Which Killers need balancing the most in your opinion?

This is my take, allow me to explain my thoughts!

Nurse - She's been untouched for 7 and a half years now, come on BHVR. She'll always be broken as long as her Blink can go through walls

Myers - Outdated and awful to play as against good Survivors, needs a new kit

Freddy - Most boring Killer by far, also awful and unfaithful to the franchise, needs a new kit

Clown - Obnoxious to play against and weak

Sadako - She either kills everyone in 5 minutes or is held hostage by the Survivors

Trapper - I think he'll be fine with some solid buffs, he doesn't need a rework IMO

Billy - Overheat should be removed

Legion - They need to remove the mending aspect from their kit a different status effect that doesn't take up eons to get rid of

Ghostface - Reveal mechanic is broken, Survivors should get punished in some way for revealing IMO like a 10 second mark or something

Pyramid Head - Needs a full add-on pass

Blight - Add-ons are atrociously strong and need to be nerfed, base kit could use some nerfs too

Trickster - They need to look at the "buff" again because he's somehow worse than before

Artist - Birds need a maximum range, how is she able to injure people, chase and force people off gens from Narnia?

Xenomorph - He should not be able to enter tunnels at the start of the game, needs a cooldown like Sadako's TVs

What are your opinions?

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Comments

  • Grigerbest
    Grigerbest Member Posts: 1,570

    I mean, you can't just Snap your fingers and change licensed killers power completely. It must be changed wisely without losing "lore components".

    Instead of making Xeno like Sadako, they should make Sadako like Xeno, and remove the cooldown from TVs at the beggining of the match.

    Legion is a low tier killer, why you want to ground them more?=)

    Trapper and Hag are territorial killers with pretty outdated powers. They need a full rework imo.

    If you want to rework the Knight, it makes no sence that you don't want a full rework for Carmina. She is basically a better version of Knight in terms of anti-loop.

    "Can we just leave the Nurse alone?"

    Clown should not be even touched. Same goes for Plague.

    Do you actually think Chucky is fine? =)

  • Xendritch
    Xendritch Member Posts: 1,842

    Xeno not being able to enter tunnels at the start of the game is a joke when you have to fight turrets half the game just to keep your power in the first place.

    Sadako TVs have a cool down cuz they can lead to an instakill but even without that she's still a stealth killer that ignores stuns and body blocking, Xeno needs her tunnels just to have any power at all so they're not really comparable.

  • Astel
    Astel Member Posts: 650

    Nurse being fine but the nuisance of Chucky not fine is interesting to me. I mean, Chucky is 110% and has long cooldown for his ability, which can punish him very harsh. May I hear your reasons?

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,655

    Nurse has quite the history of nerfs to be fair. Most of which you'll find here. She still needs further adjustments but claiming she hasn't been touched for 7 1/2 years is wrong.

    For Trapper, I am genuinely curious, what you would like to buff about him. He already got some considerable buffs but it doesn't change the fact that his power is pretty bad. It doesn't work as the devs want it to work because setting up a trap where everyone will see it (becomes more of an issue with each new map and map rework because there are so few spots to even try and hide traps), will lead to survivors either disarming your power, in which case your power is to apply a little bit of slowdown but only for investing time that you don't have to begin with, slowing yourself down even more, or just avoid them.

    Billy needs a lot more than just the removal of overheat. I mean, have you played him over the past couple months? The overheat doesn't hold you back as long as you don't play Drifking Billy (R.I.P. my beloved) and he has a million different issues that make him way worse to play. There have been a few Billy threads recently, so I won't go into too much detail here but he needs some adjustments to his collisions, the old animations and POV should be restored, his base speed during a chainsaw sprint should be slightly increased and the Engravings adjusted accordingly, Off-Brand Motor Oil should be base kit, his hitbox on survivors needs some adjustments and his addons need an overhaul. On top of removing the now pointless overheat mechanic.

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,546

    What about Pig?

    You put her in the buff/nerf category

    Nurse has been nerfed... she isn't what she used to be

    Legion has hit a wall with the Deep Wounds system...

    I haven't played in 6 months so there's a lot I have no experience on

  • tuttoinunavolta
    tuttoinunavolta Member Posts: 197

    "Artist - Birds need a maximum range, how is she able to injure people, chase and force people off gens from Narnia?"

    If she's removing a survivor's health state from that far away, then the survivor either had bad reaction time or super predictable pathing... Chasing people from that far away is also impossible as chase doesn't start like that, and when she actually shoots from far away, the crows that landed will be long gone by the time she's reached the survivor in question.

