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From Surv. Perspective, the laceration decay provides more than enough meaningful counterplay
and the notion that Trickster is OP and uncounterable comes from parroting content creators and the majority opinion that's based off overreactions from PTB and clips and videos that show Trickster dominating bad players who fail to counterplay him.
Trickster has never felt easier to play against for me, and that's simply due to how easily abusable the laceration decay is. Hear trickster from 32-40 meters away? Time to hold W. Starts poking me with knives? Break LOS as much as I can. He makes distance and puts a bunch of knives in me at a loop? Drop pallet, and just spend a few seconds looping to start decaying his knives. Meanwhile, if my teammates are not completely braindead, they're getting the objective done while he applies 20 knives to me that have all withered away. The only time he feels TRULY, TRULY oppressive is in a deadzone, but nobody has ever had a problem with Huntress being just as extremely lethal in a deadzone as he is (or any other killer with an instadown or low cooldown ability for that matter).
The comparison to old Legion is mind-boggling to me, because the main issue with old Legion was that you were going down no matter how good you were, as his power didn't have a limit (Ammo), didn't have a way to avoid (LOS breaking and W holding), didn't have a penalty for missing (Less ammo - 44 knives btw - + More time to break LOS and start decaying) and didn't have a way to undo (Laceration decay).
The funniest part about this whole thing is how much I see people want to REMOVE Laceration Decay and force survivors to pluck out knives, making him more like old Legion than any other killer. The only way I see this making sense is because Scott popularized this suggestion, and it's just been parroted since despite it giving Trickster less counterplay.
I ask you to please play against him with a more open mind and attempt to try new strategies against him and force the decay, because there is nothing quite like it when it comes to really punishing him and wasting loads of his time. Make more initial distance than you usually would, focus on always turning every sharp corner you can (given it won't lead you into a deadzone or position unfavorable to you) to break LOS, and be less scared of using your resources to make it more difficult for him to land knives in chase, and potentially force him to break a pallet, giving you more that enough time to decay every laceration bar.
Comments
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Trickster isn't an OP killer on the whole, he's just OP in the 1v1 scenario relative to how much skill he takes to play. Most people also consider him extremely boring to play against.
Your initial description of counterplay is completely correct, but is that really fun and interactive? The #1 reason why people find survivor fun is the 1v1 scenario; the challenge; the ability to outplay your opponent in an exciting chase. If holding W and breaking LOS is the only viable counterplay to a killer, then there's something seriously wrong. There's no skill or fun in that for the survivor.
And when you're not able to gain this much distance, you're oppressed in a chase that often negates your skill as a survivor. There are a lot of scenarios against Trickster where you could have 100 hours, 1,000 hours or 10,000 hours and things would barely change, because there's no opportunity to use your skill. Like you said, deadzones are obviously going to be lethal, but even tiles that would usually be pretty strong for a survivor are often unplayable due to their open nature and how easy it is for a Trickster play to get free hits without having to use much skill.
Huntress on the other hand, takes a lot more skill to play effectively. You can't just bring up your hatchet whenever you feel like it, you need to be very methodical with your timing, movement and aim. If you miss your hatchet, you're punished more than people think. This is why people like versing Huntress; you have a brilliant opportunity to use your skills in movement and prediction, meaning the better player will more often come out on top in a chase. This is not so common with Trickster, and the same problem applies to Deathslinger too.
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I don’t think I’ve heard anyone call Trickster OP. Most of the criticism seems to boil down to making him either extremely easy to run around (e.g. a high wall loop or a map like Lery’s), or a killer that can down you in 5 seconds if you get unlucky RNG or he runs certain add ons.
Which doesn’t seem particularly enjoyable for either side, does it? Either the killer gets completely stomped by RNG or the survivor gets completely stomped by RNG. Ability is sort of irrelevant. It’s not so much counterplay as it is counterluck. The luckier player wins, which doesn’t seem like a very fun power for this game.
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Even when the comparisons to old Legion are unjustified as you've said, he's nowhere near as broken as old Legion way, trickster is still not really well designed with all the other ranged killers we had already.
He's a mix of other ranged killers who is overall easier to play at average level and less punishing with mistakes in aim. I still think he lacks personality and need further changes, not buffs or nerfs but actual mini-rework to make him more unique. Mainly, less focus on the 1v1, more on 1v4 (we have slinger for 1v1 ranged domination who does it in far healither way).
