Why do people think demo is weak?
I'm genuinely curious, recently it has gone from everyone calling him the most balanced killer in the game to one of the bottom tier. I'm a rank one demo main and I see him as a top tier killer. I have no trouble winning with him and I cant really find a flaw in his kit.
- His shred makes for amazing anti loop that can destroy many different types of loops as well as easily capitalize on survivor mistakes. It is also really good at zoning to get free hits.
- His portals make for great map traversal especially in the late game. Just don't focus to much on the set up early game and place as you go and they will pay off without you wasting to much time.
- His tracking makes his portals even stronger allowing him to have excellent late game pressure
- Best user of STBFL in the game which again like I've said before will make him incredibly powerful in chase in the late game. Combine great chase with pop and mobility to instantly pressure gens and it makes him pretty formidable.
- His stealth isn't that great but with decent portal placement I do get the occasional surprise hits on survivors
- Not map dependent
Can someone please explain to me their reasoning as to why they think he's bad.
Comments
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I don't think he's bad, I just think he's not as aggressively good as some of the more noticeable options.
Plus, his addons're full of things that don't directly help you kill people faster, which most people are allergic to. Hence, rat liver (a brown addon) is considered the best, 'cause it does the killmurder fastbestest.
I think he's a fair killer who could use some positive tweaks and some better addons.
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Probably because 90% of demo players fall into the trap of the spammable ability, they just shred, shred, shred and shred, wasting their time massively and not doing any damage
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Because he is.
Demo suffers from something unique. He can do everything, but he isn't particularly good at anything. He is stuck being either bad at worst or mediocre at best because of it. This also affects his pick rate. If you want someone with a ranged attack, why play Demo when you can play Deathslinger, Huntress or Freddy? Want stealth? Why not Myers, GhostFace or Wraith? Easy map traversal? Spirit, Billy, Blight and Oni.
As for your points, I'll address them.
- His Shred is easily baitable and is pretty punishing. It also SUCKS on Console, which is where I play.
- Portals do offer map traversal, but they can be removed. They also give a huge notification that you are using them AND they glow.
- His tracking is decent, but again, it's only when touching the Portal and tracking without means to capitalize is meaningless.
- He is good with STBFL.
- His stealth is REALLY bad. Only really bad Survivors will EVER be surprised by him. He gives not one, not two, but THREE warning signs that he's near. Map wide notification that he is using a Portal, Portal glows and his stomping.
- He isn't map dependent. That is true.
Demo needs a total redesign. Not only is he mediocre at best, but he is boring to play. He could've been so interesting, he does so much in ST. Have him able to pull Survivors into the Upside-Down. Have his Portals expand to corrupt the surrounding area. Let him pull generators into the Upside-Down. Do something to make him unique.
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I dont know. He's got a bit of everything, some mobility and some pallet options that aren't just: follow the survivor around 2 times till they throw down the pallet.
He's a good mid tier ( at the lowest imo) killer, but you aren't going to automatically win just because you picked him like with some other killers.
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If you miss the shred, you can misplace yourself terribly to continue the chase.
He has to take time setting up his portals. Even if you set up as you go, you're constantly running down the clock placing portals, especially if the survivors are clearing them.
He's loud as #########. Survivors will hear you coming from a mile away, even if you're stealthed. They'll also know you're chasing someone else and can safely focus on gens/totems/portals.
There's so much time wasting in his kit that he just completely ######### over himself if the survivors are any decent with their rotations.
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Well said, I agree with all of that. Only other thing I have to add to the conversation - in the most recent bunch of stats released for red rank kill rates, if we ignore Nurse and Blight since they're much harder to handle, Plague and Demo are essentially tied for worst killer at red ranks by a pretty noticeable margin. Demo was 62.8% kill rate. Clown, for reference, was about 66.2%. Killer average was 68.2%. I don't think that the stats are the end all be all, but it's still telling that Demo was much lower than average there
I'm actually always surprised that more people don't think Demo is dogshit in his current state. He sounds great on paper but it just never seems to play out that well compared to other killers
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It mostly falls down to many that try him use portals very poorly.
It is of my opinion that Demo is incredibly strong when portals are used properly for pressure.
I’ve started to see a steep rise in rank 1 Demo’s in my survivor matches, and they’re pretty much unbeatable.
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Demogorgon's biggest issue is the fact that pretty much all of his actions create global feedback for survivors. They can easily tell what he's doing and where he might be which makes genrushing quite easy since you don't need to fear him suddenly popping up behind you.
If they want to make him somewhat better, they need to do 2 things: get rid of the global noise (especially when he travels to another hole) and reduce the noise of his footsteps so that he can properly sneak up to survivors.
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Yes. I'm really not worried about kill rate. If a Killer is fun to play, I don't think Kill Rate matters too much.
