We have temporarily disabled The Houndmaster (Bone Chill Event queue) and Baermar Uraz's Ugly Sweater Cosmetic (all queues) due to issues affecting gameplay.

Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on these and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
The Dead by Daylight team would like your feedback in a Player Satisfaction survey.

We encourage you to be as honest as possible in letting us know how you feel about the game. The information and answers provided are anonymous, not shared with any third-party, and will not be used for purposes other than survey analysis.

Access the survey HERE!

Lets talk about Artist

Aka the killer that always sits in bottom of pickrate yet being always put into top A tier killer.

  • Why "nobody" plays Artist?
  • If Artist strong as everyone says, why not more people play her?
  • Is there something that should be changed about Artist?

Comments

  • Toystory3Monkey
    Toystory3Monkey Member Posts: 895

    she feels sluggish to play and doesnt have very dynamic gameplay.

    nothing can or should be changed to help that, bhvr just need to not make killers like her again which they seemingly dont.

  • Hex_Ignored
    Hex_Ignored Member Posts: 1,953

    She's just not very fun to play. Birding every loop to force holding w gameplay isn't exactly what I'm personally looking for when I decide which killer I want to play. It IS effective, but it bores me to death. It's the same with hag. She is quite good at killing but her playstyle is about as interesting as watching paint dry.

  • Xxjwaynexx
    Xxjwaynexx Member Posts: 343

    Hey Granny is fun, watching a good hag against good survivors is exciting. However those matches are rare

  • HolyDarky
    HolyDarky Member Posts: 842

    Artist main here:

    Artist is a really difficult killer and she does not explain how she works. Sometimes I see videos from players who try to play her and do it in the worst way like sending all three birds out to find a survivor or to use her Birds as a tracking tool. They don't fire off one Bird to swarm a survivor and then try to injury or zone them out with a second one. Many players don't like this small time window where you need to hit a swarmed survivor with a second Bird. You also need to think a few steps ahead like placing a Bird in a chase that can be useful a bit later or in a more creative way than just zone the survivor out. Players also don't understand how strong the 8meter hitbox is and how to use it correctly. These are just a few examples, there are some more. It takes some time to understand and play her correctly. She is a really strong killer but why should you spend all this time in the eight strongest killer in the game when you can spend this time in the strongest, second or third strongest killer in the game, especially when these killers are super fast ones which is loved by many players. Overall, Her difficult learn curve, the boring playstyle that see many in her (she is not boring), and the huge time investment are the main reasons why not many players play her.

    However, in my option Artist is one of the most balance killers in the game which is good and there is nothing on her that should be changed. Only some of her Addons should get a rework or tweak - the iri ones are so bad or stupid while all of her green Addon (besides the sloppy one) are bad. It is also okay when a killer is underused as long as it is for the right reason (not because she is has a unhealthy playstyle or is hated by many players like Skull Merchant)

  • CrowVortex
    CrowVortex Member Posts: 968
    edited August 17

    She's my main as a level 70 Artist, I think once people can consistently hit crows on a regular basis at distance that opens up her door to fun potential, though most people who refuse to put hours into her won't play her like that, but instead go the zoning route, nothing wrong with that but you're only getting half the experience. A low pick rate is fine by me, means dedicated people can make her shine even more.

    Locker's removing swarm need to go, there's no downside to doing this, only if the Artist is close enough to get a hit in. Perhaps make it if you're already swarmed for 2-3 seconds, you cannot enter a locker until the swarm is cleared.

  • Predated
    Predated Member Posts: 2,976

    I can think of 1 thing I would change about Artist. IMO she has S-tier potential that is really hard to obtain because of stacking cooldowns. But I definitely feel like throwing 3 birds shouldnt be punished more in cooldowns than a Nurse blinking 3 times. Just do a flat cooldown per bird and she would be amazing to play as

  • AmpersandUnderscore
    AmpersandUnderscore Member Posts: 1,880

    I'd play artist more often, but the only real counter to her power is to just leave the loop. I don't really find that engaging most of the time.

