Suggestion: Changes to Knights Power and Addons
Before I go into the topic, please take 5 Minutes to read through this topic. The more people interact, the higher the chances are to get changes the Knight needs. If you disagree but have ideas, please let me know so I can update this post to something more healthier or more creative. Thank you for your time, I appreciate it a lot!
Base Kit Changes and Why:
The issue with Knight right now is how slow the knight draws his Path, the maximum length of it and the vision range of guards. Knight Players make up for it With Map of the Realm and Call to Arms but that leads to the issue that Knights cannot profit of any other addons. There is a issue with the guards right now, where they go around a pallet if a survivors drops it in a guard chase. There's also another issue where the guards don't get triggered by notifications around him. On certain maps Knight cannot use his power due to the range requirement (Only specific places, like Badham Preschool, in the School UG if the pallet spawns under the stairs).
For more Information about the Pallet Bug, Notification Bug and why Map of the Realm is a necessity, please press on the tags.
Changes:
- Increases the Vision range of Guards on Patrol by +4 metres. (Map of the Realm Basekit)
- Increases the maximum Patrol Path length by +10 metres and Increases the Path Drawing Movement speed by +2.2 m/s. (Call to Arms Basekit)
- Change Guards Logic to "Take the shortest pathing towards the hunted Survivor".
- The Knight should be able to dismiss a Guard that is not in a Hunt with the Secondary Ability Button. Recalling a Guard this way will leave The Knight with a 6 Second cooldown penalty.
- Guards will start destroying pallets in a chase with a survivor, but will end a chase after the action instead of going through the pallet (It helps The Knight and provides more counterplay for Survivors).
- Decrease the needed Distance to spawn the Green orb (aka to use his power).
- Increase the Movement Speed for The Carnifex and The Jailer to 103.5%.
- The Jailer will block Generators in a 12 Meter Radius when he start hunting a Survivor for the Duration of the Hunt and 3 Seconds afterwards.
- Optional: The Knight cycles through each Guard. Each Guard can be used once per Cycle. They recharge if all Guards have been used once. Addons like Treated Blade would have the effect, that the Knight can summon the Assassin twice before having to deplete the Carnifex and Jailer.
His Addons are in dire need of a rework, since most of them have no value or an effect that does not make any sense.
Addons:
Pillaged Mead: Rework: With the Power Changes in mind, Guards start a Hunt 0.5 seconds faster but they take 25% longer to break or damage. /// The Reduction does barely anything on Carnifex and it actually nerfs Assassin and Jailer since you profit of them taking longer to break something. You profit in the sense blocking the path since pallet stands longer and they cannot work on the generator for longer since they need more time.
Map of the Realm + Call to Arms: Rework (Only if both are basekit: Idea for Call Changes the order Guards will spawn to Jailer, Assassin and Carnifex, make this addon brown. Make Map of the Realm Yellow, Increases the length by +4 Meters and increases the path drawing movement speed by +1.0 m/s. /// His strongest addons for a reason, you basically need to run this combo since you either will not get the chase trigger for a guard or you will not make it to the gen with a guard without getting noticed. Knight needs these addons as base kit honestly otherwise all the other addons (besides 2 others) are unasable.
Town Watch's Torch: If Guards fail to damage Survivors during a Hunt a total of two times, The Knight is granted the Undetectable for 25 seconds. /// Change the condition and increase the duration. The issue here is that the condition makes it impossible to get value. Undetectable can be interesting so survivor dont notice you drawing your guard towards a gen.
Ironworker's Tongs: Rework: Give the used Guard back. Used Assassin in a chase and failed? Get him back. /// Does not bringt value since the condition is bad and the survivor that has the effect is aware of the knight.
Chain Mail Fragment + Broken Hilt: Rework: Chain Mail Fragment inflicts Haemorrhage and Mangled. Broken Hilt applies the Broken Effect for 40 Seconds. /// Getting the hit with a guard is rarely possible since you have to give up his strongest addons (Map of the Realm + Call to Arms) and you are giving up two addon slots for an effect that you can apply with Sloppy Butcher. Combine both into one addon.