I also forgot to add that his add-ons are awful. You NEED Rat Liver, but almost every other add-ons is bad.
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At his peak performance (and demo is not eaay to master) he's likely the most average killer in the game.
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I'm kinda maining demo atm mainly because he has a bunch of offerings but he is pretty weak in the portal and addon department. Shred is perfect, admittedly I'd like to shred over the badham gap but other than that it's good. His setup time and hiw easy portals can be destroyed for you to replace them across the map is pointless on huge maps might as well try protect 4 close together
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Nobody thinks he's weak. He's just not as good as he could be due to design choices. Mostly it comes from his addons, which for the most part, are incredibly bad. The fact that he broadcasts every action he's taking is another down side. Again, not weak, just average. Could be much better with tweaks.
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Demo sufferers from whyplaythemsymdrom.
Why play demo when you can play a far easier killer like freddy? Personally i think its down to preference demo isnt weak he's just not as consistent as other choices.
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I don't have a whole lot of practice on demo, I usually do win but every win is more of a struggle than some other killers. I work myself into a nice 3-gen and then it's constantly bouncing back and forth putting pressure on. Once I get STBFL I imagine that will help a great deal and I'll enjoy playing him more, but I really have to be on top of gen pressure with him.
I've learned though that portals are excellent for tracking stealthy survivors end-game trying to finish the last gens, I put them down more for the tracking than the teleporting.
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Stomp stomp stomp
Shriieeeeeek
above reason. Being used to the completly silent Legion i hate the amount of soundqueue's demo gives
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Killers like to complain about how weak killers are just as much as survivors like to complain about how OP killers are.
Demo is one of those flavor of the month things killers like to complain about. Clown is one of the perennial ones.
Both are viable killers and all killers are viable at rank 1. Depends on the skill of the player.
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he is effectively a worse hag :/ .
dont get me wrong, i still love him tho
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Viable and viable at rank 1 is a huge difference. Using one finger at armwrestling against a toddler is viable, too, and thats how rank 1 feels for me most of the time.
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Because they are weak.
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On paper he does seem amazing... but idk in practice he's not bad, he's just very slow at doing everything he needs to do.
And as others have said, he pretty much has a global notification for any action he takes lol.
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You know there's a problem when people find out its a Demogorgon and are excited to loop him. Demo is in need of some type of buff or rework or something. There's absolutely zero fear outta me if I'm up against a Demogorgon. Zero. If he finds me first at the start of the match I'm more than comfortable looping him for 4-5 gens because I know he has too much counterplay. I just know to stay away from long hallways or shack.
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i to am a demo doggo main and yes he has everything a killer could want and is fun to play but when he is compared to other killers he doesn't stand out at all
he is a jack of all trades but doesn't shine in any aspect. lots of people compare his kit to freddy who is also a jack of all trades but unlike demo he excels at all of them and the biggest factor is that freddy is easy as hell to learn and play at all ranks whilst demo has to sweat at high ranks.
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I just want to pet the angry puppy. Always trying to bite my head off.
I have faced a few red rank doggos and they are legitimately a force to be reckoned with. I think a good killer is just a good killer.
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I love Demo, and I agree that he is misunderstood a lot, but he is a killer that requires the player to play well with him to get solid results. Ignoring the lazy builds like STBFL, PGTW, Ruin? Rat Liver etc he can take a good 20+ games to properly work out, and then some more to work out what he can do that other killers can't etc etc
I'm gonna post my rework idea for Demo right now and you can see if you like the sound of what he could become
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If you ask me this is a plus, I hate add-on dependent Killers but its great if they depend on a brown add-on. I bought Demo like 2 days ago but I already have 25 Rat Livers, I'm sure they'll be easy to restock, too.
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"If you want someone with a ranged attack, why play Demo when you can play Deathslinger, Huntress or Freddy?"
😆
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Demo is just not that fun to play as. Demo is just a boring killer with no unique abilities. Demos shred has the smallest hit box and you wont hit a survivor unless you know theyre vaulting. And its like wow a killer who leaps far how exciting... his portals are ok but they are easily noticeable, can be easily destroyed, you make a loud noise when you travel, and if you want to travel to a portal but have no portals left you need to walk to another portal which can get time consuming. In all there are more interesting powers and viable killers and demo not one of them imo.
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It is nice that he doesn't need a Purple add-on, but, he sort of ends up like Wraith. He NEEDS that add-on to be any good.
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Had to toss that in there.
Freddy do be lookin like this sometimes
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I love running into Demigooglies. They're cute!
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Because he is weak and has no element of surprise. His noise that you can hear across the map is cool and all but it lets everyone know who you are at the start and if you are chasing someone or when you use a portal.
His shred is actually amazing, but it needs the rat liver as base to work effectively.
