Does Clown need a buff?
Arinad who has been clown main for some 2000(?) hours and he made a video talking about clown problems. here is the video and my summary of his video.
-> Clown is forced to tunnel because he has no game-delay and poor map presence because his chase is inadequate compare other killers.
-> Corrupt/Deadlock are mandatory perks at high-level for clown according Arinad because CI setup clown to not lose 2-3 gens in first chase and Deadlock allows you to tunnel by forcefully blocking gens to lessen the gen-rush.
-> Clown gets punished for not using cigar box as add-on because he has no mobility so every action that clown makes is commitment towards his time and what cigar box does for clown is refine clown's decision making by giving him tracking.
Comments
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First two points can apply to anyone that isn’t Blight or Nurse. Corrupt/Deadlock is a necessary given for almost every killer with no immense pressure that those two have, and maybe Spirit. Hag/Trapper too. That’s a game issue since the current gen speeds and map design require those perks, not Clown specific.
Piss bottles need utility though. Maybe not speed. Cigar Box is a given and I wouldn’t mind a weaker version being basekit. Just something to give it the ol’ Jarate infamy and not some clearly lesser supplement to purple bottles.
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clown need better counterplay before buffing him in any type of way. Personally I don't think he need a buff at all.
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Clown has real capabilities to be insanely good in chase when in the right hands. The two main things that need to change about Clown before the devs even think about changing his kit or add-on changes of any kind:
- Bottle types need to have a proper switch animation. (This would solve 2 issues: One is that you would no longer have to deal with the bug that keeps the same bottle type equipped when you push the power button too soon after switching bottle types. Two is that the Clown Jiggle will make a triumphant return :D)
- The gas cloud that spreads out when a bottle shatters from a height should be changed to be a complete circle. Instead of how it is now where there are patterned gaps in the circle. This would give Clown some much needed skill-expression. As it is, there is almost nothing you can do with Clown to flex your Killer knowledge as Clown.
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Clown is one of those killers who are fundamentally ‘weak’. No amount of tweaking to his bottles will fix his lack of map pressure and pre-drop counter play. His yellow bottles could be reworked a little but i’m not sure how.
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I play clown for fun.
Games range from zero hooks to 4k.
But he's fun and that's all that matters to me.
I don't care about winning, loops or map pressure that's for try-hards.
Chill to play and I keep my swear words for cod jumping around corner idiots.
Have a great holiday season break.
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Good summary!
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I also hate that his bottles break in the air. I'm not saying they should fly through walls but hitting the top of trees is just annoying.
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on top of the fact that jarate bottles don't see any effective use if they share the same ammo pool as the purple bottles
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imagine adding an EMP mechanic that disables clown's power for 30 seconds. The last thing that clown needs is negative changes.
I do not think it is that severe for other killers in average soloq vs killer match as it is for clown. I just think clown builds pressure at non-existent rate that the game purely too fast for the rate at which he gets downs.
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You jump to the extreme immediately. No one asking for emps or turrets. Some players refuse to play ghost face, xeno and Larry because of the amount of control survivors have. Obviously we wouldn't want another case of that. We also don't won't another case of the trickster buffs. Buffing a character with bad counterplay to make it more fun for killer mains was fine but not addressing the issues of the character for the other side is not. Trickster counterplay still rely on being at a high wall structure which is very situational. Demo, billy, blight, oni, wesker, chucky, etc all can be juke and baited in a direction. All the mid range attackers cab be dodge (nessmiss, PH, huntress, slinger). Outside of the nurse most killer who's heavily despised all have one thing in common... terrible counterplay. Clown just another force u to leave the loop knight archetype killer with zero options but run. Rework him or buff him with actual counterplay attach
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imo, they need to remove that vision impairing effect from clown and get rid from reloading thing. just make it a passive token based thing, like one bottle every 5 seconds.
or, they could increase the haste / slowdown from the bottles. imo, it would really help clown to shut down some loops more efficiently.
overall, i don't think any buffs would help clown to be viable past certain point. he just isn't built for that.