    Throwing the first crow doesn't injure survivors, she needs to hit you with two consecutive Dire Crows. The further away she is, the longer the crows will take to get there (you get audio cues when the flight started too), and if you got hit with one crow, by the time her power is recharged she has lost the initial crow aura reading and if you played it well you're already at a good point of shooing away the crows. Hitting the second crow from very far away is only easy if the survivor is still sitting on the same gen gen unfazed or holding W in the same straight line since the first hit landed.

    With the Slingshot tech you have more chances of landing two consecutive crows one immediately after the other, but that still

    - requires a good guess and some luck from the Artist when placing the furthest Crow (second shot), as the surv is most likely going to leave the gen as soon as the first Crow lands, so the second Crow needs to be aimed in the direction the survivor will run to;

    - will rarely work when done from far away, as survivors have much more time to react to the Flight start audio cue + the second hit will be much much harder to predict and properly land


    I think Artist is perfectly fine. Yes, she can throw 3 crows at a time and reveal the position of 3 different survivors on 3 different gens, but that just puts her out of power for the longest cooldown possible, giving all 3 survivors time to comfortably get the crow off and position themselves in safer tiles (and she can only choose to chase one of those survivors at a time). Trying to do Bluetooth chases from far away is also super risky and really never worth it for the killer, unless you just want to goof off a little

  • BritneyMitch
    BritneyMitch Member Posts: 151

    Blight is in major need of balance changes. The add-on changes will likely not be enough to bring him to a normal place in the game.

  • CorvusCorax86
    CorvusCorax86 Member Posts: 1,064

    Whole Rework: Myers? He is fine... the only thing he needs is some changes to his add-ons.

    Fine: I mostly agree with this but Chucky is new so let's wait what happens in near-future patches.

  • radiantHero23
    radiantHero23 Member Posts: 3,975

    A lot of killers are in a good state.

    Nurse, Blight, Myers, Freddy are the most problematic ones in my opinion

  • Atsuka_Anarchy
    Atsuka_Anarchy Member Posts: 378
    edited December 2023

    Myers breathing intensifies.

  • UnknownKiller
    UnknownKiller Member Posts: 3,024

    Singularity need to be reprogrammed to harm the crew already and the addiction to soma photo fixed

  • NerfDHalready
    NerfDHalready Member Posts: 1,738

    i hate hag and trapper because they have to play territorial. for trapper a few guaranteed amount of attempts required to self escape would be nice or maybe even basekit honing stone and for hag very long tp range would solve the issue, imo.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 10,666

    Freddy needs his old power back with QoL improvements.

    I've been playing him exclusively for the last... few hours? I've returned to the game recently, and he feels awful, as I suspected he would.

    I'm begging BHVR at this point. I need my favorite killer back, no matter the cost.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,655

    While I am not against this idea, I don't see how that would help Trapper all that much. How often do you manage to have survivors step into traps when you're not around? It doesn't happen very often because most good trap placements have either been removed or fixed. A survivor will not walk into a trap that they can see but when there are so few spots to hide them, then this really reduces Trapper to an area denial killer in which case more time to escape a trap doesn't help him.

  • Thusly_Boned
    Thusly_Boned Member Posts: 2,910

    Yeah, the only time you can really get a cheap long range shot in with crows is at the beginning. Sometimes I'll run discordance at the start of a match and wait for for it to proc, then I'll send three spaced out crows and get a couple injuries right off as a party starter, but that only works once (maybe) if the survs are even semi-competent.

    If someone is consistently getting injured by cross map crow shots, they have to be practically sleepwalking.

    As for the others, Nurse perpetually comes up, but I don't think she's fixable without completely reinventing her. Nurse's imbalance is baked into her DNA. I just treat Nurse matches as a different game than DBD altogether.

  • NerfDHalready
    NerfDHalready Member Posts: 1,738

    trapper definitely needs more than that for sure, but buffing that kind of playstyle (?) would be neat, and useful at times. i generally go for surprise traps and people actually stepped in traps a lot outside of a chase. haven't really played him since mft's release and i'm not fully aware what spots they fixed other than places traps basically got buried and rpd's outside area so i don't really know how he feels now but it still shouldn't be impossible to hide traps unless it's gideon or eyrie.

  • lav3
    lav3 Member Posts: 758

    Removing overheat only wouldn't make Billy feel better.