Lightweight Greaves: Rework: The Jailer shows the aura of survivors around him in a 24 metres radius for 5 seconds. /// The duration is too short to get any value. The effect itself is strong, but think about it: Spawning the Jailer takes 1.5 seconds - in most loops the survivor will just run to the next loop. There's no value in using it to decrease the distance. The only value I can see is to use the jailer to breake a far generator and then to run to that generator faster. But that's so specific for a purple addon with barely any value.
Healing Poultice: Rework: Increases the Assassins Movement Speed to 115% (Maybe Higher?) but he cannot down a survivor anymore. /// I honestly think this needs a rework. You will not gain any value from this, since the knight imo does not profit of screams and revealing the survivors. You are wasting your strongest Chase Guard for information - It would be strong if the scream would trigger the guard to chase the survivor but it sadly does not.
Flint and Steel: Rework: Gain a 10% Haste Effect for 6 Seconds, when The Carnifex destroys or damages something. (And maybe it damages Generators now for 7.5% instead of 5%) /// Imo the worst addon I have ever seen in DbD. You will rarely see a dropped Pallet as a Knight + its stronger to just destroy it. Especially in a chase with the Carnifex, you can instantly destroy it and kill the survivor. Since the Carnifex chases for the longest duration and destroy items the fastest, its a waste to spawn him for that addon. It needs a rework or function with Standing paletts. That means it has the most value early in game but loses in strength as time goes on.
Blacksmith's Hammer: Rework: The Standard takes 5 additional seconds to manifest. Survivors will no longer receive a haste Buff when taking the Standard but the Endurance effect persists for 5 Seconds now. (Normally 3 Seconds) /// The effect is again too bad especially with the condition. You have to fail your power to get value and the value is too low to actually use it. 3% Hindered is barely anything even if its 15 Seconds. I would prefer a rework for this addon since hindered is boring for the survivor and buffing it would just be annoying for them.
Knight's Contract: Rework: Survivors receive a 10% Hindered effect penalty when they are within 16 Meters of the green orb for 5 seconds. Guards are showing the Aura of the Survivor while they are being hunted and after the hunt has ended for 5 seconds. /// The classic Exposed addon but barely usable. Why? Because if you summon your guard, the survivor will prefer to get hit by it. U can summon it on their booty, but the 1.5 second of spawning will mean they can make it to a pallet or window.
Comments
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These are solid ideas, nothing strikes me as egregiously unbalanced. I especially like the proposal of guards cutting off a chase to break a pallet the chased survivor drops, because it allows Knight to be an effective anti-pallet Killer while giving survivors more counterplay to his power aside from holding W or looping around to grab the Standard. I would really like to see that implemented.
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Thank you so much for interacting with this post, it means a lot to me! I hope this post will make a difference for us Knight Players. 💜
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I'm not a Knightmain but I like to play him, because he has a cool design and power. The Add-Ons Map Of The Realm and Call to Arm need to be basekit, because these Add-Ons make the Knight much smoother to play. He also needs an Add-On rework because many of his Add-Ons are either useless or bad. Your suggestions are overall pretty good and show why these Add-Ons are either useless or just bad! I really hope the devs will finally give Knight this tweak/rework as so many players suggest this since his release. Yes, the path finding of the Guards is terrible and they should hunt smarter as it is sometimes ridiculous. I also hate it that survivors don't get punished for running a bad path - the Guards will follow the same bad path, which is pathetic.
Overall, you have great suggestion and I really hope the developers will give the Knight some love!
Two things I have:
- Make the powerhitbox smaller. It is sometimes really annyoing when you can't use your power and you're moving around to find a spot just to break a pallet with your guard. This happens often in Buildings and Indoormap, especially Larries. This feels so clunky, annyoing, and stupid.
- Jailer should get a buff. Yes, he is good at finding survivors, but he does not Hunt long enough to either get a hit or to keep the survivor bussy. It also hurt so much to place him.
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thank you so much for interacting with my suggestion! I am glad that you enjoy my Ideas. Please consider giving my Thread a Vote Up. 💜
I agree with your take on The Jailer but on the other Hand his strength is to patrole and protect a object. Buffing him would make him stronger than the other Guards and less unique too.
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I love all of these addon changes and the Guardia Compagnia changes you've suggested! I'm unsure about Broken Hilt...maybe make it 40 seconds to balance out some of the changes. I do not necessarily agree with total range nerf to his power. Survivors can cover 32m very quickly while in use of your power. Right now his ability to "hide" his orb at loops by using the extra 22m after the first 10m is crucial to getting Guards on survivors.
