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Vecna is extremely weak and poorly designed
Vecna was quite literally designed for the survivors to have fun and for the player controlling him to entertain them. I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but hear me out.
First, Vecna has a 40-second cooldown on each of his powers, which is the second longest cooldown for any killer, only surpassed by Doctor's. He begins the match with this cooldown, when not even killers like Billy or Blight do.
Second, all of his powers are either unimpactful or extremely counterable. For example:
Flight of The Damned: Probably the weakest power in the game, counterable just by crouching or standing in the middle of the skeletons. This power is so laughably weak that it only consistently works in guaranteed hit scenarios, which are the most boring moments for both sides. As if that weren't enough, this power also has an audio cue so that even the most inexperienced survivors can avoid it. Additionally, there is a magic item that shows you the aura, making it almost impossible to get hit by it since it provides more than enough reaction time. (Did I also mention that this power has a 40-second cooldown?)
Mage Hand: Yet another power that only works by either guaranteeing a hit or not, with no middle ground. Extremely uninteractive for both sides.
Fly: Probably his only consistent power. It's good but does not justify a 40-second cooldown when literally every other movement power in the game is better and has a quarter of the cooldown.
(No comments on dispelling sphere since it's just "meh.")
Vecna suffers from the same issues as Singularity (too much built-in counterplay) but ten times worse. And much like Singularity, I guarantee you that he will disappear in a few months when players realize that his whole design works against him rather than for him.
This are the reasons pretty much everyone is having a blast when playing against him (myself included) but the player using him has to put in an ungodly amount of brainpower and effort if they want to win.
(AND YES, I know that not every killer needs to be S-tier, but they don't need to be C-tier either. It would be beneficial for everyone if BHVR started dropping GOOD killers because I'm tired of all my matches being Blight > Wesker > Billy > Artist.)
Comments
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It's the combination that does it.
After my personal experience of 13 matches, I would put him in lower A - top of B tier.
Strong with enough counterplay.
He's far from weak. A killer with who I can consistently win with a lot of hooks and no slowdown perks against switched on survivors is not weak in my book.
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Having to juggle between 4 weak powers per chase just to get a down is straight up weak killer design, especially when these 4 weak powers are subject to one of the longest cooldowns in the game. And this is the exact reason why he will disappear from the game in a few months, like Singularity.
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He is definitely not weak and he is rather fun to play imo
He has strong antiloop with counterplay, unlike some of the top tier killers
And i still dont get why people say that singularity is weak, strong map presence, strong chase, gets rid of the pallets really quickly…
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Never in my post did I hint at Singularity being weak. I mentioned that no one plays Singularity anymore because he is easier to counter and if the player using him wants consistent results, they have to put an extremely amount of effort compared to the rest of the cast. Same thing will happen with Vecna.
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Still dont see the singularity counterplay besides EMP and anti camp mechanic. Thats not what i call "too much built in"
Its just a trend that makes new killers more fair to avoid the good ol nurse/spirit/blight situation. Thats actually a healthy thing for the game
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Only two games in and immediately I will say dispelling spear feels extremely underwhelming, but aside from that, all of his other abilities have use and coupled with the add-on that reduces the cooldowns by 5 seconds per basic attack, he doesn't feel weak at all.
Flight of damned while situational, still forces the survivors to crouch and lose a lot of ground, especially in loops where stopping for even a moment means taking a hit.
That being said, I am wondering if he's too strong in the sense that he creates a lot of moments where there's nothing a survivor can really do. Like mage hand but also with his other abilities aside from dispelling sphere.
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Made my day.
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On controller he's an absolute handful and will require a lot of practice for fluency and muscle memory. Having to open the spell book, pick spell, load it and then fire it is lots to do, especially when you factor in moving around the map and avoiding obstacles + clutter, hugging walls etc.
Mage hand is fine when running straight at a pallet, but very awkward when running at angles or wall hugging, by the time I loaded, aimed it and used it, the pallet would be locked but id lost distance and survivor could loop around again and you can't use it for another 30+ secs.
Flight of dammed is useless, bots just crouch or squeeze between the gaps. The sphere can be aimed up and down, so why cant the skeletons be aimed down slightly, or even vertically
Fly is standard, good for mobility but you might aswell just play nurse if you want to fly about
Sphere has to be the weakest lamest power in the game. By the time it gets to where you want it to go, you could have already walked there and looked to see if anyone was there, needs to move so much quicker.
So yeah, tricky start but putting that down to beginner practice. He's certainly fun to play and his animations and aesthetics are all good, just a handful to play. I never played Singularity but I imagine he feels similar in regards to having a lot of work to do.
