New Knockout (And Demogorgon)

Some of you Forum regulars are probably going to know where this is going… I am a Demo main.

In all seriousness, Ive been trying the new Knockout with Demo to really see how it compared to some of the alternative perks I have been using within my builds and honestly the new Knockout is… (drumroll please) meh.

Okay, the concept of the perk is fine but there is are a lot of fundamental issues that prevent this perk from being good.

Very rarely does it make the difference between getting and not getting a hit when it procs, that is, if you can even get it to proc, for whatever reason insta-breaking the pallet with Shred as soon as it is dropped does not proc the effect, since the pallet being mid-drop animation is not treated as "drop". And here is the thing, the Killers that are going to get the most value from this perk are Killers who insta-break pallets and/or zone, and their own powers fundamentally counter the perk from proc'ing.

One of the perks that this is having to actively compete against is Forced Hesitation, which even though it has a harder proc condition, I find that the value is insanely good since it's 20% Hindered for 10 seconds as opposed to 5% Hindered for 5 seconds. Since Forced Hesitation is a sleeper pick (barely anyone runs it), I tend to get decent value from players who do not suspect that I have it, or I get value from Survivors going for Flashlight saves (their own hubris working against them).

"Okay, well the main intent of the perk is to stop pre-dropping/pre-running," would be a fair argument if the Hindered was more substantial or lasted longer, since you hardly get punished for pre-dropping pallets from a long distance away. Nor is it the perk's sole intent since they dont even add a range requirement for proc'ing the effect, so to some capacity it is intended to be a chase perk.

Obviously, I have concerns over this perk being oppressive if they buffed the numbers on it too much, especially with high mobility Killers, so I really dont know what exactly they could do with the perk.

So, for those who want a TLDR; the perk provides minimal value when it procs, but getting it to proc is an issue since there are many things that prevent it from working, and other perks are generally better, meanwhile the perk cannot be buffed significantly otherwise it risks becoming oppressive. Yesh, that's tough.

Also sidenote, can we also get the "flavor text", perk icon, and perk name changed since it really does not make sense for what the perk's current effect is.