For Resident Evil, My Last Nemesis Rework

Over the course of the past couple of months, I've been a rather harsh critic of the character design of Nemesis. I did and do still think that he is the single most uninspired and boring Killer to ever come into Dead by Daylight and that his power is utterly weak.

Now, I've talked about ideas of giving him a Rocket Launcher, mobility, a better attack, etc.

But now I've come up with something that I've had brewing for the past month now, and it's something I'm very proud to actually showcase. It's taking what we have about Nemesis now and flipping it on top of its head.

So, for the final time, I want to introduce to you, a Nemesis rework that would please everyone; Survivors, Killers, Dead by Daylight fans and Resident Evil fans alike.

Let's go.

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The Nemesis

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Power: T-Virus

You were engineered to be the culmination of years-long research into becoming the ultimate Bioweapon. Your adaptation to your foes gives you the edge in combat.

Special Attack: Tentacle Strike

Press and hold the Power button to charge an attack.

Once charged, tap the Attack button to unleash a Tentacle Strike.

Hitting a Survivor with a Tentacle Strike afflicts them with Contamination and increases your Mutation Rate.

If a Survivor is already Contaminated, a Tentacle Strike will damage them. It also will increase your Mutation Rate by a slightly higher amount than hitting a Zombie.

Contamination

Survivors who become Contaminated will suffer from the Hindered Status Effect within intervals of time.

There are three stages of Contamination, each afflicting the Survivors with more frequent spouts of coughing.

• Stage 1 Contamination: The Survivor is now prone to being Injured by Tentacle Strike. The Survivor will also cough and have the Hindered Status Effect for 1 second every 15 seconds, at -15% movement speed.
• Stage 2 Contamination: The Survivor will cough and have the Hindered Status Effect for 2 seconds every 14 seconds, at -20% movement speed.
• Stage 3 Contamination: The Survivor will cough and have the Hindered Status Effect for 3 seconds every 13 seconds, at -25% movement speed.

Survivors can cure their Contamination by using a Vaccine on themselves or on other Survivors. The rate at which a Vaccine is injected is affected by Perks, self-injection or altruistic injection.

Vaccines can be found in Supply Cases located throughout the environment, but their number is limited to 8 Supply Cases.

Mutation

When hitting a Survivor or a Zombie with Tentacle Strike, The Nemesis grows in power.

There are four stages of Mutation, with stages 2 through 4 affecting The Nemesis' Power in some capacity.

• Stage 1 Mutation
  • No Changes
• Stage 2 Mutation
  • Tentacle Strike range is increased to 6 meters.
  • Tentacle Strike now has the ability to destroy dropped Pallets and breakable Walls.
• Stage 3 Mutation
  • The Nemesis gains access to a new Special Attack known as Tentacle Scythe.
  • The Nemesis no longer needs to Contaminate Survivors to injure them with Tentacle Strike.
• Stage 4 Mutation
  • The Nemesis gains access to its final Special Attack known as Extermination.
  • Grants Nemesis a base movement speed increase of 5.2m/s while Extermination is active.
  • Unlocks a special Mori animation that The Nemesis can perform without a Mori offering, but will completely use up the Power in the process.

When Stage 4 Mutation is unlocked, The Nemesis will retain it for approximately 60 seconds or until the special attack is used up in full.

Afterward, it will revert back into Stage 3 Mutation.

Special Attack: Tentacle Scythe

Press and hold the Active ability button to charge an attack.

Once charged, tap the Attack button to unleash a Tentacle Scythe.

When Tentacle Scythe is used, The Nemesis plants the palm of its hand to the ground before causing tentacles to erupt from it toward all Survivors within a 24 meter range in front of him.

Using this attack will not Contaminate Survivors, but instead will deal 1 Health State of damage to them.

This attack has a brief start-up window (1 second) before the tentacles erupt from the ground, allowing Survivors to get away from the attack if they are observant enough.

Special Attack: Extermination

Press and hold the Power button to charge an attack.

