I have roughly 4500 hours in Hillbilly. Over half a year of my waking life on this killer.

I have 7k hours split in both killer and surv and have never felt billy was gamebreaking in any way. His addons didnt need a nerf at all, in fact they're one of the few remaining remnants of high speed, high interaction gameplay.

PTB patch pretty disappointing overall, with this and basekit healing changes (didnt need changing apart from maybe medkits). No word on spine chill hard countering stealth killers like GF either, now that the TR changes have finally been implemented.

Flick Billy? Since when could you "flick" with Billy's power, their turn speed is locked to a certain amount with a chainsaw sprint, and canceling your chainsaw and flicking it into Survivors for a down got fixed in 2018. Pardon my confusion, but what the hell are you even on about?

Curving isnt flicking. Red-stain/directional mindgames arent always flicking but you can react to them in time, and there are ways to play each tile. It creates interactions since both players act and react accordingly, similar to your average Killer looping a pallet and doing a double back to make distance, etc. Literally saying "this isnt interaction" is basically like saying "looping in general has no interaction", because curving is fundamentally apart of the looping process.

Also might I point out, that "curving" very much IS INTENDED by BHVR, when Billy first released, they never had increased directional turning at the start of a chainsaw sprint, it was later added, and when people learned to curve, BHVR encouraged it. You would know this if you actually did an ounce of research before talking on subjects you dont actually know about. I would compare it to being similar to Survivor's spinning Killers, it definitely was not the intended originally design for the game, but become apart of it because the community and developers liked it.

So you just don't like the billy community, doesn't change the fact that curvebilly is fair and has depth and skill, and should be encouraged.

It's like the devs don't understand billy at all.

Literally every time they change him, they frame it like they're improving him and billy player's should rejoice, but they just nerf the things that people actually like about him while giving him stuff no one cares about.

He's already dead BHVR, please stop.

I posted this in another thread, but, in this case it really feels like BHVR is seeing the engravings usage levels, and mis-reading them as being too strong rather than his other addons being weak.

Comparing them to some of his other addons:

First, the way OP has mentioned with the increased skillcap, the way they push his curve playstyle to its limits, the learning curve using them, etc. All good enough reason to pick them on their own and lean into that style of play.

Second, they're some of his only universally reliable addons. Lopro is great IMO, and I love yellow boots for map traversal. But, the black grease and pills? Their activation conditions are often out of your control and hard to get value out of the times they even proc. The purple boots have such a huge downside that it's painful. He's got so many intensely mediocre ones like his browns, the off brand motor oil, all four of the overheat related ones (cooldown based/"Active when overheated"), the whopping 15s of stealth (2.5s of which is taken by the chainsaw hit that procs it). So many of his addons are just.... hard to notice or even get value from.

Many of the other addons like the iris are fun gimmicks are best, but the engravings are just about the only ones that really change how he plays in an effective way other than a gimmick.

On top of everything Vel has said, it feels like interpreting their usage levels as being OP rather 2 of his 3-4 total Reliable addons is a misstep. His other addons could use some love to increase his addon variety, rather than nerfing his only consistent ones.

My god. The 11k hours even imply that he has seen most of the games developement.

The number of matches against m1 killers, all of which use the same mindgames, wether its pig, trapper, legion, etc...

Prefers if Killers are less variable, in essence if his experience ingame stands out less with each passing day...

By interduction, I assume you find most killers with variable mindgames boring.

After 11k hours, he prefers Killers to feel more similar, instead of hoping for variable experiences.

This absolute menace of a survivor likely prefers m1 on gens over actual looping.

Magnificent, this has to be the most successful trolls of this entire website.

I've never seen something I've agreed with more, couldn't have said it better myself.

Also one of the few who still occasionally play Billy. Nerfing his last good add-ons would kill him for good.

Overheat is NOT his problem, it's the fact that he has effectively no good add-ons and no more add-ons that help alleviate his clunky base-kit that was to be remedied by his original add-ons.

Add-ons are his problem, not his overheat, no one cares about overheating.

Wait, is OP well known or something?

Developers should only use Hillbilly 100 times before considering adjustments.

You will understand what you really need and what you don't need. Overheat mitigation is correct and unnecessary.

