing. She should also get an increased range of Corrupt Purge to be at 16m, to buff her ranged combat capabilities. If she ends up feeling too weak with the movement speed nerf, then a good alternative would have her role passives only applied to her once she is in Corrupt Purge mode.
Cenobite is one of the most underrated killers in the game. His chain works as opposite Deathslinger (who chains survivors and brings them closer), where you chain survivors and stop them in place so you can easily break the distance between the two. This makes them really strong at catching distant survivors. I think his kit would remain pretty strong with these changes, the only thing I'd change is give a slight nerf to the Chain Hunt by completely disabling it once the first survivor dies.
NEW CLASS: Stealth
Some of my personal favorite killers in the game, they really bring the horror aspect of DBD to the game. These killers keep players on the edge of their seat, and constantly vigilant for the smallest of hints that these killers might be in a close proximity. As such, they require some buffs to make going against them even scarier than it already it; something that makes them stand out more than other M1 killers.
Killers: Wraith, The Shape, Ghost Face, Spirit, Pig, Onryo, Dredge
Base Movement Speed: 4.6 m/s
Terror Radius: 16-20m
Action: Normal breaking action, long recovery from stuns, normal M1 recovery
Possible Passive: Thicker fog by default OR darker realm (moonlight bouquet)
Reasoning: Most of them are M1 killers with some form of utility. I think they need basekit buffs to make facing them even scarier than it already is and bring back more of the horror back to DBD.
Only one balance change from them:
Remove Shape's stalking cap from basekit and only apply them when using Tombstones and Infinite Tier 3
NEW CLASS: Dashers
These are some of the most powerful, yet most fun killers to both play as and go against. Similar to rangers, all of these specialize in long distance, however while rangers usually use their abilities to hit survivors from range, dashers use their abilities to catch up to survivors at a rapid speed.
Killers: Hillbilly, Nurse, Cannibal, Legion, Demogorgon, Blight, Mastermind
Base Movement Speed: 4.4 m/s (with the exception of Nurse)
Terror Radius: 36m
Action: Longer breaking action, longer stun duration, longer M1 recovery
Possible Passive: None. These are some of the strongest killers in the game and I can't think of any that wouldn't make them OP
Reasoning: The game perks usually get balanced based on how much these killers overperform using them, which ends up mostly leaving killers with weaker powers with worse perks just cause a certain few of them can abuse them. As such, I see absolutely no reason why these killers should be as powerful outside of their powers as M1 killers, because then you're left with a question of why should you ever play Trapper if Trapper walks the same speed as any of these killers, recovers from M1 the same time and takes same time as them to break pallets (when these killers can use their powers to destroy pallets or jump over them).
Instead, these killers need to be treated just like ranged killers are, they need to suffer some downgrades to their basekit capabilities in order to make using their power actually a rewarding experience. Why is Huntress being able to snipe a target from 20 meters away any more powerful than Blight being able to sprint those 20 meters in a matter of seconds? This is the only way to make M1 killers in Stealth and Area Controller class more powerful without completely reworking their kits; by giving them some pros to playing them (which is currently faster gen and pallet breaking, faster walking walking speed and faster stun recovery). I mean let's be real, if you manage to stun a Wesker or a Billy as a survivor you deserve some form of a reward compared to stunning an already bullied Trapper.
I could rant for days about this, I mean how come the Mastermind gets to miss with his extremely powerful ability multiple times, and still have an option to give up on using it and be an M1 killer just like Trapper without any downsides?
Balance changes:
I know putting Legion here was controversial, but I think it'd be quite good if Legion got reworked so that their speed during the power is tremendously faster than it currently is. And I do mean tremendously. Like comparable to Blight faster.
Also Cannibal being here might also be controversial, but I put them cause he isone of the few killers that can instantly down survivors with their abilities and is very similar to Billy. However, his dash potential is low, so he might potentially be better in a category under.
Nurse I'm not even gonna touch up, that's a whole different issue.
Demogorgon, Blight and Mastermind all play the same and are the most deserving of these nerfs.
NEW CLASS: Flex
Finally, the Flex class. This is the miscellaneous role; all of the killers are are jacks of multiple trades but don't excel at any one of them specifically. They could be forced into different roles with massive reworks to their kits, but in current state, they just don't do enough to justify being placed alongside killers that excel in those categories.
Killers: Doctor, Clown, Oni, Pyramid Head, Nemesis, Artist, Twins
Base Movement Speed: 4.6 m/s
Terror Radius: 32m
Action: Normal breaking action, normal stun duration, normal M1 recovery
Possible Passive: None. Good chunk of these killers already have a decent passives (albeit, not too strong) and don't need any more
Reasoning: As you noticed, I haven't changed a thing about these killers basekit due to thinking they're in a pretty good spot right now. Buffing them would make them OP as Dashing killers, while nerfing them would make them completely useless.