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I'm having no problems and will continue to play him. He's super fun to me.
I'm sorry, that your experience has not been as pleasant.
I find him to be rather strong.
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The only thing that keeps him going for now is Hand of Mage buff. At moment it makes pallets almost useless against him in many scenarios which often guarantees a hit / down. This will get nerfed in a brief time. Once killer generates the intended amount of revenue he will get hit by a nerf hammer and will be as common as Singularity or Unknown and in the same tier as well.
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Yeah I'm kinda thinking that his only real solid power is the hand of mage spell. If they even change that slightly to allow pallets to be more safe again he will become extremely weak. It's literally the only spell that allows you to end a chase in a reasonable amount of time. His flight is okay for traversing the map and the occasional catch up, but it's kinda wonky and the CD is huge.
I wouldn't say he's extremely weak or powerful, but he definitely has the potential to go from okay to really really bad if they nerf the hand spell.
I'm anticipating he will get nerfed to almost useless status, as BHVR have a solid record of destroying licensed killers.
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Lifting up a pallet inmediatly after its thrown is literally his strenght right now, if they were to nerf that he wont have anything going for him
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Night and day experience for me, Vecna feels maybe mid A tier. Survivors have to go out of their way to counter him to get items, a system that can either greatly reward or punish them. Flight of the Damned is very situational but can get a hit if you know how to force it. Mage Hand can almost always be used at a pallet for a free hit if you know what you're doing. Fly helps you catch up and can even bodyblock a vault. Dispelling Sphere is how you get around survivor items and can be a pretty neat chase tool with the right add-ons, alongside it's obvious tracking benefits.
As someone who rarely plays strong killers aside from Chucky, this is kinda a power trip.
Post edited by ArkInk on1 -
Vecna is not weak.
And I dont really understand how someone really can complain about the Cooldowns of his power. Vecna is meant to be played in a way that you use all of the different powers he has and not that you only use one power all the time. This is why they are on such a long Cooldown. If that Cooldown is too short or too long - we will see.
But the goal is that you use all of his powers, not just e.g. the Mage Hand all the time. Because if the Cooldowns were much shorter, this is what exactly would happen. Players just using one power over and over again while ignoring the others. And this is not the intended way to play him.
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That would make more sense if every power helped getting a hit / down in more reliable manner. Right now only Hand of Mage does that. Everything else is either too unreliable or doesn't work at all mid-chase.
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Meh he seems aight to me. The hate for him is overblown. I was expecting nothing based off ptb but both skeletons and Dispelling Sphere were giving me OK value
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Vecna is fine, there's nothing wrong with how he plays honestly it feels a little better than it did in the PTB I haven't read the patch notes so I'm not sure if anything changed but it feels better for me playing as him, I think maybe he's just not your cup of tea if you're complaining about him because he's far from weak but he's not an S tier killer either I'd probably put him at a high B range maybe lower A tier but that's a bit of a stretch it's his overall kit that makes it arguable though he's not a one dimensional killer like most of the others
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Vecna is very weak and its mostly to do with the fact that he is not strong enough to justify the dnd item boxes.
When all the survivors have the haste boots he crumbles and 1 suv with the fly aura boots or orb aura boots will be calling out his location to partied players.
He would be a strong killer but the items cripple him its just right now i don't think people know how to deal with him yet and are not burning through chests to get the best items fast enough.
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This argument would only make sense if all 4 Powers are designed to help in chase or grant a Hit. And this is clearly not the case.
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I havent had a bad match yet. Especially mage hand feels very strong. Survivors that play mindlessly around pallets (of which there are a lot sadly) are getting hard punished by this spell.
I dont deep him to be bad in any way. Lower A tier to top B tier.
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unfortunately how survivors play round pallets won't really matter once they realize that there are boots that speed them up if mage hand is used. Most games are easy right now because players don't know how to deal with him yet and dont know what items are gamechangers
It's unfortunate but the best strategy against good squads ive found has been to tunnel any player without boots from the get-go because they can't have the mage hand boots and just trying to get downs with flight of the dammed, fly and orb is a futile task but you can still easily win a 3v1 against survivors decked out with good gear but dragging out a game with slowdown while splitting pressure against good suvs ends up with them getting the best items then drawing out later game chases because you essentially need to win chases with just flight of the dammed, fly and orb.
He is just below doctor imo but above the truly bottom-tier killers definitely in the bottom 10 killers in power.
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With Hux, it's because of how much work it takes to get full use out of his kit compared to how easy it is for survivors to shut it down.
