A Semi-In depth analysis to why The Masterminds power feels frustrating, clunky, and limited
- All numbers referencing killer powers taken from the Wiki
- There are many comparisons Of The Mastermind to Both The Nurse and The Blight in this post, the purpose of which is to Illuminate how, despite being much stronger killers, they often have Much Lower Cooldown/Charge up periods on their powers, and generally much more forgiving Gameplay when compared to Wesker, Whos power is worse in both chase and mobility than either killers, yet is marred with Longer Cooldown times and Charge up Periods.
- There is a lot of personal opinion in this post.
- - The Survivor hitboxes of The Masterminds power are too small (this had been acknowledged by the dev team and they are looking to increase them)
- - The environmental collision hitboxes feel inconsistent and too large (In my opinion) For a killer whos power consists of two dashes with no turning or course correction capability
- - The Mastermind's infection mechanic feels too forgiving, with an Abundance of first aid sprays on the map *In addition* to decreasing by half when hooked And taking almost two minutes (1 Minute and 40 seconds) to reach critical infection stage.
- - His Terror Radius is Un-necessarily large, presumably because his power inflicts an 8% hindered penalty, however, It takes a long time to reach critical infection state, and, as mentioned, the abundance of First aid sprays on the map make it trivial to cure, making the increased terror radius a strange design choice. I would mention The Masterminds "Mobility" While using his power here, except that it is objectively less than any other Mobility Killer Like Nurse, Blight, Or Hillbilly, and they all have the standard 32 meter terror radius, so I assume his mobility is the less likely factor in his terror radius being so large when compared to other killers.
- - His power cooldowns are Un-necessarily long, With his "Fatigue" state after using his power being three seconds long. Comparing him to other killers, with much more potent powers, Like Blight, who has a flat 2.5 second fatigue state after using his power, and Nurse, who has a 2 second fatigue state after blinking, 2.5 seconds after using two blinks, or 3 seconds after Three blinks, I think its very odd for The mastermind to have such a punishing fatigue state despite his power being objectively worse in chase And mobility then either blight or nurse, both of whom have much more potent powers And shorter cooldowns.
- - The masterminds Cooldown after Vaulting is 1.5 Seconds, this might not sound too bad, however, a normal killer vault is 1.7 seconds. This means you save a whopping 0.2 seconds on a vault when using his power, which in my experience is often not enough to make any difference in a chase. It looks cool to do, but its very much form over function. In fact, just using bamboozle and basic vaulting will allow you to vault a window Faster than using The Masterminds Power vault. A Vault with bamboozle 1.44 Seconds Long, which means The Masterminds Power vault is Less than 15% faster, which is very, very underwhelming and unfortunately, is often borderline, if not entirely, useless.
- - Using his power at most loops and tiles is just not possible. Loops and tiles have too many turns and corners to make any use out of his power whatsoever, as he can only dash in a straight line, twice before he is forced to enter a cooldown state. Tiles where you May be able to Use his power are often marred by terrain collision, which completely stops him in his tracks and forces him into his cooldown state. Vaulting anything with his power takes too long to confirm any hit or damage, aside from a few specific "God Pallets" on maps like RPD or Lerys, forcing the Killer player to often just break the pallet and continue the chase from there. This may not seem like a problem, but at that point why play Wesker? Any killer can break a pallet, what sets Wesker apart? You can vault the pallet till the cows come home, but why would you if breaking it is more efficient? At that point what is Wesker doing that another killer cant?
- -Wesker is forced to use his second token on his power within a specific time frame, or else he is forced into his cooldown state. This feels like an odd design choice because again, His power cant go through terrain like Nurse, and he cant bounce off of walls or course correct like Blight, so being forced to use your power within a specific time frame or be punished with a cooldown just feels silly, considering how Precise you have to be with it; You need time to aim it, but you're forced to make the calculations within 2 seconds, as that's how long his chain bound window is. It leaves no window for mind gaming or baiting, and then you have to go through a 3 second cooldown, which is again, Longer than both Blight and Nurse, Despite their powers being Stronger.
- -Wesker's power takes too long to regain tokens. Blight regains tokens at 2 seconds per token, which takes 10 seconds for completely refill his power. Nurse takes 3 seconds to recharge a blink, which means it only takes 6 seconds to fully recharge her power, 9 if she is using triple blink. In contrast, Wesker takes 6 Seconds Per token, leading to a 12 Second Recharge period to fully replenish his power, Once again, More than Blight and Vastly more than Nurse, who are considered the two Best killers in the game at large.
- -The Period of time it takes for Wesker to charge his Virulent bound is too long, at 1.5 seconds, this is only .5 seconds faster than Nurse, who can go through terrain with her power. Again, Wesker cant do any form of course correction or phase through terrain at all, so the long charge period seems silly.
- -Wesker's move speed during his chain bound window, is far, far too slow to make any post dash adjustments in preparation to line up another dash when playing around any kind of structure, be it a short half wall, a table, a couch, etc.
