The 9.2.0 Michael Myers Rework: An In-Depth Analysis (And How It Could be Salvaged)

FukuroBrujo

*Warning: Long post ahead. TLDR at the bottom

The 9.2.0 Myers rework is… controversial to say the least. Some say the rework successfully bumped Myers a few tiers up and made him better to play as, while others say it is an absolute disaster that killed his identity and should be pushed to be reverted entirely. As someone who started out as a Myers main in 2020, and later picked him up again before and after the 9.2.0 update, I can say that while his thematics do feel a lot more watered down, his gameplay balance does feel more up-to-speed (literally). There are some particularly good aspects of the rework that sound great on paper, but they feel terrible in practice. However, a combination of old and current Myers would greatly improve how he feels playing as him. Note that most of the numbers and calculations are pulled from the official DBD wiki (both FANDOM and wiki.gg versions) so the values pulled from there may be different than how it's calculated or felt in game.

Stalker Mode (T1)

Being Undetectable, there are obvious benefits to not having your Terror Radius heard and being immune to aura read, allowing you to either ambush/grab survivors of generators or stalk unnoticed. However, the slow movement speed of 4.2 m/s (then later 4.4 m/s) meant that in order to have more chasing power, you had to get out of T1 as soon as possible. Before, getting out of T1 resulted in a rather slow early-game, especially against vigilant SWFs that can keep tabs on your location and properly delay his tier-up by breaking LOS. Now, you switch between being Undetectable with stalk or go into Pursuer Mode with chase benefits, which being able to activate Undetectable on demand alone feels great. Stalking itself was also generally improved: no stalk pool, 5 stalk points threshold to T3, and even increased movement speed while stalking. However there are two main issues I cannot get over:

• The 4.2 m/s reversion
• The additional nerfs to stalking

For the 4.2 movement speed, it can be seen as an encouragement to use Pursuer Mode primarily in chase and use Stalker mode to stalk until you can activate T3. However, it’s ultimately counterproductive to the previous buffs made to old Myers. Now using T1 to find survivors, especially in the early game, feels a lot slower than before, and ambushes/grabs are more risky and unreliable than they already were. Even when equipping the Memorial Flower add-on, that only leaves one free spot for certain builds.

The other issue is the additional nerfs to stalking. While stalking is the epitome of Michael Myer’s power (and NOT something I would change), stopping to stare at survivors is already detrimental to Myers’ map pressure and chasing ability. While the faster stalking already greatly helps Myers, decreasing the stalk range to 32 m reduces the amount of hiding spaces and reach of his ability, leaving survivors to not only see him easily, but also move relatively a few feet away to avoid his gaze. High areas such as balconies and roofs can no longer be a good vantage point because even if you can clearly see the survivor and they seem to be in your reach, you cannot benefit from stalking without getting closer than you already are. Additionally, the stalk decay is ABSURD. Not only are you closer to the survivors to get within stalk range, they are also notified 2.5 seconds ahead of time due to The Hedge sound cue playing at 50% stalk. If a survivor sees you (which they can spot you quickly especially on outdoor maps or long corridors), you have to initiate a chase via Pursuer Mode, meaning all of the progress you just received is potentially lost unless you quickly switch back into Stalker Mode during the chase, wasting even more time on stalking. Stalking in chase is even MORE inefficient since you stalk 20% slower when moving, which wastes even more time that could be spent getting hits. It also adds even more loss to thematics, since you have to be relatively close to the survivor in order to get the benefits of T3 quickly, compared to stalking from afar and coming back later if they get away from you like in the original movie before the climax.

To address these issues, I’d like to see the following changes. Make Memorial Flowers and Boyfriend’s Memo basekit, drop the movement-stalk penalty, and remove the stalk decay. To avoid stalking too quickly, they could bring back the stalk distance modifier with the current stalk rate (1 SP/s from afar, 0.80 SP/s when closeby). This would bring back the fluidity and thematic of stalking from afar from old Myers and give survivors a chance to delay his stalk if he’s too close. Bringing back The Hedge was great for bringing back more thematics into Myers’ power, but it can be played at about 75% progress to avoid survivors catching you too early, but will give them time to react especially if Myers is closer than he needs to be.

