In good faith, what truly is a powerful, balanced, and fun Killer?
A lot of posts critique many Killers as being boring, too powerful (oftentimes, too weak), and not fun (either to play as or against). So, truly, what original Killer ideas do you have that check off all of those boxes? How can the devs create multiple Killers that meet all of that criteria (in your opinion)? This is not an antagonistic and rhetorical post. It's a genuine question.
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these are self excluding.
fun to verse & strong killer is an oxymoron
strong & balanced killer is an oxymoron
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A powerful, balanced and fun killer is one that lets me 3-4k each game I play them, but let me escape (Just barely) when I play against them.
In all honesty it would be challenging. People's opinions are skewed so hard in this fandom
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A killer who is unhindered by communication and organization, has anti-loop specifically designed to focus on safe/god loops instead of short ones, and who has inherent design ideas that lean significantly into rewarding spreading pressure rather than focusing it. Playstyle variety as well, like having interesting addons that do more than just make x more efficient/less miserable. In the game's current state, I feel like those are the root of most people's issues with/against any particular killer.
Edit: Forgot to mention, they should also have mechanics that encourage interaction as much as possible, which could tie into the above point about rewarding playstyles.
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Not necessarily. Some of us like going against blight and nurse, we just don't like going against only blight and nurse.
outplaying someone who is strong or is supposed to win on paper and whatnot is plenty fun.
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I think Demopuppy is a truly well balanced killer. He has a decent chase power, map mobility and cuteness. Doctor is also another decent killer (though I feel he needs a little love since predropping pallets is easy).
The problem really isn’t how well balanced killers are, it’s how absurd maps are. It’s just tedious to chase someone from strong loop to strong loop to strong tile to yet another strong loop where they can see you regardless of you moonwalking and trying to mind game.
Killers wouldn’t need to be as strong as Nurse or Blight if maps were fair and survivors didn’t have the opportunity to loop M1 killers for 3 gens. There would be more variety in killers and Nurse and Blight power levels could be brought down if maps were rebalanced. They could also do away with camping if they made map layouts better and have killer players be able to spread out hooks. As things are now, against competent players (they don’t even have to be great), killers really can’t spread out the hooks and make for a fun game for everyone.
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Personally I feel blight checks all the criteria
Sure there are those annoying blight that exploit on him even though he clearly doesn't need it and some of his addons are absolutely broken and need to be nerfed into oblivion but other then that blight is fun to versus, and strong.
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Not necessarily. Spirit is all of that for me.
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Huntress and Artist i would consider balanced, strong and fun to play.
I would consider Twins balanced, strong and unfun to play.
I wouldnt even consider playing Hag.
I cant consider Spirit and Plague because i suck at them.
I would consider both Pig and Sad-ako both unbalanced, weak and fun to play.
I would consider Nurse as unbalanced, strong and incredibly fun to play.
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I think demo is the closest, it's power is good, but not crazy OP, requires skill. And most people seem to hold a fondness for it. I love playing as and against demo, shredding pallets is fun and puts pressure on survs in a chase, ambushing out of portals is also a lot of fun. And landing that fully charged shred is super satisfying.
Favourite play with demo, portaling to the exit gate, charging a shred while stealthed and launching myself at a michaela who was being healed inside the exit gate, practically sniped her with the shred, managed to hit her between 2 survs healing her and picked her up before she crawled out. Super satisfying hit.
A couple of it's add ons are a little too strong, using both iridescents makes games a bit easy unless survs are gen rushing hard.
And the few times I've played against it, it has been fun to verse, not knowing where demo will pop up next, trying to predict where portals are. And once saw a demo absolutely launch itself into orbit with a shred from the top of a set of stairs. Comedy gold.
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Spirit.
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Excluding blights first three add-ons, they will never come close to a killer that is that strong and has counterplay. If you don't like blight understandable, but really the best part about blight is that he negates w for both sides. While there are time's to w that's something you learn with experience, no other killer makes you play the tile until you either outplay him or he outplays you. Demo might be the perfect middle of the pack character with good counterplay and an all encompassing kit, he is not good enough to keep up with good survivors even if the demo's skill matches them. Although I really wish blight was free so all could play him at least a bit. In a lot of games it's way harder to learn how to play against a character without learning them yourselves(league, OW). Blight is the one character in this game with so much to his kit that you would never truly understand him without playing him. Most people learn through their friends, which is actually very obvious as a lot of swfs will all wiggle or do the same types of plays without ever having anything else to use when that fails them. Or they think well this worked so I will keep doing it without really understanding why it worked. He is truly the most well designed killer and is strong.
