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!

How Is Vecna Now?

Iron_Cutlass
Iron_Cutlass Member Posts: 3,351
edited September 10 in General Discussions

Back when Vecna released they were really, really good and they got some nerfs since some aspects of their power were overtuned and resulted in hits that felt unfair to most Survivors. When the nerf happened, people were saying how "this nerf will kill Vecna" and how "they will be bottom tier garbage now."

Nowadays, I do see Vecna a decent bit. Definitely not as much as before since the hype that comes with each Chapter release has died down a bit.

So uh, how is Vecna now?

To me, playing them still feels decent, and they dont feel as weak as people say, I really just think people dont play them correctly. Mage Hand is still decent just not as mindless as before since now you have to mind your spacing and timing to actually pull it off well.

Definitely felt like the usual DBD Forums overreaction to me.

Comments

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,677

    A little stronger than Dracula, which isn't saying much. They both have all this flashy stuff, but it's for show instead of useful gameplay stuff. His skeletons never hit anybody unless you spawn it on them (I'm sure this'll be nerfed). His orb is good for finding people, and that's it, because the negation of the magical items... Survivors never needed magical items specially designed to counter his power. It's like EMPs on Singularity or flamethrower turrets with Xenomorph: you're just giving survivors free counterplay items to deny the killer's power. His flight is alright, but I see that they added collision to it so that survivors could body block it, not the other way around. And his hand lifting the pallets or holding them up is just as weak as when it was first shown, and is dependent on you bringing the add-ons. His add-ons, btw, don't really do much. At best they make up for the inadequacies of his power. It's no surprise I haven't really seen him outside of that first week he released.

  • ReverseVelocity
    ReverseVelocity Member Posts: 4,606

    He's pretty solid. I'd like to see some minor buffs to Dispelling Sphere and Fly but I think the other two spells are fine at the moment.

    They should also probably nerf Interloper Boots since that basically makes using Mage Hand impossible against anyone with them unless they're dispelled.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 179

    He's pretty good. I think people struggle with both him and Dracula because they fail to utilize the entirety of their kits properly.

  • Iron_Cutlass
    Iron_Cutlass Member Posts: 3,351

    I think it is because there are so many different parts to their power to master that you effectively have to learn multiple Killers in one instead of just a single Killer.

  • Chocolate_Cosmos
    Chocolate_Cosmos Member Posts: 5,735

    Worse Dracula with less chase Powers and way longer cooldowns.

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,677

    You're both overthinking it. If you have to learn each ability like it's a separate killer, then he's way too badly designed and hard to play with. He's bad, but he's not that bad.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 179

    I don't think he's hard to play at all, but I'm used to flexing in Overwatch so…

    I think Dracula is mechanically better designed though. Vecna has a lot of "I get free hit here :)" going on with his kit.

  • Devil_hit11
    Devil_hit11 Member Posts: 9,073

    He is A-tier killer with all right tools to win. he is not overpowered, just strong. I wish dracula received similar levels of buffs coming from PTB so he could be as fun as Vecna but i guess he wasn't as fortunate.

  • Volcz
    Volcz Member Posts: 1,188
    edited September 11

    Vecna is pretty good against people who aren't very aware of Vecna's kit or what they're looking to do in chase versus you.

    I think I'm a pretty good survivor against Vecna but I can't stress this enough. Do NOT panic throw pallets or pre drop them. Instead, take a look around and see what you can potentially chain into. He slows down briefly for the pallet power and that is your chance to make more distance or chain to another tile.

    The main thing I see people do wrong is the pallet dropping. Its what leads to a chase ending in 10 seconds opposed to 30 seconds. He goes on CD when he can't land his pallet reset. And during that downtime, you have every pallet to use that you want & he can't do anything about it besides taking time to break it or rush bloodlust around the tile, hoping to catch or bait you.

    If you can outplay or bait his pallet power, he's nothing more than an M1 (assuming you already know how to deal with everything else). I do think Dark Lord is more efficient with his downs.

  • VomitMommy
    VomitMommy Member Posts: 2,257

    In my 30-40 games past weeks on survivors, I think we have met 2.

    I don't think neither of them managed 4k. One game was very fun, because we got 4 out in soloQ while he was endgame camping...

    I am personally not interested in playing him and I am not worried about him even in soloQ. Unless he brings double iri...

  • NekoTorvic
    NekoTorvic Member Posts: 778

    So Vecna main here since his release. I consider myself a mid skill killer player. Vecna is very good against survivors who aren't super aware of how to deal with his kit. But his kit is what i consider to be a bit too counterable for people who understand his limitations.

    Flight of the Damned takes 0.5 seconds to spawn after you cast it, which is a bit too reactable imo. This means, when you see the purple smoke appear, you have 0.5 seconds before the skellies get collision. I honestly think it could go down to 0.4 seconds and it'd still be fine. Of course, it is harder to react with all the stuff going on in a chase, but I still think 0.5 seconds is too much. It being 0.4 would require a bit more of a read from the survivors. It is a pretty decent zoning tool for sure tho.

    Mage Hand is super bateable, but it requires a read from you. If you have the mage hand item and he doesn't dispell it, it's waay easier to counter by just running normally. It requires some awareness on the part of the survivor tho. But better survivors counter it pretty well. Good spell tho. I don't think i'd tweak it in any way.

    Dispelling sphere is good. it serves it's function.