Once charged, tap the Attack button to fire a Rocket.

The Rocket Launcher that Nemesis wields in Stage 4 Mutation has an active timer of 60 seconds. During this time, The Nemesis has access to 6 rockets that it can fire from the Rocket Launcher in succession.

The Rocket Launcher has quite a fair bit of charge time to it (3 seconds) and only fires rockets straight. Additionally, releasing the Rocket Launcher to reposition yourself takes some time (4 seconds).

Each rocket also has its own window of time before another one can be fired from the Rocket Launcher (3 seconds).

Survivors who are hit within an 8 meter radius of a rocket blast will be dealt 1 Health State of damage. This includes being hit with the impact of the Rocket Launcher.

When charging a rocket, The Nemesis' movement speed is severely reduced to 1.8m/s.

Rockets have the ability to destroy dropped Pallets or breakable Walls on direct impact.

Special Enemy: Zombies

T-Virus causes 2 Zombies to spawn and roam about the Trial Grounds.

When a Zombie attacks a Survivor, they inflict Contamination.

If a Survivor is already Contaminated, they receive damage.

Zombies can be destroyed with a Tentacle Strike to increase The Nemesis' Mutation Rate, doing so with a Basic Attack will not do so.

Power Trivia

Tentacle Strike

• Movement Speed when Charging: 3.8m/s
• Charge Time: 0.35 seconds
• Cooldown when Cancelled: 1.5 seconds
• Cooldown Movement Speed: 4.2m/s
• Attack Ranges:
  • Stage 1: 5 meters
  • Stage 2+: 6 meters
• Attack Open Time: 0.25 seconds
• Attack Hit Time: 0.333 seconds
• Attack Cooldown: 2.5 seconds

Mutation Rate

• Stage 2 Threshold: 6 Contamination Points
• Stage 3 Threshold: 12 Contamination Points
• Stage 4 Threshold: 15 Contamination Points
• Contamination Point System:
  • Hitting a Healthy Survivor: +3 Points
  • Hitting a Contaminated Survivor: +2 Points
  • Hitting a Zombie with Tentacle Strike: +1 Point
  • Hitting a Zombie any other way: No Points

Vaccines

• Self-Vaccination duration: 10 seconds
• Altruistic Vaccination duration: 7 seconds
• Supply Crate Opening Time: 4 seconds
• Supply Crate Closing Timer: 15 seconds
  • The timer refers to when a Supply Crate closes upon opening it without getting a Vaccine.
• Killer Instinct duration: 4 seconds

Zombies

• Movement Speed: 1m/s
• Detection Range: 14 meters
• Detection Limit: 20 meters
  • Detection limit refers to how far a Survivor must be to break line of sight with a Zombie.

Add-Ons for T-Virus

Visitor Wristband

• Moderately extends Zombie detection range.
• Slightly widens Zombie detection angle.

S.T.A.R.S. Field Combat Manual

• Slightly increases Mutation Rate when hitting Survivors with Tentacle Strike.

Damaged Syringe

• Moderately increases Vaccine injection time for Survivors.
• Survivors who self-vaccinate will suffer from the Oblivious Status Effect for 60 seconds.

Brian's Intestines

• Slightly increases Zombie movement speed.

Zombie Heart

• Moderately increases Mutation Rate when hitting a Zombie with Tentacle Strike.
• Moderately increases the detection range of Tentacle Scythe.

Mikhail's Eye

• Moderately increases Zombie movement speed.

Marvin's Blood

• Moderately increases Mutation Rate when hitting Survivors with Tentacle Strike.

Adrenaline Injector

• Moderately increases the active duration of Stage 4 Mutation.

Admin Wristband

• Considerably extends Zombie detection range.
• Slightly widens Zombie detection angle.

Tyrant Gore

• Considerably increases the detection range of Tentacle Scythe.
• Moderately reduces the start-up of Tentacle Scythe.

