Proposed Carnifex Changes Removes ANY Reason to Using Him in Chase
I am a P100 Knight main, and I am incredibly concerned after reading about the proposed changes to Carnifex and Jailer, and I believe using Carnifex for chases will be actively detrimental to gameplay.
There should be no part of any character where it actively hinders you to use the Power as intended, and under the proposed changes that is what Carnifex will do if he is selected to be used for Patrols and Hunts.
I detail my concerns below, and at the end of this post I offer my variation of proposed changes for Carnifex and Jailer as opposed to what is proposed in the Dev Blog.
I am very excited about most of the upcoming proposed changes, namely adding the minimum patrol paths to deter unavoidable hits. However, I had to mull over the Carnifex and Jailer changes for a while before realizing this has incredibly poor unintended consequences:
Removing Carnifex's chase specialty will make him the weakest Guard in a Hunt and render him entirely useless for being using to chase Survivors. By unlocking the Guard Select Order, CARNIFEX WILL NEVER BE USED IN CHASE AGAIN because by unlocking the Guard order, he has no reason to be used in a chase.
Benefits of Using Each Guard for Patrols/In Chase Under New Changes:
Assassin: Fastest chase speed, inflicts Deep Wounds
Jailer: Now has the fastest patrol speed, largest detection radius, longest patrol time, longest chase duration, and longest banner spawn time.
Carnifex: Nothing
Carnifex has NO Chase Specialty Now:
Each Guard, currently, has a specialty when it comes to Hunts: Assassin chases faster (4.4 m/s) and inflicts heavier damager, Carnifex chases longer, and Jailer is excellent at initiating hunts and nearly always guarantees one will start, thanks to his detection capabilities.
Currently, on live servers and as acknowledged in the Dev Blog, Carnifex's strongest use is for both breaking things and for keeping Survivors preoccupied for a long time. This, in my opinion, is a good thing, as IT GIVES CARNIFEX A STRENGTH IN A HUNT - a reason to bring him out for a reason other than merely breaking stuff.
The Guard Damage interaction and the drawing a path interaction are both completely separate - you cannot draw a patrol path into a Guard breaking something. They do either patrolling or breaking, but not both.
The concerns that initiated changing Carnifex in the first place is that having two specialties on one Guard is too strong. However, while Carnifex has two specialties, not being able to both Break and Patrol at the same time meant that only one specialty could give him a benefit at any given time.
If Carnifex's only specialty is that he breaks stuff faster, then there will be literally no point in spawning him to initiate hunts with the proposed changes.
Giving Jailer Extra Benefits makes him a Catch-All Guard That's Better for Chases, Camping, & Tunneling:
Jailer, having the longest patrol duration and largest detection radius, almost always guarantees a Hunt starting if a patrol path is drawn even somewhat accurately. This is great if you just need to keep someone busy, to push someone out of an area, or to guard an objective. However, the tradeoff is that Jailer has little lethality on his own, being one of the slower guards (4.0 m/s) with shorter hunt duration (12s). Between being able to guard objectives or detect a Survivor, both give him incredible usefulness, but it balanced out because his chase wasn't as lethal without Killer input or unless Survivors made a major mistake.
Jailer is also often used by crafty Knight players so that his detection range covers a Hooked Survivor but is out of sight, so that Hunts won't begin until an Unhook actually is pulled off (as Unhook notifications initiate Hunts), and this is quite easy to do thanks to Jailer's massive detection range.
I am anticipating now that the buffs to Jailer will be used to guarantee easier hits and tunnels/proxy-camping off-hook. Knight is already one of the best proxy-campers in the game, making it nearly impossible to get an unhook off without someone trading should he decide to proxy-camp.
But beyond just camping and tunneling, Jailer will now be the catch-all Guard to use in most scenarios: Not only does he chase for an incredibly long time (24 seconds, up to 32 with the new proposed changes), but merely using him already almost guarantees Hunts because it's so easy to initiate hunts with his increased detection radius and patrol duration! So now you're almost guaranteeing up to 32 seconds of Survivor time wasted or in chase with every use of Jailer.
