Trickster: The ultimate feast or famine killer

Now that the trickster buff has been out for a few days, im sure were all very familiar with it, and i've developed some thoughts over the dedicated hours i've put into him before his buff, and after it. I've decided to share and catalogue some of that here, so we can start a discussion on how this affects the game and what this says about killer balance.

THE GOOD

Trickster has been majorly buffed in terms of his strengths. Tiles where he used to struggle he can now boldy stride through knowing that with skillful aim, the tile is a free down in wait. The lower knife count to down means that trickster no longer spends significant time looping around objects peppering survivors, this increase in his lethality makes him a lot more fun to play on tiles like shack.

Along with this lethality boost at tiles, trickster now massacres survivors out in the open. WIth proper aim, he can effectively take a full health survivor down in 3-4 seconds. Purely by existing, trickster pressures survivors away from open areas, an excellent passive (albeit very small) boost in your slowdown. Any survivors caught out in the open will learn this lesson the hard way.

Main event has also received some changes, being able to be held for upwards of 30 seconds before dissipating. This is excellent, as it allows trickster to potentially hold his main event through a down and hook state, and still have it avaliable for use on any survivors he sees during the remainder of its charge. The activation is also effectively instant, giving trickster a much larger window of error to line up and perform his main event. This actually allows main event to provide occasionally game changing plays, and gives trickster an interesting edge he can access on occasion.

Overall these changes provided some very enjoyable and complimentary additions to his kit that boosted his strengths, but of course like with any change in this game theres a lot of bad that came with it.

THE BAD

Mirroring his major increase in strength at a variety of loops, he has equally been crippled at several others. Long wall loops were already quite bad for him, but due to his large pool of knives he had a sizable margin to access a potential down. However, now with his crippled knife supply, trickster suffers immensely in these areas. Small misplays can result in him missing far too many knives, rendering him incapable of effectively downing the survivor at said loop, forcing him to either commit to being a 110% m1 killer or break off and reload. In no short words, this is not fun. The trickster will obviously be frustrated from the interaction, and the survivor is forced into a boring situation where the only aspect of the game they engage with has now broken off from them to reload.

Laceration decay. This pairs in a very ugly way with the previous point, trickster would not suffer as much at longwall loops if it were not for the very punishing laceration decay. in extended loops, passing the 10 second mark of not hitting a knife is quite common. This results in trickster needing to waste an exaggerated amount of knives just catching up on the laceration decay and knives missed. This is also incredibly unfun for the trickster player, as they are punished for playing the loop in what is essentially the best way they can. This is not fun game design, but in essence is a necessary evil to prevent tricksters significantly reduced laceration meter from getting out of hand.

Reloading. This issue seemingly only exists due to the previous two points, and causes an obscene amount of time wasted when playing the killer. Laceration decay, a lower knife count, these issues result in trickster wasting a very large amount of his knives during every match, which he must inevitably get back by reloading. This causes trickster to reload in a very large excess during every match. Even the best trickster players will feel this, theoretically the worst tricksters might get 1-2 injures from their full pool of knives. An average trickster will get 3-5, and the best could even get 7-8. However this is assuming every single knife is landed, with perfect accuracy, and you are never forced into a long wall where the laceration decay takes place. This causes the trickster to reload an upwards of 10-15 times during nearly every match, which an insane amount of time wasted and you'll really feel it.

THE UGLY

This all adds up to a very confusing series of changes that leave a lot of participants frustrated. Tricksters feast is the fact he is now undeniably extremely oppressive in a lot of scenarios, but not in a fun way like say, nurse. Getting rapid-fire downed because you made the mistake of being in the open for half a second is not fun and engaging game play, its exceptionally frustrating for the survivor on the receiving end who didn't really do anything wrong. His famine however is one of the most frustrating parts of his new design, where he is frequently punished for simply playing the game. A good example of this is the twins, who eat a full 5 second "stun" for every down they get as victor, essentially pushing them for playing the game. Trickster also eats a lot of additive time wasting, reloading, catching up on laceration decay, traversing the map at 110% speed, etc. This creates a generally incredibly frustrating dichotomy for all players involved when trickster is put into the equation. He has intense high notes, and very harsh low notes. Survivors can often be robbed of a significant portion of their skill, and the trickster can have a lot of his agency robbed from him by unnecessary time wasting mechanics. This creates matches that very rarely result in all parties leaving happy, oftentimes just causing a state of disappointment.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The trickster changes were necessary, but as i've listed here very much went in a lot of wrong directions. Its good to see BHVR recognize weaker killers who need a buff, however as many agree these buffs feel like the wrong direction to head in. Amplyifying his frustrations and his weaknesses, while overinflating his strengths, trickster has become a runner up for one of the next most hated killers in the game. Which makes me very sad to see. Anyways, im done here. Thank you for reading my inane ramblings up to this point, i hope this gives other forum users some stuff to think about.