One thing I wish they did was increase the Guard run speeds on Carnifex and Jailer to 103% instead of 102.5%. This can kind of make up for uses of Exhaustion perks like Sprint Burst and Lithe (even if they are direct counterplay to this power, like the Standard).
Jailer is desperately in need of a rework, in my opinion. All he does is act like a mediocre Carnifex with a longer detection range and faster patrol speed. Make him more punishing...I say whenever he detects a survivor, that survivor gets Entity blockers for the duration of the Hunt. Just do something interesting with the Jailer. The Carnifex gets instabreak speeds and longest Hunt duration, Assassin gets to move at 4.4m/s and inflicts Deep Wound. Jailer does nothing.
Good idea on the Pillaged Mead addon, making Knight more chase-oriented (you can also use this creatively to prevent survivors from nearly completinggens with the Assassin and Jailer so you can catch up to them and chase away ).
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Thank you so much for your input! I've updated the Addon Broken Hilt to 40 Seconds instead of 60 Seconds. I also updated some descriptions to insure no confusion and the Idea of increasing the Movement speed of The Carnifex and The Jailer.
Now, you and @HolyDarky said that The Jailer does not feel on the same level like the other two. Before I add something new I want to discuss with you what you imagine The Jailer should add.
One Idea you had was so the Survivor get's blocked by the Entity (I imagine it like Windows blocking, right?). Something I could imagine would be that when a Survivor gets cought by The Jailer in a 12 Meter Radius of a Generator, The Jailer will block the Generator for the Duration of the Chase and 3 Seconds afterwards.
If we take a look what The Jailer did in his lore: Alejandro Santiago apprenticed with the Guardia Compagnia’s Armourer. So another Idea here would be to buff the Knight for using The Jailer. Maybe The Jailer increases The Knights Movement Speed by 5% for the duration of the Hunt. Please let me know what you guys think about this!
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I agree with this Jailer change to his basekit regarding generators. One thing I'd change for that is if you use the Jailer to damage a generator, the Entity blocker doesn't get applied, but if a Survivor is detected in that range, the Blocker applies. Onto the speed buff, we already have Lightweight Greaves; seems like a redundancy for using the addon as it where and we're already giving the Jailer so much more utility. I'm not into the 5% speed for the Hunt...that seems like an Assassin idea. But Assassin already does enough damage on his own.
Worth a thought!
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I've updated the post with The Jailer blocking Generators. Let me know if I should change some more things!
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All in all, very good changes.
I recently have been dabbling a bit in Knight gameplay, and there are indeed some clunky parts in his design.
Things in particular to comment on:
1) Map of the Realm basekit is indeed practically a necessity, since without it a running Survivor can outrun the detection zone of a Guard dropped even directly on them.
A pretty accurate video description of the issue, courtesy of Maledictator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObEDkaDFVQo
Therefore, either Map needs to be basekit, or the deployment speed of the tracking zone needs to be increased.
2) The Guards' path priority indeed needs to be updated to follow the minimum path to the survivor in pallet situations. Be it through pallets even (I'd rather keep that and choose which pallet to play or break).
3) If any upgrades to his base Power are to be considered, I'd like the ability to cancel a Guard Hunt if it has elapsed at least 50% - 75% of its duration.
Mandatory to have the Hunt last a bit before it can be cancelled of course, so that the Power isn't able to be recalled at will and constantly harass an area (on top of gen kicking) with little time investment.
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Thank you so much for your input! I am glad that you like these suggestions. I've added your third idea in the post since I think that it's a really good point. I also thank you for your video that showcases why it's a necessity. 💜
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knights guards are a buggy mess at the moment and really need a new look on how their pathing should be.
i agree with your points i love this guy and really wish to see him less addon dependent and less screwed over by buggy Ai.
tho i feel knight will be very low on the priority list for bhvr since they announced plans for changing freddy, billy, myers, twins.
but even if it was just number changes and bug fixes I'd be very thankful.
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Thank you so much for your input! I kinda know that Knight will have have a very low priority but it doesn't mean he will not receive changes! Lets hope for the best. ♥
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Saw this recently in the Knight Main steam group. Nice to see someone else is posting there besides me 😂
Overall very good suggestions!
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