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
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!
Do you think Dracula is a bit overturned?
Since last updated, he got a decent buff on the cooldown of shape shifting, cutting literally in half. This means you can keep changing forms without any disadvantage, which is okay but it might be a little too much specially when you pair with the addon Clock Tower Gear.
In fact I haven't seen anyone talking about it. If you wanna see the combo in action I'll leave a video link here - https://youtu.be/Vnt4aqBWlOE
Comments
-
He has the same problem as Hillbilly where the killer can make a million mistakes and it doesn't matter. You can do everything right as survivor and he is immediately back on you after failing to use his abilities. It's bad game design and feels terrible to play against. Git gud only applies to survivors apparently. At the very least the bat form needs some kind of change.
32 -
Bat into Wolf is a rough combo to deal with. I haven’t played with him yet so I can’t exactly say if he is overtuned, but I’m ok with him in his current state- for the most part. I don’t like finding out the hard way that his flames actually go through obstacles you wouldn’t think it would, like medium size rocks (waist high).
1 -
what is the mistake? the killer using the ability? He is strong. Blight been doing catch-up gameplay for very long time. billy's rework with super low cooldown. they're weakening billy one because it is a bit too strong for billy given the… that you get free m1 as billy + he has instant downs if your out of position after missing so i think billy is a bit more understandable. dracula doesn't have instant downs.
6 -
Yes, Bat Form is a little too strong now + the Shapeshift cooldown probably needs to be a bit longer. Reducing the cooldown in the 2-week hotfix patch did make him feel a lot smoother to play but unfortunately I think it also contributed to making him a bit overtuned. Maybe they could increase the shapeshift cooldown but only when switching to or from Bat Form specifically. The buffed cooldown when just switching from Vampire to Wolf or vice versa, isn't an issue.
6 -
i don’t think it should be nerfed. Yeah he can use bat form to catch up to you but the thing is you get a clear global sound cue when he does that + you become invisible to him. Which makes it very easy to juke him if you stopped making scratch marks.. its even easier when you have iron will equipped. He will still catch up to you anyway but this little confusion will cause him to get out of bat form too early/late which should give you a decent distance to find the next loop. We finally have a fun killer against the very fun and skillful hold W meta.. lets not ruin it please
9 -
I’ve said before and got bashed. He’s the most boring killer to go against ever.
4 -
I'm not sure I'd call it overtuned necessarily but the bat form could use a a bit of a nerf. The fact that it can be used so frequently makes Dracula very unrewarding to play against.
It feels like you can outplay him quite a few times and nothing really happens because you don't make any distance on him. Combined with his 2 chase powers and the ability to eliminate many windows by using the bat's teleport ability it's not very fun to play against him at all.
8 -
They definitely over buffed the CD between changing forms imo. It needed changed but seems too strong now.
5 -
Yes because those buffs were given without any logical sense and without testing the killer first, as usual in short.
1 -
Yes. I think the speed of the transition into the bat form is a bit overtuned.
Due to the catch up potential of the form, he can circumvent the impact of a majority of mistakes.
Everything else in his kit is absolutely fine in my opinion.
Discussed that recently already.
6 -
I don't think Dracula is overtuned and I am frankly getting tired of this discussion happening with every single new killer buff. I prefer killers not having arbitrarily long cooldowns that make them feel clunky and unwieldy to play for the sole reason that people cannot be bothered to learn how to effectively counter them.
Each of his forms has a downside, learn it and use it against him. Survivor players often tell killer players that they need to learn to adapt to situational changes to play effectively and counter strong survivor perks and I agree with that. However, that also applies the other way round: survivor players need to learn to adapt to the situational changes of Dracula changing his forms and counter them.
13 -
No, not overtuned just fine where he is. There are actual problem killers, and then there is Dracula. I think the fact that people still have a hard time placing him is proof of that. Any more changes would make him overtuned or play like ass depending on which way it goes..
Players have just gotten way too comfortable with mediocrity over the years that they get scared and upset whenever an actual well-designed killer comes through. We also can't forget that most survs are just plain bad at surviving, and so it's only natural they hate seeing a killer who isn't a complete pushover because it goes against their script to present them an actual challenge that makes them think a little. They just want an EZ game so they can talk smack post-game and BM.
11 -
BBefore the recent buffs he was so clunky and unintuitive that he was on the best way to completely disappear from the public eye in a month time, max. People were already complaining during hd first week, that they were not seeing any Draculas at all. There were some very niche builds for him, but the one thing that felt good about him, the Wolf hug tech, got patched out faster than you could howl at he moon, an he was left with very little, besides and extremely clunky shape-shifting ability, that offered survivors more options then the killer himself.
Now with his shape-shifting cooldown halved, he is strong and he has options in a chase, but the dust still needs to settle to assess if he is truly overtuned. That video OP linked had some pretty busted moments, I'll give you that, but as others have said here, people still can't accurately place Dracula on the tier list, so there is that.