The recent changes buffed him where he was strong already and made him even more snowbally in those scenarios and nerfed him even further where he was weak already too, making him struggle there even more. Not good changes imo, lazy ones I'd say.
What should imo happen is to changes his knifes to focus more on often getting main event and using it for power bursts (more in line of Oni's or Michael's gamepaly) while also adding a new mechanic of "removing knifes" for survivors that would replace the laceration decay while either making him 115% and significantly increasing the number of knifes required for single damage (even like 12 knifes for 1 hit) or just raising it sligtly and keeping himat 110%.
Among many other changes such rework would need ofc.
I just don't think the way he was handeled was the proper way to go around him. He is kind of fine design wise but I just wish he was more unique insted of beiing semi-huntress. A power burst ranged killer with stall mechanics would be so much more cool imo then what he is now.
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Hmm, I see what you're saying, but what killer does this not apply to? A good part of DBD is RNG and luck, and bad loops/deadzones spawning will favor every killer, some more than most (Trickster, Huntress, Billy, Bubba, Plague, Legion, Myers, Oni, Nemesis, etc - I could make the same argument for all of these killers). I'd argue that's a general DBD inconsistency issue, not a Trickster issue.
For example, Coal Tower can be perfectly balanced, or have a bunch of connected tiles, a billion filler pallets, and extremely strong loops that are favorable to survivor, or full of deadzones and weak tiles. This affects every killer in the game.
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Your initial description of counterplay is completely correct, but is that really fun and interactive? The #1 reason why people find survivor fun is the 1v1 scenario; the challenge; the ability to outplay your opponent in an exciting chase. If holding W and breaking LOS is the only viable counterplay to a killer, then there's something seriously wrong. There's no skill or fun in that for the survivor.
This is where I don't relate, to be honest. Though subjective, I personally don't think that killer powers, with the exception of Blight, have been fun to play against in a 1v1 scenario for a long time, and so I don't really play Survivor just to outplay killers in 1v1s anymore as I used to. The fun of survivor, for me, is using different builds that syngerize and benefit myself and my team in different ways (seriously, I love perk builds), using different items, knowing that I'm benefitting my whole team for the 4v1 and not just the 1v1, and of course, the 1v1 itself BUT how it also affects the 4v1. Either way, I'd argue that making distance and breaking LOS against a ranged killer makes perfect sense, actually. I also don't believe his close-range 1v1 is as oppressive and overpowering as you're proposing, given you're not playing in a very bad, short wall filler pallet that every other ranged killer is also insane in.
Knowing that I can decay all the damage that Trickster has done to me by making him miss shots and lose LOS is satisfying to me personally. It feels as if I've evaded the police, and I enjoy that. This is entirely subjective, and where players' opinions about certain killers will differ.
but even tiles that would usually be pretty strong for a survivor are often unplayable due to their open nature and how easy it is for a Trickster play to get free hits without having to use much skill.
Which ones?
There are a lot of scenarios against Trickster where you could have 100 hours, 1,000 hours or 10,000 hours and things would barely change, because there's no opportunity to use your skill
Which scenarios?
This is why people like versing Huntress; you have a brilliant opportunity to use your skills in movement and prediction, meaning the better player will more often come out on top in a chase.
The issue is, the distance making, LOS breaking, and predropping meta is just as effective against her as it is against any killer. The survivor can always come out on top if they WANT to, and the only thing holding them back is a desire for a more interactive 1v1, and the team not doing their objective as they should be, making a good chase that uses a lot of resources effectively meaningless. Not playing in the most effective way is what gives Huntress a chance, and the same can be said for Trickster, from my experience against both.
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Anyone comparing trickster to old legion is out of their mind.
Old Legions power was running in a straight line after the survivor but faster into hitting them waiting for the cooldown and doing it again untill they were down
With tricker he still needs to hit you with knives and you avoid long enough all his progress goes away.
Old Legion you could get hit twice, stun him twice out of his power and still be only 2 hits away from being downed.
The only time trickster is really opressive in chase is on Low wall loops. And yet you still have players trying to loop him there.
Just keep in mind where his weak tiles are and run straight to them. Don't bother with low loops and just run in a serpentine motion to the strong spots using the speed boost when trickster injures you.
