so should we expect plague/cenobite nerfs now?
considering that skull merchant was nerfed for her 70% killrate, i mean. plague/ceno are next on the roadmap for changes and are also in the top 10 killers for kill rates, so i’m guessing the devs are going to follow in the “high kill rate = nerf” philosophy?
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I'm dreading it. Both of these killers are pub stompers. Plague genuinely is a strong killer even if survivors know how to counterplay her, so I can accept her needing minor nerfs, but I'm afraid she'll get the Skull Merchant treatment. And Pinhead is pure pub stomper. The only thing he has going for him outside of survivor noncommunication are a few nasty addon combos and box spawn memorization. His active power is extremely high skill floor, low yield.
OTOH, they buffed Pig despite her always having disproportionately high kill rates, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was because they knew how much backlash would come out of nerfing Pig, what with the longstanding meme.
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i'd be shocked for them to nerf pinhead as he is already not very good. Plague, i can see them nerfing.
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Keep in mind that DC's inflates kill rates so I doubt they will getting nerfs. Plus it's not like Pinhead is in almost every game so....
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They haven’t had to really ever touch plague. Why now? She’s not OP other than her Iri addons that are a bit strong. (I wouldn’t say OP tho)
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Yes. Every Killer who over performs is at risk. Just look how fast they nerfed Twins not long after their recent buff.
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i dont expect something smart from the devs so yeah they will prob. nerf them
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realistically the only thing that should get a change on plague is black incense her kit is completely fine
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That's the one that let's her see when survivors vomit correct?
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Yes it was even nerfed in the past but it’s still too much imo
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Yes it is.
Her other one gives her red puke for free five times a match.
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She got nerfed because survivors gave up against her which resulted in a high killrate. The developers want to make her weak so nobody plays her and nobody has to face her until her rework (the date is still unknown). Players don't give up against these two as often as Skull Merchant. It is similar to other killers.
I wish the developers would nerf these two killer and then buff them in the right direction:
- Pinhead: Nerf his box in that way that he has no longer an unfair advantage against SoloQ (e.g. let survivors see the aura of other survivors when they in range of 10meters around the box and let us see the aura of the survivor who holds the box. A quick message like "I go for the box" would be the best). His Box spawn logic should also become more random, so it is impossible for the Pinhead player to get an idea of where the Box could spawn. Nerf his Original Pain Addon so it no longer enables easy tunnling. Buff his chains by giving him a better slowdown on the survivors and that he can no longer break his own chains with his body. They could also become easier to use for console players. The chain cooldown could also be reduced. Some Addons should also get a rework but since it is only a tweak, I highly doubt they will do Addon reworks.
- Plague: Rework her Iridecent Seal Addon, make her Fountain spawns better (or at least make it so that the default one always spawns in the middle of the map), and give her two Fountains default (make yellow Apple Addon basekit and then rework this one). Also reduce her whisper VFX because this is really annyoing. Otherwise, Plague is mostly fine. She is one of the most balanced killers in the game. A unique chase music would also be great to hear. Fixing panthom hits would also be nice but this is difficult because it is ping/server depending.
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I will never understand why people actually think that Skull Merchant is nerfed due to her Killrate, but are not tired of explaining that her Killrate is mainly due to people not wanting to play against her.
But that she gets changes, because People dont want to play against her is not understandable for those people.
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there's a direct link between kill rates and people not wanting to play against a killer though. you can literally see that happening in skull merchant's case. people giving up is the reason WHY she has such a high kill rate.
i don't care about skull merchant, she could get deleted i personally wouldnt gaf but from an objective POV this just sets a very bad precedent and i don't like where they're going with this balance philosophy and i dont want to see this happen to other killers
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Survivors can already see the boxes aura across the map so that's a dumb idea lol. I exclusively solo queue as survivor and pinhead is hardly ever a threat unless you just neglect solving the box all together. Not to mention how his teleport spawns you in odd places depending on the map.
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Yeah, but she does not have such a high Killrate because she is too strong. She has such a high Killrate because people dont want to play against her.
And that people dont want to play against her is a good reason to change her. (And also a way better and more important reason than the killrate)
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It’s not “for free” she lost an entire generator. That’s a huge cost. You have to lose gens to get value.
