Are we really nerfing Demogorgon?
-Initial Thoughts & Comparisons-
It takes a lot for me to make a post these days, but this is just plain ridiculous. I get it. You want to balance out a killer's buff by taking away something in other areas (even though plenty of survivor buffs happen with no downside whatsoever), but this killer doesn't need that. What's his win rate (or kill rate? Whatever). I'm sure it's not very high, because I basically never see him. And even from the biased survivor crowd, I've heard nothing but glee over seeing him in their matches, similar to Pig (who ironically has also been nerfed over and over). Nobody's complaining about this killer. The nerfs don't even make sense, because they're to add-ons, and the thing that was buffed is his power, with each concerning unrelated effects. At least with Wesker's, it makes a little sense because he's getting a quicker cooldown for a longer recharge time (via Leather Gloves), both related to catch-up time after miss/hit bounds. I could go on about the other changes, like punishing Myers for the up close (riskier) stalks. But I'll stick to Demogorgon. And some of these points may shock you, but I have only this killer's best interest at heart.
-Standard Gameplay Loop-
Demogorgon is a decent killer. Most people put him in B tier, and I'm on and off about considering him B as well. Water under the bridge for me, because nobody bar Blight/Nurse beats efficient survivor teams. All it takes to cripple Demogorgon's game plan is to find a non-linear loop. You can find any rock or hay bale tile, and he essentially loses his anti-loop, and is stuck as an M1. M1s have to wait for survivors to make a mistake at a loop to get them, period. In the case of stronger loops like shack and jungle gyms, they have to count on the survivor making, you know, 2-3 mistakes back to back, just because of how easy it is to reset the loop when the killer misses his chance. Luckily for Demogorgon, he actually does better at these kinds of tiles, but he's not infallible at them against good players. Like Huntress or Wesker, he can be baited into using his power, and if he misses he suffers a massive stun which resets the whole chase. You can call the survivor's bluff, but at that point you're just guessing, and their guess is as good as yours. You guess wrong, Bloodlust and the whole chase resets for nothing.
-Portals-
You can always portal away to pressure a gen or a hook instead, but there's a few things that make that difficult. Portals can be destroyed surprisingly quick, for how much time it takes to set them (walking over, stopping for a few seconds, and then walking somewhere else). And if you don't have at least 1 on the board, or if you don't have 1 in an area you need to get to, you can't use it. This is why people who do play him use the "portals take longer to destroy" add-ons, of which you are nerfing. I know he's got a quick cooldown on his tp, so that he might be able to go through a portal, wait for cooldown, and then tp back before the survivors can destroy his portal, especially when using those add-ons. That's okay to have. Like Freddy, you can constantly pressure a gen or something by teleporting back to it, but that alone doesn't translate to real pressure. Sure, you can keep pushing survivors off a gen you're tp'ing to, but if they just hold W every time the moment they see you coming out, you're never gonna have a favorable chase, because they've got a huge lead on you. Meanwhile, you're losing precious time for no added momentum. What's worse, Demogorgon has no way of getting rid of his own portals, so once you've got them all down, and survivors choose not to destroy them (because they're placed in an inconsequential area or something), you essentially can't use that power anymore. If anything, I would have thought that this would be changed the next time Demogorgon was touched. Sadly I was mistaken.
-Closing Thoughts-
I'm unsatisfied with the proposed Demogorgon change. Maybe I'm jumping the gun because I haven't seen the changes live yet, but I'd honestly rather leave him as he is now. At least now, his add-ons haven't been arbitrarily weakened just because his base is getting buffs. This is what we've always warned against: It's unlikely that a killer's issues (them being too strong) stem from both their basekit AND their add-ons, so logically you'd nerf 1 or the other to test the waters, not both. And regarding a killer who sees little to no tourney play, who I haven't played against but maybe once in the last 4 months, and who rarely gets placed above B tier on any given list, this killer should not have seen any nerfs, no matter how small, to anything at his disposal.
Comments
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I don't think the add-ons really needed nerfs (I can maybe see a stat-oriented reason for lifeguard whistle), but overall he's been buffed since he got basekit faster portal interaction speeds and no nerfs to his best add-ons that impact his shred yeah?
I think people that run the "best" addons and perks on demo are overall doing better. The only people who would see faster portal cleansing times are people running the addons to make that interaction slower, and they aren't the most popular choices (which, to be fair, makes me wonder why they were nerfed…)
I suspect the reason these changes were made is some sort of stat analysis that saw portal defense builds and either saw them used too often or winning too much? I'd love the devs to explain their rationale here.
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I agree that the nerfs to his add-ons were uncalled for but 1. they're not THAT big of a deal, except for the nerf to Lifeguard Whistle and even in that case it's not that terrible and 2. his basekit portal mechanics were buffed. And I think that's the most important part, I'd much rather get basekit buffs and some add-ons nerfed in compensation than the opposite. Like I said, unneeded add-on nerfs, but not that big of a deal tbh.