Pursuer Mode (T2)

Pursuer Mode in the rework is actually a significant improvement from old Myers, and is probably the best part of the rework. The basekit 20% action speed bonus you get from the mode already boosts his performance in chase  by itself, and it synergizes really well with other perks for more build diversity. However, it is not completely without flaws. The modifiers do as follows:

• Lunge duration: 0.5s → 0.6s
• Pallet Stun: 2s → 1.6s
• Vault: 1.7s → 1.42s
• Break speeds:
  • Pallets/ Walls: 2.34s → 1.87s
  • Generators: 1.8s → 1.44s

From these numbers, we can compare the perks/modifiers that affected old Myers. The lunge open time from the old T3 is now used in Pursuer Mode, which is relatively small but can come in clutch at certain loops and distances more often than not. Vault speed has been slightly buffed from the old T2 vault speed at 1.48s. The break speeds are basically basekit Brutal Strength, which is notable on its own at some loops, and even more powerful when paired with the perk (40% break speeds feels SO good). The most problematic modifier is the pallet stun reduction. In comparison to Enduring reducing the duration to 1s, 1.6s can barely be felt. I propose a small buff to the stun reduction and even lunge duration from 20% to 25% (30% for stun reduction at most) to increase the feel of the buffs and provide more opportunities where Myer can utilize them.

A lesser issue with Pursuer Mode is the 24m Terror Radius. Before 9.2.0, I would always run Dead Rabbit & Monitor and Abuse to reduce my Terror Radius from 16m to 6m, which allowed for more stealthy plays and gave survivors much less time to react to ambushes or distant stalks in T2. After the update, the combination no longer works, with the nerf to M&A and 24m Pursuer mode now reducing the Terror Radius from 24m to 16m (the original T2 Terror Radius), and Dead Rabbit only reducing it further to 12m, which greatly decreases my stealth capabilities from before. I recognize that this combination is no longer necessary now since you can go Undetectable and reduce it to 0m. However, unless I run the Memorial Flowers add-on, being Undetectable is very inefficient as you're slow as molasses with the 4.2 m/s movement. Going in Pursuer Mode also doesn’t help since survivors can hear you coming from further away, even when estimating when to go into Stalker Mode. Additionally, it takes away from Myers’ niche of being a standard M1 killer with half a Terror Radius. While the proposed buffs to Stalker Mode will make the stealth more efficient, reducing the Terror Radius back to 16m can add more efficiency to going INTO stealth and give back the niche Myers had before.

Evil Incarnate Mode (T3)

This is the mode that got hit the hardest in the rework, and I would argue that it is much weaker than the original T3. I have a lot to say about this mode. (Forgive me if I recap stuff we already know, but this is to make a point).

To recap the original T3, it inflicted Exposed on survivors, increased his lunge duration by 20% and vault time by 33%, and increased his Terror Radius to the standard 32m, all of which lasted 60 seconds. To achieve this, this required 3 stalk points to go from T1 to T2, then 5 stalk points from T2 to T3, requiring a total of 8 stalk points to go into the first T3. Stalk was held at T2, and the transition to T2 to T3 was immediate, allowing you to 99 the stalk from T2 and then stalk for less than 1 second to immediately down a survivor when within range using the Exposed from T3. 

Now to look at the new Evil Incarnate Mode. It now only requires 5 stalk points to stalk, and holds onto 100% of the stalk progress, allowing you to use it when the time is right and doing away with 99ing the stalk progress (not like you had a choice with stalk decay). In Evil Incarnate Mode, you no longer inflict Exposed, but instead get Slaughtering Strike, a dash lunge that, when charged, moves at the standard lunge speed (6.9 m/s) for 0.5-1.5 seconds depending on the charge held. The lunge instantly downs survivors, and breaks pallets/breakable walls on collision. Additionally, you get a 20% vault speed increase, your Terror Radius increases to 40m, and you have the ability to immediately kill survivors on the second stage, all lasting about 40 seconds before returning to Stalker Mode.

Let’s start off with the positives. On paper, the idea of keeping T3 ready to go is a lot more efficient than estimating 99% of the stalk meter and potentially stalking either too little and not getting the instadown, or too late and popping T3 at the worst moment while you're far away. The ability to instadown survivors during the mode, while limited, is still available, and the lunge utilizes the same speed and open time that Myers did with the old T3 and Coup de Grace. Breaking through pallets in rapid succession is great for denying resources in the later-game and allows for more flow during chase rather than sitting for 2.34 seconds to break the pallet and possibly be blinded at the same time. Lastly, being able to mori death hook survivors on the spot saves time and hook space, allows me to enjoy the animation more naturally, and as a survivor adds to the tension of whether or not you can outlast Myers’ T3 without getting killed on the spot, while simultaneously making it more fair by not dying before even getting hooked. With such powerful tools in T3, you would think all of the other nerfs, delays, and cooldowns would be warranted.

