http://dbd.game/killswitch
My Thoughts On Sadako Thus Far...
I've played 16 games with her today and feel like I'm starting to get a grasp on her.
TLDR: She's extremely cool in theory, but needs some more love and doesn't play how you'd hope she'd play. She brings approximately nothing to the table that other killers don't do, and better - making her feel like a huge step back in terms of design.
The Good
- Her visuals are striking and very different.
- Her audio design is stellar overall.
- Her tiny size makes certain loops a bit easier to mindgame.
- I frigging love her mori.
- One decent perk.
- TVs (when they work correctly, more about this soon) allow her a good amount of on-demand traversal.
- Her premium skin may be my favorite skin ever added to the game. Finally a skin that makes a killer look scary without making them stick out like a sore thumb!
- Her addons are mostly decent, way more interesting than Artist's - except for the completely useless Oblivious one.
The Bad
- TV spawning logic is all over the place. Indoor maps can have TVs spawn in the middle of nowhere on the second floor above a gen on the first floor with no way to access it easily, and I've had one game on RPD where all but one of the TVs were in a completely useless position.
- Her stealth is...cool, but sort of useless. It's impossible to tell where your phasing 'image' is going to pop up, making it unreliable for mindgaming, and on approach, once I'm within visibility survivor behavior seems to be almost indistinguishable from their behavior if I just approach manifested.
- It feels like far too much of her kit has been shunted into brown and yellow addons. Not since pre-rework Pig and Demo have I had a killer where it feels like I have mandatory addons (well Doctor, but Doctor is Doctor).
- Condemn feels like an afterthought. People already seem to be completely ignoring it, and even so - I've managed to max out exactly 2 people in 12 games despite trying to do so. It wasn't difficult for them just to elude me until they were able to drop stacks. The KI notification is pretty brief.
- A lack of any sort of reliable anti-loop tool immediately makes her extremely mediocre. If you get sent to Eyrie, Ormond, Swamp or worst of all, the newly buffed Badham (why?) you are going to get looped to pieces and teabagged all the way to the exit gates by any half decent survivor.
- Her size makes certain interactions really fiddly. Snuffing boons, for example, requires pixel perfect positioning, weird angles and feels...off on some locations.
- Something about her scoring feels wonky - even games where I kill 3 survivors don't seem to be awarding me enough points. No idea what's going on.
Suggestions
- Consider baking some of her addon power in baseline, particularly Watch and Hair. Right now, using these two makes her stealth feel 'right' - and it's never nice to have mandatory addons.
- Condemn feels like it needs to be more meaningful as a secondary objective. Right now, people just seem to mostly ignore TVs and tapes unless they are in a 3-4gen scenario and need to disable a specific TV.
- TV spawning logic should not put TVs on different floors to their gen.
- Perhaps adding a small speed boost after demanifesting would help her in loops?
- Why does she need a lullaby?
Comments
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"A lack of any sort of reliable anti-loop tool immediately makes her extremely mediocre. If you get sent to Eyrie, Ormond, Swamp or worst of all, the newly buffed Badham"
Her having no anti-loop is part of her, and its alright if a killer doesn't perform as well on certain maps than others.
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Watch and hair? Isn't it old newspaper and mothers mirror?
I feel like actually being invisible while approaching gens doesn't matter in a lot of cases since you can get all the way up to them from behind LOS blockers. They are also totally useless if you are just teleporting on top of a gen.
I am pretty sure newspaper and mirror actually help you mid-chase by hiding your red stain for longer.
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Definitely agree. A killer can't have zero chase power for both health states. Intermittent visibility is not a reliable chase tool. I generally hate "high MMR" arguments and obviously don't know mine, but there is definitely a steep and noticeable drop-off in Sadako's performance against better players. I don't think giving her something more in chase would change her all that much in lower level play, and it would give her a needed bump in higher levels.
Condemned still feels super undertuned. I've had survivor matches where I genuinely forgot about it and realized it as I was exiting the trial. As killer, I have yet to fully Condemn a survivor in 10 games and half of my tvs are on cooldown at any given time. She can't lack any and all chase ability and also lack lethality.