  • Azulra
    Azulra Member Posts: 494

    "Nurse hasn't been touched in 7 and a half years?" That's a dead lie because anyone who has ever paid attention to DBD changes over the years would know that she's been touched a decent amount. As for Artist, her whole purpose is to be a ranged reconnaissance killer meaning that she uses her extreme ranges for info rather than injures. And, besides, getting injures with her crows without being point-blank shots is easier said than done because you have very little time to even do that and you pretty much can't get "double-taps" on gens anymore since BHVR added a feature where survivors have a 3 second immunity window from crow shots after getting swarmed meaning that a survivor would have to be dumb enough to stay on a gen instead of repelling the crows to get hit again.

    Also Legion needs the mending phase of his power because if it didn't cause Deep Wound then what stops him from just stabbing the same survivor 4 times then hit another survivor for an insta-down? Removing that mechanic without a full, hard rework to his power would straight up break him and he'd become miserable to play against since he could just come flying at you full speed and insta-down you with one hit which would just flat out be annoying.

  • H2H
    H2H Member Posts: 713

    “Nurse - She's been untouched for 7 and a half years now”

    hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

  • ironligma
    ironligma Member Posts: 119

    Slinger should be up one.

  • Raptorrotas
    Raptorrotas Member Posts: 3,238

    Its funny that "a good character performing better than worse characters with worse players" apparantly is a nerf condition for top killers like nurse.

    By that logic survivors shouldve been in dire needs of nerfs all along.

    But our community has this big survivor bias. "Killer top performance is an outlier in need of removal, survivor top performance is what all survivors should have by default".

    All killers below A tier need balancing to make them perform more like A-S Killers to homogenize killer performance. The killer strenght gap actually can be solved (killer abilities) compared to the solo swf gap (player skill and voicechat)

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    Pig needs a substantial buff, she is getting "tweaked" some time next year but what she really needs are meaningful buffs to her stealth and ambush.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    Artist has incredible map pressure even if she's not injuring people she's forcing them off gens, not to mention she makes certain loops unplayable for Survivors. I think she could do with a nerf to her range IMO.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    Myers is definitely not fine, his power is outdated and he needs a new one. He just feels like a much worse Oni.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    OG Freddy was awful, he basically had no power. While it was more faithful to the franchise it just didn't fit DBD which is why they reworked him, but yes he defo needs to be looked at again because he's so boring to play as and against.

  • CorvusCorax86
    CorvusCorax86 Member Posts: 1,064

    I rarely use her ambush ability. It should be made faster.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    I mostly meant she hasn't been changed in a way that has ever dropped her down from being the best Killer, but I did forget 5 blink nurse was a thing lol.

    Trapper needs QOL buffs really, starting with all his traps would make a big difference.

    Tbh I haven't played Billy since the overheat mechanic was added, but I've heard a lot of people talk about the many issues he has. Hopefully BHVR makes a meaningful updaye to him.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    Agreed, I'm personally of the opinion she should be able to fast vault mid Ambush, it wouldn't be too out of character for Amanda.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    Legion's deep wound should be replaced by something else, it's really not fun to play mending simulator constantly.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    Nurse is overpowered, she ignores pallets, walls, vaults and literally every defence that the Survivors have and against a good Nurse there's almost nothing you can do without breaking line of sight which isn't always possible.

  • Krazzik
    Krazzik Member Posts: 2,475

    I mean the killers at the extreme ends of the power spectrum need balance changes.

    Nurse needs some fundemental changes to her power, while Blight might get away with only addon changes. The A-tier killers are generally fine and are really what they should aim all killers to be power-wise.

    All the bottom tier killers need some significant buffs: Trapper, Freddy, Myers (Though he'd need Tombstone Piece heavily nerfed as well).

    Pig needs some big buffs to her Ambush, though would likely need some minor nerfs to her traps as well.

  • CompleatBeet
    CompleatBeet Member Posts: 118

    The problem with Hag is that she can be harassed very easily if Survivors are constantly destroying her traps as she's reliant on them to get downs because she's a 110 Killer. Playing Hag against a coordinated SWF is a nightmare.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 10,666

    You're entitled to your own opinion, of course. I respect it.

    But as someone who mained him, I strongly disagree. And I'm quite confident that I can fix him with QoL improvements.

  • GannTM
    GannTM Member Posts: 10,869

    Artist having map pressure doesn’t make her deserving of a nerf.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,655

    I think there is no way to balance Nurse as she is. Her power breaks core game mechanics and nerfing her too much would only result in her dropping several tiers, which isn't great either considering she is not easy.