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I have had very different experience and he has been fun to play. Won couple games and lost one game when I tried adepting him. All vecnas I faced have beat me in swf and soloQ. So to me he feels quite strong killer.
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one of good things about his item box is that he has immensely good 4vs1 in early game. almost base-kit corruption intervention. the items do nerf him but they have time sink before they can come online.
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That I heavily disagree on but you are very much entitled to your opinion.
Agree to disagree.
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I feel like flight of the damned should be reanimated to not be just a straight line of spirits but perhaps have every other spirit oscillate up and down so that its a lot harder to dodge and you cant just always duck under it to avoid. That way it actually takes a person looking backwards to know if they are in the right spot for a proper duck instead of just automatically easy avoid.
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Being hard to play well doesn't make a killer weak. If that were true, Nurse wouldn't be considered S tier. It might take a while before he regains his abilities, but each one has a decent amount of power behind them, and at least two of them make pallets irrelevant if used properly with flight acting as a mobility perk that gives him a nice speed boost and lets him fly over pallets, while mage hand making pallets temporarily held. In addition, he has an aura reader ability, and a mid to long range attack ability which are all very decent if used strategically. The long range ability arguably also makes pallets irrelevant—if you shoot the skeletons out while someone's on the pallet, they can't duck them and you punish for that. That's why one of his perks
Most killers get one, maybe two abilities but he has four, and they all have a lot of variation. His cooldown definitely doesn't need to be shortened, people playing him just need to be smart with when and how they use those abilities. So far when I've played survivor against him, I've seen him absolutely annihilate the groups I've been in and I've witnessed 4k's back to back with him. I can't even compare it to other killers, he just has so much potential in the right hands. I'd be sooner to argue he's overpowered than I would ever come to the conclusion that he were underpowered. So many matches where survivors haven't even been able to finish 2 gens. x_x
The most important tip I can give someone with Vecna: he's strongest at the beginning of the match. The more items that are collected by the survivors, the worse off you are, so get perks that let you hit them fast and hard at the beginning rather than late game perks, otherwise you may struggle. That's why a lot of my matches have ended before 2 gens because he's just so good at the beginning and perks like Lethal Pursuer basically just makes his life a cake walk to domino players from the beginning of the game.
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I would argue he is just a tad op at the moment, because of Mage Hand, that ability needs a small nerf to be fairer for survivor. Then he'll be in a great spot.
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What use is the Orb to you mid-chase? Or Flight of the Damned that never hits and can be dodged either by running straight or crouching for a single second? Or maybe the glorified fly ability that can be countered by going backwards if there is a window or towards nearest pallet?
He gets hits and downs right now because he can pick a pallet mid-chase so quickly that survivors can't gain distance. Should they nerf this ability he will become another pub-stomper that has nothing to offer against slightly organized or competent survivors.
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I don't play singularity cause of the emps and the headache from the camera. Vecna is a strategic killer who plays similar to the knight in a sense. You need to be strategic with him and not spam his abilities.
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He's a mid tier killer and once people learn the counterplay (+ fix enduring/hubris cheesing) people will stop getting rolled by him
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Just gonna throw my cents here...
Mage hand is an extremely oppressive anti loop since it can, if timed right, counter a pallet drop instantly. When they buffed his speed after casting spells, it fixed the only issue he had using mage hand, and now it's a bread and butter staple ability.
Fly is equivalent to Freddy TP. It has niche cases in chase, but mostly for mobility. It's broken on the game in the pig vat, making a super safe window completely unsafe (instead of levitating while vaulting, you just FALL, so you catch up vertically quickly)
Flight of the Damned can't be strong unless they plan to make Artist damage you from across the map without afflicting crows first, else it would just be a better crow. Crouch counterplay is actually good for Vecna as that isn't a debuff. Not to mention on any tile with elevation changes, Vecna can get hits with them crouching, but because that's the current muscle memory, they crouch AND you get a hit.
Dispelling orb seems weak AF... Until you think about the magic items. As people have said, the mage hand item is so good on survivor, as it amplifies the slowdown Vecna gets from casting spells. Dispelling orb says screw that, I want those disabled. This INCLUDES the Vecna items, which means the ballsy Survivor plays where they think they have a free escape are blocked for 60 seconds.
