Vecna's 8.4.0 PTB Changes - Opinions from a main

Greetings! I'm ArshieMeBob (Arshie for short), and I main Vecna! And uh… that's about it. I have around 700 hours on Vecna, and I'm #8 on the Steam leaderboards for him, so I play him a fair bit.

I've seen a lot of people take the Vecna changes as nerfs, when I think the complete opposite. I think these changes were undoubtedly a BUFF. So, I wanted to go over what I like about the changes, what I dislike, and what I would like to see Behavior do with him in the future.

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• Decreased Dispelling Sphere's cooldown to 35 seconds (was 38)
• Decreased Flight of the Damned's cooldown to 35 seconds (was 38)

These two changes are super nice. I've been a big advocate for taking away power from Ring of Spell Storing and Pearl of Power and putting it into the base kit, so this change is welcome. Three seconds means a LOT in terms of spells, as it can be the difference between getting a spell before a survivor reaches a safe zone or them making it.

• Decreased Fly's cooldown to 25 seconds (was 38)

This change is HUGE. Genuinely. Fly has always been in this weird limbo of wanting to use it for map mobility, but also wanting to save it for a chase. Knocking 13 seconds off it's cooldown LETS YOU USE IT FOR MAP MOBILITY, WHILE ALSO HAVING IT FOR CHASE. This is super significant, and it causes addons such as Potion of Speed (which I predict will become a top 3 addon, even though it was super good before) as well as Raven's Feather. If you don't know how to use Fly for chase, start practicing, cuz fly is going to become more important if this change goes through. Vecna will also be a better snowballer, allowing you to potentially down someone and have Fly up more reliably. Personally, I would've liked to see Potion of Speed basekit, but this is a welcome change.

• Increased Mage Hand's cooldown to 40 seconds (was 38)
• Increased the cooldown after cancelling a spell to 1.25 seconds (was 1)

I'm grouping these changes together because realistically, cancelling a spell should only really affect Mage Hand. While, on one hand, I'm glad they're nerfing the part of Vecna's kit that had the most controversy, I think just keeping mage hand at 38 seconds would've been fine, especially since the cooldown addons were nerfed (more on that below) and that indirectly nerfs mage hand. The cooldown after cancelling a spell I also don't like, as it'll only serve to make Vecna feel more clunky. Since cancelling a spell is mostly used with faking mage hand, I see the vision, though I would've liked it if they didn't nerf the cancel cooldown at all. Mage Hand already has counterplay, and I think this was more of a "we need to nerf SOMETHING" change rather than a thought out thing. This won't change how Mage Hand feels to go against, so I just don't think it's a necessary change. Though, I'm glad it was Mage Hand that was nerfed, and not FOTD.

• Decreased the time Dispelling Sphere disables magic items to 45 seconds (was 60)

This change is honestly not that big of a deal. Sure, it further nerfs Mage Hand (since the most important Magic Item to disable is the Mage Hand one) but you'll have dispelling sphere up more often anyways, so I don't think it's an impactful change. I'm a bit confused on why they lowered the value, but it's whatever.

• Pearl of Power:
  Decreases the cooldown of all Spells by 3 seconds after a successful Basic Attack (was 5)
• Ring of Spell Storing:
  Decreases the cooldown of all Spells by 2 seconds (was 4)

With the basekit cooldown changes, it was clear that they were gonna nerf the cooldown addons. And to be honest, I'm glad. Cooldown addons were (and still are) strong on Vecna. Why buff one aspect of your kit when you can buff everything? This shift from cd addon to basekit power will allow even MORE variety with his addons, without feeling as much of the consequences that you'd feel from not running a cooldown addon. I really like the direction of this, as Vecna's other addons are powerful. Not game changing, but they make a big difference.

Overall, I am very happy with these changes, and they are very much a buff, especially to those who know how to best utilize Fly in chase. With more addon variety, as well as mostly reduced cooldowns across the board, I believe Vecna will be stronger with this patch. Those who are calling it a nerf, I fear you might be relying on mage hand a little too much. (Not an insult but I think people are vastly underestimating his other spells)

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Now, with that, I wanted to give my actual feedback on what I would like to see happen with Vecna. I am a big fan of the changes, though I believe mage hand should be kept at 38 seconds. I also think the cancel cooldown should be reconsidered, as it makes Vecna feel too clunky. If you HAD to nerf mage hand in some way, I'd say increasing the time before the hand actually prevents the pallet from being dropped could be good, as it would allow a moment of vulnerability before the pallet hold happens, leading to more clear counterplay.

I also wanted to share my thoughts on his addon situation. Currently, he has three close to useless addons, Tattered Headband, Cloak of Elvenkind, and Ring of Telekinesis. I would like if all three of them received some sort of buff or rework, in this patch would be nice, but I understand that might be difficult, so I'd appreciate it if these were at least considered :)

Tattered Headband is useless in the sense that you're barely gonna be using FOTD at max range. It increases the distance the skeletons from FOTD go by 4 meters, changing the distance from 26 meters to 30. Due to the nature of the spell, you're either gonna be using this spell point blank or from a slight distance. Never, and I mean NEVER, should you shoot FOTD from a distance to where this distance would ever matter. This addon either needs a rework, such as making the spread of the skeletons closer/further from each other, which might be interesting, or a massive buff to lean into it's niche. To be honest, making the skeletons go mapwide with this addon still wouldn't even be too good, but it would allow a fun playstyle where you could possibly snipe survivors. Or even making the FOTD range longer than 32 meters with the addon so you can attempt to snipe people outside of your terror radius.

Cloak of Elvenkind reduces your terror radius by 8 meters while you're flying. This is mostly useless because Vecna is NOT quiet by any means during his fly. Like the dude has asthma or something. I would prefer if the addon maybe made him quieter while he was flying? Or if he had a terror radius reduction while his fly was on cooldown. Because as it stands, especially with the Fly magic item, this addon is rarely serving its purpose of concealing your location during fly.

Ring of Telekinesis increases your vault speed by 10 percent after blocking a pallet with Mage Hand for 8 seconds. This addon just… barely comes into play, and when it does, the vault speed is rarely significant enough to mean anything. First of all, this addon only procs when Vecna blocks a pallet, not lift. I think both should activate the addon. Then, the vault speed should be increased to 20 percent to make it on par with Dark Arrogance. This would allow the addon to excel at jungle gyms and shack, where pallet/window setups are the most common, as well as make the addons effect actually noticable.

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If you made it to the end then god damn. I don't even know how much I wrote but thank you for reading that much text.

TL;DR: I like the Vecna changes, and believe they are a buff. Fly will become super important and is the main reason behind why the changes are a buff. Cooldown addons will go down a bit in usefulness. I think the mage hand and spell cancel nerfs could be adjusted a bit to where it wouldn't make Vecna feel clunky to play. I would also like to see buffs/reworks to Tattered Headband, Cloak of Elvenkind, and Ring of Telekinesis.