Unfortunately that’s not the case, because the execution is, respectfully, terrible. Aside from the points I made about stalking, when you have 100% stalk progress, you lose the ability to go into Stalker Mode. This means you cannot sneak up on Survivors to activate it at the most opportune moment, as they will now hear your 24 m Terror Radius in Pursuer Mode and will have ample time to run away from you before you can catch up. The only way to sneak-activate Evil Incarnate is to, funnily enough, 99 the stalk, catch the other survivors off guard within 20 seconds before the decay starts, and then activate it in quick succession. The other way is to somehow stalk a few feet away from survivors for 5 seconds and then activate, which is impossible even against casual survivors. You cannot even catch survivors off guard because of the two sound cues that give off your stalk progress (one at 50%, one at 100%).

Now let’s say you catch up to a survivor and are ready to activate Evil Incarnate and instadown the survivor. Then you face Delay #1: after you activate Evil Incarnate, you look at your knife for 2 seconds and move at 3.45 m/s before you can attack. Assuming the survivor pre-ran after hearing the Terror Radius, this adds 2 seconds into the chase, which is enough time to either vault, pre-drop a pallet, or use Sprint Burst/Lithe before you can activate your secondary ability. Even if you activate T3 before chase, you now only have 40 seconds to down the survivor with your Slaughtering Strike, and now every survivor in a 40m radius will know where you are and pre-run even sooner.

Now for everyone’s favorite part: Slaughtering Strike. Aside from the obligatory “This doesn’t fit OG Myers in the movie” remarks, this dash is MUCH less effective than inflicting Exposed in old T3. For one, since Slaughtering Strike is a special attack, you cannot benefit as much from perks that require a basic attack to activate (Surge, Sloppy Butcher, Hex: Nothing but Misery, etc) as before. Secondly, an Exposed M1 is immediate, with no delays or before-hand slowdown aside from input delay and bad ping. Slaughtering Strike has Delay/Slowdown #2 & #3: it requires a minimum 0.5 second charge-up time to even activate, with a 3.22 m/s movement speed during charge-up. With activating Evil Incarnate during chase, it takes about 2.5 seconds to down the survivor IF you are right on top of a survivor. If the survivor is further away, you have to charge up to a maximum of 1.5s to get the maximum open time. There was an ingenious reddit s-post with a graph (cannot find the reddit post, if any of you find it, please let me know) that demonstrated that depending on the charge and distance from survivor, the maximum charge only saves about 0.75 seconds worth of distance to hit the survivor compared to the original T3 lunge Build. However, this does not even account for the slowdown, acceleration to the maximum speed, janky map collisions, and survivor behavior. Which brings me to my last point: when inflicting Exposed, you have complete range of motion of your M1, being able to stand still or flick 180 degrees to attack survivors trying to juke behind you. Slaughtering Strike not only forces you to move forward, but it has a 150 degree turn limit and locks your camera after a certain duration, removing any maneuverability from Myers’s attack. If a survivor jukes your attack and goes behind you, you will lose much more distance compared to missing an M1. To add insult to injury, we have Delay #5: after missing or hitting a pallet, it takes 6 seconds to do another Slaughtering Strike. This forces you to either hit the survivor regularly and give them more distance, or wait 6 seconds for the instadown to come back and be forced to follow the survivor to wherever they go. Again, you only have 40 seconds with this ability, meaning you have only 6 maximum tries to down a survivor before it ends. The only benefit Slaughtering Strike has over an Exposed M1 is the fact that it can break pallets instantly. However, this benefit is mitigated by Delay #6: after hitting the pallet, you move at 1.84 m/s for an overall total of 3.1 seconds after breaking the pallet, much higher than the 2.34 seconds it takes to break a pallet normally, meaning that breaking pallets with Slaughtering Strike is debatably worse (or slightly better at best) than kicking it normally. You would have a much more meaningful effect if you kicked a pallet in Pursuer Mode even without Brutal Strength.

Many defenders of the rework will point out that the Fragrant Tuft of Hair will give the effect of the old T3 effect with an extended lunge duration of 0.75s, so the original style of play isn't entirely gone. However, after playing a few games with the add-on, I found that it was actually much worse to play with for many reasons. First of all, you do not get the modifiers of Pursuer Mode aside from vault speed to compensate for the reduced pallet breaking capability which, again, would have been much better to break at 20% speed. The vaulting speed in the current Evil Incarnate is even nerfed, since before your vault speed was at 1.275s, compared to today's 1.42s speed. Second of all, the nerfs outside of Slaughtering Strike still apply even with the add-on in play, such as the stalk decay, loss of Stalker Mode, 2 seconds of looking at your knife, and 40 second timer. Not to mention the 40 m Terror Radius, which gives Survivors even more notification of your general location and even more opportunities to run away well before he can catch up. All of the mentioned nerfs feel extremely unsatisfying even if I’m playing the original T3. Third of all, using the add-on only leaves you with one free add-on slot to address the other issues with his kit. This limits your choices to one problem you would alleviate aside from Slaughtering Strike and leaves the rest of Myers’ kit to play underwhelmingly.