Now sure, you might argue that the orb only exists because the magic items do, so why have them exist? Because it's unique counterplay. They could just make it so survivors always see the dispelling orb, which would do something else, and Vecna gets slowed more using mage hand, ECT. However, this doesn't make him unique, and the game loop feels the same as every other killer. Giving haste to an item means now Vecna has to think about whether mage hand is the right thing to cast when chasing that survivor. Having survivors have vision of you while flying means you probably won't stumble into them as they'll hide from you. But now, you throw an orb that disables the items, now you get to play as if they have no items.
I do think they could add stronger counterplay to the Vecna items, but they'd have to buff Eye of Vecna, as it's ability is not the best. It's good! Just not great.
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Vecna is very powerful. Only escape I've had against him so far has been via the hatch, but it could just be matchmaking being bad right now, as I've only escaped once (via the doors after the hatch was closed) out of 17 games tonight.
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Do you think an ability is only good if it allows you to cut chases short? The orb is great for intel. Flight can still stutter survivors. Fly is excellent map mobility.
Not every tool needs to guarantee hits. Especially not in a kit with four of them.
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Oh yes, you mentioned the only things these abilities do outside of chase. You don't use orb mid-chase because you don't need the information, you know your target is in front of you. Fly of the Damned may deny a window / vault in 1 out of 10 situations or force survivor crouch but the slow down you get even now makes it not worth using. Flight is 50 50 and requires a very specific scenario to happen if you want any real value out of it mid chase. It's still a traversal tool.
Vecna's only reliable tool is Mage Hand. It's a fact. Everything else has secondary effects but slowdowns they cause might cost the entire chase.
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That awkward moment when most streamers/comp/experienced players got vecna in S or A tier XD
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Both the Xeno and Chucky were in fairly good spots when they first came out. Both got hit hard by the nerf bat anyways; BHVR did the knee jerk nerf to the Xenos Tail Striker within like a week of its release because survivors wouldn't stop complaining about it.
Chucky got gutted as he now he can only Scamper during a Slice and Dice, meaning any vault is effectively a guaranteed escape for the survivor since Chucky can't turn hard enough to actually stay on them.
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Vecna's only reliable tool is Mage Hand. It's a fact.
Vecna's only reliable CHASE tool is Mage Hand. Everything in his kit is plenty useful, just not in chase.
The tools aren't weak, you're just using them wrong.
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I have to say that he's pretty consistent for me for the most part. I play him with BBQ, brutal, bamboozle and corrupt and even with that little amount of slowdown most games are pretty winnable.
Well I have to admit that I loose brutally against people with 5k or in the case yesterday 9600 hours. But thats probably fair considering that I have to learn how to use 4 different powers (besides that eyrie of crows is just awful xD).
The most consistent thing I found for the skelettons is placing them directly on top of the survivor, you have to be around 1 haddonfield-car + 2 steps back away to do that. If you place them like this, they will get hit if they don't react/predict it.
You can sometimes use them as a slowdown too and get a m1 as the result.
Mage hand guaranteeing a hit or not is kinda true, but there are more people now playing against him like huntress. So it's fair for the most part.
Fly is pretty okay as it is especially because you can use it for movement and sometimes even getting hits.
His sphere is still pretty weird for me, it's giving okay information but so delayed that they're nearly worthless. It's okay on loops I guess xD
Well in the end he doesn't seem weak for now and I actually like the amount of Management I need to do to play him.
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Not really. The usages I listed pretty much describe what Vecna's toolset is. He has 3 spells that have a rather simple yet not always effective use and 1 spell that allows him to do the damage. He is one step away from becoming one of the most weakest killers and that step shall be done by developers when the time comes. He simply has nothing else special about him.
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Hi all,
my first time to write something down here.
I played with Vecna and against him a lot. I really really love it on both sides, because there are some unique features like magic and those chests. In fact, its my favorite DLC.
First things first, I would put Vecna in A-Tier. He is pretty strong right now, BUT that could change easily.
What can Vecna do?
Fly
This skill is very decent. It allows you to short a big distance to a surv in a very short time and also allows you to control the map a lot better than e. g. a pig. He also has collision at the end of the skill, which can be used in some nice ways, but also allows counters.
Counter as Surv: Vecna can turn very badly while flying, so it can help to run towards him, if he is already close, to get distance again. You can also camp pallets or windows to avoid a hit. Try to love windows more than pallets. They are way stronger than you think.
Something like crows (just worse)
That ability looks week at the first look, but it has some good values. I dont talking about a DIRECT hit, which would one assume to happen with that skill. Its more a sure hit, if the surv has to decide to take m1 or to vault a window or a pallet or go upstairs. That are pretty niche situations right? BUT there are side effects of that skill. Survs usually have to crouch to dodge it safely, but if they dodge they will slow significally which could lead you to a m1 hit. So I really dont think its useless, you just have to use it the right way in the right time
Counter as Surv: like all now, crouch in the right time. avoid, stairs or something like that. Try to predict the LINES of the skulls to dodge without crouching. Learn and play against it as often as possible to predict better. Its not that difficult to counter.