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Yeah but you can say that for every killer. The top 1% of players are always gonna be good at whatever they choose to play. Lol. Wraith is a trash killer but I've gone against some damn good Wraiths. Wraith was still worthy of some type of buff.
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Most people don't bother learning demo, I play demo very often and do very good every match.
"BUt yOur SuRviVOrs sUcK" yeah not at all, demo is the most balanced killer as of now, he is average at everything and is also the best user of stbfl.
"buT dEmO iS adDon DepEndAnT" also wrong, rat liver is amazing but it is very common, also is demo's strongest addon, been playing without addons for a decent long time, like 2 months except on wraith and trapper.
If more people put time into a killer then they will know but most just do 1 match do bad and call X thing trash.
Example: is me calling twins trash, now after a while I know that the way I played them was wrong, same goes for demo most people don't know how to play him.
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I have invested significant time into Demo. I have him P3 LVL 50 with all Perks. I've sunk at least 100 hours into him.
His biggest flaw is that not only is he mediocre at everything, he is BORING to play. The pick rate stats confirm this. Nobody plays Demo.
His Shred massively lowers FPS on Console and causes stuttering, so keep that in mind.
I'll list a rebuttal to your highlights on his Shred and Portals.
- His Shred can be EASILY baited. It's hitbox is also pretty funky. Despite its funkiness and easily baitable nature, it is very punishing. It is a 2.25 second stun PLUS the distance you lunged, at the bare minimum.
- His Portals can be destroyed. Portals are great in the early game when you don't have pressure and need to get places quickly. The problem is that you need to set them up. Set-up Killers are bad until they get set-up, making them strong lategame Killers. However, Demo is only gonna get a lot of value from his Portals during the early game, so that makes them redundant. Not saying they are useless, just that they seem counterintuitive.
Demogorgon is the least played Licensed Killer and almost the least played Killer overall. I suspect this is because he offers nothing unique and is painfully average. I understand the Devs have bigger priorities, but Demogorgon DOES need a rework, if only to get people interested in playing him.
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I guess because of the quality of demo's add ons, the base kit is very nice though.
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I'm currently typing out a response but I figured I'd give you the chart first.
Demo is the second least picked Killer, barely above Plague. He also has the 4th lowest Kill Rate, below Clown and Wraith.
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Difference between his and Freddy's teleport is though, Freddy's requires absolutely 0 set up time, can be faked, and can't be destroyed (although it gets more limited as gens get completed).
Demo's portal set up time is massive.
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If you'd look at any of my other posts, you would understand that I am not a "mediocre Killer." I am not here to argue my own merit as a player, I've had enough hate mail to be assured of my abilities, but if you'd like to come check out my stream sometime, go for it. Now, onto your actual points.
First of all, the pick rates do not lie. Kill Rates are subjective, because they can be inflated by Mori's, bad Survivors ect ect. However, for whatever reason, nobody wants to play Demo. He's a perfectly fine Killer, mediocre, but like you said, "balanced." That leads me to believe people find him boring and uninteresting.
Again, this comes to low Console FPS. Juking is much harder to counter on Console because of the low frames, which gives the Killer less information and therefore, less time to react to said juke. Shred lowers the already abysmal FPS whenever it is charged, so in most cases, you are ONLY using it to bait Survivors. At least on Console, they know you aren't ever going to use Shred because it's way too risky. Sure, you can use it to eat pallets, but good Survivors won't drop pallets that early anyway.
His Portals can ONLY be used for gen protection. Ambushing with Demogorgon doesn't work, as we've seen time and time again. Like my original comment said, he gives THREE warnings to Survivors that he is coming. Map-wide notification, glowing Portal and loud stomping. Again, Demo suffers from the same set-up problems that Trapper and Hag do, but his Portals LOSE value the further into the match you progress, unlike those two Killers, whose traps gain value.
Frankly, when you say someone is bad, and use that as an argument, it makes me think you are running out of legitimate counters. Of course, I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it and were only trying to help :)
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He's just okay. His addons are so-so with rat liver being mandatory and his ultra rares being complete garbage. He's loud as all hell though making stealth builds kind of impossible, global sound queues because survivors REALLY have to know that you're breaking a pallet across the map for some reason and while it took me years to find out but apparently survivors get global aura reading on active portals whenever one of them gets discovered so it's like huh? Quite literally everything about demo is telegraphed and makes sure to hold the hands of survivors at every step of the way and it kinda kills the enjoyment playing as him sometimes because half decent survivors will know what you're doing at all times and play accordingly to it.
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A Killer's time is 4 times more valuable than a Survivors.
Therefore, that one second channel and a 5 second walk is equivalent to about 24 seconds of time spent to set up ONE Portal.
It takes one Survivor 12 seconds to cleanse a Portal. 24 seconds is way longer than 12, ergo, not worth it.
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If you want actual map coverage, it's not a small walk lol.