On a sidenote, I think that making killers mechanics overtly clunky and unwieldy is not a good way to balance things, but I guess its a way to give survivors the feeling, that they are agile and clever, of they can run circles around a killer.
During my hard-core DBD phase I got so used to this, and when I then played some other game with actual fluid controls, I was literally SHOCKED. The way killers are artificially held back is very grating, but I guess that it's part of the game, but everytime a killer doesn't play as clunky and players can actually play to their own full potential, it shows like this
5 -
His shapshifting cooldown needs to be increased most definitely.
3 -
I think we should give him more time, at least for the first data BHVR gives us, the lich is already super OP, im sure Dracula will have the same kind of ratio and with time nerfs will come so it gets more balanced. Right now im trying to get to know of to loop him and overall i find it kinda fun, a lot of mindgames involved, same as blight.
But I understand your point, if mayority of players have the same opinion then its safe to say it needs some kind of balance on his numbers.0 -
i mean.. how is it broken at all when you literally have the nurse in the same game lol
Post edited by NotVerySuss on0 -
I usually ignore Nurse when making discussions because she ignores the game's "rules", so comparisions are not that useful for now
6 -
The only nerf he really needs is a rework of Lapiz Lazuli Addon because this Addon is way too strong and alongside Medusa's Hair it is way too powerful because it removes every counterplay on the survivorside by blocking a useful window to mindgame the batform. Otherwise, Dracula is in a good spot. Every of his three abilities has counterplay and can be mindgamed. I play Dracula a lot since his release and already met good survivors that are able to counter Dracula's abilities and to use their resources right.
You see the Bat form when it teleports, so you can react to it like Dredge when it tries to cut you off. You can mindgame the Batform like Spirit by doing a u-turn, start to walk, or crouch - unlike Spirit you see the Batform which means the mindgame is more in your favour or it is at least 50/50. He also slows down when shapeshift from bat form to vampire/wolf form. Mindgame the hellfire slows Dracula down a lot. Wolf Form is also fair to counter. An overall big factor to keep in mind is that you can react to Dracula. Against fast killers like Blight or Billy it is difficult to react due to their high speed. Huntress and Pyramidhead can do a flick to give you no reaction time. Dracula has nothing of this. Once you start your Wolf form Pounce, the survivor knows when the second one comes and can react. Same for Hellfire - there is no flick or something similar - and he gets a big slowdown, and unlike Huntress he cannot hold it forever to zone you out. Bat form cannot attack you like Spirit or Blight and has the other issues. It is true that he is good at catching up but this doesn't mean he is good at other stuff. Other killers struggle by catching up and Dracula struggles at other points.
About the video: really good plays and he is a good player but tbf RPD is one of Dracula's best map in this game because it has good windows (especially the two in the mainroom) and many bottlenecks where survivors cannot dodge the Hellfire or Pounce and many tiles/loops are great for Dracula's Hellfire. On more normal maps, it would be a different story.
Lastly, survivors need time to adapt. Of cause, if you face Dracula three times you might still struggle against him but this issue have survivors always when a new killer drops. Survivors need more time to adapt to the killer because they have less playtime against the killer than the killerplayer has playtime with the killer.
Overall, Dracula is a strong killer but not too powerful because he has drawbacks, counterplay, and leaves room for mindgames.
2 -
His OP part is the bats alone really. Running to a window he can miss a M1 on you, you proc lithe and hes back in melee range if he uses bats 2 seconds after lithe ends. so your 1 perk for helping you with chase is voided out cause of bats through the window.
0 -
Not only 1, but 2 strong chase powers combined with ridiculous map traversal? Probably the antithesis of fun for me, I'd rather play against Xeno, and that's saying something.
1 -
Drac is fine people are just overeacting cause they cant get easy wins anymorre
5 -
I played Dracula tonight and I can't make this smooth transitions from one form to the next work for me, even if my (un)life depended on it, I just got knots in my fingers.
Verdict: not OP, far from it. Buff him further !!!!
3 -
AMEN.
5 -
if only Vecna was this Tuned and not clunky
0 -
I feel like the cooldown between shapeshifting is too fast. It's too easy to catch up with the bat form if the survivor makes distance or to use it to go over windows and pallets and can fairly quickly get a hit. But my personal biggest gripe is with hellfire, I feel like he has much easier control with it in terms of aiming (unlike pyramid head) which can make it harder to dodge and the biggest pain being it isn't clear what obstacles hellfire can go through, like I heard the obstacle has to be around a little taller than the average survivor to not go though it, but some obstacles where I think I wont get hit (like out on the outside balcony on rpd pallet loop), and other obstacles I expect it to go though and I dodge, it doesn't go through… I just wish there was a clearer way to know if the hellfire is going to hit you through an object or not.
It's kinda insane cause he's kinda 3 killers combined, wesker/demogorgon, spirit/dredge, pyramid head/nemesis. But most dracula's just use hellfire and get constant hits.