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Reading carefully or at least asking what I mean would be helpful. I know that survivors can see the aura of the box. I mean when a survivor is within 10meters of the Box, the other survivors see the aura of this survivor that is within that range. This would at least tell the other survivors a bit sooner that someone is already going for the Box. The biggest issue in SoloQ is this box and the fear that no one will solve the box in time. Therefore, there need to be a feature that gives the survivors the security someone goes for the box. A quick message option would be the best but I highly doubt it.
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I don’t think so honestly
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I am absolutely expecting massive nerfs for both of them. BHVR have shown they're willing to dumpster killers if survivors complain enough and both Plague and Cenobite are considered pub stompers. I take small solace in the fact plague might finally get chase music though.
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Yes, but the value far outweighs any of the costs.
The only way for survivors to win is to pop generators. You'll always get value from it in every match for zero input.
Survivors choose never to cleanse not to have to deal with red puke? Well too bad, now everyone's an easy down. Survivors choose to cleanse? Well now everyone constantly has to deal with the strongest part of her kit, her red puke.
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Honestly Bhvr could turn Plague into an M1 Killer with no power and I’d still play as her. She’s just way way too cool to not use.
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If they nerf Sadako like this, which I hope they won't because the rates we usually see posted are from around the time 2.0 become 3.0, but if they DO nerf Sadako the same way they did SM? I'll probably drop the game.
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No, this makes too much sense. It's more likely that people are coming home from their 9-5, spending time with their families, and then in the hour or two they have for gaming, they hop on DbD with the sole intent to quit matches in order to get a killer nerfed.
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You know, I could actually live with that? I mean, I'd rage about all my muscle memory going down the drain, but I have a gazillion gorgeous outfits on Plague I want to show the world because she is so pretty, lady doesn't just get a dozen flashy robes and crowns but gets to be a wholeass mermaid if she feels like it… but I've leaned away from playing her recently because people just don't want to verse her. I don't like being greeted with DCs. :(
Maybe I will play her more after the inevitable nerfs. But I love her addon spread and think her power's in a healthy (hah) spot, so the whole thing makes me sad. The biggest consistent issue I see with her is people just… being awful at dynamic decisionmaking. Or not knowing how to play against Plague, period. So often I see people cleansing and then running to unhook a sick person. Or healing up while sick. So of course those teams get 4ked… it only takes one survivor to give Plague a bunch of fountains, and I don't know how you fix that without gutting her. The only change I'd push for is giving survivors better information so that they can make better decisions (have black incense show itself, maybe make infected gens a little more obvious because the effect can be easy to miss.) Her design is fine, I think she really just isn't played often enough for people to know how to play against her complex power.
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I dont believe that to be true. You lose 20 seconds on your power even if you collect it from a fountain regardless if you lose a gen, but you still have to lose a whole gen for it to take effect. I'd say that is a huge cost.
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EW, that kills them
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Eh. In practice, it feels like getting it for free. Yes, gens being done means survivors are progressing their objective, but it's a rare game where you don't lose any gens, and you save a lot of time when you get a Corrupt Purge without having to detour. Of course, sometimes it's wasted and two gens pop in succession, or it procs at a time you didn't want it and don't have any targets. Which is why her one yellow addon that decreases the amount of pools available is so unbelievably bad. But in practice, it's quite strong, turns a race to a nearly completed gen into a win-win (either you stop it or you have your power on the fleeing survivors), combos extremely well with perks like Bitter Murmur, and you get an average of 3-5 more Corrupt Purges than you usually would. That is strong.
The tradeoff is that Corrupt Purge lasts for less time, so you're unlikely to manage multiple downs with it unless you got lucky and caught two survivors together at the start. Personally I think Black Incense is the stronger iri addon.
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Every kill rate BHVR uses for stats completely discards any games with a disconnect. They aren't even included in their calculations.
Which means that the kill rates that players experience are largely going to be higher than the kill rates BHVR publishes, especially if disconnects against certain killers are more common.
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You can't really compare SM to any other killer when it comes to being reworked. No killer has ever generated that much hostility from the playerbase. She is special in that way.
If Pinhead's kill rate is too high, it's because he's hard for solo teams to deal with. All BHVR has to do is weaken the box, and make his chase power better. That would keep him strong, but less oppressive for solo players, and without ruining him.
I don't see Plague getting changed much. She's one of the most unique killers in the game, and is well balanced. Being extremely strong, but not at the level of say Billy or Nurse. There's no incentive for BHVR to change her much.
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On the flipside, they count games where a player suicides on first hook when a human observer is quite aware that game was rigged from the start and wasn't a real indicator of killer strength. This is why Skull Merchant just got nerfed.