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Lifeguard whistle deserved to be nerfed it was impossible to cleanse hexs with this addons
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"Are we really nerfing Demogorgon"
No? We're making his portals faster in 3 different ways.
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Devour lifeguard demo was silly.... good riddance. Overall demo will feel much better to use with these buffs
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This is very subvertive, you didn't even mention the three buffs he received to his basekit, you're just talking about his addon nerfs like they're the only change that he got.
That's not a nerf, that's a nerf to four add-ons. His basekit was buffed significantly, giving him 17% faster portal setting speed, 10% faster portal entry time, and 40% faster portal travel time. That is significantly better!
Yes the sealing time addons and Lifeguard Whistle were nerfed, but is it a nerf overall? That depends entirely on your build and playstyle. If you don't rely on these portal sealing time addons or Lifeguard Whistle, it's a pure buff. I also disagree that it takes a short amount of time to seal the portals. I've played against Demos that ran the sealing time addons and I'll flip what you said on its head and say it takes surprisingly long to seal the portals when these addons are in play. I can absolutely see them having high killrate, and this being why they got nerfed.
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They should have given good demo a bit more range on the shred if you ask me.
Or at least an addon that does it.
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If you were playing Demo you rarely did more than a few portals at the start and would place one to tp if you wanted to get across the map. Portals on live are more of a minor thing with Demo and you play him for his chase. This is also why everyone runs the same 2 chase add-ons because portals suck at base and using add-ons don't really change that. The only exception to this was doing the stupid devour build with lifeguard whistle.
The changes on the PTB will make portals much better for Demo. The speed increase when in the upside down is massive, and is a large buff if you want to place portals at gens. This is because while you are in the upside down the survivor sees you emerging from the portal which gives them a head start at running. With the speed increase they'll now get less distance compared to before. He has also received buffs for the undetectable on a prior patch which did nothing since portals still suck; which these buffs making portals more attractive will also be felt more.
Overall the changes make it so you will use portals more often and I would expect to see portal add-ons used more frequently compared to before. Overall a welcomed change.
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No? In fact he even received 3 buffs in the face of a nerf on a problematic add-on.
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The lifeguard whistle nerf/change is bad. It makes fun totem builds on Demo worthless now. Demo Totem Builds are more like a fun gimmick. So when do we nerf Trappers Traps, so that they can't be placed near Totems? And the lifeguard whistle on it's own isn't OP either. It gives decent Information. But that's it.
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He got buffed, all of the add-ons that got nerfed or changed allowed a playstyle that was problematic, there is literally nothing about Demogorgon that got nerfed, nobody used those add-ons outside of that playstyle anyways.
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Nobody wants to play against a totem defender Demo. They nerfed one very specific playstyle and buffed other areas. Be honest.
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"Fun Builds" meaning a basically guaranteed 5 stacks of Devour every game, right?
Demo already has a very good capacity for defending totems in its basekit, you'll just have to pay attention and actually channel Of The Abyss to get info.
As for the OP, calling this a nerf is silly. Demo's portals were often complained about by longstanding Demo mains, to the point where a lot of people would ignore them entirely. This is a good direction to go in. The seal time addon nerfs seem a little redundant because nobody used them anyway, but that's honestly pretty minor. The Lifeguard Whistle nerf was long overdue, though.
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There's no way. Defending your portals from being destroyed, or placing them on several gens for info/getting back to gen, has got to be the most stressful, skillful playstyle in the game, because it's like Hag. If people were losing to that, it means they're not adequately pressuring the killer. What killer has time to constantly go back and defend gens/portals, but also get favorable chases that lead to downs straight after, just to make the action of going back break even?
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But then you're just defending a totem all game. 🤦♀️ It's the same equation as going back to a gen over and over: If a survivor's constantly pressuring it, and you're pushing them back off, what are you doing to the other 2-3 survivors? Nothing. And at that rate, they win the war of attrition. Did I miss something, or are hex builds just this uncounterable meta now?
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I don’t know why they did it honestly. I don’t even play against demo and I’ve never played against “devour demo” either and I have a lot of hours.
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Yes. It's still a nerf. The portal destroying time was already fast enough. Unless the Demogorgon drops their whole game plan just to go through/interrupt it, it's getting destroyed. All the portal buff does is make his portals a little nicer, and less clunky, to use. Survivors can still hold W against him coming out of a portal point-blank on them, but instead they'll now get a 15-second lead instead of a 20. But these are the kind of responses I expected, just glorified "Naw, bro. Wrong." You see buffs, and then blindly assume that the nerfs are deserved and equal trade-offs.
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They didn't change the base portal destroying time. This is only a nerf if you always brought 2 portal preservation add-ons and your entire playstyle was camping your portals from just outside your TR trying to catch survivors breaking them, which, although that's funny as a jumpscare, kinda feel like you lose the right to complain if that's the case because that's not a serious playstyle
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