2 -
no
3 -
it is based off height of object. hellfire is around 3/4 of height of the pallet. it is one of those things where you need to play the killer to understand what height you can hit over and what height you can't.
2 -
He is a bit too strong, and I expect some slight nerfs or changes at some point.
3 -
Like others said his semi-spirit playstyle is a little bit too strong. The wolf and hellfire itself aren't to strong I think, they are both relatively easy to dodge and more or less punishing if you do it.
So I'd say just increase his cooldown back to 5 seconds after switching or how @sizzlingmario4 proposed just increase it for the bat, everything else isn't a problem ^^
1 -
Because bats can go over vaults, I just see him as a better Spirit, he's also super hard to counter.
2 -
I have an issue with hold-M2-to-zone abilities in general. They're extremely high percentage hits if the killer is any good, and that extends beyond Dracula. They're going to hold M2 and walk you down until you animation lock or they can M1. I don't think they're great design. Xenomorph is an M2 ranged attack done right.
2 -
Also the fact he can close hatch as bats is pure BS. He should at lest have to change back to vampire to do so.
0 -
but xeno can m2 zone into m1 as well. i think the way people approach projectiles in plain wrong. my thoughts is that you should always be running forward vs any projectile type attack. Like if your referencing image, Ada isn't playing well. she shouldn't be crossing the pallet. she should be looping around the pallet side and not crossing the pallet. it takes 0.9 second to ready the attack and there is some small travel time before i release the attack to hit you at max range. it gives time to predict the attack IF i release attack immediately and if i don't release attack, if your further away from me, you gain distance by running forward because i am slower than survivor when charging the attack.
2 -
I don't think he's overtuned. There's some loops like shack or jungle gyms where he straight-up can't get you unless you first make the mistake. A weaker Huntress/Demogorgon in those scenarios. And consider only 1 of his 3 forms really does anything... enough said.
0 -
What you're not understanding is that this logic can be applied to all killers, thus making them OP, which means it's bad logic. Sure, killers can miss you over and over again, and you still go down, but that's the point. You're not supposed to 1v1 killers; you waste enough time so that your team can win. If you're 1v1ing the killer, they're badly designed. You'll find that Dracula gets crazy punished for messing up, compared to other killers.
I don't know what's wrong with the bat form. It's fast, it's noisy, and for some reason it can't see survivors "because echo location!" yet it can see the map. If you were to make it as weak as the Wolf form, people would spawn in as Dracula and literally never change forms. We can't have that.
1 -
Dracula is perfect now. I really hope that he won't receive any change anytime soon.
0 -
"What you're not understanding is that this logic can be applied to all killers, thus making them OP, which means it's bad logic. Sure, killers can miss you over and over again, and you still go down, but that's the point"
No you cannot apply that logic to all killers or even most. Majority of killers cannot miss and be right on top of u. It mainly only high movement speed killers that can do this. killers like spirit, chucky, wesker can always be on top of u but they have reasonable cool down time. Billy and blight can pretty much spam their catch up with little restrictions. Dracula have two different ways to catch up unlike any other killer.
7 -
Not really, I enjoy playing against him. All of his powers give me a chance to outplay them.
2 -
he is weird, he is too forgiving if the player makes a mistake but as a survivor you have to be on your A game. I wouldn't call his powers strong either though.
I was watching Tofu stream the other day and he went down in a way that was so perplexing. He played so well in chase against the killer but it ultimately didn't matter because Dracula negated any distance via his bat form and the cooldown is so minimal that Tofu also couldn't even re-vault a window despite anticipating the form switch & M1, as Dracula had already changed forms and M1'd him mid vault animation. That cooldown is bs imo.
my main issue is that he's another one of those hold M2 and zone killers which is hopeless. Path and stare at them while trying to predict the M2 just for them to M1 because you lost distance while anticipating the M2. Rinse and repeat.
this whole multiple powers in 1 with Vecna and Dracula is boring yet it seems like that's the direction we're headed: anti-loop killers meant to be able to end chases more quickly than most killers
2 -
Yes, he can transform into bat form way too fast, and makes him very good for tunneling survivors out. Combine this with that one add on that makes his bat form block window vaults, and he's very strong. You'd think such a strong add on would come with some downsides, but nope. I think he also needs some audio cue for whenever he uses his hellfire move. He makes pretty much no noise when he charges it up. But Nemesis and Pyramid head (Killers that have a similar power) both make very audible and clearly telegraphed movements to warn you that they are using their powers. With Dracula you can barely even tell, and you can't even tell at all if you aren't looking at him.
1 -
People always bring up how "overtuned" (debatable) Bat form is but completely ignore how undertuned Wolf form is.
2 -
Hardly ever see him so hard to say
0 -
i can't comment on his strengths or weaknesses personally but i do agree that hellfire needs a distinct audio cue. for this tome i'm struggling to prepare for his power usage because i cannot hear when he uses it in comparison to other killers with specialized M2s.
0 -
He's like a better version of Spirit imo
2