    Long distance crow sniping is super fun though.

  • fussy
    fussy Member Posts: 1,716

    People really do not understand how to play her, I saw a lot of streamers with 5-10k hours, who played her absolutely wrong. You can see in every Artist topic like almost everyone thinks that place bird in a pallet and force shift+w is the only way to play her, and that's what i'm talking about.
    She is definately not beginner friendly and it's okay, probably this is the main reason why she is not so popular. And why 7 out of 10 Artist I went against were mostly m1.
    Balance wise she is in perfect spot, the only thing I would like to change is her addons, half of them are useless and awful.

  • HexHuntressThighs
    HexHuntressThighs Member Posts: 1,245

    Agreed, her add ons are horrendous. I think they should make the base time to repel crows longer the further away she is. So if you land a 30 meter plus crow it could take 16 seconds. So that way it incentivizes long range shots instead of just drop bird at loop gameplay. Or maybe make it take a health state instantly past a certain range but only on healthy survivors? Crows trapping survivors in lockers for 5 seconds after jumping into them could be dope also.

  • SPADESinst
    SPADESinst Member Posts: 84

    She's extremely boring to play. I only play her if I have a daily, and honestly? Sometimes I trash those dailies just to get a new one and play someone else. I don't find her very fun to play.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,553

    Artist has a rather high skill ceiling not helped by parts of her kit being a bit clunky (place crow, let go of power button, press different button to release).

    With over 30 killers in the game, killers who have a high barrier to entry are just not going to see as much play as ones who are easy to pick up.

  • fussy
    fussy Member Posts: 1,716

    As I already said, her kit is perfectly fine. What do you expect with 16 seconds repel, if she is far away? 2nd attempt to snipe, if first wasn't successful? It's completely unnecessary.
    Health state without Swarms for distance snipe? So just stand on one side of the map and injure survivor on gens for free? Nah, lol, it's too cheap.
    Locker interaction also fine, survivors give me locker grab pretty often even without this.
    Even if I wanted to buff something about her, it would be summoning crow time decrease on 10-15%. It would make her more pleasant to play on some maps with wild rng. And even without it she is fine as she is.

  • HexHuntressThighs
    HexHuntressThighs Member Posts: 1,245

    Survivors would respect your map presence more if it took longer to repel crows I feel like. Right now I just sit on a Gen when I’m swarmed and don’t bother repelling because her follow up crows are so easy to dodge unless she sets them close. That’s the same idea with making it injure only healthy survivors past a certain range so they can’t just disrespect the power.

    She has no verticality to her power which I don’t like. And most people just drop birds at loops so I feel like more incentives could be given for long range shots.

  • Devil_hit11
    Devil_hit11 Member Posts: 9,056

    She is not A-tier for me.

    she has ranged capacity. It is just that her range is as about as good as unknown range. 2 hits to get a injure is bad. Her bird placement is clunky and slow. She is like Knight pincer with birds. You place bird down, you go other way, survivor goes into bird, fire bird.

  • SweetbutaPsycho
    SweetbutaPsycho Member Posts: 286
    edited August 17

    For me she is like nurse. When u first pick her up you can see her potential and how good she could be. But u cant make her work without first putting many hours into learning to play her

    Then again with how current DBD is ( broken mmr system, tocicity etc ) its not exactly fun to learn a killer that needs this much practice . Many players just give up along the way without having ever truly mastered her. But very good artists are still strong and opressive af. But there just aren't that many

  • Rulebreaker
    Rulebreaker Member Posts: 2,092
    • The minimum to "play as" her is not very involved or fun for many (place crow at loop till hit) while the minimum to "actually play as" her is decently high (long shots, creative shots, etc) and many dont want to put in the work to learn.
    • This is kinda the same question as the above…guess we could add that there are options just as good while being simpler
    • Nope.

  • Revvium
    Revvium Member Posts: 97

    I'd probably reward her with cooldown reduction for hitting birds or something of the sort, usually it feels like a massive waste of time to use 2 or 3 birds because the cooldown timing of them guarantees you will not injure with a followup.