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I personally consider Demogorgan to be the staple killer of DbD.
Decent power that has counterplay and rewards good usage.
Mobility with portals but has counterplay and basekit information.
Easy to pick up and learn but has tricks and techs that can be used to play him at his fullest. Rewards both sides for playing well against the other side without completely shafting the side getting outplayed.
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The killer should be able to deal with strong/stupid loops but at the same time not be able to render survivors completely defenseless. Some mobility (this is due to maps and sizes) would be nice but without being able to be super oppressive with 4 gen perks (not sure if this should go here but whatever). Realy what we would like to see is something that forces survivors to play differently (ie: if in chase just run to xyz loop if not sit on gen) like pinhead or nurse.
As for killers we currently got, id say Wesker, blight, and Artist fit most the checks.
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Only a killer with 8 hooks and 4 escapes would meet all those requirements. Those are of course no-camping, no-tunneling, no-slugging, and no-slowdown. A moderate jump scare and 10 or more pallet stuns; a minute or so per chase will be omnipotent enough.
Um, just kidding.
For killers, it seems that the fun is basically centered on whether you have an element of control over the game or whether you can get anti-loops and quick downs, so for both survivors and killers, the combination of strength, balance, and fun is.... I think it would be quite difficult.
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Base kit blight. Some addons bring him well and beyond balanced.
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I'd say Huntress and no alch ring/c33 Blight are good examples. Both are very powerful and have high skill ceilings, but they have specific counterplay that's fun to engage. You can really play push-pull with them and there's room for skill expression on both sides. I'd say most A and B tier killers fall in this category, with some exceptions. Killers whose powers push them to camp, slug, or tunnel off hook tend not to be fun to verse because survivors spend so much time unengaged - though they do tend to be fun to play because they have chase-ending powers (again, with some exceptions - Hagatha and Charlotte, looking at you.)
Nurse isn't fun to verse because your ability to not fall over and die at any single point is totally reliant on the Nurse's headset and skill level. If the Nurse has mastered the killer, there is generally nothing you can do, especially with range/recharge addons. The same goes for an M1 killer against good survivors; until you eat half the pallets on the map, anything you can do is reliant on them screwing up, not on you playing well.
I think it boils down to a lack of options being unfun. Fun to play killers need have the ability to end chases quickly, but fun to play against killers need to be able to be dodged or stalled if the survivor plays well. Map dependency is another aspect - so many killers get destroyed simply because a map is too big or there's too many pallets, and gee effin' gee if you load Rotten Fields and find a Trickster waiting.
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Demo is probably the standard of a pretty solid, perfectly balanced killer. You don't really hear people calling him overpowered or underpowered, he's just overall good. What he has is good mobility with his portals, with some decent information if you know how to use it, and his shred is good in chase and around certain loops or for closing distance.
Overall, more killers should be like him.
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Well said. Agreed.
(Though I do still enjoy facing Nurse)
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Thank you!
I find Nurse is fun to verse when the Nurse is decent or just 'good', because that's when the difficulty level is most adjacent to other killers while allowing you to partake in Nurse's unique and sometimes wacky counterplay. It's pure prediction on both sides and I enjoy those last ditch "you don't know what I'm doing if I don't know what I'm doing" moments. But a really experienced Nurse usually mops the floor with you before you have the opportunity to do anything (bonus points if there's starstruck/if) and a baby Nurse just feels bad.
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I think they should listen to the community more when it comes to make pools, ask questions to the players, try new features suggested by the players, try to make the process of adjusting killers something more democratic. In fact, just a round table with people from both sides should be enough to fix it.
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I feel that so much, an average Nurse is some of the most fun in this game!
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Wesker, Oni, Pyramid Head and Deathslinger feel the closest to this ideal for me. The punishment for missing with their power is very severe, giving the Survivors a lot of counterplay but also the rewards for hitting with it are very huge too. It's high risk, high reward gameplay that encourages Killers to take shots they normally wouldn't and don't feel confident about initially, encourages massive risk taking to end chases faster and improve your skill with the Killer.
Especially with Wesker and Oni, against good Survivors there are rarely "guaranteed" shots that always hit on target, decent Survivors will always be unpredictable and play in erratic ways to avoid hits. As Survivor it feels great to make them miss because you know the punishment is huge.
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Oni, Demo, Executioner, Dredge for me.
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Perfect answer: Wesker.
He's strong, fun, and balanced. One of the most reasonable killers in DBD.
Killer balance should be referenced from him.
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I think it's Wesker.
It leaves room for technical intervention and is a fun killer to use.
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Spirit
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