What's the Problem with Trickster?

He’s has little punishment for missing and feels annoying to play against as survivor since your main counterplay is just high wall loops. It leads to 1 sided chases where either the survivor loops for ages or the survivor dies with no way to stop it

Yeah like slinger or nurse controller makes him much worse to a point where he feels essentially useless

I don't play him a ton, but one thing that's always bugged me a little about both Trickster and Huntress is the lack of any kind of crosshair. This is the only first person action game I can think of where you don't have some sort of indicator where you're currently aiming, it's a little annoying. I wish it had just a small dot or crosshair indicator.

He will end chases quickly IF survivors are that bad. As long as the survivors are decent, they'll stick to walls as much as possible which is his biggest weakness and currently the best way to hinder him.

A good survivor will only run in the open if they know the trickster mindgamed himself or occupied with something else.

I'd get better results just holding W and pressing M1 over throwing a million knives that will all miss because I suck at throwing knives. So when I play Trickster, I usually just go the M1 route unless there's a big empty space or something.

He has a 1v1 that’s either super oppressive at some loops and worthless at others and is too forgiving for mistakes miss 1 knife? Don’t worry you have dozens more. Which is really tragic considering being a performer he could have many potential abilities that are much stronger, skillful, and enjoyable to face.

Throwing knives can be difficult on console

His 1V1 is insane at bad loops (for survivors)... but 4V1 is a bit terrible (IMO)

Also he's addon reliant... again in my opinion

I don't really know. I love the idea of a celebrity killer who's drunk on his own fame and power, but I don't like the way they designed his power in-game - throwing knives feels like it was glued slapdash alongside that concept and I would have rather seen him built around a different power that focused on his music or his narcissism and glamor. And removing the knives means designing an entirely new power, so I can't really speculate.

I can't think of a way to fix how his power currently works as a magnification of the strengths and weaknesses of the other ranged killers without turning him into another Huntress clone. Some people have suggested basekit trick blades in accordance with actually working with the Trickster theme, but while that does improve the cool and clever things you can do with his power, it also decreases the list of tiles you can use for shelter, and that's kind of a problem when positioning is an absolute necessity in order to live against this guy. He's balanced on a razor's edge of being unstoppable or garbage depending on where you are, and when you can load into something like Rotten Fields or something like RPD, that's kind of a mess.

My biggest problem with "Dollar Store Dio Brando" was that despite his name being "The TRICKSTER": there is a lack of any real "TRICKS" with his power.

He's an Average height, 4.4 m/s speed, 24m TR, Ranged killer, of which only really one of these is of any real use (that being the height). His height helps with tall walls and structures giving some decent cover (TR and Stain not withstanding). Trying to land M1s is never really a good idea unless the chase started with less than 3 between the surv. Then we get to his power... knives. You need to throw 6 knives to deal 1 health state, with regression beginning after 15 seconds from the last blade landing. Not factoring in the slowdown from consecutive throwing: this ain't easy. So my problems are as follows (not factoring addons):

1- Landing enough knives requires minimal obstruction from the map, meaning large open spaces or long hallways with the occasional half-height loop. This is more of a map issue that extends to all range killers, but since you need more effort for TrickyBoi it feels a bit worse. 2- That 4.4 speed stat really hurts when you need to be somewhere fast, and if survs are smart enough to split up to other ends of large maps; well you'd better be efficient or else that'll be some serious progress lost. And should I mention that you're even slower when you have 0 knives? (I think this is a thing if I'm reading the power trivia right) 3- Your endgame activatable power: Main Event. It's nice that you keep throwing after hitting 0; but the fact that it lasts 10 seconds after needing 30 hits to prime AND has an activation window after priming is a joke. I do remember the window being expanded from I think 15 seconds, it'd be nicer to just hold it for when you need it. I can't begin to tell you how many times Main Event was ready to go but there was no one around or no clear line of sight.

So how would I fix this? Some tinkering and an overhaul. 1st is dropping the activation window for Main Event so that you can hold on it for when you need it most. 2nd would be giving a larger beginning pool of knives, 44 just feels too odd but 60 feels too much. So a good midway point I'd say is 50, since you might be using 10 knives on average per health state lost. 3rd would be to ditch the speed loss from having no knives because the only punishment a killer should have to deal with is from survs, not their own power. Now about that overhaul (which will be conveyed using keyboard controls as that's what I use, sorry controller users).

The Trickster would gain a secondary power that functions separately from knife throwing, and being a deceptive acrobat (because he's probably agile enough given his background). When you have 0 knives: you enter "Trickster Mode". Trickster Mode raises your speed to 4.6 but increases your TR to 32. Your M2 is now a "jumpdash" and has 3 total charges. While moving: you can press M2 to perform a jumpdash, which will propel you in whatever direction you are moving. Within the last few moments of a jumpdash: you can press M1 to finish out with an attack (not counted as a basic attack). There would be 1.8 second "landing" cooldown between jumpdashes, with it increasing to 3.6 seconds should you miss an attack. The distance would probably be the same as DH if not a little more with the speed of the jumpdash being about as much. Jumpdashing into a window will automatically vault it. Your alt power gets replaced with "Curtain Call". Curtain Call is charged by landing attacks while in Trickster Mode, needing a total of 10 to be primed. Holding CTRL for 3 seconds will activate Curtain Call for 20 seconds which: give you Undetectable, increases your movement speed to 4.8 m/s, grants unlimited jumpdashes, fast vaulting through windows with jumpdashes, and removing the landing cooldown and reducing the missed attack cooldown to 1.8 seconds. You can reload at lockers at any point while in Trickster Mode as normal which will save your Curtain Call progress for when you enter Trickster Mode again.

With all of this in mind, it's all still my thoughts and opinions. Some might disagree and some will probably think "you'd be giving Trickster too much", but I feel that all of this might make him more of a solid A and reduce his map dependency.

Camping, hallways, open stretches. He can deal damage faster than she can due to the lack of cooldown between throws and has team-killing ability she doesn't.

Around corners, though, he has only a fraction of her power.