http://dbd.game/killswitch
The Knight is a "Ridiculous" Killer
Okay, so we all know how Anti-Loop killers tend to be the most unfun to play against from experiences with the Artist, as now mainly The Knight, who I think is essentially just Artist 2.0 with a hint of Twins.
So, I'm playing on Midwich against a Knight, and I get to a loop that is a relatively small one with one pallet. This loop could lead into a window (the one where a killer basically has to break a wall to make it combatable), but The Knight has positioned themselves where I can't run to it without being downed by a basic attack. Cool, I'll just drop the pallet, maybe stun them, and give myself some time! Right? Nope.
What comes next is The Knight just standing still, waiting for their power to come back, dropping a guard, and completely leaving me with nothing to do. Great.
The idea of a killer who can stand still for a sec, and then immediately cut off every escape for survivors is (and my word choice is specific) ridiculous. I'm not sure why the Devs opted to make a killer that mimics the anti-looping mechanic of the Artist (as it cuts off escape paths with a simple action), and the "killer-can-basically-be-in-two-places-at-once" style of the Twins. After Wesker, the Knight is a severe downgrade.
Not sure why the Devs buffed him so randomly...
The reason why I chose the word "ridiculous" is because I do find it funny how the Devs chose to mimic 2 killers who essentially got forgotten or became underused very quickly after release and to combine them into a killer who essentially is the opposite of their last, who was received with overwhelming praise (in comparison to other killers).
To avoid making a simple rant post, I wanna pose some ideas for the knight. I'm not saying these should all be used, at least not at the same time, but maybe, MAYBE these will help.
- 1.) The Knight cannot place guards around hooks in 10 meter radius (the Patrol path will not enter a 10 meter radius around a hook). My reasoning for this nerf is that while guards can be disabled if a survivor unhooks, I find that they can be placed so close to a point where a hit is sometimes inevitable.
- 2.) Guards can only be used to break gens or pallets. I'm not super optimistic about this one, but maybe it'll totally change the knight from being an Anti-loop killer to one that is more chase-oriented. Tension could be made as a survivor would have to quickly flee an area if the Knight renders a pallet unusable. Chases would only be sped up, and not capped off (unless more regular means of ending chase are present like zoning, entering/creating a dead zone, etc.)
- 3.) Survivors can always see where the Knight's path orb is. Idk why the Devs changed this, as now the Knight can almost always sneak up on a Survivor doing a gen in the form of a Guard. Maybe this was meant to be a kind of jumpscare/surprise mechanic. If it was, I don't think it's worth it. In concept it's cool, but unlike a killer whose jumpscares actually work well (Sadako), its kinda weird or annoying in execution at best.
- 4.) The Knight has the option to place down guards for an unlimited amount of time around the map, but cannot use them in a chase or create a path with them unless they are either stunned and returned to him, or the 30-second usage timer runs out. Basically, and I know this is ironic, the Guard could be used like Twins, but only for a limited amount of time (so better...maybe...idk...). Essentially, unlike Victor, they could disappear mid-chase, and the player would revert back to the knight's original position. The main Knight would just stand or take a knee while the player controls a guard. Honestly, I feel like if the Devs combined this idea with idea 2, the Knight would be way less anti-loop, and would have to employ more strategy in regards to gaining the looping-oriented side of his power. I we go back to my situation, I could drop a pallet, the Knight could use a guard to break the pallet, I could take the window, and chase could continue, OR if the knight placed a guard somewhere they could take control of the guard, and chase could begin in another fashion. Maybe the Knight could funnel me back to the room where I dropped a pallet and down me there. Does the power still have great zoning potential? I believe so. Does it leave a survivor with some options before all are 100% exhausted? I believe so.
These are just some ideas, they're probably dumb as they were created on the fly. Idk. I hate this killer and their power should've gone to Legion anyways, and the Artist should be able to temporarily fly. I'm insane.
Also, I'm not trying to nerf the Knight, just to get him away from being an anti-loop killer.
On a positive note, I do LOVE this killer's aesthetic. Really cool visual design. The Knight has a lot of potential.
EDIT: Okay here's a question, do people really think the Knight is weak? I've been told that the community generally thinks he's weak, but I see absolutely no reason for this. Is he S teir? Probs not. F Teir? I don't think so. The main complaint I've seen is that he's annoying af, but not weak. Correct me if I'm wrong here. I'm curious.
Comments
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It's the insistence on designing killers where completely skill-less gameplay leads to success that I find aggravating, and they turned that up to the Nth degree with the Knight. What are we doing here? It's an AI power that you click a button to set. There's no aiming or timing or charging. Is this really what we're doing with killers now? This is a horrendous direction to go in a PVP game. Get AI out of this game.
Post edited by edgarpoop on10 -
i seriously dont know how knights power design even got through development, having a killer completely dependent on AI is just bad design for both sides.
hopefully bhvr just forgets about him atp
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They've been doing it ever since Nemesis I'm pretty sure. Nemesis's power should've always been controlling where zombies go. You can still have the tentacle, but have him able to genuinely control where zombies shamble to every so often. What his tentacle would be to Doctor's Shock, controlling zombies would be to his Static Blast.