- -Wesker's move speed while charging his power is also quite slow, at 92%. This combined with his long charge up makes using his power around loops unreasonably tight at best, borderline impossible at worst. This is compounded by his movement speed during his chain bound window being excessively slow as well.
- - Far too often, his power just Doesn't Work. Weather he is just dropping survivors mid bound with no damage, not hitting vaulting survivors with his tentacle and instead simply slamming into the wall while doing no damage or performing a vault himself, not damaging survivors who are standing too close to a vaultable object as hes vaulting it, or slamming into a vault location and simply not vaulting it, his power often fails to have any effect whatsoever, leading to a frustrating experience and lengthy cooldown.
- - Any change in elevation whatsoever while using his power, weather it be trying to use it from the top of a hill on autohaven to accidently bounding over a pebble, will completely stop him, wasting a bound token and potentially triggering a cooldown.
Wesker is a killer who, in my opinion, needs a lot of work. This is understandable as, Wekser is a very unique killer in terms of power mechanics, The Developers really Picked up the Gauntlet with him and have clearly tried very hard to make a faithful rendition of him for the game, which is very, very respectable considering just how much has clearly gone into him as a character in the game. Understandably, they have a very tight schedule, releasing a new killer every 3 and a half months, on top of new tomes, events, cosmetics, balance changes, New games, etc.
For the most part, Wesker is all there, hes just very, very rough right now, and needs a considerable amount of Polish. That being said, I'm very thankful that hes in the game and has had such a faithful re-creation. I'm hoping That he gets the polish he deserves, as I think it would be very silly for them work so hard on him to only leave him Partly finished. It'd be like running a marathon and then calling it complete 75% of the way there, and leaving it at that, which is my biggest fear here because, As a Resident Evil Fan since I could basically Walk, I want Wesker to be Competitive, Fair, Balanced, and Fun.
Meow Meow
Comments
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From what I read so far (and it's too long to read whole in 1 sitting). All you need to do to fix blight&nurse is to give them longer cooldowns. Sure. Let's do that. Agreed.
In the meantime... Why do you compare killer to most broken killers in game? I could do the same in reverse and compare his strength to sadako - showing how OP Wesker is. Do not create yet another nurse please. We need to do something with current nurse - not make more of that stuff.
But there is 1 thing I agree with you. Wesker should have bigger survivor hitbox.
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Wesker and Sadako are actually more comparable than you might initially think
- - Both are lack luster "hybrid" Killers that do things other killers do, but much worse (Sadako teleports to fixed positions which can be disabled by survivors and has a "Stealth" Mode that for some reason includes a lullaby, Akin to Demogorgon's Teleport And Wraiths Invisibility, respectively. Wesker Dashes and can vault things like Blight and Legion) and have a poorly Implemented/Far too forgiving "Slowdown" Mechanic built into their power, Condemned on Sadako and Uroboros Infection on Wesker. In fact, in my opinion Wesker is closer to Sadako in terms of Strength than to Nurse and Blight, which he is leagues away from.
- -I stated why I used Blight and Nurse as comparisons to Wesker at the top of the post, before the actual main topic body
- - Just because Nurse and Blight are Strong Doesn't mean Other Strong killers don't have a place in the game. Are Nurse and Blight too strong? That's a matter of debate, but other killers don't need to be frustratingly weak in comparison just because Nurse and Blight happen to exist.
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Wesker just needs a bigger hitbox and his bugs fixed and he is fine.
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Very well thought out. Devs can see what you wrote and can judge if its worth addressing or not, since you posted it here. I agree on every point. He's too punishing for what he does. Blight can do everything but better. He needs a lot of mini buffs. His power is pretty much useless until you're in the open or in a very tight corridor. His power fatigue is too long for what it does and since he cannot correct his pathing and there are environmental litter around most loops, you cannot even use his dash without getting snagged on something. He's just not worth playing when Blight is there for free.
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A good post. Thank you for pointing out important problems about Albert and not just his hitbox. Artificial limitation in a form of overtuned cool-downs and bad recharge time reduction system are his main problems. Without meaningful changes to his base kit he will remain a crippled killer with unrealized potential and will be called Weaker. I wrote about these changes in my post Reduce Wesker's cool-downs.
Wesker's move speed while charging his power is also quite slow, at 67.5%.
It is at 92% (3,68 m/s).
The Period of time it takes for Wesker to charge his Virulent bound is too long, at 1.5 seconds...
An add-on for faster charge time would be a nice option. I propose Leather Gloves add-on to have that effect instead of -10% to recharge time.
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Thank you! I do hope the devs take note and make some adjustments to him.
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Thank you! And thank you for the number correction, Ill update the post with the correct number!
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really well written post. Mandy said they're going adjust his hitbox. maybe they end up adjusting some aspects of his kit. all those variables/parameters are not well balanced. they're all higher then previously existing killers hence why his power is underwhelming.
sadako is underwhelming because they didn't want to balance her mori mechanic so it has same terrible variable balancing as wesker while dredge is meant to be hit & run stealth killer like wraith, so he's closer to ideal since no mori's.
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Thank you, I hope the devs read it and it helps them understand why people think The Mastermind is Frustrating and weak to play as.
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