The Plague is underpowered, overpowered, and inconsistent: A redesign

civ

I'll be honest, I don't play the Plague very often. I find her clunky, often uninteractive for Survivors, and I strongly dislike the non-thematic default chase music. I have 2.5k hours split between Killer and Survivor. However, I think that I understand her issues very well.

At her core, the Plague is a snowball killer like Myers and the Oni. The design philosophy for these killers seems to be that they should have little to no abilities before becoming extremely strong for a short duration. I don't think this is a very interactive design in the case of the Plague. In this rework concept, my goal is to make the Plague less clunky, broadly more useful, less oppressive, and more consistent while keeping her mechanical identity exactly the same.

Vile Purge
Vile Purge's current purpose is only to build the snowball into Corrupt Purge. It's almost never effective for the Plague to try to use this as a chase power, which is why new Plague's often waste the whole match going for full infections. It feels very uninspired to play as an M1 Killer when Survivors don't cleanse.

Solutions:

• Vile Purge is now 50% more effective basekit.
  - This makes direct vomit more of a threat against healthy Survivors.
• Survivors now gain a normal speed boost when becoming injured by Infection.
  - This gives Survivors normal counterplay.
• Using Vile Purge on fully infected Survivors hinders them by X% (15-30%?) for 0.1 seconds as the vomit lands on them.
  - This key change gives Vile Purge a chase use against Survivors who won't cleanse, and makes intuitive sense because you can't see because vomit is in your eyes. X would need extensive testing to ensure Vile Purge remains less lethal than Corrupt Purge. The slowdown shouldn't feel oppressive since Purge travels slowly, forcing extended LOS for this ability to be useful.

Corrupt Purge
Corrupt Purge is an incredibly oppressive chase tool. A single projectile causing damage feels unearned and makes dodging feel almost impossible. Compare this to the Oni, who can be evaded with much more skill during Blood Fury.

Solutions:

• Corrupt Purge now requires landing X vomit projectiles (3-7?) on a Survivor to damage them, with a decay that occurs slightly sooner than Trickster's knives.
  - This makes hits feel earned while maintaining very high lethality for skilled Plagues while giving Survivors more options. This also makes intuitive sense because enough corrosive vomit should need to get on you for it to overwhelm you. The X value will be very finicky and require extensive testing.
• Duration of Corrupt Purge could be slightly buffed to compensate.

Fountains
Current fountain placement often spawns them at map edges where using Corrupt Purge means losing all map pressure. This creates a lose-lose situation where Plague either ignores her power or abandons map control. Additionally, the Fountains overcleansing is a very bad outcome for the Plague.

Solutions:

• Fountains now spawn reliably near each of the seven generators like other Killer objects.
  - Straightforwardly increases her reliability while keeping creating strategic cleansing decisions. Want a fountain? It's at a gen. Smart Survivors can still cleanse at finished generators to reduce her pressure.
• If every fountain is Corrupted, they will now Overcleanse. All fountains are drained, and the Plague now gains Corrupt Purge for 3x longer and plays a unique global sound, but starts decaying faster near hooked Survivors to prevent extended camping.
  - This creates a risk-reward dynamic where Survivors must consider whether to cleanse strategically or risk giving Plague extended power. The Plague can now choose to allow Survivors to Overcleanse as a strategic decision.

Cleansing Decisions
Currently, most skilled Survivors simply ignore cleansing because being sick doesn't matter if you can play against an M1 Killer, and Corrupt Purge feels too threatening to justify the risk. This reduces strategic depth and makes matches feel one-dimensional.

Solutions:

• Fully infected Survivors now vomit 25% more frequently.
  - Simple aesthetic change that makes sickness subtly feel more impactful.
• Cleansing takes 6 seconds instead of 8.
  - Reduces the time investment while maintaining the strategic choice.
• The fountain overflow system gives Survivors clear feedback about when cleansing becomes dangerous, allowing for intuitive and skilled macro play.
  
  

Quality of Life
The experience of playing the Plague often feels slow. Several small changes could help her feel more fluid.

Solutions

• Charge Speed of Vile Purge and Corrupt Purge increased by 30%.
  - Basekit addon that makes her feel great.
• Cooldown of Vile Purge and Corrupt Purge decreased by 0.5s.
  - Basekit addon that makes her feel great.
• Object infection duration reduced by 15s.
  - Makes her control playstyle feel less endless for Survivors who don't want to get sick.

Addons
Plague's current addon set is redundant and often requires sacrificing QOL for strength. Here is a proposed redesign that greatly increases her possible playstyles and tries to balance strength.

Addon Pass:

BROWN (Common)

Healing Salve

• Old: Reduces cooldown of Vile and Corrupt Purge by -0.25 seconds.
• New: Increases the width of the Vile Purge stream by 20%.
• Explanation: Replaces weak cooldown addons with a simple, beginner-friendly effect that makes the newly-buffed Vile Purge easier to land. Doesn't apply for Corrupt Purge, since it's lethality is its identity, not utility.

Limestone Seal

• Old: Increases the duration of object's Infection by 20 seconds.
• New: Reduces the cool-down of Vile Purge and Corrupt Purge by 0.3 seconds.
• Explanation: Consolidates scattered duration addons into one definitive QOL option for a noticeable improvement.