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I think the only thing Clown really needs is an extra bottle base-kit and maybe a +10% action speed boost when damaging generators, breaking pallets etc. while invigorated, and of course accessibility QoL changes to make him less nauseous to go against. That being said I think Clown is fine as is other than his iri add-ons, he's already unenjoyable to go against (but VERY fun to play as in my opinion).
I made a thread 2 years ago of possible changes that Clown could use, the most notable being the add-on concepts I had (aside from the Bottle of Chloroform change and exhaustion bottle add-on). The iridescent ones in particular are my favorite:
Tattoo's Middle Finger (UR)
The prized middle finger of a large tattooed man. Has a faint taste of machinery oil.
- Tonic Gas Clouds will now apply regression to generators.
Redhead's Pinky Finger is now replaced with Iridescent Finger Bracelet.
Iridescent Finger Bracelet (UR)
Kenneth's most prized possession. A bracelet with four of his favorite fingers attached to it.
- The Bottle Carrying capacity is capped to 3 bottles.
- Antidote Gas Clouds are automatically activated upon contact.
Post edited by glitchboi on2 -
The first point isn't a clown only issue. There's a lot of killers with strong chase powers are crippled by the fact that you are forced to just walk everywhere. These killers are seriously hard to buff in a meaningful way without just making them feel uninteractive and op in the 1v1 which will just make them better at tunneling. They're simple some killer designs that will not work in higher levels of mmr, tho this issue has gotten much better with maps getting smaller and smaller.
Being forced to run corrupt/deadlock is both a no map control issue and a map design issue. When half your first chase is better just trying to close in on the survivor who preran when they saw you yea it'll be a rough start no matter how strong your chase is. This problem does actually have a simple fix of both making survivors always spawn together and designing maps to make prerunning less effective.
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The vision impairing helps with chases as survivors tend to run into objects. However, a better hindered effect would be great in its stead.
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nobody says it doesn't, the problem is that this is a really unhealthy mechanic that only works against people with dim / small screens, dizziness and little experience. good survivors are barely affected and killer relying on such hostile effect to be effective is meh.
same reasoning for dredge. remove that bit of flavour and buff the killer so they don't feel so bad.
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Clown with Save the best and Rapid Brutality is one of the most OP killers in the game
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Arinad uses STBFL and Rapid brutality on Haddonfield. He got 5 hooks, end result was 3 man escape. Sounds very overpowered.
the hazy vision is unique mechanic for clown and yet it is so underwhelming in his gameplay.
generally when i leave loops against clown, i use it as strategy to waste bottle ammunition. I use it to bait free reloads for hold-w purposes and go to loop for purposes of conserving pallets. I don't consider it as main strategy towards looping clown. it is just side strategy. the majority of safe pallets vs clown can be pallet-camped with well-timed slide. To me, he has already has sufficient counter-play given that Arinad is averaging 60 second-75 seconds between each hook. Adding more counter-play would only extend his time between hooks to greater value in which killer already under-performs against good teams.
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i don't go by some random clown main streamer but it cool if u do. Stop basing everything on them
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But the content creator isn't here for the debate, you are.
You made a summary of the video, but what is YOUR opinion about Clown?
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I know that people tend to put Clown near the bottom of their tier list, but im gonna be honest Clown is up there with killers that can consistently kill me, needless to say I think Clown is underrated
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A buff isnt what he needs, its a rework.
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skill issue
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Only buff he needs is literally more Bottles. He is on the roadmap, so he is likely going to get buffed.
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No regression to generators addon for Clown, please. I don’t want to see a new army of Clown Merchants throwing bottles at gens now that they’re going to tweak the ability to kick them (by the hint they gave).
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At the time I wrote that 3 gens weren't really a problem but looking back I can see how problematic that could be.
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