The ultimate Houndmaster changes | Collection of smaller posts
I really like the Houndmaster, so I have decided to make a thread of buffs and changes I wish she had when she comes out of the PTB!
Commands
Her command system is quite unintuitive and sometimes you can forget which command you have selected, which can cost you several seconds of a chase once you realize.
- You no longer need to switch commands, simply charge your power, then choose to either initiate a Chase with M1 or tag an objective (Generators, Exit Gates and Totems if you brought Hexes, basically if you can see an Aura that isn't tied to a Survivor, you can tag it) with CTRL.
- This means that you no longer have access to the Nurse-like cursor, which in my honest opinion wasn't really that necessary.
- Another bonus of this change is that both cooldowns are merged into one, which just makes it easier to understand.
- Allow us to buffer the charge of a command, where if you press the M2 button a bit too early (or just hold it), the power will start charging instantly once the cooldown is over.
Chase & Redirect
Snug's chase is almost perfect, it has a high skill ceiling but isn't that hard to understand, mostly this part of the power just needs a couple QoL changes!
- You are now able to move during Redirect at roughly 1.5 m/s (37.5%), which ups the skill ceiling a bit more while making the power more accessible and stronger.
- Increase the time to activate redirect once the end of the Chase path is reached by 0.5 seconds, currently it's a bit too short.
Grab
Currently the grab seems a bit incosistent, sometimes it does work quite well, other times it can make you miss a hit, which is hilarious, but quite annoying at the same time.
- Snug will try to find the closest path and pathfind to you while grabbing a Survivor.
- Snug and the grabbed Survivor now have a maximum speed of 4.4 m/s (110%), which eliminates the instances of the Survivor being grabbed so fast that you miss your hit.
Return
Whenever snug returns after a Chase or from a Grab, there might be an instance of the cooldown not starting until you move closer to Snug for a split second, which is a bit annoying.
- The cooldown now starts to recharge a bit sooner when snug is returning by having a different detection zone. (snug would still be trying to return to you, but the cooldown would already be going down, doesn't have to be a large area, maybe a meter could do)
Search
Current search is quite clunky, due to the Nurse like cursor with the tagging system combined it makes the power feel unresponsive, but we have already adressed this in commands, however there are still a few issues that I wish were changed.
- The Houndmaster now has a running animation while following the path Snug creates while Searching.
- The path now can be followed more loosly to retain your movement speed, which helps in indoor maps.
- Increased follow speed from +15% to +20%, which results in a 5.4 m/s movement speed while on the path.
- Increased Snug's initial detection radius to 2 metres.
- Increased Snug's eventual detection radius to 12 metres.
Houndsense
As of right now, Houndsense is not that easy to apply, and when you do it does barely anything, applying Deep Wounds on survivors that you're already chasing isn't really doing anything, and it also "promotes" slugging by helping you find slugged Survivors easier.
- Survivors afflicted with Houndsense are revealed by Killer Instinct for 5 seconds whenever they perform a Rushed Action. (took a bit of inspiration from Dracula's Wolf form)
- Increased Houndsense duration to 60 seconds from 45 seconds.
- Survivors hit during Houndsense still get Deep Wounds (in case you want to leave them), but they are no longer louder when in the Dying State.
Pet the Dog
- The first time you pet Snug in the Trial, get 500 Bloodpoints in no particular category.
Add-ons
Most of the Houndmaster's add-ons are pretty good, however there are some outliers that I would like to see changed for her release.
- A general add-on change I would like to see are timers, none of her add-ons that are time based, like Leather Harness or Gunpowder Pin do not show if they're active or not, which makes you guess and even doubt if those add-ons are working sometimes.
Training Bell
You already get Killer Instinct on Survivors who stun Snug, this seems a bit redundant, POSSIBLE CHANGES:
- A Survivor responsible for stunning Snug suffers from the Exposed Status Effect for 10 seconds.
Fatty Meat
This add-on seems fun on paper, but after a while it might become problematic with Hex builds (I assume it interrupt Survivors), just spam Search on a Hex you want to protect, equip Perks that reduce cleansing speed and Survivors pretty much cannot cleanse them (I assume), POSSIBLE CHANGES:
- Allows you to redirect Snug twice in a Chase.
- Snug can no longer vault pallets or windows.
Knotted Rope
A pretty good add-on, might be a little overtuned tho.
- Reduced the add-on's effectivness from -40% to -15%.
And I think that's it, I cannot really recall anything else I want changed about them both! I really like this Killer, thank you for making her <3
Comments
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- Limiting the search command to specific objects is a bad idea. It would be better if the UI could snap to a specific object if the targeting cursor gets close to one.
- Houndsense really should get super increased breathing noises and grunts of pain, and longer and brighter scratch marks and pools of blood, regardless of what health state they are in. And the increased grunts of pain needs to be loud enough that killers can actually hear it when the chase music is happening. Yes, this stuff should work when the survivor is healthy, injured, deep wound, or broken.
- The biggest problem with redirect is the camera view takes way too long to go from the killer to the dog, and we can’t start changing the camera angle while the camera view is traveling between the killer and dog.
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These sound pretty good! I cant add anything really bc I didnt get to play her in the ptb(I cant handle the long queue times). Im excited for HM, Im just worry about how hard she going to be to learn. I just dont want my first 50 matches be miserable to play v.v
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Search and Houndsense definetly needs to be buffed a lot, they are kinda useless now.
I am fine with first use of chase, but redirect should be also buffed.
- bigger hitbox after redirect (so it's not so easy to hide behind any small object)
- it should work as singularity → dog tries to focus on nearby survivor and you just do small adjustments (killer will be unplayable for console otherwise)
Singularity showed us players don't like quick camera changes, so I have no idea why they did it again. I don't really have an issue, because I used to exactly this from Blight (flick camera 180 and find survivor fast)0 -
:O I started a trend…
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