Bellow I will provide reasoning for why I put each killer in this class:
Doctor excels at tracking with his long range make-every-scream ability, additionally he also has a good anti-loop ability, well timed shocks can completely deny survivor ability to vault pallets and windows. He could go in the area controller, however I don't believe he's as good at controlling actual areas as Trapper or Skull Merchant would be since his tracking ability has a very long cooldown.
Clown, I mean he's just there. He's a ranged killer that throw bottles, but instead of damaging, he slightly slows down the survivors and blurs their vision, working more as a debuff. He's too reliant on his M1 to damage survivors to be a ranged here, while his ability isn't strong enough to be an area controller.
Oni is one of the most fun killers designed. He would technically fall under the Dasher class, however, his ability requires to be charged, and majority of the game, Oni is blocked out from using his dashing ability. As such, this would make him too weak if he was to be given Dashing nerfs while not using his powers.
Pyramid Head is an area controller. However, his means of controlling area is quite bad to the point where nobody plays him for that reason, but rather his ranged Punishment of the Damned ability. However the range is only 8 meters, making him too weak at ranged combat to justify that class. He also has a very... miscellaneous ability of "hooking" survivors while denying them anti-tunnel perks which don't fit any category.
Nemesis is a mixed bag. He's a ranged killer with a very limited range of 6 meters, even less than Pyramid Head, he also has an area controlled passive of randomized AI zombies that pressure the survivors, however Knight has a better version of this as part of his main power, which really doesn't justify him being an area controller. He is a jack of all trades.
Artist is a ranged killer. However her ranged power isn't really that good, and survivors can easily counter it compared to any other ranged character considering she has to hit survivors from a long range twice in order to actually damage them. She's best used for zoning survivors similar to area controllers, but her zoning ability isn't really that good, since crows are really easy to disarm. Similar to Nemesis and Pyramid Head, she's trapped in a middle ground between controller and ranger.
Twins are a definition of a flex killer. They are actually two killers, Charlotte, who is slow but capable of carrying survivors and breaking pallets, and Victor, who is a dashing killer only capable of damaging survivors with his dash ability. I thought of putting them in Dashing category due to Victor's power. However, I realized senselessly nerfing the least played character so that Charlotte is even worse at breaking pallets and gens was just killing an already dead killer. Which is stupid. Therefore, I added them to the Flex category, since they are technically two killers that excel at different things.
Thank you for reading.
TL;DR:
There is definitely a lot of quirks to be done since completely rebalancing all of the characters is def a tricky thing. I accept constructive criticism to this. However, I'd appreciate some constructive criticism instead of just complaints about powerful killers being less powerful.
Share below what you think about these changes.
Comments
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I like the concept. But not details of it.
At minimum I am sure that Bubba under no definition belongs to dash category. Without addons, he's not even quicker then any other killer and having him being able to instadown is not really different from ghostface stalk into instadown (Bubba can't instadown reliably as there's charge time). He belongs more into flex IMO.
Also I think this would create too many constraints on rebalancing. Did you notice, that you inserted 3rd strongest killer in whole game (spirit) in a category where buffs are encouraged? By this change only you created THE strongest killer in the game. Also your passive gives them away immediately - so it's direct buff to survivors instead (beware, there's a stealth killer - don't give him easy 1st hit - you see the fog/dark realm)...
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I put Bubba first in Dash because using charges on a chainsaw technically makes him dash slightly forward. I also thought the nerf itself would've been justifiable since he can easily surpass pallet breaking nerf by using chainsaw and survivors stunning a killer that can end them instantly for a second longer was a great reward for a well timed stun. However, I can see Bubba fitting into flex nicely too.
For Spirit, hmm I haven't really faced against many Spirits recently so I don't know how powerful she is in the current meta. Maybe they could nerf her basekit or addons in order to justify these buffs? I thought the buffs weren't insane enough to make her OP, but considering this would nerf Blight, Wesker, Nurse and few other similar killers, she could def easily climb into being the best killer now that I think about it. Maybe she'd be better off in Dash with those three, her phase does grant her almost double the movement speed she has.
For stealth buffs, I see your point, but I feel like that might be a non-issue tbh. Pig already has massive boxes all around the map that give her out, Dredge spawns locks on the lockers, Sadako gets TVs all around the map, Ghostface has a unique terror radius music that easily outs him, while Myers lets out a sound que as soon as he reaches Tier 2 (so it'd only be a nerf to Scratched Mirror). But even then, I feel like the fact they'd have to guess which one out of 6 or 7 killers they're facing is already good enough, since going against Pig doesn't require you to be as vigilant as going against Wraith
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