Trickster is only opressive to people who learned how to loop a standert m1 killer and refuse to learn anything else and expect it to work on all and every killer
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You’re right, but it’s even more pronounced on Trickster. It’s RNG dialled up to 11.
A Huntress player will do better or worse depending on map and tile spawns, but there is also a lot of skill and ability that can be expressed by both sides. A bad survivor against a good Huntress will last 10 seconds in a chase, even if they get good RNG, but a good survivor against a good Huntress can go a ton of different ways. Both sides can try to mind game each other and use fake outs, you can dodge hatchets, you can predict how your opponent will play and try to play around that.
Trickster doesn’t really have any of that because either he can see you to throw knives at you, in which case you’re going down fast whatever you do because good luck dodging 44 knives lol, or he can’t throw enough knives at you due to laceration decay, in which case he absolutely has to chase you as a 110% killer and can’t use his power at all. If a Trickster mind games a survivor at a high wall loop and hits them with a knife it means absolutely nothing because it’s just one knife and by the time you can land a second the first has already ceased to have any effect. If a Huntress mind games a survivor at a high wall loop and hits them with a hatchet they’re now injured.
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Yeah everytime i see one of those videos with people dominating as trickster, it's allways default skins and in a deadzone. What makes me wonder, bubba in this situation would've been even better, and he is 115 and doesn't have to reload or rely on ultimate hability.
If you hear the Trickster lullaby (40m) and you are in a deadzone just press W and go to high walls loop. That's it.
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First of all, I actually 100% agree with you that killer powers haven't been fun to play against in the 1v1 scenario for a while (with the expection of Blight). I have similar issues with the design of Deathslinger, Twins and even PH to a small extent.
Perks
I suppose a lot of this is very subjective, but I personally really don't care much about perk builds. I mean obviously I enjoy running certain perks, but at the end of the day, what makes me satisfied in an average public match is competing in a challenge; who can make the best play, who has the best mindgames, the best movement etc... Naturally perks do assist in this, but it's not my #1 priority. There are exceptions; for example; I love watching competitive play and have done for a long time now, and a lot of comp play is down to teamwork, the 4v1 and effective perk usage, but for your average public match of DBD, perks aren't a big thing for me as survivor.
Evading the killer, LOS
For me personally, the idea of "evading" the killer and breaking LOS is not what I find fun. I can see how people would have different opinions to me on this, and I fully accept that, but it's just not really my thing. I want my chases to be very active and competitive; I want both sides to always feel involved in such a way that both players are able to use their skill in the game as much as realistically possible. In most cases, you just don't get that with killers where the main counter is holding W and breaking LOS. There are only really two exceptions to this for me, and that's Huntress and Nurse. Huntress, I feel is an exception, because there's counterplay to her both from long distance (LOS) and short distance (you have the ability to effectively use structures and tiles to your advantage, since she has a wind-up time and is punished for missing hatchets). Nurse is also an exception, since you cannot pull the same mindgame repeatedly. You have to mix up your gameplay and make constant predictions, so simply holding W isn't a consist counter. Both sides need to use a lot of skill to counter each other effectively.
Which tiles are unplayable against Trickster?
Pretty much any open or semi-open loop or area where the killer has good moments of LOS no matter how well you play them. Most of the maps in this game simply aren't designed for a killer like Trickster. The reason why they usually work with Huntress, is because of the wind-up time of hatchets (which good survivors can counter by learning timings), the hatchet hitbox with objects in the map (which the survivor can use to their advantage) and the punishment she gets from missing. Against Trickster, this is not the case. Even at a tile as strong as shack, it's been proven that Trickster is practically guaranteed a hit (as in an injure or down) no matter how the survivor plays, and that includes simply looping around the outside instead of running inside and getting projectile hits at the window or pallet.
In which scenarios is skill negated?
Essentially any scenarios such as the above where there is no way to regularly block LOS (or prevent knife hits) during a chase.
Also at pallets. If you drop the pallet, they just respect it and get free hits on you. If you greed it, even if they initially respect it, they can often still get free knife hits on you as you continue around the loop. Huntress can do this, sure, but not to the same extent. It essentially turns into a dice roll.
Conclusion
I fully agree with your counterplays, they work, but I don't see them as fun for either side. I personally believe a lot of recent killers like Trickster have taken the fun away from playing survivor. Don't get me wrong, none of them are overpowered, they're just dull and lessen the element of skill in chase.
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