Talking about Vecna

While Vecna is a strong killer, he suffers big time by all of his spells being outclassed by currently released killers, namely Artist. Two of his spells are both utilities Artist gets baseline and on a significantly lower CD and way more range of useability that Isn’t outright a spell shotgun. This rant is going to discuss my issues with Vecna on the average player perspective, and pros and cons of the killer that isn’t strictly the fact he’s Vecna.

Spells CD: These are just in general too long for all 4 spells. Some of the spells do warrant at least a decent cooldown but not a 38 second CD, some absolutely do not warrant it at all. Mage Hand warrants the long CD but could go down to 30 safely, Fly and Flight of the Damned can go between 25 and 30. Dispelling Orb can go down to 18-<25 easily and safely, The addons that help with the CD reduction, while decent, don’t bring it down enough to warrant consistent use (38 down to 34) and the other one is a 5 second slash per M1, which means you get a whiff on a spell the its 7.6 m1s to make it worth in the long run. The addon isn’t bad but in my eyes makes m1ing stronger on a killer that's very reliant on his m2 to get anywhere. 

The cooldowns also being this long makes it harder to adequately learn each spell from an average player standpoint, as the proper play would be on a spell whiff is to just break any resource used, and leave, unless your survivor is going somewhere not favorable for them to then get the m1 or a potential down. I will personally see a good chunk of Lich players whiff a Flight of the Damned and/or Mage Hand, and then leave, or over commit on a chase when they’re not going to get their powers back for 34-38 seconds, thus costing them the game. All killers when whiffing too much with their power are going to cost them the game, granted, but most of them also allow for a decent margin of error to try, and try again, and thus learn how to play their killer through aggressive trial and error. Vecna does not. Comparing back to Artist where her CD even at max capacity with the addon that increases the ammo pool to 4 is a 14 second cooldown (12 baseline with 3 crows), whiffing is still damning but its enough time to rethink your position, and try to learn the crows.Now to go down with my issues with the spells in no particular order

Flight of the Damned. This is one of the largest contention points I have with Lich and my comparison with him and Artist. The 38 Second CD makes missing incredibly damning, and the skill at a range is very telegraphed and rough to hit unless you use it when the survivor is locked into an animation, but at that point why not use Pyramid Head? Or even Demogorgon and Huntress for that matter. The other issue from the survivor side is Flight of the Damned’s hurtbox comes out in 0.25 seconds upon casting instead of the skeletons being sent into motion. This can be used to spawn the skeletons onto the survivors face and injuring instantly, removing all input from the survivor. 0.25 seconds is the sheer minimum the average human can react to (Fun note, Bots cannot react to this fast enough either), but with ping considered that means that time quickly becomes unreasonably reactable. Changing the timing then arguably makes it very weak and is instantly outclassed by other killers. A power that does what it does and can be unreactable reasonably isn’t healthy for this killer, let alone this game. 

Using shack as a basis (Shack in this context is the door without the pallet that is commonly used to chain the shack window, and is probably the most consistent play in any match of Dead by Daylight) using Flight on the locker wall either places the skeletons on a survivors face, or covering the entirety of shack. At a certain range this then becomes reactable and crouchable, which is perfectly fine. Otherwise running shack against a Lich who knows the placement forces the survivor to play differently, which is great! But it should be reactable. Unknown here comes to mind. You can counter Wallbangs by positioning yourself away from the wall and still running a loop tight to not lose much distance, and it is still reactable with both a visual and audio cue. But Maddu! What about Huntress or Demogorgon putting you in a constant lose/lose? And you’re right, they can do something similar, but you still get to react to the position the killer has put you in, and there is still margin for error and outplay on both sides. But Maddu! Pyramid Head! Pyramid Head gives you ample sound warning to move, it then becomes a 50/50 after that, Rites of Judgement is still more reactable from that range than Flight of the Damned. 

