Mage Hand is Way Too Strong - It Guarantees a Hit on Every Use
Mage Hand has been buffed into an uncounterable Scamper 2.0. Every use of it guarantees hits, and the buffs need to be reverted.
Every game I have played as or against Vecna, Mage Hand has never failed to enable the Killer to land a hit.
Mage Hand's best use on PTB was to allow the Killer to reposition underneath a pallet, giving them the upperhand for mind games. Lifting pallets AS they were being thrown also created a lot of close call scenarios - many ending with a hit already. Many players, after only playing a couple games with him on PTB where they did not learn the best-use scenarios, prematurely declared Mage Hand as useless, while they were carelessly throwing it out the power in bad scenarios and with poor timing.
Now after the buffs, whenever Mage Hand is used, there is absolutely nothing a Survivor can do to avoid getting hit. It denies the immediate options for a Survivor while providing incredibly little movement penalty for the Killer, resulting in Survivors being unable to reach anywhere unless they're already next to another resource. This feels MISERABLE to play against, and completely unearned to play with.
There is no time to reposition or find safety elsewhere, and lifting pallets is doubly punishing against Sruvivors. It's created tons of lose-lose scenarios: If the Pallet is chosen not to be thrown and held up, Vecna walks through and gets a hit. If the Pallet is thrown down, Vecna can almost instantly pick it up, walk through, and still get the hit. No matter what the Survivor chooses to do at a pallet, they get hit.
There's a lot of reasoning that "it has a long 38-second cooldown and it punishes you for using it poorly," but this is not an excuse for uncounterable powers. That doesn't change the fact that the Killer times it perfectly, then there is nothing that Survivor players can do to predict or outplay it. This is the EXACT same reason why free-roaming Scampers had to be removed this very same patch.
Please revert Mage Hand back to the way it was on PTB. Lifting pallets is way too fast, there is not enough slowdown on the Killer for Survivors to react to save their life against both holds or lifts.
Comments
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This has not been my experience to be honest. Survivors just need a bit of distance to Vecna when reaching the pallet to participate in the mindgame of Mage Hand. If he is right behind the survivor, then yes, it's a free hit. But if the survivor has a bit of distance to Vecna, that's when the survivor can mindgame Mage Hand. I would argue the question here is whether the distance needed is too much or not.
If it is too much, I wouldn't mind a nerf, but reverting it seems too much. I think something like 3.28 or 3.08 m/s would be perfectly fine as well.
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Reverting to PTB is not the move, they need to take that base and only buff a little bit, not too much like it is now.
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it might be better to pre drop versus Venca.
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Just predrop the pallet…
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It's really not that strong at all and there is counterplay
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Just get the magic items to gain haste when he casts it.
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I've had a similar experience playing as him, using magic hand does seem to allow me to get hits. But i feel like it's too early to say that it guarantees hits. But they should keep a close eye on it for sure.
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Right now it is kinda unfair only if you use Enduring with it, but that was confirmed to be a bug (sadly) and will be removed. I really don't think there is a reason to do any other nerfs until this is fixed, so we don't have Alien situation again…
Get the killer into version that is intended, then we can talk about any balancing changes.4 -
I definitely agree with them keeping an eye on Mage Hand. It definitely still has some counterplay, the question is just if it's enough? Or better said, if the situations in which survivors have counterplay are enough?
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Tbh it feels like Mage Hand is way too strong and most everything else is still kinda underwhelming. The Fly spell is probably fine now, but Dispelling Sphere and Flight of the Damned still leave something to be desired.
But when I played this killer and I used Mage Hand it resulted in an uncounterable free hit more often than not. On the PTB it usually felt more like a true 50/50 where survivors had a chance to counter it or win a mindgame, now that’s just kinda gone in a lot of situations unless you already have a lot of distance on the killer since he can maintain survivor running speed while charging it and is only barely slower than survivors for a moment after using it. The buffed movement speeds are fine for the other spells, but not for this one.
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you pre-drop pallets well in advance. that is not exactly a guaranteed. You can also chain two pallets together in some case. Adapt.
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Mage Hand is perfect now. Overall Vecna is at a really good-, if not perfect Spot right now. He's fun to play against- and to play as. I never had so much Fun with a Killer in both roles.
He has fair counterplay, the Items and predropping a Pallet is the way to go. And yes, a Hit is very likely when Mage Hand is used close to a Survivor near a Pallet, but remember that Mage Hand can only used every 38 Seconds.
