How would you buff these addons?

For me the issue with knight add-ons is that Dried Horsemeat and Map of the Realm feel mandatory for him. I don't think they can even change that since the reason it feels that way is because the assassin can get you hits with that combo.

I did a whole post on the addons.

I mean if a patrol line is drawn at max distance. the time it takes for guard to enter chase is 1.5 second when the 25% buff is applied. 1 meter = 4 meter of running distance, so 1.5 meters is 6 meters of distance. Assassin moves at 4.4, he gains 0.4 meters every second for 16 seconds. across his entire running distance, he would travel 6.5 meters. In short, assassin would just hit or just miss if your running forward. Without add-on, the assassin will travel 4.8 meter of distance.

I do not think the survivor should have counter-play toward guard if the guard successfully starts chase with survivor at max patrol distances. I think at max distances, the survivor should either a) look to avoid guard or b) utilize banner to disable guard chase. hold-w shouldn't work. the guard should hit survivor if the knight uses land his power perfectly on the survivor.

The reason to get a guard on them is so you can cut them off and get a free hit. If they can just run a straight line then they will put themselves in a corner of the map or you shouldn't be using a guard there in the first place. The assassin make this very deadly since you are there for a hit and the assassin can also hit them making the chase very short.

I can't see how the assassin getting a free hit if I do a long patrol wouldn't be obnoxious. They they changed it to reward you with only needing to zone the banner I see that as a miserable experience for survivor.

I don't feel like Knight has the same problem as pinhead. I would go back to being able to cut players off and how it is also easy to do since your guard is basically wall hacks since they follow the survivors path. Would be curious to hear your opinion on this though.

you can cut people off with all 3 guards. there is no reason to run dried meat in fact because the survivor can purposely completely avoid the guard and choose to only get hit by the killer. the only add-on you need to cut people off.. well i shouldn't say need. I should say, improves your chance for guard chase to activate is map of the realm.

that is skill-cap for survivor. its avoiding corners of the map and wasting the knight's time. it is super easy to go on long chase with knight because you can avoid going in the corner of the map in many situations to prologue early chases and if the knight zones you to in the corner of the map. you can force knight to hit you and avoid the guard entirely. If you are injured and have dead hard equipped, you can do this total 2 times because you can let guard purposely hit you during Dead hard giving 3 health-states. that is why knight is weak. It is easy to extend chases and shift-w counters him. His chase time too long and he has no counters to shift-w. If his guard could hit survivors on their own, he would have counter to shift-w therefore be a stronger killer that can shorten chases with his ability if he uses ability correctly and survivor misplays vs the ability.

You can but the assassin can get a hit while helping you cut off. That can help cut down the time you take to down a survivor. If you don't need to even be there then all you need to to defend the banner and someone can be getting hit on the assassin. That's why I think it would be obnoxious if that was the case.

Knight is much like Doc where you are just going to be getting hit but the down times are why they are not A tier. I feel the area of denial and zoning is the skill that is for Knight. Letting the Knight hit you and not the guard is still value the guard gave. I find shift w to be something the Knight can help avoid being such a strong strat. If I have a guard on you I'm just looking to zone you into a corner and get my hit.

I see Knight as just Doc v2. I see the low skill expression for the killer being fine since it is paired with low power. Like you said if the killer plays it correctly he will get the downs but it's not time efficient. They really can't change that unless they make him broken(uncounterable and quick) or do some kind of rework. Seems like the latter is something you wish they would do(snipe with guards that is rewarded in hits).

I personally didn't play him until the buff because pooping a guard at every loop is just Artist v2. I've found that he is serviceable with going for more long range snipes and then trying to cut the survivor off. The buff at least helps this playstyle be actually viable. At the end of the day the killer has low skill expression so I'm fine with him being on the lower end the the roster.