    I don't disagree with that change for Trapper, but it still would only serve to make lockdown Trapper a bit better. Outside of that, there aren't a lot of spots where his traps would be useful. His worst problem are maps. You could set up and reset all your drones from distance and Trapper would still be awful on Ormond. There is no spot where his traps would catch a survivor off guard, which is an issue that many maps have these days.

    Billy overall hasn't aged really well and he will continue to get worse. Every new map and map rework is basically a slight nerf to him because it decreases the chances that he gets a good map. The new maps are always awful for him because they are too complex. Complex hitboxes, loop shapes and clutter are what really holds Billy back. That and the fact that survivors are not quite as inexperienced as they were some years ago. Even pretty awful survivors can dodge his chainsaw with very little trouble without looking behind them. So you not only need to mind game, curve perfectly and predict where that survivor will be, but you also need Engravings and a bit of luck or they will just react to the chainsaw and guarantee you miss (which you can do nothing about). Or they crouch. Which should never have been a thing against this killer to begin with.

  • Krazzik
    Krazzik Member Posts: 2,475

    It's the reason why I don't agree with her being a top-of-A-tier-killer. She's tough to really put on a tier list because the difference between playing against survivors who knows how to play against her, and survivors who don't is HUGE.

    Yes, that's the case for all killers, but especially Hag. If a Hag goes against 4 survivors who don't know how to play against her, it's an easy 4k almost every time, she's just THAT overwhelming.

    However, having even -one- survivor who is actively harassing her, setting off her traps in a safe way etc, can massively neuter her, and if multiple survivors are doing that, it's -really- hard for Hag to really do much.

  • caligraph
    caligraph Member Posts: 359

    Calling nurse untouched is just dishonest. She used to have 3 blinks, 100% speed, op addons, more op addons, and blinks for basic attacks

  • ohheyitsbobcat
    ohheyitsbobcat Member Posts: 1,723

    I'm one of those people that thinks it's alright for some killers to be left weak; like say Trapper for example. He's hardly the best and that's okay. I think he's still in a fine spot where he is.

    I'll go through every killer and give my current opinions. Also for the record, I'd never say no to QoL or minor updates for killers I think are in a good spot.

    Killers that need changes

    Nurse: Spasmodic Breath being basekit. This nerfs her a lot while basically keeping her the same. Hot take I know.

    Blight: Add-on nerfs which are happening.

    Pyramid Head: Add-on update. Torment bar instead of it being instant, hitting his ranged attack gives X amount of torment.

    Nemi: Add-on update; preferably stuff that buff the tentacle and Karen/Kevin in different ways.

    Trickster: Minor number tweaks until they get that sweet spot. PTB was too much while current is too little.

    Shape: Tombstone nerf, stalk slowly recharges on survivors. Would also enjoy a minor power rework; debuffs on stalked survivors, ability to swap to tier 1, tier 1 buffs, etc.

    Hillybilly: Add-on update and overheat looked at/removed.

    Pig: Slightly buffed dash, recoverable bear traps.

    Freddy: Let him have both powers and be swappable like Clown.

    Killers that are fine or only need minor QoL

    Spirit, Wesker, Plague, Oni, Artist, Huntress, Demo, Ghostface, Dredge, Pinhead, Hag, Bubba, Doctor, Singularity, Wraith, Legion, Clown, Trapper.

    Killers I am unsure about

    Chucky: Haven't played against enough/as to form a decent opinion.

    Xeno: I think they should be slightly changed but I'm not really sure how.

    Onyro: I don't really know how to feel about her.

    Knight: I also don't know how to feel about them.

    Twins: I have no idea how to make them better.

    Skull Merchant: I have yet to play against her since the changes.

  • duygu
    duygu Member Posts: 333

    the biggest buff hillbilly can get is reverting to old animations

  • HugTechLover
    HugTechLover Member Posts: 2,482

    lol @ the people saying blight needs basekit nerfs as if you’ve even faced against a basekit blight. Nobody runs basekit blight for a reason.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,655

    To be fair, how do you balance Blight when you keep his base kit this strong and also don't want his addons to suck?

    I think multiple slight nerfs or one more impactful nerf are fair, to allow him to still have strong addons. For example, I don't see why Blight of all killers has to be so forgiving for missed attacks. It really doesn't cost you a lot of time and his recovery is also pretty fast. So I'd suggest, nerfing him a bit in that regard and maybe let him start with his power on a cooldown (Lethal Pursuer on Blight often results in free hits). Alternatively, they could turn him down to 4.4 m/s and have him focus more on his power. Depending on how big the impact is, they could make further adjustments.

