How Strong/Weak Is Sadako?
Im not quite sure how I feel about the Sadako update.
I do think there is a lot of potential, I just have not really had the opportunity to have a normal match to really qualify where is strength exactly is since Nic Cage just released and most lobbies have people messing around too much to really determine anything meaningful.
Im also just really upset about the Reiko's Watch nerf, since ya know, it was fun to toy around with and I felt like I could use some sort of skill to get downs, now she just feels a bit underwhelming in chase, but that could just be me.
That being said, I want to ask the community, how strong/weak is Sadako now? It seems like people have a lot of polarizing opinions on her currently but Im hoping over time we can really pinpoint how strong/weak she is.
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Depends on the build. If it's a condemned build then it's absolutely overpowered. They just teleport to every single TV possible and once you're the most condemned, they mainly focus on you. You want to go to a new loop? She'll teleport over there. The only counter is to literally stand still as far away from TVs as possible and that isn't fair. If they run the add-on that promotes slugging (since healing gives you condemned), you're basically screwed. Getting killed at zero hook states because all the TVs are seemingly disabled isn't fun, especially when your entire team is slugged and you have to decide whether to take the Mori for them. I got so annoyed by one Onryo that I didn't give them the satisfaction of getting their undeserved Mori and just left.
Safe to say I won't be playing until the surge of Onryo players slowly declines because it's miserable and you can't counter it.
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To the slugging point, you can't get stacks from picking someone off the ground anymore, so unless you are trying to bait out them healing them up to full at the same time, there isn't much point aside from trying to add pressure or go for a 4 slug, which most mobility killers can do (not endorsing it, just saying they did actually nerf that aspect for the addon.)
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Better, undeniably, but it's difficult to tell by how much.
There's a lot more thought and skill that goes into playing her now that she has to be more aware of what survivors are doing instead of focusing one guy down, which I like. The Reiko's Watch nerf does suck and I'm against that, but that's really my only complaint so far.
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Playable with a SWF, insufferable in solo queue
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Outta curiosity do lockers still protect against condemned or is that scrapped?
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Mix feelings.
Not that im a main pro sadako, but before was trash.
Now at least i can see that people need to work on tapes and waste time.
I guess more time is needed to both sadako and survivors learn how to play and with and against.
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It's fine if she get buffed it's not the problem, instakill at 0 hooks shouldn't be too frequent or too easy or it breaks the game, devour hope is balanced because getting 5 stacks is hard enough.. it's another free win build added to the list solo q will never beat that, even addonless you can usually mori 1-2 players
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Pretty strong compared to before. Check this out if you haven't
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I've given my thoughts in this thread here. It's pretty long, but there's a TL;DR at the bottom if you don't feel like reading it all.
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Matches against bots arent exactly representative of how good a killer is.
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You're welcome.
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To be fair. The survivors in the first match were beyond terrible. Like the one that ran away from the god pallet to attempt a 360.
So i really thought that could only be bots.
My bad.
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Just a correction I want to make here:
Ring Drawing; it only applies Condemned when healing a Survivor from Injured to Healthy.
Formerly it use to give Condemned to Survivors for healing a Survivor from the Dying State but it was nerfed to only affect Injured to Healthy.
So no, that addon does not promote Slugging, it promotes staying Injured, which could lead to snowballing.
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Shes in the same boat as Oni. Not only do you need to have a higher level of understanding playing just an M1 killer but you need to find a proper rhythm to make proper use of her power
It amazes me that people immediately jumped the gun and claiming that she got nerfed when shes at the very least high B tier.
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I think my issue personally is I played her for the chase.
Teleporting for cut-offs, Manifest/Demanifest Mindgames, etc, of which got gutted this update.
I can understand Teleporting get nerfed with the Condemned changes, but removing her ability to handle chases with basekit/addon nerfs seems a bit too much.
I hate how the playstyles I enjoyed got gutted while Condemned got heavily buffed.
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That is just Soloq....
Edit Fixed grammar
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What do you mean it got gutted?? That part of her kit if anything got stronger since now even if the Survivor sees a TP coming and double back they get Condemned anyway, AND the entire team gains Condemned as well.
Manifest/Demanifest mindgames are quite literally the same as the only thing theyve changed in that regard is not being able to be stunned while Demanifested, and she also got some new add ons that help her out (Such as Telephone)
The only thing that really got gutted, was the old Condemned playstyle that basically required 2 add ons.
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Allow me to explain.
