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The Hillbilly: Changes to his Basekit and Add-ons
Greetings everybody! In this discussion, I would like to address to some changes to our beloved Hillbilly.
Ever since BHVR introduced The Hillbilly to Dead by Daylight, many players have expressed their love and appreciation for the chainsaw wielding maniac. Not only is Hillbilly generally agreed to be incredibly fun to go up against, but he is also one of the top mechanically demanding killers out there.
Unfortunately, BHVR nerfed our beloved Hillbilly by adding the infamous overheat mechanic to his base kit and changing multiple add-ons. While some changes to the add-on were deserved for the health of the game, mostly the insta-saw add-ons, it still didn’t warrant a beloved killer like this to be nerfed heavily.
In this discussion, I’ll be detailing some changes to Billy’s base kit and add-ons that will hopefully bring back Hillbilly close to his former glory.
Base Kit Changes
Recently, in Patch 6.7.0, BHVR gave Hillbilly a buff alongside a nerf to his base kit. The buff, overall, was to make Billy’s overheat mechanic less of a detriment when playing him. Specifically, they did the following:
- Reduced the heat gain when starting the Chainsaw from 5 charges to 2 charges.
- Reduced the heat gain when revving the Chainsaw from +8 c/s to +3 c/s.
- Increased the heat gain during a Chainsaw Sprint from +2 c/s to +5 c/s.
With the info above, BHVR buffed Billy while performing curves, but nerfed Drift King Billy. According to a Developer Update published in April 2023, BHVR stated that they wanted Hillbilly to, “feel better to play,” by making the overheat mechanic, “less limiting than before.” As of now, this does seem to be the case, but why not just remove it completely? Why nerf another aspect of his playstyle that mostly consists of fun?
Change: With the info mentioned above, the only change I would make to his base kit is to completely remove the overheat mechanic. With this change, the only things we have left are his add-ons that affect the overheat mechanic.
Add-on Changes
As stated before, some of Hillbilly’s add-on did deserve a change such as his well-known insta-saw add-ons. As the name suggests, this allowed Hillbilly to rev his chainsaw faster before entering a chainsaw sprint. These add-ons, paired up with the old version of Tinkerer, allowed Hillbilly to down survivors before you could even blink.
As of 2023, Hillbilly currently has three insta-saw add-ons: Tuned Carburetor, Mother’s Helpers, and Black Grease. As of now, these add-ons go from being good, to niche, to downright awful. Time to address the changes of his add-ons if the overheat mechanic were to be removed.
Junkyard Air Filter
This add-on increases the overheat limit of the Chainsaw by +20 charges.
Change: Reduces the cooldown on both missed and successful Chainsaw hits by 0.4 seconds.
Punctured Muffler
This add-on increases the cooling speed of the Chainsaw by +50%.
Change: During a Chainsaw Sprint, pallet stun durations are reduced by -50%.
*Doesn’t stack with Enduring.*
Off-Brand Motor Oil
This add-on reduces the range within which Chainsaw noises can be heard by 30%.
Change: Reduces the cooldown on both missed and successful Chainsaw hits by 0.6 seconds.
Big Buckle
This add-on reduces the terror radius by -8 meters while overheated.
Change: Reduces the terror radius by -4 meters while revving and during a Chainsaw Sprint.
Black Grease
This add-on increases the charge speed of the Chainsaw by +18% for 30 seconds after being blinded.
Change: Increases the charge speed of the Chainsaw by +18% for 60 seconds. You see the aura of the survivor who blinded you 6 seconds after the blind ends.
Spiked Boots
This add-on increases the turn speed during the Chainsaw Sprint by +44% and increases the cooldown after hitting an obstacle during a Chainsaw Sprint by +28%.
Change: Simply remove the cooldown after hitting an obstacle. Makes no sense why Drift King Billy should be punished.
Pighouse Gloves
This add-on increases your action speed when damaging generators and breaking pallets or breakable walls by 20%, and reduces pallet stun duration -50% if and only if the Chainsaw is overheated.
Change: Reduces the terror radius by -4 meters while revving and during a Chainsaw Sprint. Reduces the range within which Chainsaw noises can be heard by 50%.
Apex Muffler
This add-on silences the Chainsaw for all survivors outside of the terror radius.
Change: Silences the Chainsaw for all survivors outside of the terror radius. Gain the undetectable status effect until you stop sprinting after maintaining a Chainsaw Sprint for 2 seconds.
Iridescent Brick
This add-on makes you gain the undetectable status effect until you stop sprinting after maintaining a Chainsaw Sprint for 2 seconds.
Change: Reveals the auras of survivors within 18 meters of your position after downing a survivor with the Chainsaw.