I used to play a lot of Hillbilly in 2018. After they added overheat, I decided to drop him (after a few matches to see how it felt). Fast forward to the recent past, I was playing him about a week ago. Discovered Lopro+ Doom Engravings after constantly getting owned, and then only getting owned most of the time. I just now learn is the "sweat" build after experimenting with his other add-ons, which is Scott Jund telling me about "crack/insta-saw" Billy all over again. The point being, I actually do know how to play me a Hillbilly or two. I can't say that I send myself to Lery's, I just weep in agony if that happens, but I can curve on controller ("ooh, look at him. What a hunk!"). It literally feels like BHVR noticed I, personally, started doing okay with him, and having fun, and said "well we can't have that!"

So sorry that I came back, y'all. I'll stop playing him, or start playing him only with bad add-ons that don't actually do anything, so that his kill-rate goes then and they MAKE LOPRO BASEKIT.

You're not gonna be remotely good at AWPing in CS in 5 hours. That doesn't mean the AWP needs to be nerfed.

Im certain if CS made a gun and people didnt get kills with it until after using it for 100h, then they would admit they made a mistake. but in DbD land you guys think that cause for celebration. (its not)

How long does it take without a personal trainer? plus how long should it take before a rework is considered.

lmao. Dark souls is the worst example you could use cause I know that game like my own hands.

First. hard is not a synonym for bad, but it certainly depends on how hard. Hillbilly certainly is outside any standard at this point.

Seconds. Dark souls have incredibly easy mechanics, there are no slide around a bush to get increased damage.

third. We certainly have to rework a Killer at some point. Besides like so many have told me in this thread, you can just play a different killer when that happens, yourself.

Should we keep Twins like they are forever cause it makes a few people happy? No this is a game, for many people and if the power is just too bad or too old. Just can it and move on. Its so simple. I used to Main old Freddy, I didnt bat a eye over that.

For what it's worth I 100% agree with OP and at this point they're just kicking Billy when he's down. These add-ons are some of the very few left that even do ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT and they want to nerf them? Meanwhile Blight with 10 busted add-ons gets no changes? This is purely the result of their idiotic "balancing" philosophy; some guy saw a spreadsheet showing these add-ons being used more than others and never stopped to ask why. It's because Billy has approximately 4 add-ons that even do anything useful in the first place!

Off-Brand Motor Oil, Big Buckle, Leafy Mash, Black Grease, Pighouse Gloves, and now ALL the other overheat add-ons are entirely useless.

God forbid they at least rework some of his garbage tier shite before they nerf some of his only decent add-ons left.

This change has me ######### livid and incredibly disappointed. Especially showing the double standard between Billy and Blight, and especially after Skull Merchant.

I only play Billy on occasion and, when I do, I use Stealth Drift Billy (to use a description last page) because my niche is weird stealth builds and stealth Billy is great for that.

That said, while I don't use the Engravings myself, the impression I'm getting is the changes to Engravings are basically pointless. They aren't changing anything actively problematic (like the Blight addons mentioned) and, like the recent scream change, seem to be trying to fix what ain't broke by nerfing something that seems to be one of the main incentives to even play Billy, going by what's been said.

If this Engravings nerf camev with a more general addon pass that might be one thing, but this focus on a player favorite that few were complaining about and on an infrequently played killer besides seems like terrible devving.

I do agree that steps should probably be taken to make Billy more easily accessible/desirable for beginners, if for no other reason than because he's a base game killer and new players already have Nurse for a mechanical challenge. If anything I worry the overheat changes will put a damper on that since map traversal is the main use new Billies use for their chainsaw while they learn it and long sprints are where the most overheat will now go to.

None of that, however, is really relevant to the issue of Engravings being a bad nerf.

Imo the "how much" question is a bit irrelevant, because at the end of the day some idiot decided that these add-ons needed any sort of nerfing which just shows unfathomable incompetence.

Thank you for this well written post Vel. I sincerely hope the devs listen to the community this time.

There's nothing as exciting as being chased by a double engravings Billy imho, though I'm obviously biased. Dbd will lose something special if these changes go through.

I really, REALLY hope this is what they decide to do.

First: you say its bad design, i say its intended design

second:also billy does have easy mechanics?! chainsaw goe Brrrrrrr! just that they have more nuance to them, same as rolling in Darksouls you cant spam rolls in DS and win !? you have to time them in accordance to a enemy attacks, same with billy if you just rev your chainsaw and expect to land a hit no wonder u suck with billy, timing and when to use your chainsaw is key.

third: but according to most, you are the minority. most people consider hilly billy a very fun killer to play against. you are literally one of the only people in this forum for the billy nerf, your are contradicting yourself

your are one the few people to keep happy?