Chase Sadako does not care about building Condemned, they just care about getting hits/downs/hooks through chasing.
- Teleporting; TPing was used specifically to try and get hits by cutting off the Survivors or using the speed boost at a loop to get a hit. The cooldown removes a lot of the fluidity that Sadako had with her Teleports, and with Condemned applying to all Survivors, it is more likely that the TV you need is disabled by a Survivor.
- Manifest/Demanifest mindgaming is safer for Survivors than before, since it removes Bloodlust and windows can be vaulted without Entity Blocking, many loops that were once playable are no longer playable just from the single change alone (mainly because of the lack of Entity Blocking).
- Her chase related addons got a huge nerf, Reiko's Watch (an addon that Chase Sadako REALLY relied on) allowed for huge skill expression and let Sadako's down people at loops more consistently, it got nerfed to the point to where it's not even worth using anymore.
- Chase Sadako was pushed as a "dead playstyle" this patch since the optimal way to play Sadako is just spamming teleports and interrupting tapes, combine this with all the nerfs. Why play for hooks when you can just gets 1 Kill early into the match via Condemned?
- The "inability to stun" Sadako while Demanifested is such a non-change considering the fact that many experienced players will just not drop the pallet until Sadako is Manifested, rather it be running around a loop an extra time or waiting a pallet for her to actually Manifest, especially when you can already walk through her and she cannot hit you while Demanifested.
So yea. Chase Sadako, as a playstyle, got gutted this update. She is undoubtedly stronger than before the update, BUT the main issue I have is that she is pretty much forced into the Condemned playstyle since you are shooting yourself in the foot for trying anything other than it.
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Currently she does not need to interact with the hooks at all.
The two silliest arguments I have seen so far, have to be trolling at this point.
"Just find a tape at the start bro"
"Just dont get hit bro"
Yea ok, all 4 survivors at the start of the match, wait for the TV's to turn on, all be seperate, and grab a tape. Right yea, all the TV's just spawn at the survivors feet or are within 10 seconds of the starting spawns /s
Hope she NEVER gets a single hit off in a match... Lmfao what an argument to make.
Hope she doesnt teleport in your face, or is near when you grab one, making you instantly lose the tape and adding 2 condemn.
This only gets worse with her add-ons.
Someone at the start, realistically multiple someones, will not have a tape in their hands, so she will get a couple of teleports off, and then find someone who took a tape to slow down her condemn, and start the process of zoning them out and eventually killing them without even getting a single hook stage.
And chances are if you get downed but not full condemned she will leave you there and proxy camp you, so she can start the process on the other survivors.
This is going to change, it's not even remotely considered fair game play. Nothing in this game, including blight, is this imbalanced.
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-Teleporting to a TV back to back like that only really had one purpose and thats to apply Condemned really quickly. You also have the downside of wasting all that youve got in an area leaving you with nothing for your next few chases.
-As some one who sort of adopted a playstyle of chase Sadako, doing Demanifesting mindgames at high wall loops is basically the same as doing red stain mindgames since they couldnt see you behind a wall to begin with
-Reiko's Watch didnt increase her skill ceiling, just made Demanifesting mindgames easier to pull off since you didnt need to time it as well
-Chase Sadako was a dead playstyle since March 2022. It was always just a gimmick
-You cant react to a Sadako whos about to 99% her Manifest, it has to be a read similar to Wraith
If anything, the playstyle is stronger since now you actually pressure other Survivors while chasing and have easier access to your TV's. The only negative is she feels a bit worst/clunkier to play because of the cooldown.
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Onryo is a piece of cake to play right now. You don't have to think very hard, especially with the Mother's comb addon. You get a notification whenever a survivor gets a tape and see all the possible TV's they could be heading to.
Ring Drawing basically means the survivors should never heal because if they do, they'll get condemned stacks and waste more time having to get tapes to get rid of their condemned. Also, she can shred through pallets since she is hard to stun.
All my Onryo games have been very easy, maybe she's overtuned?
BUT these are my first impressions, I'm willing to wait a few days to see if any good strats against her arise (if any).
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She is the pure definition of don’t judge a book by its cover. Every person said she was nerfed and would be worse.
She is now beating top 3 comp teams without hooking at all.
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Eveyone is complaining about solo queue, but the main issue is really people disconnecting/suiciding on the first down/hook for no reason at all. Disconnects should be solved by bots. Now they just need to fix the suicides and the game becomes instantly better.
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Rather have a bot then a quitter.