Conclusion
Hillbilly is a beloved killer by the community. Seeing him getting nerfed was a great pain to us all. Especially when BHVR decided to nerf his other add-ons while his most problematic add-ons were his insta-saw add-ons. Hopefully, these add-on changes will restore Hillbilly close to his former glory, but nowhere close to being frustrating as some thought with his insta-saw add-ons.
Additionally, and as always, I'm always open to being wrong and corrected about these changes as long as everything is civil.
Thank you for reading.
Comments
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All you need to do is give him back charge time addons but without the ability for them to stack, so you have basically old crack Billy, but without the ability for instant saw, would be completely fine.
As for your proposed addons changes, some of them are alright but some are still useless, I will go over them in a second. I would like it if his lower rarity addons were solid as well, similar to Ghostface addons, where basically the browns are some of his best but just increase numbers, you could do the same for example decrease charge time and cooldown by a bit and maybe add a third weaker engraving so you can run those two together.
I would maybe make it so decreased cooldown doesn't stack because a 2 second cooldown might be a bit much.
Big Buckle is still completely useless..
Black Grease:
I don't really see a reason to put any condition on a charge time decrease, if it does not stack with other addons of that kind, needing to get blinded is just way to situational to be considered a good addons.
Pighouse gloves seems to be even more useless than right now, a 4 m terror radius decrease really is not worth much.
And Iridescent Brick just seems like a worse version Infectious, sure you get aura reading butHillbilly isn't much of a slugging killer anymore, he is not Oni or Nurse in that sense.
Like I said before you could basically bring back all of his old addons and just make it so the charge time decrease does not stack so Insta saw is not a thing anymore, that would be the easiest solution and you could still just run crack Billy and be fine. I think the curving is the kind of gameplay most people like to go against and I am not particularly a fan of the stealth gameplay because getting hit by a cross map chainsaw from an angle you could not see without much of a visual/audio warning is not really fun.
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Yeah I think it might actually be cool if big buckle *increased* terror radius by say, 12 for synergy with other perks
And also mabye an addon that has both hemmorage and mangled like wraith's one addon?
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Would be better than some of those he has, but I would rather have some addons that actually do something with his power instead of just slapping status effects onto it, because that is quite the boring way to make addons. An example of what I mean would be something like the chainsaw becomes audible map wide but he gains xy benefit. Something that either enables another playstyle or makes his power usable on more tiles or gives him an even higher skill ceiling and what not, some of that kind of stuff... And not just you gain sloppy butcher if you hit the chainsaw... I guess you know what I mean.
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Hey lad. Thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely be changing some add-on effects for sure after what you said.
You mention bringing back his old insta-saw add-ons but not making them stack. I am 100% for that, but what would we do with the other current day insta-saw add-ons?
Secondly, when it comes to Big Buckle and Pighouse Gloves, what new effect would you give it?
Thirdly, when it comes to Iridescent Brick, what effect would you give it?
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I understand where you're coming from, but I am personally not a fan of status effect add-ons. I prefer add-ons that directly affect the killer's power. For example, look at Plague. She doesn't have any status effect add-ons. Only ones that affect her power.
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I would get rid of the current ones, I find them too situational and not strong enough to be worthwhile...
As for iridescent Brick, some time ago it used to be possible with lopro chains to basically 180° flick after the pallet break, which let to some awesome plays... I found this a really cool mechanic so we could work with this and make an addons that kind of has a similar effect, I don't want to put it onto low pro chains, because it is already quite strong, but what if you could play bump logic Billy so you bump into something and just get ejected in a direction, I don't know if I would make it so you bounce back in the same direction or more like a slide off. Otherwise maybe an addon that makes you go faster the longer you sprint, and maybe in return a bigger heartbeat and directional? So the survivors don't get run over by 400% Billy without being able to do anything... I don't know how much the max speed would be but it could be rather much since it is an iridescent addons... And you should not be able to ignore the downside with of the directional sound queue with anything, because it should not be unfun for the survivors more than necessary...
As for the other two addons... One could be somewhat like lopro chains but for survivors, so your saw doesn't stop after a hit, but as a downside the saw only takes one health state, it would be a meme addons for sure, I just think without it it might be too much for a green yellow/if you want to put it in higher rarity it might be fine without it, but I'm not sure about that... The other addon could be an addon similar to one Blight has that gives a hard skill check when you sprint past them, I found his addon quite funny, not necessarily good, but such rather meme addons also have a place (and I could not really come up with something more useful that quickly...).
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Very interesting. I'll try and come up with something in the meantime on my Google Doc and post an updated version of this discussion soon.
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I mean it was just an idea to think about ^^ Nothing that was long thought through :)
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I understand, but still, any type of change can be good.
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