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Whilst I am very happy to have Vecna in the game, the instant pallet pickup is ridiculous.
Very very little CoolDown to the killer, for insta-picking up a pallet and allowing a hit.
Who thought this was a good idea?
I'm actually not that against the other abilities having a stupidly little CD, but Mage Hand needs to be revisited as current state, this killer is overtuned imo.
Post edited by Rizzo on2 -
Agreed there's no downside to it…like…😬.
Post edited by Rizzo on4 -
Rumor has it that it's being buffed and the Pig will no longer have stealth....
Post edited by Rizzo on0 -
I don't think it actually needs a change, don't survivors have a chance of getting an item that counters this?
Post edited by Rizzo on1 -
I'm so glad you mentioned Pig because after the dev notes about keeping an eye on her kill rates after her buff… I find it ironic they worried about her and her little dash 🤣.
Post edited by Rizzo on2 -
boots that give 5% haste for 3 seconds i think when mage hand is used.
Post edited by Rizzo on3 -
Yes. And it also means they can drop the pallet again if Vecna can't land a hit. Only way it gets broken is if you use an Iri addon.
Post edited by Rizzo on5 -
She must be stopped ✋️
She needs a TR at all times, that is not too much to ask.
My heart can't handle her. I can't work on a generator unless I literally see she's chasing someone on the hud.
Post edited by Rizzo on0 -
Its just barely in a good spot now. It has a 38 second cooldown, it SHOULD result in a 50/50
Post edited by Rizzo on9 -
Only in a corner or something where they have nowhere to run to. But the iri addon takes longer to break than just breaking the pallet. So its not really good for that either.
Post edited by Rizzo on3 -
Like I said, if you fail to land a hit quickly after using Mage Hand, you just gave the Survivor a free Any Means Necessary reset on the pallet.
Post edited by Rizzo on3 -
Ah, i misinterpreted it as "it gets broken" as in, the iri makes it OP, not that it "physically breaks the pallet"
Post edited by Rizzo on4 -
I did some testing with a friend in customs and it seems if perfectly timed a survivor can drop a pallet after it lifts before vecna can swing. or in this instance, both parties spamming either attack or drop pallet until someone wins the exchange.
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Oh one of his Iris, the Vorpral Sword, does break the pallet but it takes three seconds to do so, which, IIRC, is longer than the normal break animation.
Post edited by Rizzo on0 -
Every use? Not been my experience. It tends to be about 50/50 if the survivor knows what they are doing.
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Yep and then smash it in his face again.
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Mage Hand is really rather strong, although I'm not sure it is too strong. I will say that people misconstrue it if they make it out to be a "50/50" akin to Huntress at an active pallet: Vecna can simply lift a pallet after you vault it, so they don't need to gamble on pre-charging their ability in the hopes that you drop it right beforehand. They can also hold a "god pallet", which doesn't allow you to make it back around. I think what may be problematic is that it's hard to tell which spell Vecna is casting, so you don't even know whether you have to play around Mage Hand at a given time (unless he had already used it recently, of course). This makes the interaction at pallets rather awkward. But I'm sure there is a way to reliably enough tell which spell he is using, I just haven't experimented much yet.
It has to also be kept in mind that Magic Items exist for a reason. Vecna's spells are supposed to be strong, such that using these items to be able to better deal with them is encouraged. Interloper makes it clearer that Mage Hand is being used, and gives you Haste with which you will more often be able to play around it. I do think the Interloper items (apart from the Hand and Eye of course) are the by far most helpful ones, so I'd say make sure you get them whenever you can.
In general I would say Vecna is difficult enough to play with juggling your powers and their fairly hefty cooldowns and having to have good timings with the powers in chase (and having to worry about Magic and Vecna Items) that Mage Hand seems to be in an alright spot. If they do nerf it, Fly and/or Flight Of The Damned should get some buffs to compensate. Fly specifically I think should not have collision during the flight, only re-establishing collision at the start of its end. That would make using it to bodyblock survivors (as well as getting around bodyblocking survivors) much more reliable. FOTD could do with an adjustment where it doesn't spread out quite as dramatically, making it so that to dodge it a survivor if you place it well will have to crouch, which is not always easy or possible if they also have to play around you at a window, pallet or chokepoint.
Post edited by Rizzo on0 -
There is counter: predropping. By doing so, you will force Vecna to make the choice of lifting it up, enabling you to use the pallet again without the hand being active for a long time, or destroying it, enabling you to get distance. Vecna is pretty balanced right now, he may be upper A tier and feels fair. You just need to get used to him and his counters.