I disagree about Map of the Realm since I've played tons of games with Knight and never actually used that particular add on. I do however use Dried Horsemeat in virtually all my games. So I'm inclined to agree that the chase time should be extended and this add on be changed into something else. I use both BBQ and Nurse's Calling so I can usually drop the spawn point of knights right on survivors heads. That's why I suppose I've never felt the need to run Map of the Realm.

you did not miss much. your method of cutting survivors off and corralling survivors in the corner of the map is same as before buff as after the buff. This is what I mean by nothing changed in his update. he plays the same and does same thing. sniping with guards would increase his versatility in using his power. He would still have 2vs1 stuff going on but he would also have that extra layer anti hold-w layer dimension to his skill-cap when using his power that stronger killers have access to. I think he was servicable in going for long range patrols before change but he gets no reward for those patrols. survivor do not need to play around it because it is counter-play kinda braindead easy? Its just shift-w and run forward away from the guards. He becomes time inefficient in chases and he has no real skill expression to shorten those chases from shift-w because its entirely based around how survivor plays and not how well he places/uses guards vs shift-w play. Those guards statistically cannot hit the survivor if the survivor plays it correctly. I think your point is that you believe that if he can counter shift-w(snipe with guards), he will be oppressive but I think it just means that survivor needs to play better against long range patrols that does not involve just tanking guards chases and doing easy shift-w play. In other words, I do not think he will be oppressive. I think survivor will need to play better to escape him.

Previous to 6.5.0, you could see green orb. the survivors counter-play toward guard chases is suppose to be running out of the detection circle and grabbing the banner. in that situation, by making orb invisible, the significance of that change that they did in 6.5.0 is that avoiding guard chases when your out of chase is harder. The knight could already land long distance guards chase prior to 6.5.0. The problem is that survivor have no reason to avoid said guard chases because hold-W counters the guard and the knight as whole.

I do not agree. I think knight is practical joke to escape against and there is no skill-ceiling to play him well nor is there skill-ceiling for knight play better. he gets auto-pilot losses vs gen efficient+shift-w teams and stomps weaker survivor plays that have weak routing in chase and poor gen efficiency. He could have more of skill-ceiling to play as him and playing vs him but the knight is currently is not there.

killer's should aim to be as high skill-ceiling as possible. I do not think that many killer will ever be mechanically difficult to play but I think knight in particular can be medium-skill cieling character that is similar to spirit where his skill-cieling is about tracking survivors movement with orb to place guards that win chases for him. Survivor should be all about avoiding guard chases and mind-gaming his guard placements. The knight in particular is a complicated character to balance because its based off AI and 2vs1 gameplay. balancing 2vs1 gameplay and ensure the AI is not too effective but not too ineffective is challenging with such a killer design.

He is working how he was designed. If a killer is suppose to be low/mid tier then they shouldn't have a high skill ceiling. High skill ceiling killers should always be the top tier ones. If they made his snipes always give a hit then you would just get your injure and then snipe with guard since you can easily track a survivor that is injured. That change would then require a rework to his power since without it he would be an A tier killer that is easy and also having little to no counterplay. He would now be a spirit-like killer and not more of a commander where you order you guards to help assist you in downing survivors.

Sure that is excellent point. There is always going to be killer that are 1% better than another killer. there is also something called player bias where player will favour one advantage over another even if both advantages are similar in strength when used correctly. In regard forever freddy vs demo, forever freddy was a perceived top-tier perk synergy for killer that was not particular difficult to use but had high returns in effectiveness. A strategy that is strong can still exist in a killer but perhaps should not be top tier. Just strong enough you can do well with said killer vs equally competent opponents if your competent with the killer. In other words, killer should be the best they can be. do not try compare killer with another. Like I said, there is always going to be player bias in preferred killers.