    When he flies through a pallet or a window, you can ALWAYS vault back if you just hug the vault spot as he's cancelling. The Vecna player cannot block it at all if you actually just hug it. It is 100% in the survivor's control. That being said, it requires some good positioning on the survivor and decent reaction, since you do have to hug the vault very fast if he cancels on top of it in order to be able to vault back, but if you nail the timing it is 100% in your control. I do not think this is good, but I don't know how to fix it. Imo he should either always entity-block windows for the duration of his flight cancel, or he should always push survivors away from himself if he manages to hug the vault spot really tightly. Both of these might be problematic, counterplay-wise, so I dunno. Also fly is just too loud. It could be way quieter and if it lasted one second longer it'd be a tad better as a traversal tool. It'd feel comfy.

    His cooldowns also make him feel very very punishing. I don't know if they need to be 38 seconds. I'd say 35 with reduced effect of his cooldown addons would be acceptable. But it's also not necessary.

    I honestly think Iri book of Vile Darkness is an odd addon that I do not think should exist, since when combined with Ornate Horn it can make 2 taps a bit too easy imo, and I don't think that's healthy.

    This is not to say the Vecna is useless. He still has the versatility to deal with a lot and can hold his own the more experienced the Vecna player is. I'd say he's either bottom of A or top of B. Regardless tho, he is super fun to play and they did a stupendous job making you feel like a caster. Using all his spells to deal with situations is legit more fun to me than playing some actual fantasy games with magic. He's so good at chain casting. I love this killer so much.

  • ratcoffee
    ratcoffee Member Posts: 1,579

    Top 5 kill rate according to Nightlight fwiw

  • GonnaBlameTheMovies
    GonnaBlameTheMovies Member Posts: 682

    Vecna is pretty decent, he's just not overpowered. I loathe tierlists, but if I had to I would put him high B MAYBE low A depending on map.

    But then I overestimate Killer strengths. I believe Myers is a C and Ghostface is B tier, while Demogorgon is outdated and closer to a low B or high C. My takes are admittedly, scuffed.

  • 100PercentBPMain
    100PercentBPMain Member Posts: 1,138

    I still really like him. I always thought Mage Hand was no big deal, and he still seems the same to me.

    I'm just trying out other things right now, like trying to make Dracula work, tinker with Knight, enjoying The Nemetode's new tentacle range etc.

    Vecna is definitely way better than Dracula. I almost got a 50 win streak when Vecna released But I struggle and sweat a ton with Drac so I've been more focused on making him work.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 179
    edited September 11

    The thing about that is that mage hand can be faked with little penalty, so in a scenario where you anticipate someone is going to loop another time or transition between tiles if you cast it, you get an opportunity to gain distance on them and force the hit a few seconds later (as long as the setup isn't absolutely cracked). Same with spawning skellies on people, even if you don't get the hit with the skellies, the distance and speed loss from them crouching is often enough to get a free M1.

  • Sepex
    Sepex Member Posts: 1,451

    Vecna is a forgotten page in his spell book.

  • Iron_Cutlass
    Iron_Cutlass Member Posts: 3,351

    They have a 3% usage rate which isnt bad considering how we have 37 Killers in the game at the moment.

  • HolyDarky
    HolyDarky Member Posts: 845

    He is alright and might be stronger than many players believe. I think the average player does not like him that much because his spells have such a long cooldown. His spells also have so many tricks and are more complicate/more micro management than they look like (e.g. Fly can be used for map mobility and to catch up but also as a chase tool to outplay some pallets and get the down. FOTD has so many opportunities to get a hit on the survivor and become more complicated with elevation maps. Dispelling Sphere as a detection tool but also to counter magic items and to keep in mind which survivor has which magic item, especially the one for Hand). I also think players misunderstanding FOTD. So he is not easy to pick up like other killers (Wesker or Huntress). Same goes for the magic items, especially the Eye and Hand of Vecna, that some players dislike this type of counterplay.

    Overall, he has many things that players don't really like (long cooldown, difficult to pick up, no feedback on how you should use the power), which is why not many people play him (right). In addition, I think DnD is not as common as RE or Castlevania in this community. However, if you play him and learn him correctly then he is a good killer but not a perfect one. He still should get some tweaks to feel smoother to play.

    This was in his first three weeks and killers always have a higher pickrate after release due to new toy syndrome and adapt achievements.

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,677

    No, he doesn't. He has point-blank spawned skeletons and that's it. In top level matches, I imagine that's just about the only way you can get a health state off survivors. It's the only ability which does damage. Flight and Hand can* lead to damage, but if survivors are just as aware with their positioning as you are while you're using those abilities, they have advantage pretty much every time. You're slowed when using those, remember. You lose almost as much distance as you gain.

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,677

    Yeah, that's wrong. Twins, Skull Merchant, and Unknown are pretty bad and even they're more consistent than him. Except for the skeletons, and only when spawned point-blank, he's a glorified M1.

  • how can anyone take you seriously when you say the twins are a bad killer💀

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 179

    Throw on bamboozle (or the iri ig, I don't use either) and learn to fake mage hand and suddenly those problems disappear. And I don't subscribe to the idea that the majority of anyone's public matches are consistently against "top level" survivors. Certainly not x4 survivors, and all it takes is one or two weak links and some game sense to snowball.

  • ratcoffee
    ratcoffee Member Posts: 1,579

    i said "top 5 killrate according to nightlight"

    you can argue all you want about nightlight not being a good indicator of killer power level (and I might even agree with you) but don't say "Yeah, that's wrong" to something that's just literal fact

    also twins and unknown are both solid lol

  • ZamasuManzon
    ZamasuManzon Member Posts: 193

    Vecna have the anniversary power to block pallets with the Iri Book.
    My friend is maining him and is having too damn good laughs with survs trying to vault while the damn thing is blocked.

  • Zakon05
    Zakon05 Member Posts: 229

    None of the killers mentioned in this post are bad.

    The worst one is Skull Merchant and she's still pretty dangerous.