Looking back to Artist’s Dire Crows she gets to shotgun her crows significantly faster, but she gets significantly more say on where her crows go, how they function, what they can and cannot control, and to essentially challenge any loop, Lich does not get as well of a say, and at almost 3 times the CD, double the telegraphing, and with a bit of cheese. A major argument i bring up whenever a new killer releases in Dead by Daylight is “What does this new killer bring to the table that separates themselves from the cast? And what do they have in their kit, even if its shared that works in a different way than their inspiration?” I see Flight of the Damned in almost every way being an inferior version of Artists power in almost every aspect, outside of spawning it on someone's face over a loop. My suggestion here would ultimately be a soft rework of Flight of the Damned, remove the unreactable skeletons, and alter this spell from there. Keep the crouch counterplay intact as well. Mage Hand: While this is definitely one of, if not Vecna’s strongest spell, it harbors a ton of weird issues as well. Mage Hand ranges from extremely useful to damn near useless, which on its own isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t feel good on either side. In my personal experience i’ve found that the better the pallet, the better use of Mage Hand, but it does beg to question at that point of whats the sheer long term advantage of Mage Handing a strong or even a god pallet into a guaranteed hit or down, versus breaking it and removing it from the trial permanently? Knight’s Carnifex here comes to mind on a god pallet where you can pretty swiftly order the pallet gone, and storm through it. It functions otherwise pretty similar to Mage Hand without arguing semantics, Carnifex break being slower than Lich’s lift also makes some sense but i’d rather just remove the resource at that point. Lich’s Vorpal Sword Addon turns Mage Hand into a medium between Carnifex and the other guards at 4 seconds and prevents vaulting, but so does Knight on a significantly shorter timer, but in my eyes still isn’t as strong as just breaking the pallet most of the time. This spell, in my eyes, causes the most contention within the realm of what's healthy or not for Dead by Daylight especially when Scampering from Chucky got removed for similar reasons. The other downside is, unless you’re already really close, lifting the pallet can be dropped right away again, causing Mage Hand to also be very distance dependant. Back to using shack as an example, if you Mage Hand lift Shack Pallet from the door and the survivor has distance, Mage handing is useless as the Survivor can respond within 0.5 seconds and drop it back, pinning it from the same distance still keeps the pallet in play. Another pallet I personally love (or loved, anyway) Mage Handing is corner hall god pallet on Midwich. Mage Handing that results in a hit if you’re close enough, but the argument still remains, is a hit better, in the long run, than removing that pallet entirely? In my eyes i’d argue that Cannibal, Hillbilly, and In Power Oni is better at handling that situation than Vecna is on average, as they threaten the pallet down, and remove it swiftly, and can still get the down relatively quickly after the fact. Mage Hand ultimately only punishes the greedy, but if the survivor is playing safe and pre-drops anticipating a Hand, then the Hand's usefulness goes down as well. In this era of Dead by Daylight where greeding is no longer as prominent, One other piece of frustration with Mage Hand is when using it to pick up a pallet, the time to throw it back down is 0.5 seconds. The common counterplay here is to contest the survivor using your body to block the pallet. The problem here is this is very inconsistent and ping dependent, so its not reliable for anyone. Mage Hand becomes a very iffy spell at the end of the day. Is it strong? Absolutely, is it healthy? Probably not, Should it see some form of a soft rework like Flight of the Damned? Probably.Fly: Fly, weirdly enough, and while strong, is now where I start taking less issue with Vecna’s design, and where numerical or slight mechanic tweaks can happen here, especially after the rise of The Dark Lord and Bat Form. Some of the safety brakes on Fly can be removed. Otherwise Fly to me is still severely outclassed by other mobility killers in almost every way, including Dracula. Dispelling Orb: This one, while i don’t have an issue with it, is also weird. Orb does a couple things. It offers a small bit of base kit tracking, but it also disables Survivors equipment which is a massive thing to have on both ends. This one as well can have its CD slashed, and safety breaks removed or significantly lessened. What I would do personally is slash the CD to sub 20 seconds keep the item disable, but once they’re disabled the disable cannot reapply till the duration is gone. Tracking in DBD in my eyes is only as strong as the player can make it, 

Vecna’s power design to some degree both allows and prevents spells from being used swiftly in conjunction with each other. Combining both Flight and Orb can lead you to get the down, but so can I’m All Ears, and you can keep a spell of CD for when you really need the information or want someones equipment disabled if they have a Hand or Eye or they could have a piece of The Interloper gear to nullify Mage Hand. To also knock on the tracking aspect there are other killers that ultimately do the tracking part of orb ultimately better being Artist, Skull Merchant (pre nerf), and to some degree Nemesis. Even Legion does a bit better with the raw tracking aspect as well.