T-Virus Sample

• Considerably increases Mutation Rate when destroying Zombies with Tentacle Strike.
• Moderately increases Mutation Rate when hitting Survivors with Tentacle Strike.

Serotonin Injector

• Whenever a Zombie is destroyed, The Nemesis gains the Undetectable Status Effect for 15 seconds.
• Survivors will no longer be notified whenever The Nemesis goes into a higher Mutation Stage.

Plant 43 Vines

• Survivors who open Supply Cases will suffer from the Hindered Status Effect for 15 seconds.

Licker Tongue

• Moderately increases the range of Tentacle Strike.

NE-a Parasite

• Considerably increases the detection range of Tentacle Scythe.
• Grants Tentacle Scythe the ability to gain Mutation Rate.
• Grants Tentacle Scythe the ability to hit Zombies.

Destroyed Samurai Edge

• Moderately increases the threshold required to reach Stage 4 Mutation.
• Considerably increases the active duration of Stage 4 Mutation.
• Grants Nemesis 4 additional Rockets to fire while using Extermination.

Depleted Ink Ribbon

• Moderately increases Nemesis' movement speed while in Stage 4 Mutation.
• Moderately increases Zombie movement speed.
• When the last Generator is completed, any Zombie that is destroyed will respawn in front of the Exit Gate switches.

Broken Recovery Coin

• Increases the amount of Supply Cases in the Trial by 2.
• Whenever a Vaccine is applied to a Survivor, it will only get rid of two stages of Contamination.

Shattered S.T.A.R.S. Badge

• Tremendously increases the threshold required to reach Stage 4 Mutation.
• Considerably increases the charge time of the Rocket Launcher.
• Considerably reduces Nemesis' movement speed while in Stage 4 Mutation.
• Grants Nemesis infinite Rockets for the entire duration of Stage 4 Mutation.

Iridescent Umbrella Badge

• Tremendously increases the threshold required to reach Stage 4 Mutation.
• Tremendously increases Nemesis' movement speed while in Stage 4 Mutation.
• When reaching Stage 4 Mutation, you now gain an infinite amount of duration for it.
• Removes the ability to use Extermination, unless paired with Shattered S.T.A.R.S. Badge.

And this is it. A culmination and masterwork of what I wanted to come up with for The Nemesis. This takes into consideration basically everything that I've seen or heard about; what Survivors may feel versing this Killer, what Killers may feel while playing it, and what fans of the Resident Evil franchise would feel when first playing this monster.

You may notice that the Power has become a sort of amalgamation of other powers; you'll recognize some of them like Huntress, Plague, Oni, Myers, Pyramid Head, Legion, etc. You even see this in his add-ons, too.

This choice was deliberate.

The Nemesis is a Frankensteinian creation, a creation based on all that was before it, something that was made to adapt and use what it learns to its advantage.

What better way to adapt him than to actually turn him into a Killer that fits this sort of theme?

The character, despite being an amalgamation of all these different designs, still retains his own unique identity. He has his own unique skillset, his own unique toolkit and most importantly, he's his own unique Killer with unique advantages and disadvantages to using him.

This whole rework that I've been working on in concept would be a tremendous undertaking to ask the developers, and I don't blame them if they don't want to completely rework Nemesis on a fundamental level. But imagine for a moment that you see the day that this Nemesis arrives onto the PTB; all these new toys, new tools, new add-ons, all for Survivor and Killer players to really try and counter or utilize.

I've tried my damnedest to make sure to keep the integrity of the Killer intact by not giving him too much power in anything; even his Rocket Launcher was made to be overall balanced within the current state of the game.

So come on community, what do you say?

Could you live with this Nemesis? Would you be fine with him being in this game if he had all this?

(By the way, for anyone that will be curious; if you ran both Ultra Rare add-ons together, you'd need to obtain 30 Mutation Points for Stage 4 just to get Infinite Rocket Launcher Nemesis. Doesn't sound like a lot until you consider that every hit is 2 points after contaminating Survivors.)