Breaking Objects Faster Has NO Use in a Hunt:
The bonus of using Carnifex for a Hunt is that he has the longest chase duration. Now, without that, he is objectively the weakest Guard to be sent out for patrols, because he doesn't chase faster, he doesn't detect better, and he does not chase longer. With these changes, the ONLY reason to use Carnifex is to break something.
Even then, being able to break stuff quicker is, in my 100 Prestiges of experience on Knight, INCREDIBLY limited in practice.
While it may be incredibly satisfying to break something very quickly, there almost no usefulness in being able to quickly break something from far away - in most cases, unless the Killer is breaking a pallet or breakable wall directly in front of The Knight, the Killer would almost always make it to the damaged object by or after the 6 seconds that it takes Jailer or Assassin to break something.
If Carnifex's only benefit is breaking stuff quicker, then it doesn't even make sense to break things unless it's a pallet directly in front of you that would take 4 seconds or less to reach - any other guard would do just as fine because in most cases the Knight wouldn't even reach the object in the 2 seconds it takes Carnifex to break an object.
None of this is an issue in live servers, as the preset Guard order means you must be judicious in what you use them for, but they will all eventually get used no matter what, which means if you need to send out a guard then you have to use whatever you've got on hand and use it for the best immediate scenario - which means, when it comes Carnifex's turn, you either do a long chase with him or break something with him, but not both.
With Guard order unlocked, players may now choose to freely ignore Carnifex for a Hunt because they don't need to, and they shouldn't because he has no reason to even be pulled out except to be Ordered to Damage a pallet at the Knight's feet in an incredibly short time.
Re-Approaching The Scamper Problem
While we're discussing Carnifex changes, decreasing the Damage Object interaction is very dangerous to play with, in my opinion.
Disregarding the fact that The Knight has to stop, lock into Draw Patrol Path animation and select a pallet in Path mode, then come out of animation in order to break pallets, 1.8 seconds to break pallets is incredibly fast, and in most scenarios already can result in a very easy hit.
This change brings us back to the Scamper problem. Being able to break pallets faster is quickly approaching the same territory of unfun gameplay that made Scamper have to be removed, and that also makes Mage Hand very unfun for many to play against on Vecna.
Even just yesterday, Vorpal Sword had to be nerfed to take 3.2 seconds, yet Carnifex is being buffed to break pallets in 1.8 seconds?
Remote pallet-breaking functionality Should Be More Consistent across all aspects of Dead by Daylight gameplay I think, and this inconsistency has been a little frustrating to play against at best. Vorpal Sword is functionally no different from Knight's Guards, and in practice neither is pallet lifting with Mage Hand. Players do not enjoy when a pallet is essentially deleted or made as if it doesn't exist before their eyes, making Carnifex's only strength is shaping to be exactly that.
The Carnifex Problem Boils Down To This:
Now that you can choose your Guard, why would anyone ever send out the guard (Carnifex) that has objectively has the slowest chase speed, the smallest detection radius, and the shortest chase time?
Under the proposed Dev Blog changes, there is absolutely no reason to use Carnifex for chasing, and I think this is a major issue that greatly strips large layers of complexity and interesting strategy to this Killer.
The concerns that initiated changing Carnifex in the first place is that having two specialties on one Guard is too strong. However, by placing Carnifex's specialties onto Jailer, now the Jailer has THREE incredibly strong specialties that all activate at the same time, and Carnifex only has one specialty which will never even activate during a chase.
My proposed changes, as a P100 Knight main:
I believe either one of these options would keep Knight's entire kit more well-rounded than they would be under the proposed Dev Blog changes:
- Keep the Hunt and Standard Spawn durations as-is for both Jailer (12s) and Carnifex (24s), do not change anything
OR, if we want to make Jailer to be slightly more lethal on his own (I think this is a more interesting option that buffs Jailer without making him a clear Catch-All, thus creating a more interesting overall strategy to every guard):
- Keep Carnifex's chase time as-is (24s)
- Buff Jailer chase duration + Standard spawn time to an in-between of what the difference between Carnifex and Jailer chase duration is now (16s Hunt / 7.5s Standard spawn)
OR, experiment with adding a bonus ability to Carnifex's chase:
- When Carnifex approaches a pallet in the middle of Hunting a Survivor, he will instantly transition into breaking the pallet. To give Survivors reasonable counterplay, allow this to take longer (2.4 seconds, which is regular kick duration) or give the Power cooldown a slightly bigger cooldown (currently 3 seconds) when this happens.