Both Pinhead and Plague are unpopular killers (to play and to face) with relatively high quit on sight rates (though nothing on Skull Merchant), and I would argue their kill rates are also inflated above their 'real' effectiveness because inexperienced survivors destroy themselves. Pig is also in this category, a player who doesn't know how traps work automatically dies, but she enjoys less of the dubious benefit of killing the team through uncoordination. Pinhead gets unbelievable pressure from either everyone going for the box or nobody going for it, and one person being a hypochondriac lets Plague nuke everyone else (and occasionally the reverse, if the team is doing a decent job staying clean and one person keeps infecting everything and getting one-tapped and needing rescue.) Nerfing killers that survivors widely perform badly against is rough business because it doesn't make the survivors who don't know how to play against that killer any better, it just makes it harder for the killer to compete with survivors who do know the counterplay.
I'm more worried about Pinhead than Plague in this regard, because Plague is actually strong enough to hold her ground against coordinated survivors. Pinhead isn't.
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1 Million percent yes! I believe it is a knowledge issue. But also, an issue with impatience. The teams that do best against me are the teams that play very meticulous, careful and patient. I believe the patience part is where most people are going wrong against her. At least that’s my experience playing against Survivors.
What Survivors who are inexperienced against her go wrong is that they don’t know how OP cleansing is. You can force her to waste time by making her hit you without infection. Get infected then go heal a free health state.
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Unless something has recently changed, DCs are not included in kill rate stats. Historically they weren't.
Edit: I see this point was already made. Wishing there was a delete button -_-
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Yeah! People can get free heals off the hook by touching a sick gen and cleansing (and it's not uncommon for people to be uninfected if you just had a Corrupt Purge spree.) Playing Plague is practically guaranteeing everyone who isn't in chase with you gets an Adrenaline pop at the end of the game - survivors can heal almost whenever they want. And coordinated cleanse teams can destroy you. You can go from having 2 fountains and everyone infected to no fountains and everyone healthy, and all you get out of it is a Corrupt Purge with a vague idea of where someone might be if you saw the last fountain disappear (and weren't spinning around in panic when the fountains start flying, like I usually do.)
And I have the hardest time with survivors who I'm trying to fully infect, and instead of weaving around obstacles, they bullrush me and start spinning around me in circles. Instant L. Can't deal with that camera frippery, have to take the M1 and deal with the distance.
These are things you don't need to be in a SWF to pull off, you just need to know about them. But people seem to struggle counterplaying Plague because it's a bunch of "if the game state is this, do this" rules instead of a simple mandate like "never cleanse."
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Hey, my fellow Freddy mains who are still around… maybe we should stop carrying this killer. Fourth deadliest killer in the game is something to be proud of, but the rework is approaching so maybe we shouldn't risk it.
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This, this is nice. This Plague talk. It’s very refreshing ;)
Playing Plague is practically guaranteeing everyone who isn't in chase with you gets an Adrenaline pop at the end of the game - survivors can heal almost whenever they want.
Yes big time. End game is more difficult for her definitely.
You can go from having 2 fountains and everyone infected to no fountains and everyone healthy, and all you get out of it is a Corrupt Purge with a vague idea of where someone might be if you saw the last fountain disappear
Mhm yup. The teams that commit to staying cleansed usually do pretty well.
And I have the hardest time with survivors who I'm trying to fully infect, and instead of weaving around obstacles, they bullrush me and start spinning around me in circles. Instant L. Can't deal with that camera frippery, have to take the M1 and deal with the distance.
🤭 I know exactly what you’re talking about.
These are things you don't need to be in a SWF to pull off, you just need to know about them. But people seem to struggle counterplaying Plague because it's a bunch of "if the game state is this, do this" rules instead of a simple mandate like "never cleanse."
You’re right. The counter play is like one step too much. Which is too bad because I love playing against Survivors that know how to play against her.
Have you ever noticed or experienced “pandemic” waves? Where you cause a huge mass infection, you get a lot of corrupt, the infection dies off, and you finally run out of corrupt ready to start the “wave” over? Some games I can get about two waves, sometimes three. It’s so thrilling and fast paced. I can’t get enough lol.
One of my favorite things about playing Plague is this trance you get into where you become highly efficient at corrupt fountain pathing. It feels like I’m performing forbidden sacred geometry over the map like a spell or something lol. I was so fascinated with this feeling/concept that I created a build around it. Batteries included is the anchor perk that the build is made around. The build is Batteries Included, Fire Up, Thanatophobia, and Noed.