With demo, I have mixed feeling about demo. I feel like everyone rates demo very highly as balanced killer but I also feel like he does not perform very well in my experience when playing vs him and playing as him. Its weird. I think community overrates and underrates him at the same time. The larger issue is that middle-tier killers in the game are in fact weak killers in the game because the bar is set so low for killers in the game. My opinion in regards rating of killer is that killers can have ratings that range from weaker to stronger but the amount between best and worst should be lower in my opinion. You do that by trying to make killers the best they can be. No killers will truly ever be equal to one another.

that is like whole spirit phase-walk argument all over again. How do you hide vs Spirit phase walk when your are injured? Your post seems to think that it is just game-over at that point. You attempt to make most distance as possible away from the knight as his orb approaches you and then you try mask your sound and footsteps to make it as difficult as possible for the killer player to track you so that placing guard is as difficult as possible. Your goal should be to predict orb pathing and avoid guard detection radius. Incoming the survivor mains that say that "Knight has no counter-play, if the killer has good headset, he can place perfectly on top of me and the guard always hits me, no counter-play, reeee".

How do you hide from Knight when it takes around 3 seconds to do a max patrol while also having a detection range of 12-18m? It takes Spirit half the time to even get into her power and isn't just end power when you are next to survivor for hit. On top of that Knight speed is roughly double the speed Spirit has while in power.

But you should and this game is balanced in that way. If Freddy is equal to B tier killers then why would I play a B tier killer that isn't Freddy? Freddy is now better because he is the same in power but easier to play. You then would just be doing power creep where the B tier killers that are harder now need to be buffed to justify their higher difficulty. This then repeats in A tier where you end back to square one.

If the killer is more difficult it should always better than easier to play killers, that's basic balancing. If you don't do this then the easier killers are actually better since they can hit their cap at a much easier and consistent way compared to their harder counterparts.

Here’s how I would change the addons. I won’t do all of them but here’s my attempt.

First off Map of the realm and horse meat will be basekit in my version so All 3 guards are buffed with this so here’s my rework

Map of the realm-increases vision range by 2 meters(was 4)

Dried horse meat-increases duration of hunt by 2 seconds(was 4)

Town watches torch-When a guard detects a survivor gain the undetectable status effect for the duration of the hunt. When a hunt ends gain a additional 25 seconds of undetectable.

Ironworkers tongs-When a guard detects a survivor, they get the oblivious effect until the hunt ends. When it ends they are oblivious for 20 seconds.

Grim iron mask-When a guard detects a survivor, they gain blindness until the the hunt ends. When the hunt ends they have blindness for 60 seconds.

Broken Hilt-Hitting a survivor while there in a hunt or a guard striking them will give the survivor Hemorrhage and mangled.

Chain mail fragment-When a guard fails to catch a survivor gain a 10% speed boost until you hit a survivor or another guard detects someone.

Knights contract-After summoning 3 guards the 4th guard that detects a survivor will instantly down that survivor If caught.

That’s how I would mostly rework his addons.

spirit comes out of her power immediately and hits you. The knight comes out of his power and then summons a guard. I think reason why guards were slow in PTB was because I think the idea was to invert the cast times of those two killers. Knight can go into his power and move quicker but guard takes a while to spawn so you could potentially shift-w it while spirit has cast time to enter power but she exits the power immediately. Its just that I think people had trouble using the ability because it was a bit too difficult to start guard chase, so a lot of people thought knight sucked in the ptb. A lot of types of buffs he is been getting has been about making it easier and easier to get guards into chase in the past two changes. As I said, the problem for him is not getting guard into chase. Its him getting rewards for starting a chase. You can make argument that its too easy to get guards into a chase now but I am not entirely sure that is true more so that survivor have little reason to avoid them so everyone tanks every guard chase as it has no real significant on anywhere besides the corner of the map.