Also I do run Corrupt on him, I like playing Demo a lot. Doesn't mean you can't point out his flaws.
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Devs have stated the KILL RATES shouldn't be taken at face value, because there are so many variables. Those stats are the average Killer players over a certain period of time. That cannot possibly be misconstrued. Agreed, there may be slight fluctuation, but Demo is easily one of the least popular Killers, no matter what way you slice it.
I can literally link you at LEAST 5 posts talking about awful Console FPS whenever abilities are activated. I can send you videos of it. Legion's Frenzy, Demo's Shred, Blight's Rush, Nurse's Blinks, BloodLust ect ect.
If you can ambush Survivors, either they don't care or they aren't good. Good Survivors are NOT taken by surprise when the game gives them 3 warnings.
I do not have Demo games on my Stream, as I stopped playing with him about a month ago. I can give you some funny Legion games where everyone DC's tho.
I think more than likely, you are above average at Demo and are going against bad Survivors.
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Like I said, your time as a Killer is 4 times more valuable than a Survivors, since there are 4 of them. Watch Scott Jund's video on PGTW. He explains it better than I can.
If you spend 10 seconds walking somewhere, and Survivors are working on gens, that is at LEAST 40 seconds of gen progression. Hence, your time is 4 times more valuable.
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Genuinely don't understand how you think setting up portals around the map is fast lol. Demo's map mobility has the potential to be great, but its huge set up time - and then activation time - is undeniable, followed by survivors then being able to destroy them.
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he is good only if you know practically every time when you can shred even at like max distance when a survivor goes between objects and during loops to force the pallet break or they get hit or you even hit them before they get to the pallet.
the thing is if you are not a god at his shred ability or even worse you just spam it and miss a lot he is pretty bad otherwise i think he is a solid killer.
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because demo when you are good and know when your shred will hit forces pallets to be thrown down, if a demo went for a shred and missed because you already made it past the pallet that demo wasted time and good demos know when shreds wont miss.
this makes it so he creates dead zones fast and since his shred is fast enough to hit you on reaction when around 8 meters away you can't use windows if he gets too close which makes him good at zoning, really good demos can zone a pallet at max distance go for the shred and even if it misses they will hit you proving that they either body blocked or have recovery addons (which are bugged atm).
edit: i do think his stealth needs a buff and his footsteps should be a lot quieter and obviously his addons need to be changed since most are useless.
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I've been playing demo for awhile now and still find him to be competitive at Red Ranks. A good demo player understands when to shred and when to M1. Placing your portals at extreme ends of the map will allow you to traverse the map quickly.
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I think it's because the Demogorgon requires more skill than most killers: Shred is quite punishing if misused and his portals are not like Freddy's teleport, they must be placed cleverly to be off-path and hidden. In good hands though the Demogorgon is quite powerful.
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Most people know he is dogshit. I do play Demogorgon on rotations at red ranks but you can clearly see his playrate is some of the worst in the game. Its not even that he is that technical given that he moves at 115% like all normal killers but his powers are very lackluster.
In response to OP post
- His shred is mediocre and often does not end chases faster than other M1 killers would
- The portals require setup time akin to trapper which negate advantage of being able to move around the map(The mobility is weak)
- The ability to use STBFL is not much of asset. Billy can use STBFL and negate the losing stacks by hitting survivors with a chainsaw as can many other killers(Leatherface, Pig) and killers with pseudo ways to damage mutiple health states such as Plague,Myers,Legion,Deathslinger and Oni can also conserve stacks. The ability to preserve stacks does not change effectiveness of a killer.
- His stealth is garbage as he has super loud footsteps and consistent global sound cues that consistently feed survivor information of his position on the map.
- He has 3 usable add-ons(Rat liver ->Shred build and Upside Down Resin+Thorny Vines -> Portal build) and every other add-on is garbage.
Overall, the power is just unrewarding to use. Even at his best, where he has a portal on every generator that grants him killer instinct and Oblivious status effect, Survivors without add-ons are easily able to remove his portals faster than he can replace & activate them and these effects are not really impactful in grand scheme. The shred at its best will punish greedy survivors at loops and at its worst will break pallets very slowly.
I think 3 changes that would be a start into making him get played more would be:
- Longer time to break portals and removal of global sound cue that notifies survivors when he teleports, Lower volume on footsteps
- Faster Wind-up when entering his portals and faster movement speed while traveling in them.
- Rework add-ons to have more impactful effects that increase potency of shred or potency of portals.
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You made an excellent argument. Those are some real interesting ideas would love to see taking survivors to the upside down to a more favourable hook. I don't think stealth should have ever been put in the kit it's too conflicting with his very loud ambience.
I do think he is underestimated but I can understand why people don't want to pick a killer that is fairly difficult but not as rewarding as others. Hopefully a buff can be made to him and I hope it's to do with the portals being more practical as well as some better add-on options.
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