It’s meant to make her more…idk…demonic as the ritual, I’m sorry trial, goes on. She’s usually weak at end game but this build kind of turns that on its head. I call this build The Apocalypse 💀
Post edited by HerInfernalMajesty on1 -
I hope they won't do this.
Plague is one of the most unique killers in the game, and is fairly well balanced.
The only nerfs I could even think of, are for her iri add-ons. That's it.
Cenobite needs buffs. End of discussion.
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I'd agree with that... but they didn't change anything. They just hard nerfed everything. She actually WAS changed afew times and it didn't stop people from complaining about things that wasn't even relevant alot of the time.
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is there even anything left to nerf on her ?
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The last time BHVR looked at Plague, she got some of her best addons heavily nerfed. They’ll probably do this again.
But what Plague really needs, is for fully infected survivors to have some other downside, to encourage survivors to actually cleanse. The fountains are supposed to be a minor form of slowdown, where infected survivors spend time to cleanse themselves, but very often the survivors decide to just run around fully infected and broken, for very large portions of the game.
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I would wonder if they are not getting nerfed, they will definitely not get buffs.
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That comment made my day
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idk, but at this moment, i think giving up intentionally against specific killers is dbd community's version of whiny players in other communities review bombing their game just to force a nerf to specific aspect.
And BHVR's response to it in terms of choosing to either gut a killer or significantly lower their skill expression is just the very sign of how spoiled dbd community is.
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I wouldn't put it past them to find something.
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I don't think they're oppressive but plague is definitely boring to play against - the typical thana slowdown build and they'll still bring gen regression of course. Ceno is fine. My teammates usually don't go for the box til it's too late and it's probably because everyone assumes someone is gonna go for it. These are matchmaking issues though and not related to the killers being too strong
I think everyone is blowing the SM thing out of proportion and wildly trying to link it to every little thing as if bhvr has in any way suggested that they will approach every nerf through the same lens as SM
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Plague talk! From one Adiris afficionado to another. I love it.
Yeah, I'm really prone to that. I have a particular… game plan, I suppose, that ticks me to try and hook 3-4 different survivors before I start using my fountains (good opportunities notwithstanding), and unless I have a team of Nurgle worshippers, I'll usually be nearing my fountain limit by the time I start going for it. Between that and the sick unhooks after I mow people down, after 2 or 3 Corrupts, they've been reset and everyone's healthy, so I have to go infect everyone all over again. I always thought that was poor game management on my part, but at the same time, I rarely struggle with it, it takes a coordinated team to truly capitalize on this - and there's benefits to infecting everyone again, because spreading it via gens and unhooks gives you excellent information on where survivors are. Usually it's two waves for me; they have to be insane cleansers to get three.
That's largely because of my build - it's been shaken up by some of the semi-recent perk nerfs (rip STBFL, you are missed), but my mainstay is Plaything. God, I love Plaything on Plague. It does everything. It encourages cleanses, it gives you easy hits on one-taps, and it deals with the problem that survivors get really skittish once you activate Corrupt Purge. Can't flee at the first sound of a terror radius if I don't have one. Add in Discordance so you can go "target acquired" and you can pull off a lot of ambushes. She can make good use of most Undetectable perks, I've even played with Dark Devotion and it's very fun (though I think other killers can use it slightly better), but Plaything's become my mainstay.
Ooh, the themes. Loving the Apocalypse Build… Thana was made for her (and it's another way to force people to cleanse) and I love Fire Up and Batteries Included on principle, but NOED is hilarious as an uno reverse card after everyone cleanses, and helpfully reveals their last known location, at the endgame. You thought you were safe… but the gods demand their sacrifice.
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She's already a D-tier killer, but Merchant was C-tier and they still found a way to ruin her.
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to find a way to ruin Sadako as well.
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Glad to be of service!
Hopefully my fellow Freddy players got the message.
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BHVR has been pretty clear that their balance decisions take multiple factors into account. Skull Merchant is being nerfed into the ground for reasons different from just being too strong. It's possible that Pinhead and Plague could get nerfed in the future, but nothing like Skull Merchant, much more likely the usual 'some nerfs, some buffs' type of deal.
I love this post. I also really like the idea that people would have kept this up for over a year.
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This
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but they included give ups on hooks thats massively skewing stats
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