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Hopefully the community does too....
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Knight is a pretty unfun Killer to play against.
All these changes do is make him worse to play as. They're all horrible changes.
I think he's fine right now, barring bugs.
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Knight is easily the worst killer design of 2022. We went from Wesker who is one of the most well-liked killers in the game to...him. In matches with Knight there is just almost no skill expression for either side when it comes to his power. All you do is drop a guard in place and it does the work for you. A survivor can't outrun two killers at once unless you REALLY screw up. He's not OP, just incredibly unfun and takes no skill.
Like OP sort of mentioned, even though Artist can shut down loops similarly, she still needs to actually land her birds if she wants to do anything. There's more counterplay and mindgames available from the survivor side and the game doesn't do the work for you. If you can't hit your shots with her, you will lose.
I just got out of a 25 minute match against Knight with Eruption/CoB/Overcharge/Pain Res. Eventually turned into 3 escapes, but my god was it boring.
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The hardest part will be to suggest and find changes that will not make The Knight weaker, but will lead him away from the "anti-loop" playstyle he evokes and power
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Not really on topic, but I don't really think Wesker is really that well-liked; there is a sizable portion who dislike Wesker I have plenty of friends who think his music is too loud and also really hate the new collision on his grabs where he can grab through pallets sometimes. Personally, I do enjoy him, but having him easily like 20+ games in a row was pretty bad on my opinion of him lol, but that is moreso a problem with him being very popular. Like if his grabs didn't look so bizarre sometimes, he would definitely be one of my fav, but I have the same issue with blight with him, where sometimes they get some wonky hits like blight with his vault rush hits.
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The knight is at the core of his design an awful killer, no amount of number and variable tweaking will fix what the issue with him is without just outright making using his power in loops useless. If he can at any point effectively use his power at loops then he will be one of the most despised killers in the game, if they make it so that he can't use his power at loops then he will be comically bad.
The Knight just needs to be designed from the ground up, hopefully BHVR will have learned that direct zoning is an awful idea and won't release another killer who presses m2 to force you to leave the loop.
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I mean how do we buff long range knight while simultaneously fixing the unhealthy interactions? I don’t have a good answer
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a knight killer could have been so different and fun. Maybe instead of having guards, the knight power was switching between guard abilities himself. He could have become a slow killer but with more power, a quick killer with less of something, and then the third power.
Or designed a knight killer that does something altogether different! I don’t know what bit def not this.
I don’t play Pig because she’s horrible and the traps are terrible. I’m def not playing knight because he’s a slow clumsy clunking …. thing.
Not trying to be mean to BEhaviour, but… :/
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Have the feeling you're over commiting to loops. If the Knight stands at the window and goes into their power, run out the door. The power action is televised and takes time. The patch drawing takes time. The guard spawning takes time and even if it spots you it goes through a battle cry animation. Really, you should be halfway down the hallway.
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I mean… dude, you can literally just leave the tile. Don’t stand there and wait for him to trap you. Knight is one of the easiest killers to loop.
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I don't find him weak, just a bit boring. I don't mind going against him but if I had a choice I'd rather not
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I comfirm you that knight is like C tier, and I explain you why:
1) AI Dependant: In a game with killers like Pyramid head, spirit, blight, nurse and so on who are built around mind games, you put a killer who depend entirely on AI (Which is also very #########)
2) Time to place guards: After you write the path for the guard, you have to wait like 0.5/1 seconds before moving normally. This is made to help survs, so in this way they can instantly go to the next loop, completely ignoring the guard.
3) 0 map control
4) Guards cannot be switched manually: this is a #########, I have to place a guard to actually use the one I want, wasting lots of time. And the only guard who is actually useful I think is called the assassin (I'm italian, I don't know english names)
5) M1 killer: vulnerable to bodyblock, ok you can ""prevent"" with guards, but trust me: the AI isn't very intelligent.
6) You can't spawn guards when you want: If you're too near to a surv you can't spawn a guard. Funny isn't it?
7) Survs can actually have some ideas of where you're spawning the guards, because they see a green sphere that represente where the killer is writing the path.
Ok, the knight can really be a killer who put you in a situation of loose/loose, but it's rare. C tier max
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I wouldn't say he's the easiest because there are some much easier to loop but easier to loop than Crow Mama simce he has to stop to drop a knight
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increase movement speed of guards by 5-10% if he draws patrols further 10 meter away. Decrease knight m/s by 5-10% when a guard is chasing another survivor. The 2vs1 principal is interesting as killer, but premise of 2 killers chasing should mean that your facing 2 weaker killers. Cool concept but knight in particular(main killer) is too strong with his guards when your in the corner of the map but has no effectiveness anywhere else. I think they just failed to balance his 2vs1 in mutiple situations so you get 100% hits in some loops and a completely worthless ability in other cases. Two extremes.
OP post is dumbing the killer power to break pallet is silly and kills knight's design. He is also not meant to control guards either. You play twins if you want the 2 controllable killer experience. I believe their pick-rate is very unpopular at <1%. He is also not meant to have patrolling zombies. You pick Nemesis if you want automatic patrolling zombies(which might worst power in isolation in the game if this was killer's only ability).
