My issues with the Knight Rework

Purpose of Guards?

This is a simple but genuine question. What is their point?

I ask this because I feel the game is at odds with itself. Are they NOT meant to get hits by themselves?

1. Why does the Knight's Daily require guards to get a hit? Not start a Hunt, not hit a survivor during a Hunt, but specifically by a guard.
2. If they are, then why are they so, well, terrible at it? Get a window, vault it, and loop it repeatedly, and you should be fine. Maybe pre-drop a pallet to break the AI and loop around it (don't vault it, "distract" the guard by touching it) until you can grab the flag.

Are you meant to use them to facilitate hits?

Why does the Hunt timer go down 3x faster when near the guard? To prevent double hits that were already niche and hard to do? To stop sandwiching them, in which case, then what's the point? Literally, what is the purpose? Only summon guards to patrol to zone them out? That's both insanely predictable and, quite frankly, boring to use and verse.

Use Orders mid-chase to give yourself an edge, right? The only one worth their salt in that regard is Carnifex unless you have the rare moment you need a slow break to box a survivor in.

Utility of each Guard

Okay, okay. Let's take a step back. Each guard has its strengths and weaknesses.

Carni is the fast breaker, so you give orders to him in most cases. There's not much to say since it's simple and consistent.

The jailer would be a good zoner with his larger detection radius and chase timer. The problem is he's insanely punishing. 24 sec patrol time + 10 second cooldown. That's 34 seconds you don't have a power if you screw up. And during the patrol mapping, you're standing still, do remember. You're punished more than Nurse, Blight, and Bubba for misusing their powers. It's not like you can stop a patrol remotely (although, if that's ever added, thank you). And again, in some cases, they can ignore him since he's slow, and if you get close, he goes bye-bye.

Assassin, um… he uh… okay, he sucks. I like him, but he sucks. He requires you to ambush the survivor. Your patrol map range if the same as your TR; you physically can't use him without survivors being warned unless you're using UD perks or Call to Arms. And if I need perks or a specific add-on to make 1/3 of my power useable, we have a problem. Not that he's terribly effective within his niche, either. Here's how you beat Assassin: Drop a pallet to break AI and loop around it until you can the banner. Alternatively, vault a window to slow him down and keep doing that until you grab the banner. You'll only get hit if you're already out in the open with nothing.

The Cooldown

We have to talk about the cooldown.

10 seconds is not 10 seconds. It's 10 + whatever your guard did. If you messed up with Jailer, then that's 34 seconds without a power. Assassin and Carni get off a little lighter at 22 seconds. That is ridiculously punishing. That's almost as/more punishing than Legion's pre-2nd rework Frenzy Miss with the 20 recovery and 4-second fatigue (totaling 24 seconds), the recovery/cooldowns every said were too punishing.

In the past, Knight had a 4-second cooldown. This meant Jailer was still heavily punishing 28-second cooldown on mistakes (one of the reasons he was considered the worst guard by far), while Carni and Assassin gave a much lighter 16 seconds.

But if you make it 4 again, then I can see Carni being spammed at every pallet. Plus, Jailer is still extremely punishing if you mess up.

If I had to make a suggestion, make it 10-15 seconds per individual guard. What I mean is: when Carni is on cooldown after breaking a pallet, I can still use Jailer/Assassin. Secondly, let me hold the button to cancel a patrolling guard; this helps Knight not be as punished for mistakes but still makes it more than a swat on the wrist.

I'm not going to talk about PTB Guard Canceling. It was called a bug in the patch notes and wouldn't stay. Also, I didn't play the PTB, so I had no attachment. I will say, bug or not, considering how attached everyone grew to it, it may be worth considering. I don't know.