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I must disagree strongly with this. 'You may as well AFK if you get Badham' is not good design. And having a killer with no anti-loop these days without some sort of extremely strong other mechanic is basically saying 'this killer is intended to be bad'.
Why do you want a killer to be bad?
I forget which does which (currently loading in so can't check) but one makes the invisibility portion of the phase longer and one reduces her visibility radius.
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Pig, Legion, and Freddy are all are other killers with weak anti-loop where they have built in slow down that helps to make up the distance for their weak chase. Do you think that Onyro's chase ability is better than any of these killers? What about their slow-down? Does Onyro have better Slow down then Legions mending or Pig's head traps or Freddy's alarm clocks?
Freddy is the closest killer that I could compare to her, he has better mobility where he can teleport directly to generators rather than an RNG chance of getting near a generator. HIs stealth is comparable in the sense that he can't be seen from a distance and while in the dream world he has a lullaby, and he has snares, which Onyro has almost nothing in chase. If you try to manifest and demanifest at a loop that's extremely risky because you're slowing yourself down and you can only do that at loops that were always loops that could be mind gamed. Try that trick at shack or on one of the million safe pallets in the game.
Onyro is the weakest killer in DBD. She is worse than Freddy before his rework, she is worse than Wraith or Clown even before they got buffed. She is pathetically weak.
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One makes her not visible at a distance, the other makes her flicker longer while undetectable.
I would not pick those myself, they help her get the first hit which she is already good at.
The mirror and the newspaper help you get the second hit, which is where she struggles.
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condemn isn't meant to kill survivors its meant to slow people down by choosing to turn off tvs to prevent her map control. Idk why people in this community think killer powers like condemn and reverse bear traps should be killing people left and right for barely any effort
I'm having way too much fun playing as this killer to even warrant thinking about buffs for her
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I'm saying that they make her stealth feel 'right'. Without these two, there is maybe one or two situations every game where my stealth feels like it does anything.
They aren't crazy strong, which is why I'm suggesting to just bake them in.
I'm not saying that condemn should be 'killing survivors left and right for barely any effort' (if you are confident in your assertions, why strawman my position?).
I'm saying that as a slowdown/secondary objective tool, condemn feels like a lot of work on my side of things for a negligible effect. I've seen someone hit max condemn perhaps twice in 14 games, and that's with me actively doing my best to make it happen. I almost never see anyone bother with videotapes at all. It feels like a big part of her kit does...approximately nothing unless you are on maybe 1 or 2 specific maps (Game, Midwich).
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You need to go play some Ghostface then lol. If you get good at him you will get good at Onryo, since they approach gens the same way. Wraith is probably more similar but Ghostface has to actually get up to the gens undetected to use his power.
Or maybe change your build? Stealth killers excel with information perks. Then you can make the determination if it's worth the extra ~5-10 seconds taking a wonky route to a gen to get a free hit.
I was getting tons of hits at gens with her, and a decent amount of "free" jumpscare hits during floods of rage. I definitely stacked up on indoor map offerings during the leveling process since those will be her best item.
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Im glad you pointed out the TV issue, on some maps I get a TV spawn 8 meters from another TV yet there will be a massive area with no TV at another part of the map.
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When survivors realize that going into condemned is actually a big brain play, they'll start doing it on purpose and it will counter Onyro badly.
And what do I mean by that? I mean, the counter is that once you've been hooked twice. And there is at least one other survivor that's been hooked twice, you purposefully pick up the video tape and you use the video tape to turn off TVs near generators that have not yet been completed. When you are about to get condemned put the video in the required VCR to reduce your total and then immediately pick up a new tape, because when there's another survivor that is being chased that's injured and on death hook you will purposefully allow yourself to get condemned. Watch as the killer completely forgets about their target to try to tunnel you out of the game, but the difference is that you're full health and that person was not. The killer will also have to close the distance between you and them, which they will not be able to do because you've been shutting off all of their TVs.
I can't say this enough, this killer was designed in such a way that bad decisions appear to be good decisions. Her power is literal bait for survivors to use against her.
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It's not like she does well in any other maps, and the fact not having anti loop is part of her is what makes her mediocre, unless they go insane on everything else, which they didn't.
"condemn is meant to slow down people" when it doesn't even properly slow down anyone, unless they intentionally farm condemn for some reason.