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I wish to play pig game against you it sounds like a fun time :P
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And great practice for you using Distressing and promise not to use stealth, right?..... right?
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Oooof course. No stealth at all 🐽
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After playing a lot as and against Vecna, Magic Hand is in a fair spot right now.
Survivors have the chance to get the magic item that gives them a 7% haste for 3sec which checks magic hand fairly well. If the developers nerf magic hand again the spell becomes useless again and then there is no reason to use this magi item. It's similar to Xenomorph: You have an item to counter it and that helps you. It is a different counterplay .
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I have to massively disagree.
If I bring bamboozle, and use mage hand all decent tiles are gone.
All it needs is an extra 0.8 to 1.5 second delay after coming out of using it. Problem sorted, giving enough time for survivor to at least maybe get somewhere with decent pathing. but not always.
Atm, no chance of getting away = uncounterable, there is no 50/50 with this when the killer picks up a pallet without any Cooldown and can hit you.
Majority of killer mains I watch on Twitch know this is overtuned - this needs to be changed and I'm sure it will be within a month. But I am honestly surprised (and kinda saddened) to see that some players in the community think otherwise. Maybe only play one side and don't see it. Because I'm like 30 games in and lost like 3 games with him.
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First of all, now you are talking about perks, again, perks should not be the reason powers get nerfed otherwise then the perk just becomes "required" on that killer.
Secondly, it is not uncounterable, the situation is simple. If you let the killer get to close before you drop the pallet, you open yourself up to a 50/50 mindgame. If you drop the pallet 1 loop early, no mindgame to be had, and plenty of time to get away.
If you open yourself up to the mindgame it is simple.
If the killer guesses right that you are gonna drop the pallet, and they use the power, you drop the pallet, you are stuck in animation, they use the power, it lifts the pallet, and you most likely get hit. That makes sense there, you got outplayed, and you guessed wrong. If the killer guesses wrong, thinking you are gonna drop the pallet, and you don't, what are you doing instead? You are still running, they use their power on the pallet, they got slowed to 4.0 m/s while channeling the power, they blocked the pallet got slowed, and you are still running. Now what happens? Now, the killer's best anti-loop power is on cooldown for 38 seconds, meaning now they are closer to being a pure m1 killer with no power. Sure, other powers are usable, but magehand is the best anti-loop one. The skeletons have to be used out of LOS and are easy to dodge. Fly is only good over windows, and sphere does nothing against loops. But either way, if the survivor guesses right, they are heavily rewarded for it.
Now what about the other side of things?
If the killer guesses right that you are not gonna drop the pallet, you keep running, and they keep running. Now you probably aren't able to get around the loop fast enough, and likely to get hit. Again, you got outplayed, this makes sense. If the killer guess wrong thinking you are not gonna drop the pallet, but then you do, what happens? You probably stun them, gaining a solid 20 meters of distance on them, giving you a chance to get away, or heavily extend the chase, likely taking it to a more safe place like shack. Again, you outplayed the killer, it makes sense.
Lastly, that is part of the point of this killer. His powers are very strong, but have very long cooldowns and there are ITEMS that completely counter these powers. Look for items, and get the haste one, and now suddenly its even less of a problem, forcing him to use 2 spells on you in a chase (38 second cooldown remember) in order to even land that single hit.
As for your other comment on it being "overtuned" it was already tuned differently in the PTB, and you know what? It was completely useless, because at nearly every loop in the game (minus the already terrible pallets that are useless anyway) the killer was slowed down so much that they physically could not get around the loop before the pallet was unblocked, making the power literally completely useless. I have tested it, and right now it is just BARELY possible to block a pallet, and get around the loop 1 more time to land a hit at SOME of the loops in the game before the survivor gets around again, and it isn't even at all of them.
So how exactly is it uncounterable again?
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I can imagine someone having a recording of Pig's knife unsheath, and randomly playing it behind you throughout the day... then just watching the PTSD take hold.
When you're working at the office, at home eating dinner, making a hot drink... "...thitt" 😈
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So if someone drops the pallet, and killer doesn't break it - then when a new survivor loops, they vault, killer picks up pallet you hit them. Tell me how they can counter this. They can't.
But yeah, maybe when you're the first to drop the pallet W key away, drop it early sure. But likely you won't always be able to do that…
I'm not an inexperienced player, I've played since 2016 with several thousand hours, and am pretty clued up on DBD.