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I like the idea, but then you’d have people just getting downed by AI alone and that would infuriate the player base. Would feel pretty skill less.
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The skill in using guard should be in its placement. what happens after the guard successful starts a chase is extra fluff. Its kinda like deathslinger's spear, your suppose to dodge the spear but once you have been hit, you have high probability in taking a health-state worth of damage. Its technically possible to break the spear/not get hit by the guard but its killer favoured at that point.
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Oh well I feel like hitting a DS shot is way, way more skillful and challenging than landing a guard. I probably land a chase on 90% of my guards I place. That doesn’t feel all that skillful, only maybe a little.
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well i mean your using map of realm and call to arms, so higher radius makes easier, then at same time, nobody survivor really bothers tries to avoid them and then there is fact that if you were spirit main, then tracking survivors is skill that you learned already. You know, a lot of people said spirit is "low skilled, no counter-play"
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I suppose that could be the case and it only seems easy because they aren’t trying to be skillful and predict my pathing. It’s funny you mention Spirit as I think that’s why I actually like playing Knight, he reminds me a lot of Spirit. It’s essentially using the exact same sound and audio queues to track them while invisible. Only real difference is not seeing scratch marks and I start a chase instead of getting a hit from it.
Unlike most players using the guards to pincer I play him more for the macro play and long range guard snipe people while I chase other players with the knight and try to maximize map pressure. I like macro play style killers more than micro ones personally.
Oddly enough I haven’t seen a single knight play like this other than myself. They all just try and poop guards out at loops and pincer, usually goes pretty bad for them. Playing the long range snipe way I do I got up to a 54 win streak which at least shows there’s something there especially since most the players I was going against were all between 2-5k hour players so I’d wager a decent mmr. Lost the streak on Borgo, big surprise right? If it wasn’t for the extremely unbalanced maps like Borgo could’ve probably gone a lot further.
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I said one of, not THE easiest.
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I think you're onto something here. But...
I do agree with Blueberry. We don't want players getting downed by AI alone.
The Knight for sure NEEDS and addon rework. I spent my afternoon playing some Knight rounds just to see if there was something I was missing, and yeah his addons suck except for 2.
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The Knight, who I think is essentially just Artist 2.0
More like 0.5
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he reminds me a lot of Spirit. It’s essentially using the exact same sound and audio queues to track them while invisible. Only real difference is not seeing scratch marks and I start a chase instead of getting a hit from it.
yep, yep, I agree. He is better then people give him credit for. Shattered Square is pretty tough map for killer. I am surprised that I do not see more map offering from survivors to send me to that map. maybe its because its new map. I played a lot vs Eyrie offerings and farm map offerings. I wonder if this map will get popular for survivor to spam offerings to get easy wins.
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Just delete the bastard from the game please, he is only used to camp hooks and force a W-key playstyle.
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I think a lot of people haven't realized how survivor sided that map is. Other than Garden of Pain, I expect once people catch on we'll start seeing the sweat squads send people here.
While do I still think Knight is on the weaker side and still needs buffs and a huge addon overhaul I do think he is underrated. I think most people play him wrong.
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1) Your reasoning makes little sense to me. You can just run into the guard when it detects you (meaning before they start hunting proper), so you can just run to the hook and tap the unhook prompt.
2) then... what's the point of his power? Why have different guards? That just... wouldn't work.
3) this was change because otherwise, immediately dropping a guard at a loop is pretty much the only viable way to play him.
4) I... okay, I don't understand this idea at all. I'll play devil's advocate and just assume I'm just a dullard unable to comprehend what's written in front of me.
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Do you know whats "unfun" to play against? Survivors without an anti loop killer.
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I agree there are aspects of the Knight that need fixing e.g. being able to summon a guard right in front of a hook, buggy AI, etc.
However, the changes were made to make him more viable and actually give him a chance against decent survivors.
- The 'orb' when he summons his guards was changed to make it a little more difficult to predict his pathing. In the PTB/initial chapter release, many players voiced that he was so easy to counter as you could just 'hold W' and run away from the orb's pathing in order to avoid detection.
- The '2 vs. 1' aspect of his power is his main appeal. Plus, it's fairly easy to avoid detection (the guard's zoning is clearly marked by the green rings), and other than the Assassin, the other two guards are slow and clunky and fairly easy to loop/counter.
- There is a clear counter to his power: running through the flag completely negates the Guards.
- Finally, I really disagree with what you said about his Guards only being able to break pallets/kick gens. This would completely remove any appeal as he would essentially be a completely M1 killer whose "special ability" allows him to break pallets/kick gens faster than the other killers. Do you see the issue with that? His USP would be "M1 killer who can use AI to complete boring actions" . You must remember that without his guards, he's an entirely M1 killer with no map mobility or chase power.
I think this always happens when new killers come out. It can be strange trying to counter them and adapt your playstyle accordingly. Heck, people even said Dredge was OP when he was released now you rarely ever see one. The more you Vs the Knight, the better you'll get.
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