If not any of these changes, Carnifex needs some other form of extra Hunt specialty to make him worthy of using to make patrols with and to use mid-chase.
Comments
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They're all going to be useless in chase after this update.
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carnifex is not suppose to be chasing guard. he is meant to be utility guard that you pick for his utilities. i.e faster break, faster gen kicks, any add-on like that aura carnifex add-on that nobody uses. carnifex could be strong guard. it depends what add-on's do and what utilities knight is allowed to use.
Assassin is suppose to be chase guard.
Knight is not going to be same killer. he is going be way different after his changes. both play-style and gameplay. his skill-floor is going way up and so is his skill-cieling.
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They can be manually swapped between so each one doesn't need to be more versatile anymore and can be specialized
carnifex is for breaking
assassin is for fast chases
jailer is for guarding and long chases
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As I've described, breaking objects faster has no practical change in the outcome of any gameplay unless the Knight is 6 seconds' worth of travel or closer to the object he is kicking.
As a matter of fact, after ~500 hours of playing Knight, I've discovered using Carnifex to damage Generators is actually usually detrimental: The faster damage duration enables Survivors to get back on Generators faster, and Guards do not apply Gen perks when used to damage generators.
It is almost always better to actually use Jailer or Assassin to break Generators, because the 6-second damage interaction duration makes it incredibly more difficult for Survivors to stop a generator from regressing by the time you arrive: the 4.2 seconds saved with Carnifex is 0.8 seconds shy for Survivors to completely stop generator regression before you show up.
Even if one does use the Carnifex to damage a generator faster, then what? Practically, what does this accomplish in the way of downing a Survivor? The only benefit to using Carnifex to damage anything is when damaging a pallet or breakable wall that is less than 6 seconds away from The Knight, as now he may walk through it faster.
Even if you believe Carnifex shouldn't be used as a chasing Guard, he needs some reason to be used, otherwise the mere act of using him is an actively detrimental part to The Knight's kit because every other option is objectively stronger and better by every measurable statistic, especially considering now you don't have to use Carnifex to chase if you don't want to!
This is exactly the issue. Now that you can use the Guards in any order that you want, why would you ever draw a patrol path with Carnifex? Doing so is now actively detrimental to your gameplay, so people just won't use Carnifex for chases ever again.
Carnifex should have some use in chase! Why leave an aspect in Carnifex's kit that actively hurts him?
Benefits of Using Each Guard for Patrols/In Chase Under New Changes:
Assassin: Fastest chase speed, inflicts Deep Wounds
Jailer: Now has the fastest patrol speed, largest detection radius, longest patrol time, longest chase duration, and longest banner spawn time.
Carnifex: Nothing
If players now have the option to manually select which Guard they want to use in a chase, why would anyone ever select Carnifex? He needs some benefit to being used for patrols, or else there is no reason to ever ever ever choose him.
Post edited by NotJared on2 -
I mean, yeah, I think that's kinda the point. Carnifex will still be able to obliterate pallets. The fact that you can freely swap between Guards will make this a non-issue. You're not meant to use him for Hunting anymore, and that's fine.
He'll still have in-chase use. Just not for Hunts.
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This is precisely the issue: why have the option to draw a patrol path with Carnifex, the worst chase Guard, at all? You won't.
Why have any aspect of a character's kit be useless? Every part of every kit should be usable.There should be no part of ANY Killer where it's actively detrimental to use the power as intended, and currently that is what Carnifex does if he is selected to be used for hunts.
What about how, as I've described in the OP, the Jailer buffs will make Knight, who is one of the already-strongest campers in the game, even stronger at camping? Is this not a concern, either?
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Fast pallet breaking with minimal cooldown that can be used 24/7, which is likely the optimal chase guard to hold on standby. I don't get the issue of carnifex effectively being a utility tool more than a guard to chase survivors since they don't ONLY need to be used to chase survivors.