I don't think I said to ever revert it to PTB levels? So not sure what nonsense that is - I played the PTB and agree and that was weak. I'm saying to increase the CD killer gets from coming out of using it very slightly. Nothing more.
If you think it's fine in it's current state, then I don't know what I can say to change your mind. I guess you've got a better gaming chair than 90% of the survivors. I'm just finding him uber powerful and I'm rocking win's on pretty much every killer game I play. I guess we'll let the numbers speak for themselves when the data gets released then I guess we'll know.
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Someone get ahold of Count's phone and make the "thitt" sound their text tone too xD.
Is that someone texting me, or is it Piggy uncrouching from behind and coming to get me?
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Because then you don't have enough time to catch them, the pallet takes up physical space, and picking it up still takes a short amount of time. On top of that, the survivor can immediately drop the pallet again, the "blocking" of dropping a pallet after it has been picked up is only because of the animation of the survivor actually dropping the pallet, if someone vaults, the killer picks it up, you can just immediately drop it again. I have had this exact thing happen many times to me when i tried to pick up a pallet from before to prevent a survivor from getting use out of it, but they just immediately redrop the pallet and now i'm there again with no usable power to do anything about loops.
Like, really stop and think about this, the skeletons give a super obvious tell, now that i have played against it, you literally KNOW when the skeletons come out, that ability is still borderline USELESS. The only thing it is good for is to hit them just before they vault a window or something, it cannot be used even out of LOS because it makes this obvious noise that it is coming and you can just crouch to dodge it.
Everything you are saying would be true, if it weren't for the fact that all of the other spells are hot garbage in a chase. The fact that he has 1 good spell in a chase on a 38 SECOND COOLDOWN means that you still aren't getting your downs fast enough with a cooldown like that if the survivor is competent at looping.
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tbf, I've got value from all the abilities. The killer instinct from the Sphere is great for knowing people are around a certain area, basically huntress hatchets at windows/pallet with the purple skellys if timed properly… well, mage hand (you've seen what I wrote, no way to use pallet for protection) and flight to traverse from one side of map and catch up to survivor.
I'm on a win streak and finding it to easy I actually feel bad playing as him.
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Are you the one that got chucky nerfed sounds exactly the same prewritten crap
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nearly guaranteed hit when survivors are careless once every 38 seconds will not be strong, pretty sure other killers can do that better
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Evil 😈 ideas! You 🐖 mains are terrifying in real life too 😳?
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Less than 2 days on live servers and BHVR already announced a Nerf to the only reliably usefull Spell Vecna has.
BHVR has favorite children, but they dont say who it is so it wont hurt Killers feelings.2 -
After a few days of versing against Vecna and specifically trying to get this item every match, I can say this item does practically nothing. 7% haste for 3 seconds only grants 0.84 meters of extra distance.
For comparison, when MFT was an issue, ~1 extra meter every 8 seconds was an issue because it never turned off, so it played out over extended periods of time across entire loops, giving them enough time to reach the next resource. 0.84 meters for a finite 3 seconds does not really make a difference in most loops as most loops take longer than 3 seconds to wrap around. The situations when Mage Hand does make a difference are almost always after the Survivor has reached or crossed the threshold of a pallet, and not usually before, plus it is only a finite speed boost - meaning that .84 meters of extra distance won't really matter because they've already passed the resource.
Not to mention, Dispelling Sphere is specifically designed to be used to disable Survivor items entirely, and it's very easy to hit a Survivor with it, even with Archivist Armor. It is also complete RNG on whether the Interloper Armor even spawns in the first place - it could not spawn at all. So the counter to a spell cannot simply be "just pick up Magic Items" because they are designed to be completely unreliable and only occasionally helpful.
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7% haste for 3 seconds only grants 0.84 meters of extra distance.
that can easily be a difference between reaching a pallet or not (after a loop)
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I think people should learn to counter it instead of complaining. Try treating him like huntress that always has her hatchet out then you won't get outplayed and think the killer is OP.
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it doesn't take an expert to see this killer is oveertuned.
Especially with the way that Flight of dammed purple skellys ability to insta-damage when they are spawned inside of a survivor. that doesn't happen with huntress hatches….
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Especially with the way that Flight of dammed purple skellys ability to insta-damage when they are spawned inside of a survivor. that doesn't happen with huntress hatches….
It's not really instant and you can see, he is about to cast it on his animation.
He needs to be in very specific range and if you crouch and have anything to vault next to you, or can drop pallet, you can even medium vault it before he is able to attack.
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