Evil Incarnate was supposed to be the ultimate mode that increased tension as a survivor, as you easily can go down in one hit and potentially die on the spot. Now survivors can see the instadown coming from a mile away, and good survivors will know to pre-run to keep their distance and to run out the timer that doesn’t last as long as it used to. This is the only mode I would suggest close to a complete overturn on. The first change I would suggest is either removing the 2 second knife stare when activating T3, allowing Myers to activate Stalker Mode at 100% Stalk Progress, or both of those changes. This way, Myers can better sneak up on Survivors to be close enough to activate T3 and utilize the instadown in the best way possible. If Slaughtering Strike was needed to be implemented in the game in some way, then the ideal change to the Evil Incarnate Mode would’ve been to switch the basekit Slaughtering Strike with the Fragrant Tuft of Hair effects and retain the Pursuer Mode modifiers, however this is probably unfeasible with the lunge’s already finished state. The next best thing is to buff the current Slaughtering Strike by removing the attack cooldown, decreasing its minimum charge to 0.3 seconds, decreasing the pallet break penalty to 1.87s (Pursuer Mode breaking value), increasing the movement-speed penalty to 3.68 m/s, and increasing or flat-out removing the turn limit to behave more like Pig’s Ambush or Oni's Demon Strike rather than Chucky’s Slice & Dice. Retaining the Pursuer Mode modifiers into Evil Incarnate can either be basekit or implemented solely in Fragrant Tuft of Hair to mitigate losing Slaughtering Strike. Other buffs would include reverting the Evil Incarnate duration to 60 seconds, reverting the Terror Radius to 32m, and reverting the vault speed back to 33% (1.275s).

That wraps up my TedTalk on the Myers changes. This is my personal opinion based on my experience with the rework and datamined numbers. While these suggested changes are based on the math provided and I tried to be as educated as possible, there is still room for error/oversights in my suggested changes, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I just wanted to get my opinion out there to hopefully be heard. I hope others can agree with me on some aspects.

TLDR: The Myers rework is not complete garbage like some people say and it has some good aspects that add to Myers’ strength. However, all of the compensatory nerfs, delays, and cooldowns make him feel terrible to play as, especially with Evil Incarnate Mode. If combined with some elements of his previous iteration, the rework could make Myers feel smoother and stronger to play as rather than just moving 1 spot in D-tier. Here’s a recap of my proposed changes:

Stalker Mode

• Increase movement speed to 4.4 m/s
• Remove movement-stalk penalty
• Remove stalk decay
• Bring back distance modifier
  • (1 SP/s from afar, 0.80 SP/s up-close)
• The Hedge sound conditions
  • 75-85% progress

Pursuer Mode

• Decrease Terror Radius to 16m
• Increase stun reduction to 25-30%
• Increase lunge duration to 25%

Evil Incarnate Mode

• Decrease Terror Radius to 32m
• Slaughtering Strike changes
  • Remove 2 second animation AND/OR allow to switch into Stalker Mode with 100% stalk progress
  • Remove Slaughtering Strike cooldown
  • Decrease minimum Slaughtering Strike charge to 0.3s
  • Increase Slaughtering Strike charging movement speed to 3.68 m/s
  • Decrease the overall Slaughtering Strike movement speed penalty duration after pallet-break to 1.87s
  • Increase or remove Slaughtering Strike turn limit
• Retain Pursuer Mode modifiers
  • May be either basekit or given to Fragrant Tuft of Hair
• Increase vault speed to 33%
• Increase duration to 60 seconds

Sources:

https://deadbydaylight.wiki.gg/wiki/Michael_Myers

https://deadbydaylight.fandom.com/wiki/Michael_Myers

https://deadbydaylight.fandom.com/wiki/Brutal_Strength#3.6.0

https://deadbydaylight.fandom.com/wiki/Enduring

Data and calculations provided by the editors of both wikis

Edits 1 & 2: Fixed some grammar, clarifications, & wording in some paragraphs. Also, some of the numbers have been corrected since this was posted, so I made adjustments as needed. Lastly, after looking at some of the buffs, I adjusted some of the numbers to make it more fair.

Abbzy

Thats best scheme I have seen so far good job.