Olibanum Incense

• Old: Survivors who cleanse have their Auras revealed for 4 seconds.
• New: Survivors who cleanse have their Auras revealed for 6 seconds.
• Explanation: Buff helps you know where a Survivor is actually going, since you can see what fountain they cleansed at.

Prayer Tablet Fragment

• Old/New: Unchanged - Increases prop infection, disables direct survivor infection
• Explanation: Remains a fantastic alternative playstyle choice for pure area control builds.

GREEN (Uncommon)

Prophylactic Amulet

• Old: Reduces the number of available Pools by 2
• New: Same effect, but now synergistic
• Explanation: Transforms from a liability to high-risk/high-reward strategy tool that increases likelihood of triggering Overflow mechanics.

Emetic Potion

• Old: Increases the efficacy of Vile Purge by 30%. (now basekit)
• New: Fully infected Survivors vomiting is 100% louder.
• Explanation: Punishes survivors for remaining sick through enhanced information. Thematic.

Potent Tincture

• Old: Reduces the cooldown of Vile and Corrupt Purge.
• New: Fully infected Survivors performing rushed vaults through infected windows/pallets suffer Exhausted for 5 seconds.
• Explanation: Strong anti-loop addon leveraging her area contamination ability, forces strategic tile choices.

Blessed Apple

• Old: Start with an extra Corrupted Fountain
• New: The initial Corrupted Fountain gives Corrupt Purge for 30 seconds longer.
• Explanation: Unique early-game focused effect that defines specific build strategies.

Haematite Seal

• Old: Increases infection duration on objects.
• New: Increases time to Cleanse by 3 seconds.
• Explanation: Changed from redundant infection duration addon to a basic but noticable slowdown addon.

BLUE (Rare)

Ashen Apple

• Old: Increases available Pools by +1 and causes 1 additional Pool to spawn Corrupted at trial start
• New: Increases available Pools by +2 and causes 1 additional Pool to spawn Corrupted at trial start
• Explanation: Counter-strategy to Overflow builds - provides more fountains making it harder for survivors to corrupt them all.

Exorcism Amulet

• Old: Increases duration of Corrupt Purge by 10 seconds
• New: Increases duration of Corrupt Purge by 45 seconds when Overcleanse is triggered.
• Explanation: Changed from an outclassed and simple duration addon, to using the new mechanics to build the playstyle web.

Incensed Ointment

• Old: Drinking from fountain causes survivors in your Terror Radius to scream.
• New: Drinking from a fountain causes all survivors to scream.
• Explanation: Buffs the previous effect by giving useful global info instead of potentially nothing.

Rubbing Oil

• Old: Increases charge rate by 50%.
• New: Increases charge rate by 25%.
• Explanation: Feel-good addon that buffs the already basekit buff. Strong visual improvement without being oppressive.

Infected Emetic

• Old: Increases the efficacy of Vile Purge by 40%.
• New: Increases the efficacy of Vile Purge by 20%.
• Explanation: Clean addon that makes Vile Purge feel more effective on top of basekit buffs.

PURPLE (Very Rare)

Devotee's Amulet

• Old: Increases duration of Corrupt Purge by 20 seconds.
• New: Damaging a Survivor with Corrupt Purge afflicts them with Broken for 30 seconds.
• Explanation: Incredibly good effect worthy of rarity - landing hits means survivors are out of fight long-term, but balanced by only affecting healthy, uninfected survivors. More unique of an effect than duration and deserving of its rarity.

Severed Toe

• Old/New: Unchanged - Increases infection from interactions
• Explanation: Solid effect that fits "sickness pressure" playstyle perfectly.

Vile Emetic

• Old: Increases projectile speed of Vile and Corrupt Purge by 10%
• New: Increases projectile speed of Vile and Corrupt Purge by 20%.
• Explanation: Significant speed boost making loop control and sniping much more viable. Much more immediately noticable in-game.

Worship Tablet

• Old/New: Unchanged - Faster fountain drinking + speed boost while empowered
• Explanation: Great mobility choice allowing quick power acquisition and map pressure application.

VISCERAL (Ultra Rare)

Black Incense

• Old: Reveals survivor auras for 3 seconds when they vomit.
• New: Reveals survivor auras for 2 seconds when they vomit.
• Explanation: Pinnacle information addon remains powerful and thematic, nerfed for balance since vomiting is more frequent.

Iridescent Seal

• Old: After each generator is completed, gain Corrupt Purge. Corrupt Purge is 20 second shorter.
• New: After each generator is completed, a random uncorrupted Fountain becomes corrupted. Corrupt Purge requires 1 additional projectile to damage.
• Explanation: Eliminates automatic gain to reduce inter-teammate frustration, while still providing guaranteed power uses but with a significant trade-off. Complements Overflow strategies.
  

The Plague has insane potential but is held back by being too dependent on the Survivor's cleansing strategy. These changes would make her significantly more interactive, smooth to play, and varied. This benefits the whole playerbase by giving the Plague more use for her incredibly unique power, increases interactivity during Corrupt Purge for both sides, and makes each Plague genuinely different. And don't forget that she desperately needs a thematic terror radius and chase music!

WriteByDaylight_

>I'll be honest, I don't play the Plague very often. 

Alrighty.

Zuiphrode

So basically you want to nerf literally every aspect of Plague and call it a buff. You can see yourself out now.