In term of 18 meters detection range, The guards themselves are meant to have different strengths and weaknesses. In the case of Jailer, the jailer is suppose to be weak in the chase and is meant to be countered by hold-w away from him. he is corralling 2vs1 type guard which is current play-style that dominates the knight's current gameplay. The other two guards which are Assassin and Carnifex are meant to counter hold-w. The assassin favours grabbing the banner and Carnifex favours avoiding the chase because his banner spawns later. that is my interpretation of his ability. You are meant to do different counter-play to defeat each guard. with how the knight currently is, there is no reason to change your strategy vs each guard because all 3 of them are countered by shift-w and running away. that is my current problem for why I think the knight is underwhelming for a killer.

One of the reason why I think he potencial as killer is that many killer rely on survivor to make mistakes. With the knight, there is more of reliance for knight to make mistake for you to avoid a guard chase. survivor still have some control the chase but not completely. this is why I think if knight becomes strong, survivor will dislike playing vs him. they already dislike playing vs him even though this version of the knight is cakewalk to escape from.

If something that is low skill is at the same power level for something that is medium skill then something is wrong. The problem is a lot of the lower tier killers are simple; requiring them to make them more robust to really make them stronger.

So Blight is very hard to play perfect while Freddy is not. You are basically making the 99.9% of players equal to the .1%. If they did this all you would see is Freddy every single game. There is no difference between a Freddy that has 1k hours on him vs 10k. That isn't the case for Blight.

The justification for there being a gap is the killers that are low tier are all super easy to play and don't have much skill expression. The higher tier killers are the complete opposite from this and makes no sense to have an easy killer be basically the same as a hard one in terms of power level. The more skilled you are the better the higher tier killers are since they allow you to express that skill while low skill killers don't have a high enough ceiling for you. Buff these lower killers doesn't make the ceiling higher just more raw power making them OP(require less effort and skill for equal outcome of other more difficult killers).

Making low tier killers win games vs better opponents isn't balanced one bit. The more skilled survivors are balanced vs the higher killers which require more skill.

that because a lot of survivor play poorly vs guard and allow you to corral the survivor in favor positions as knight. If you getting hit with his guards, then your facing really chill survivors because the guard should never hit survivor with current stats. the only time the guard should ever hit the survivor is if survivor purposely uses dead hard against the guard for sprint burst. I have done experiment where I try to get 1 hit on guard when I win the game during EGC. The end game survivor can easily outrun all 3 guards with no effort whatsoever.

I am sure you avoid guard chases. It is just that right now, why bother to avoid any guard chase when guard chases is irrelevant in most cases. Survivors only attempt to try avoid these guard chases when guard chases start to punish them.

I feel that in certain situations that can be true. However, I really don't see how the survivor already on one side of the map can somehow not let me keep closing the distance while the guard forces their movement in predictable manners.

I find that I either want to use the guard to waste the survivors time or use it to help corral the survivor into an unwinnable scenario. I find that when I have a guard with me in chase I get good value from it. Even if it results in not getting a hit its getting them typically closer to edge map where I will get my hit.

I find that if the assassin is in chase with me I do see it getting hits and not feeling the survivor had to play poorly for that to happen. I would agree that the other 2 are less threating in chase in terms of actually getting a hit.

Yes but this is time consuming. a big part of killer is time efficiency. getting hits quickly. It is important for killer to get rewards on each micro-action. Every second does count especially with your playing against efficient gen teams.

Looping is not suppose to be about 1vs1 the killer for 5 gens even though that is.... possible for weak killers on strong survivor maps. Looping is suppose to be about wasting the killer time enough to complete the generator objective. Wasting the knight's time is not hard especially since 2/3 guards are not that effective. With how current knight is, If I could just replace all my guards into jailers, I would probably just only use jailer with map of the realm. The other two guards are pretty worthless currently. Jailer enter chases the easiest and the knight is only relevant at zoning plays which this guard specializes in. Assuming other two guards would become more effective at anti-shift w, then knight could effectively use all 3 guards to maximum effect instead 1/3 of his ability. Anyhow that is my take on the knight. He is not totally rubbish. He could be more rounded killer.

I thought it was going to just be a small list of addons to pick from but damn it's basically all of them.