Reverse bear trap and lament configuration is extremely more reliable, quick to deploy, and also takes time, unlike this one which takes extremely long time to stack up and also extremely quick to get rid of.
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For phasing your hands also phase in and out when you phase for survivors (baring latency)
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I play a fair amount of GF, and the two aren't even...remotely analogous. Ghostface has the ability to instadown, which means that you have a way to bypass getting looped, not to mention proper Undetectable status (the combination are what make him so interesting to play). And he's not even remotely a good killer - which is why he's getting a rework.
Yup, running a lot of info perks. She's fine in Midwich (but what killer isn't) and okay in Lery's. RPD is bad for her due to the fact that her TVs can spawn in bizarre, completely useless places. Open maps...she may as well be an M1 killer with a long cd teleport.
The killer she feels most analogous to is pre-rework Wraith. And that's not a good thing.
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Both of them are visible stealth killers who need to approach generators meticulously. So the way you move them around the map is very similar; moving LOS blocker to LOS blocker until you can finally get on top of the gen you were approaching. Assuming that's even possible at the gen anyways, there are some you should just give up on. The gen at the top of dead dawg saloon comes to mind.
I'm still saying Demo is better than Onryo. Double iri Demo is just soooo insane for the hit and run / ambush playstyles. And you can actually hide the portals and come from unexpected angles. His above-average chase power means you can easily follow up on the free first hits too. Legit I wonder if I should even continue putting points into her or just buy more Iri's / Black Wards on Demo.
I will have to see what creative things I can get up to with her addons. Iri videotape + fingernails seems like it would be good. The telephone might be good too, although I suspect the hindered amount is a pittance like 3% or something.
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Yes and no.
Demo is actually probably the most analogous killer to Onryo now that I think about it, and is lightyears better in literally every regard.
- His undetectable is better (why does she need a lullaby?).
- His addons are better.
- He has a decent anti-loop tool.
- His traversal is better, due to it's shorter cooldown and control.
If you contrast her with GF:
- His undetectable is better (same reason).
- He has an instadown ability.
But okay - let's flip this around. What does Onryo bring to the table that other killers don't bring better?
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Instant teleports with independent cooldowns. That's about it.
I can't for sure say her addons are bad yet though. As I said, iri videotape seems really solid.
Well water means you can probably run most shorter loops with no red stain. Telephone would mean they are hindered during it too.
Remote Control + Mother's Comb could be pretty dirty, allowing you to identify and tunnel video carrying survivors.
Bloody fingernails I hear makes getting hits straight out of the TV much easier.
VCR would probably be super solid with dead mans switch, etc etc.
I would say once those are confirmed to be bad, then I will definitely say Demo is the king of teleporting killers.
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Those teleports seem instant, but are incredibly telegraphed and actually have a pretty long 'where is everything I can't see anything' moment. They also have an obscene cooldown and due to the bizarre spawn logic on TVs, may not put you anywhere near a gen.
Her addons aren't bad by any means, but Demos are much better - not only in terms of raw power, but in opening up completely different playstyles to him. A bunch of hers feel like stuff she needs basekit tbh.
But that's what I'm saying. She brings...nothing to the table. Which is why I'd say she's C tier at the highest. And a new killer being this bad is a huge step back, because most of the C and D tier killers are at least earmarked for a rework.
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Well we did just get Artist. And even if she is a total snoozefest to play she is probably A tier. I kinda wish an iconic licensed killer would be stronger than this though. She DOES bring good asthetics and music at least.
Her condemned mechanic is what is holding her back, for sure. Until someone finds a good way to cheese it (probably involving the iri videotape) it's basically a worthless addition to her kit that they can't make too much stronger without it being busted.
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'A tier' is where all killers should be, imho.
Artist is an example of good design. She's easy to understand, but has a nearly infinite skill cap. She's powerful without being broken.
Honestly, Condemn isn't the big issue with Sadako. It's that her stealth...sucks. She feels like she should be a sneaky jumpscare killer, but actually plays more like Pig.
And no killer deserves that.
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Sadako need rework.
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If a killer is weak then yeah they should be buffed but my point was that it's okay for a killer to have flaws. It helps add counterplay and makes the cast of killers diverse mechanically.
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