Detection Bubble
Its a decent detection skill. Not much to say. I like it and I will not call it useless, but I think thats his weakest skill.
Counter as Surv: Nothing to say about it right now.
God Hand to disable one pallet
Now we have his most powerful skill. The hand. With that he can easily counter pallets, at least for now. Its the main chase skill and also the most dangerous skill TO CHANGE.
Some things which worked pretty well on my side. Drop a pallet beforehand and force him not to block, but to reset the pallet. Predict the right moment to drop the pallet immediately after it was resetted. That workd pretty well so far. Also learn to play more with windows. These are very powerful assets in general. Especially for Vecna and Bubba.
Do I think that Vecna does a nerf? To be honest, I dont know yet. I think he is strong but not broken I guess. BUT I think its very dumb to say he is to weak or way to strong right now and need a nerf. Just take your time and LEARN. LEARN Vecna better as killer and as surv. Then you will find weaknesses. I think, you only can decide about his real strength after like a month or two playing against and with him.
Also, if they nerf the hand to unrisky Im pretty sure that Vecna will easily fall from probably A-tier to B or even C tier. Especially in high MMR. If his hands get a nerf, I think that could kill the killer completely.
Im on work so I tried to hold it short, I will check your opinions and will reply later. :)
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I never got the estimation of a stranger to put vecna S tier. That’s absolut bull ######### to see him in on the same stage as nurse. If these streamers really think that about him, they can’t be very experienced or good
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Not really. The usages I listed pretty much describe what Vecna's toolset is.
Again: In chase.
Chasing is not the only thing you do as killer. If every single one of his spells was able to secure hits, you'd have an S+++ killer on your hands.
You may want that, but no one else does.
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Lets see Sphere counters lockers just throw the sphere
The ranged attack goes through walls and barriers good range
Fly is a amazing speed tech
Mage hand also unaffected by walls
You have to play Venca as a jack of all trades using his tech smartly.0 -
While true that Vecna isn't quite as weak as many people make him out to be (although his upcoming nerf/fix will hurt him) he is indeed pretty complex to play for casual/inexperienced players and is among the Killers that get the harshest punishement for whiffing (if I recall correctly, only Static Blast has a higher cooldown). He's not a Killer you can pick up and get results with against decent Survivors without some practice.
Side-note: with every gen-slowdown perks (and popular non-regression perks) getting gutted one after the other, tunnelling and camping becoming more prevalent as a result, we kinda need Killers that don't rely on perks as much in order to compete without using... unsavory strategies that sour the game for everybody. Of course we don't need another Nurse, but Wesker was arguably the perfect Killer before they neutered his infection this update (experienced Survivors don't really care about curing his infection asap anymore so he lost a lot of passive slowdown which is important at a higher level).
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Ah yes, the ultimate locker counter: the Dispelling Sphere! and the amazing speed tech, the Fly!
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I played Vecna on release day and a bit yesterday.
I havent had extremely bad games yet, but they are sure to come.
To me he seems like he is only strong against, well, bad survivors?
But that is my mindset in general. Killers always only feel as strong as survivors let them be.
Mage Hand is predictable and both variants give you ways to pay him back, if he lifts you can re-drop it, and either stun or escape from the other side. If he holds you just keep looping.
Mage Hand is only a benefit to him, when he is already very close to you when you approach it.
His Projectiles can be ducked/crouched under.
Dispelling Sphere is really wonky and depending on the verticality of the map may be entirely useless. Also Magic Items can counter it completely
Fly gives you like 2-3 seconds of recovery time when you land, where you not just slow down, but cant attack.
The only thing that has made Vecna fun to play is to see survivors lose their minds when they cant use Pallettes as crutches in chases.0 -
Today, if someone in Dead by Daylight with a new killer doesn't 4k's regularly after the first 5 games, the killer sucks and needs to be buffed. Unfortunately, that's the mentality.
I want to learn French by tomorrow, if I don't manage it I hope the language will be made easier.
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They will throw temper tantrums if they cant get 4K every match
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I would argue Flight of the Damned is also a good chase tool. He pretty much has two anti-loop abilities, an anti-w ability, and an intel ability. So I agree he is definitely strong enough. If anything, Mage Hand needs a very small nerf.
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