An underlooked problem with the Pig + some balancing suggestions
I believe a big, overlooked problem when it comes to Pig is that there are a lot of "Survivors with a Reverse Bear Trap suffer from X status effect" add-ons. Traps are supposed to be a slowdown, and in order to actually work as a proper slowdown ideally you should pressure the untrapped survivors while the ones with traps are busy juggling around boxes. So, why are there so many add-ons that incentivize going for the trapped survivors (which in most situations equal tunneling)?
The Gear add-ons, Tampered Timer and Rules Set No. 2 are all good add-ons that affect traps without encouraging unpleasant playstyles.
Utility Blades (Hemorrhage), Rusty Attachments (Mangled) and Slow-Release Toxin (Exhausted) are the problematic ones, and they should just be changed in some way. Pig needs to down a survivor to put a trap on them, so she'll most likely hook them right after, too. So it's crazy to me that there exists an add-on that gives perma-Exhaustion to survivors getting off of a hook; it's just asking the Pig to target them. Interlocking Razor and Face Mask are an exception (as in, they are healthy) imo, because:
• Interlocking Razor: the status effect is given to the survivor after they fail a box skill check while injured, so it doesn't encourage Pig to chase trapped survivors to get value out of it.
• Face Mask: Blindness affects a lot of survivor perks normally used outside of chase, like Detective's Hunch, Deja Vu and Empathy, unlike for example the Exhausted status effect which only affects perks you want to use in chase. So I do not think this perk encourages tunneling as much as the three aforementioned add-ons. A case could be made for Windows of Opportunity and maybe Bond (although the latter still has value outside of chase), but unlike the Exhausted/Slow-Release Toxin example, the cases in which Face Mask encourages chasing a trapped survivor are way fewer.
-TRAPS-
Aside from these problematic add-ons, I believe traps are fine as they are, I don't think they need any major change to their other add-ons and basekit stats. The bulls*itty things that current Pig can do with traps depend on sinergies with external elements (Ultimate Weapon and all other scream perks that reset box progress, for example) so tweaking those sinergies while leaving her base trap and Gears add-on stats as they are is the way to go, in my opinion. For example, screaming could slightly decrease box search progress instead of regressing it completely.
However, I have the feeling the Gears add-ons will be nerfed since they're likely her most used add-ons, and a Pig without those add-ons usually can't really get headpops unless she's playing in unpleasant ways and/or the survivors are making tons of mistakes. So, if those add-ons or even default trap timings are to be nerfed in any way, I hope the devs consider the idea of making Rules Set No. 2 basekit. To me Rules Set is the best designed trap add-on, as it makes them better tools without increasing the frustration in any way for survivors. Not only that, but it also simply makes sense lore-wise - it would be very anticlimactic if SAW victims could easily take their traps off before the timer even starts ticking lol. And Rules Set doesn't even forbid survivors from doing that! It just makes it a tad more challenging.
-AMBUSH-
Pig's Ambush is my favorite dash power in the game in terms of how fun it is to do flicks with it when stars align, but stars often do not align and I believe both Ambush and her Crouch stealth in general need some serious buffs. Crouching, moving while crouched and getting up all take way too long, the roar happening while you're charging the dash makes it way too easy for survivors to read you and simply leave loops (and if you don't have the crouching speed add-on, Amanda takes so much time to leave Stealth mode and get up that it feels like playing as SAW 3 John Kramer) and I believe a very slight speed and distance buff to Ambush itself could go a long long way.
I understand she can't be as fast as Ghostface because she could harass survivors with active traps while crouched, and I'm not asking for her to be as fast - but her current speed is so slow that the majority of players recommend basically never using her crouch at all. When using a killer's power is actively discouraged by a good chunk of its players, I believe that's a problem.
To be fair though, if there is a way to make it so that Amanda being X meters close to an active trap survivor pauses its timer, then her crouch speed could be even as fast as Ghostface's. But a solution of this kind should take into account the presence of other survivors inside that radius, as a team with comms could bring the chase into that general area to give more time to the trapped teammate, assuming that radius is not too small. So a much easier solution would be to simply make it so Pig is faster than she currently is, but still not as fast as to keep up with a survivor's running speed.
Basically the big changes I'd love to see from the announced Pig update are:
- "Utility Blades", "Rusty Attachments" and "Slow-Release Toxin" add-ons reworked into something else. Maybe something enhancing her stealth, something that helps in the endgame, add-ons that keep the same old effects but give them to survs hit by an Ambush attack instead of a trap - basically everything else that is not a "tunnel the trapped survs" add-on would be fine.
- Screams only slightly regress box search progress instead of resetting it
+ SIGNIFICANT buffs to the basekit crouching and getting up speeds
+ Some buffs to her crouched walking speed too; these changes should take into account the possibility that Pig might harass active trap survivors while crouched in some form, but she should definitely be faster than she currently is
+ The Pig's roar starts playing when the ambush is at 70-90% charge, not right as it starts being charged from 0%
+ Ambush running speed is slightly faster
- In case the above-mentioned stats get buffed, add-ons that currently improve them get tuned accordingly (Combat Straps could be changed into something entirely different if we can get its full effect basekit)
+/- if the Crates add-ons and/or the default trap timers are to be nerfed in any way, Rules Set No. 2 is made basekit
Also, there's a bug that removed the bear trap from her hand in the menu screen at the start. Right now, she has Freddy Krueger's animation, for some reason.
I believe these changes (+ Shawnee Smith voicelines for trap set-up/deaths and the Hello Zepp theme for chases, if copyright problems didn't make it impossible ☹) would make her perfect. Pig has a really interesting and loaded kit, and I believe the way traps work as of now is perfectly balanced, minus those aforementioned synergies. Modern DBD is faster than it used to be however (this is why the very slow killer that is Michael Myers and the essentially powerless Freddy Krueger both also desperately need some changes) so her extremely slow stealth and dash mechanics are really the only thing that need some buffs and tuning in order to "update" her.