Freddy, a Nightmare indeed.
As some of you have already seen, Freddy got yet another nerf on the PTB. Now, don't get me wrong. If something is not working as intended, then it is understandable that BHVR fix the issue. However, in Freddy's case we are talking about something that made little difference and only made him a bit nicer to play.
A while ago I mentioned how extremely punishing Freddy is. Not because he suffers extremely from small mistakes but because he suffers from pretty much everything. Allow me to list a few of his limitations from the top of my head:
1) When a survivor misses a skill check, they wake up. Of course, survivors don't actually want to miss skill checks but really, why exactly are they rewarded for messing up? Every other killer would still have their power and the information. Freddy has the information but no power. The only fix to this issue is the Iridescent Paint Brush.
2) When Freddy tries to play as a set up killer, it doesn't work. He has only 5 snares, which he will need to use in chase. Because of that, it is pretty much impossible to surprise survivors with pre set snares. Also, they can be seen from miles away, so even if you did manage to chase a survivor towards a pre set snare, chances are it won't work because the survivor will play around it.
3) He starts the game completely without a power. He is the only killer in the game, that has to wait 60 seconds before he has a power. This means that he cannot use the teleport for 45 seconds or his snares for 60 seconds or until he gets a hit and a survivor falls asleep. This can only be fixed with the Iridescent Paint Brush (again), which is his best addon and should honestly be added to his base kit.
4) When survivors have trouble dealing with Freddy's power, they can completely disable it by using the Alarm Clocks. Which also grant them immunity to falling asleep for 30 seconds. This means he is the only killer, that not only has an in-built counter mechanic but one that has a lingering immunity added to it. Imagine, if Singularity couldn't slipstream a survivor for 15 seconds after they used an EMP.
5) His anti loop is a way weaker version of Clown's purple bottle (and he still has a yellow bottle on top of that). Both have the same numbers to their hindered effects, however Freddy's lasts a bit longer (twice as long, in theory). This sounds like Freddy's anti-loop may actually be superior. But in reality, he cannot throw the snares like Clown can with his bottles, meaning he can't use it to counter Shift + W, the duration on the hindered effect starts to go down as soon as a snare is triggered while Clown's only starts to go down when a survivor leaves the cloud (bringing both effects much closer together), Clown's purple bottle affects a large area while Freddy's snares are about 1 metre in diameter, which allows survivors to run around them, lastly Clown can use his power every time he chases after a survivor while Freddy can only use his snares on survivors, that are asleep. Which we already covered is rather easy to avoid.
6) Hooking a survivor wakes them up. Now that we've already seen how little power Freddy actually has, it comes to no surprise that hooking survivors isn't exactly among his strengths. But still he punishes himself for hooking survivors. They wake up, so the next time he'll find them, he probably won't be able to use his power on them. He is the only killer, that has such an in-built anti-tunnel mechanic, if you can even call it that. But it actually goes further. Because the cooldown of his teleport is reduced for each survivor asleep. Meaning, hooking a survivor increases the cooldown.
7) His teleport has one of the clearest hints out of any mobility power in the game. It warns the survivor, that he is about to use it. Not only that but it also takes forever to charge (3 seconds).
8) Faking the teleport actually still makes it go on a several seconds long cooldown (10 seconds). This takes longer than for Blight to use 2 charges of his power, miss an attack, suffer the cooldown and build them up again. Kind of ridiculous, if you think about it.
9) The cooldown for a successful teleport is 45 seconds base. This is reduced by 15% for each survivor asleep (but only for as long as they are asleep). So at best, the cooldown is reduced to 18 seconds. This is longer than, you guessed it, Blight using all of his rushes in quick succession (suppose he has speed addons), hitting a survivor and recovering all of them again, which only takes 10 seconds.
10) Every time the survivors finish a gen, there is one less spot for Freddy to teleport to. Now, you might think, that you wouldn't want to teleport anywhere other than the gens the survivors are working on but you'd be wrong. Survivors may not always pay attention but they do notice the very visual indicator that Sharp Hand Joe manifests on their gen. So you actually wouldn't even want to teleport directly to the gen because that is too obvious. But it also has the downside of you not having a chance to mindgame and teleport towards a gen that is finished when a survivor runs in that direction. Worse yet, this part of his power is completely deleted in the end game. This also makes him and Myers the only killers that can lose parts of their powers.
11) Killing a survivor. It is no secret, that killing one of the four survivors in a match is about the most pressure a killer can gain. However, even that has a downside for Freddy. A survivor that is dead can no longer fall asleep. Meaning, his teleport's cooldown is increased overall.
12) One of the most popular meta perks is a direct counter to Freddy. Most of you know that Adrenaline wakes you up against Freddy. This would already be bad enough, if it would only make him weaker in chase but in combination with his teleport no longer working in end game, it completely removes his power when the last gen is finished.
13) Because both of his abilities are rather straight forward and very easily countered, there is not much room for a skill expression. Someone who has played Freddy for 5k hours will not be much better at him than someone who has played killer in general for 5k hours. There isn't much depth to him. This also means, that survivors always know what to look out for and that they cannot be surprised with a sudden series of events.
