The Onryō needs a buff. Reasons and ideas below.

Despite Sadako sitting near the top of kill percentage, the playerbase overwhelmingly sees her as a weak killer. Sadako is an m1 killer that is incentivized to drop chases to pressure survivors with her unique mechanic. In a meta with Circle of Healing and Dead Hard (eventhoughithinkitsfine), the Onryō suffers from her power disincentivizing her to continue a chase.

OnePumpWillie has popularized the "Condemn Sadako" playstyle, in which the Onryō brings her Ring Drawing addon and leaves survivors in the dying state to spread condemnation. Very rarely will this playstyle fail; it is exceptionally easy to kill the entire team of survivors if they're altruistic. The tradeoff is that the matches feel awful to play, both as killer and survivor; the Sadako player is not encouraged to interact with hooks, and survivors are left in an unwinnable heal-from-dying race. While this playstyle is powerful, unique, and leads to many kills, it is not an enjoyable or healthy state for the killer.

Another issue the Onryō faces is that remanifesting slows her movement. For her penalty of slowed movement, she's rewarded with nothing but flicking invisibility that is difficult to make use of. Extremely skilled Sadako players, with the help of addons which alter the invisibility period, can make use of this; but the remanifestation mechanic does nothing but hinder Sadako in chase, as it slows her down. Important to note is that demanifestation does allow Sadako to pass through survivors, but this will never be seen by newer Onryō players which may hinder their enjoyment of the character. For a comparison, the wraith is also slowed when he comes out of invisibility, but he gets a burst of speed to help him close the distance to survivors.

My ideas, with inspiration from other community members, aim to fix this counterintuitive "Condemn Sadako" playstyle as well as provide her with an additional benefit to remanifesting.

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The first idea is to expose survivors while they have 7 stacks of condemn, and to reveal their aura for the duration of the Onryō's Killer Instinct. This would have the counterintuitive effect of nerfing the "Condemn Sadako" playstyle; if a survivor is exposed, they have no reason to seek out healing and spread condemnation to their allies. It would encourage the Onryō player to hyperfocus on the exposed survivor, leaving other survivors at less risk (or making them available to intercept and impede the killer while the exposed survivor deals with their condemnation). It would also punish survivors more heavily for neglecting the Onryō's generous mechanic. If I were to implement any one change to Sadako, this would be it.

The second idea would need to be standalone; each successful hit on a survivor applies one stack of condemn. This does nothing to alleviate the "Condemn Sadako" playstyle, but it would make her far more satisfying to play. Currently, Sadako is forced to either commit heavily to a chase or not chase at all, because of the prevalence of self-healing perks. If she commits to a chase, then survivors holding a tape are doubly rewarded; they waste Sadako's time, and they do not passively build condemnation. Applying a single stack of condemn to any hit survivor would allow the Onryō to feel much better abandoning chases like her design implies, would mitigate some of the trouble she has against Dead Hard, and would incentivize survivors to engage with her special mechanic. Additionally, her weapon uses the kanji for 'Curse', so it already has the implication of applying condemn stacks on hit.

The third idea is a simple change; simply remove the speed penalty when remanifesting. This would pair very well with an additional buff to her intermittent visibility, and would actively encourage newer players to use the manifestation mechanic which is necessary to develop skills as Sadako. An alternative change would be a speed boost similar to the Wraith, but I think the removal of the speed penalty is a far better solution than that. Being manifested is already a light punishment; Sadako can't teleport mid-chase without being demanifested.

Finally, a nerf to survivor interaction with Sadako's tapes - dropping the lost condemned from 3 to 2 - could POSSIBLY make her feel better. Alternatively, changing the timing on interacting with the tapes to 3.5 seconds to allow Sadako to punish survivors for placing their tapes while they're getting attacked. I hate this idea, because I dislike the idea of nerfing survivors - but making the Onryō's tape less impactful would encourage more interaction with her minigame and reward the Sadako player for placing multiple condemns in a short timespan.

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TL;DR. In summary, my four proposed buffs to make Sadako feel better to play are;

• Expose survivors at 7 stacks of condemn and reveal their aura for 6 seconds;
• A successful m1 applies 1 stack of condemn;
• Removal of Remanifestation's speed penalty;
• Nerfing survivor interaction with the tapes, either by lowering the removed condemn by 1 stack or by making TV interaction take longer.

I want to emphasise that each of these buffs should be regarded separately - only one change would go through - and that I offer a variety of ideas as options for a singular buff, not multiple.