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There are things to damage outside of gens you know…breaking a pallet or wall in 1.8 seconds is extremly powerful.
Also, you didnt even provide a good soultion to the problem.
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Just wait they nerf his breaking ability bc ppl will only use him in that way and we have a situation similar to old Chucky and mage hand, where you get free hits at pallets. I totally see this getting completely gutted since survivors hate when killers get free hits like this.
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Perhaps Gen kick related perks could activate when Carnifex damages a generator? That would make him more of a QOL Guard. Alternatively increasing the gen regression of Carnifex would also work given how the Guards originally did more gen regression than Killer base gen kicks.
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Pretty much as their hunt time will deplete super fast as soon as you get close to them (wich you have to since guards usually can't catch an average survivor by themselves).
I'm not sure anyone ever ask to be able to choose the guard they wan't, but carniflex being useless for chase is far from being the main problem with this "rework".
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I would ask, why do you need a reason to use Carnifex for a hunt?
You can now freely choose which guard to send outn presumably either on their own cooldowns or a shared cooldown.
So why do we need three distinct options for hunts? What does having three options provide that is an improvement over two?
What are the three scenarios in which you need three distinct modalities?
From what I can see, you'll either want to use a guard to score an injury, in which case you use Assassin, or you want to secure an area and increase pressure, in which case you have Jailer.
What is the third option to shoehorn Carnifex into?
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This is kind of like Pig's traps again.
They don't want you chasing the survivor with a trap on their head, because not only is it a no-win situation for that survivor, but you are actually executing more pressure by engaging multiple survivors at once.
They obviously don't want you double tapping survivors or forcing them into no-win pincer movements, because it's too oppressive and risk-free lending to no cost tunneling, and they want you to learn to inflict pressure on multiple survivors to help you succeed at the macro gameplay.
Pressure spread out among multiple survivors is ultimately healthier for the game. It provides innate game slowdown and reduces the power the killer has in tunneling scenarios.
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Oh yeah, I forgot you can get rid of pig's traps by just holding W for 12 seconds. Also forgot that guard's insta kill you if they manage to catch you. You're right, Knight and Pig are totaly the same !
Ok jokes aside, guards usually don't hurt a survivor alone. If you aren't close by, they just waste a bit of time and that's it. What's the point of chasing two survivors at once if one chase is a garanted escape and the other is against a full M1 killer ?
Sure It's the right call some time, but there is also time where you'll chase only one guy. And against that one guy, you'll get punished for using your power (other than just spamming carniflex over palets).
And when double taping is unhealthy design ? It's harder to pull of than getting a OS with Billy, Leatherface or even Ghostface. And it's not like if double taping happen every chase.
The 10m path requirement is enough to avoid insta guard drop and chase. Plus it's not like try to pincer a survivor was a 100 % garanted hit every time.
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Why have the Carnifex exist at all if there's no reason to use him
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For breaking pallets and kicking gens, obviously.
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I am beginning feel like most people commenting on this thread did not read my original post in its entirety.
Why would you ever Draw A Patrol with Carnifex? This is the specific concern I'm raising.
If he has no purpose, then why have him be a part of the kit at all?
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In case something unexpected happens after you click M2 and you decide you need a patrol instead of a pallet break?
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Carnifex's job is to break stuff, while you have the option of sending him on patrol, this is never ideal for him, but it's not his job. They even buffed his break speed. Patrols and chases are the job of the other two. It's basically base kit brutal strength except you don't even have to be standing at the pallet to use it. The fact that you can move while he breaks as well means that you can't loop back around and run towards where he came from, you HAVE to run away, it's pretty much a quick free hit once a survivor is forced to a pallet near the edge of the map and you can zone them before using that fast break.
If anything is an issue it's the fact that jailer will be too loaded with these changes. A good fix would probably be to make the guards have variable modifiers for being within 8 meters of hte guard. Currently it's 3x for all of them but they could increase jailer's to 6x and decrease assassains to 1.5x. Thiss would make hunt time within 8 meters the same for carni and jailer but longer for assassin. Jailer would have the best chase time when not near the knight, the best detection, and the best delay. Carnifex would be the best breaker, and assassin would be the best chaser.
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