    I do not want Blight to become the next Hillbilly but I also think that he is already so strong, that any powerful addons might just send over the edge from balanced to broken.

  • pseudechis
    pseudechis Member Posts: 3,904

    A lot of this is just subjective and not really highlighting any kind of mechanical insight that might impact actual balance.

  • crogers271
    crogers271 Member Posts: 1,737

    Nurse - She's been untouched for 7 and a half years now, come on BHVR. She'll always be broken as long as her Blink can go through walls]

    As a survivor I suck against Nurse, but I do see other survivors who seem to deal with her without much problem.

    Myers - Outdated and awful to play as against good Survivors, needs a new kit

    Myers power fits. The only real issue with him is the tombstone pieces. I like the idea, but it can be really annoying to lose a survivor right away. I could see the basekit of his tier 3 lasting longer.

    Freddy - Most boring Killer by far, also awful and unfaithful to the franchise, needs a new kit

    Teleport is good, but his secondary power could be a lot stronger.

    Clown - Obnoxious to play against and weak

    He's fine.

    Sadako - She either kills everyone in 5 minutes or is held hostage by the Survivors

    That sounds like a lot of killers, many games are stomps one way or the other.

    Trapper - I think he'll be fine with some solid buffs, he doesn't need a rework IMO

    BHVR likes the idea of weaker killers for new players. I think he's generally fine, especially if you throw on some of his better addons. He can either be played to lock down an area, basement a survivor, or just throw traps in random bushes and hope.

    Billy - Overheat should be removed

    Okay.

    Legion - They need to remove the mending aspect from their kit a different status effect that doesn't take up eons to get rid of

    I don't know what that would be without a massive nerf to the killer. Some new effect like gen slowdown?

    Ghostface - Reveal mechanic is broken, Survivors should get punished in some way for revealing IMO like a 10 second mark or something

    What? Survivors should reveal ghostface and ghostface should try not to get revealed.

    Pyramid Head - Needs a full add-on pass

    No real opinion

    Blight - Add-ons are atrociously strong and need to be nerfed, base kit could use some nerfs too

    Blight basekit if fine

    Trickster - They need to look at the "buff" again because he's somehow worse than before

    Yeah, they messed this up.

    Artist - Birds need a maximum range, how is she able to injure people, chase and force people off gens from Narnia?

    No, this is what makes the Artist unique. Birds can be dodged.

    Xenomorph - He should not be able to enter tunnels at the start of the game, needs a cooldown like Sadako's TVs

    That's not necessary.

  • Sava18
    Sava18 Member Posts: 2,439

    I am fine with nerfing missed lethal rush cd by .3-.5. Making me start walking for 10 seconds at the start would lower the flow of blight a lot. Lethal might result in "free hits" but in reality he's getting to you with 2 rushes left which can be easily dealt with, I guess some people might hop on a gen or not anticipate LP but that is most definitely on the survivor.

  • jmwjmw27
    jmwjmw27 Member Posts: 282

    I don't think there's any killer in this game that I wouldn't tweak at least a little bit. Maybe Chucky since I have not really played much since he released so I don't have authority to speak about him.

    As for the ones you have in fine tier:

    • Huntress: replace iri head with an actually fun effect and do something about ranged camping and huntress is in a good spot.
    • Bubba: make some small part of his speed/duration basekit and nerf add-ons. He is way too reliant on them.
    • Spirit: nerf the speed add-ons (yes even MDR again) and fix the bug where duration gives recovery. Cherry blossom also should have been nuked from orbit already.
    • Demogorgon: something about setting portals needs to be improved, you just don't have a lot of time to place them in sweatier games. Maybe increase placement speed?
    • Oni: 180 flick needs to be removed from the game and his best add-ons (topknot, cane) should get nerfed slightly.
    • Deathslinger: shoot&hold technique to outwait basekit BT before unhooked survivor can even move should be removed. His undetectable iri add-on needs a much longer duration or a rework because it is useless.
    • Dredge: Slightly faster (4.5? idk) locked-locker breakout time then nerf haddie's calendar slightly. Field recorder add-on should not grant nightfall at trial start, and nightfall blindness range should be slightly reduced because it is a noob stomper ability.
    • Wesker: make infection less useful for tunneling. Don't know how, probably spraying a teammate should not reveal any killer instinct, or less infection off hook?
  • Is there a world line here where nurses are not nerfed?