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I agree with you a lot here.
I play Oni often and once I got Sadako I had a very familiar feeling. If I get in a lot of condemn early then she will steamroll a team because they have to relieve a lot of pressure quickly and you have time for the chases and get the down. However when the survivor are in the flow you will struggle a lot and have to fight for your edge a lot.
She feels easy now because a lot of survivors will just play against her as they did against the old Sadako.
I had survivors who never every grabbed a tape and once they did and ran into me I hit them, the tape exploded and they became fully condemned...of course I win against this...it is basically the same as going against a Pig and ignoring her trap the entire time and then complain about her getting too many kills.
For me she is a descent Killer now. Let her be, she is a good little ghost now.
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Everyone else was mori'd apart from one guy slugged. Also, make sure to learn the difference between 'then' and 'than'.
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This isn't the only reason she feels easy. Global Condemn as a mechanic is an easy thing for her to work with. It's a lot of pressure on survivors with little effort on her part besides using her power on cooldown. The pre-rework Sadako at least had some skill expression in the form of i) demanifest mindgames, ii) keeping track of survivor locations, and iii) herding survivors towards her TVs.
The only skill expression in the reworked Sadako is a reduced version of ii), since now she keeps track of tape holders. It's a much easier version of her to play. On the contrary, the counterplay from survivors requires identifying TV locations, knowing which TVs are turned off via Projection vs. via teammates so that you know where you can grab a tape, knowing where she is and being prepared to loop her, being prepared to bodyblock for tapeholders near windows... it's a lot more skill than the Sadako player needs to put forward and it's not a healthy balance for soloqueue to have.
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my dude she's an m1 stealth killer just do the tapes like you would pigs beartraps it's not hard lol
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I don't play much survivor, I'm speaking as the killer :) It's really not hard to cut off a survivor who is carrying a tape in the vast majority of matches. It encourages a style of play in which she tunnels down and slugs a tape carrier or two tape carriers and usually this leads to me getting a condemn at 4 or 5 gens.
She requires very little skill to play relative to what she used to require and the counterplay around her is much more involved than just 'take a tape' now, it's too much for survivors. There's almost no challenge in any of the matches.
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she's takes more skill than playing survivor the "but she's easy to play111 so she needs to be weak11" agurement isn't gonan work here play the killer a bit more before you scream for nerfs it's not even been a week yet my dude
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Where did anyone say she needs to be weak? Who is making that argument? Seems like a strawman. Check my thread. I've called for buffs to parts of her kit.
Saying "it's been a week" when we've been playing her for over a year and can readily see how the changes pan out is the exact sort of mentality that leads to the balance team ignoring the community and going back to their alleged spreadsheet. Do you really trust that the balance team will return to her if we don't give feedback now?
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"She requires very little skill to play relative to what she used to require" this was implying to me that you were saying she needs to take a good amount of skill to be high tier my bad
i don't think she needs any more changes i think people just need to learn how to counter her give people time to ajust to the changes, bhvr tends to let everything settle before they go and change a killer again before moving on.
let sadako have her time in the sun man i'm tired of playing wesker.
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I don't think any character in any game needs to take skill to play or to play well, but it's nice and rewarding when they do. When characters like Sadako used to have some modicum of skill expression and it gets taken away, it removes part of appeal of the character that originally drew players like me to playing her and investing time in her. It's therefore disappointing when it's gone.
To be clear: Sadako does not need to be weak. I want her to be strong. I'd even be happy if she stayed in this fabled A-tier that people talk about below Blight and Nurse. But what I don't want is for her to be this strong while also being able to do everything she does by just mindlessly teleporting on cooldown and occasionally going for tape carriers.
The reason I do not want this is because she destroys soloqueue in a way that's pretty unhealthy, even against survivors who do tapes (which they've started doing in my games). But she also gets destroyed against good teams. I've only lost one game so far and it was against a team who knew how to do all tapes at once. The showcase that Otz, Hens, and Willie posted today also shows how she gets destroyed by coordinated teams because her chase is so weak.
I just want her chase to be buffed and her global condemn to be a little weaker. They could make Reiko's Watch and Old Newspaper basekit and this would greatly buff her chase. They could remove the change causing her to drop chase while demanifsted and this would also buff her chase by preventing survivors from spamming windows. This would make her more balanced and more fun. Note that "more balanced" doesn't have to be "weaker." I would mean giving her a better chance against really good teams and being less oppressive against uncoordinated teams.
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