14) Freddy is the only killer in the game, that has no potential to play nasty. This might sound like a good thing but really it shows how weak his power actually is. Every other killer in the game has some kind of mostly niche but very strong scenario where they can use their power to make a comeback from a match that was almost lost. Trapper can play basement / lockdown Trapper. Bubba can camp or slug people (as can Billy to a lesser degree). Blight can use his mobility to immediately get to whoever needs to be tunneled. Myers can slug survivors in tier 3. And the list goes on. Every killer has one of these scenarios where they become extremely hard to play against. Every killer except Freddy.
15) His addons are mostly terrible. He has a few useful addons (one of which should not exist because it should be part of his base kit) and a whole lot of unexplicably worthless trash addons. Even his best addons are only good by comparison to his others. If you compared them to some of the other killers addons, you'd classify all of them as either ok-ish or just straight up bad.
16) To this day, there are instances of his dream world being an outright detriment. I uploaded screenshots from a match on swamp before, where it was impossible to see anything. It was so dark, that even scratch marks were barely visible. Even with the most optimal lighting (all lights out, all curtains closed) it was still an eye strain.
17) He is a stealth killer. that can't stealth because of his lullaby. Imagine, if Ghostface had a lullaby whenever he used his power. Actually don't. It's horrible.
But that is not enough. Because BHVR have a bit of a habit nerfing Freddy. For example, all the synergy that his dream pallets used to have with different perks is gone. All of it. And this happened long after the downfall of Forever Freddy.
Freddy's only unique trait is the incredible amount of weaknesses he has. It has been a well known fact for more than a year (before that, some meta perks used to disguise these weaknesses a bit), that he desperately needs buffs. Yet, here we are. With a bunch of nerfs to him made in that time and no positive changes whatsoever. When it would be so easy to make him just a little better.
How about giving him 10 snares? Allowing him to teleport to repaired gens. An addon overhaul. Removing the immunity to sleeping given by the Alarm Clocks. Removing the normal wake up action. Increasing the hindered effect of his snares. Adding the Iridescent Paint Brush to his base kit. Not cutting all the synergy that he has. These are all rather simple changes, that they could squeeze into a patch without too much effort. But it didn't happen. Meanwhile, they made some excessive changes to Trickster, that I would consider a soft rework because it will change his play style. They put so much work into different killers but when it comes to Freddy, the only changes he gets are the occasional nerf here and there. He deserves better, BHVR. We all know you can do better than this.
Let me know, if there is anything I forgot. Also, feel free to add your own suggestions on how to improve Freddy.
Comments
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I know this comment is a bit overplayed, but, I couldn't have said it better myself. Freddy is so weak right now, he has been for a pretty long time. I just wish they'd give him something, whether it be a complete rework, an add-on pass, or the ability to have snares and pallets. As of right now, he has nothing. He's just a worse version of the clown and some other killers.
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I would love it if they reworked him again but this time also changed his model so he looks like the original Freddy and have Robert Englund voice him. I can only dream... 1... 2....
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Freddy is coming for you. 3... 4...
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I think people need to learn the difference between a nerf and a bugfix...
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Forget reworks , dude needs a chapter.
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Literally among the first 2 lines of my post. It is a bug fix. One that was completely unnecessary. But this is not what makes Freddy that terrible of a killer. I only mentioned it because the only changes that he receives impact him negatively. The devs don't ignore him but they actively choose to fix a bug that made him a little bit better and don't change any of the points I mentioned. This is kicking a dead horse.
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Seeing Chucky has only made me feel more like we need to see current Freddy totally deleted and replaced with OG Freddy, if such a thing is contractually possible.
Burn it down and replace it.
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It's so sad seeing him like this. He has the most counter play out of every killer for a power that isn't even good. Even if you made it so survivors are always asleep he would still be awful because he just has nothing going on for him, awake or asleep.
Even his buffs are nerfs. The Oblivious 'buff' did nothing but prevent him from using terror radius perks and gave him zero benefits because, as you mentioned. his lullaby completely negates the stealth. He has zero synergy with anything except gen kick perks, which is not a very healthy killer design.
It was a bug fix but one that was completely unnecessary. This bug has been in the game for over a year now and it made him slightly fun to play and gave him some form of a skill ceiling while not even being that strong of a buff. They've already made other bugs features before in the past so I don't see why this had to be fixed. It was a nerf in a way that people have been playing this bugged version of Freddy for over a year now.
The fact it took them over a year to notice this bug should be a sign at just how few people actually play Freddy.
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Now, don't get me wrong. If something is not working as intended, then it is understandable that BHVR fix the issue.
how about you learn how to read instead? it literally was the second sentence.
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Darn
Jokes aside, Freddy IS the weakest killer in the game. Even Trapper is better in many situations.
His abysmal state only shows how bad of a rework he got. It only works in extremes. Either way too good or absolutely awful.
At this point, he needs way more than just some number changes. He needs to be rebuild from the ground up.
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Me when I dont read the post.
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