Now to talk about the equipment survivors get. The gear ranges from “oh my god this is needed to counter Vecna and his strongest spells” to “why would i use this?” Skyguard, for example, is a weird middle case. Vecna gives ample warning when Fly is used, for the survivor gets multiple audio warnings to where the aura isn’t entirely useful, but when the Lich uses it in a different way that isn’t to catch up or potentially block a window, then the aura kicks in, versus getting an Archivist piece negates long range orbs entirely, as it gives survivors ample warning to get out of the way, and if coms are in play can let a survivor know that an orb is incoming. Nightwatch, on the contrary, isn't all that useful at all, especially in chase. In chase (if Flight of the Damned isn’t being spawned on my face and i can’t react, that is) I get ample visual and audio warning that its being cast and sent, i can react to it. Its best use is on survivors NOT in chase giving them a big warning every 38 seconds that “hey, Vecna is over there, and at the very minimum Flight is on cooldown”. Vecna’s Items should not vary this much to where a clear “meta” is defined, all the items should be equal and have survivors play more into the “what is better for me” situation. Now onto the relics; The Hand and Eye of Vecna. On a rare chance of appearing these need to be strong, but the large contention point for me is Hand. This item does not, at all feel good to play against, at all. It does not feel good to have a healthy survivor locker infront of me and bippity boppity they’re across the map, and all pressure you could’ve had from that chase is now gone, and forces you to leave the chase. It just does not feel good at all. Eye, while feeling better to face, is still very strong, but I have significantly less issue with it. Now onto strictly the survivor PoV when facing Vecna. Facing Vecna, compared to other killers offers significantly less information about their power than others Most other killers will at least tell you that “hey, my power is happening” or “hey, my power is off CD” to give the survivor some form of warning, Vecna doesn’t really offer much at all outside of blind guessing with 38 second long CDs. One thing i would like to see with Vecna is borrow a bit from Knight where, even from the survivors PoV if they’re watching carefully is see what Guard Knight has on docket, i would at least like to see a visual tell when the spell is off CD, but not know what's selected at the time. This would help alleviate a bit of frustration about that. Recent killer design that does help with telegraphing is Dark Lord and even going as far back as Singularity. Dark Lord tells you what power he has in what form, and Singularity glows green when he is in Overclock, Vecna gives no feedback at all when he’s ready.In conclusion, Vecna is by no means a weak or bad killer, but i do find him incredibly flawed especially where it matters. He does represent Dungeons and Dragons wonderfully, but comes lacking when representing Dead by Daylight and core design. I also find that, like other killers, his kit is a bit of a mish mash of other kits, but doesn’t borrow in any way that makes him unique outside of being a Swiss Army Knife, but I even feel other killers who fit that role do their jack of all trades better. The argument does come into question from the average player, or even the perspective of a player who wants to consistently have the upper edge in their games of why would I learn Vecna, when other killers, especially Artist,  exist outside of the assumed fact you’re a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan and just like Vecna, and are more accessible options than him, and with less of a learning curve. Taking one of Dead by Daylight's most famous Jack of all Trades being the Umbrella Army Knife, Wesker, into consideration as a very beloved addition for being exactly that, plus some, and in all the ways that feel good and scratch all, or at least most, itches killer players have, Vecna, in my eyes, does so but with more clunk. Would i like to see changes to The Lich? Absolutely, but his issues cannot be simply solved by a number tweak here and there, a good portion of his kit should see reworks overall.8.4.0 PTB: The changes in the PTB are a great start, but ultimately do not solve any of his core issues. The cooldowns on Fly and Dispelling Orb are still far too long for what they offer compared to the rest of the case who do similar, if not the same thing, and do it better. Flight carries the same unreactable to borderline useless gradient, Mage Hand is still Mage Hand, and the CD reducing addons are still very useless, and nerfed to compensate.Ring of Spell Storing now boasts 2 seconds off of 35 is still 33, 23 down from 25 on Fly, and 40 down to 38 on Mage Hand, while Pearl of Power still has anti synergy with his kit. What I would do is lower the CDs on Fly and Dispelling Orb even further to sub 20 seconds, do 25 on Flight, and keep Mage Hand where it is in response to the PTB. Dispelling Orb i would also have it so the effect does not reapply each use (i.e you cannot restart the duration) and revert back to 60.