http://dbd.game/killswitch
Dredge Buffs
Over the years, many powerful killers have been added to DBD, ranging from Vecna (The Lich) to Dracula (The Dark Lord). Irrespective of balancing opinions regarding those two, it has become quite clear that certain characters have become "power crept", with their powers being increasingly obsolescent by comparison, and let's look no further than the Dredge.
Unlike Dracula or Vecna, who receive their abilities at the start of the game, the Dredge has to wait 15 seconds just to even start moving. This wouldn't be so problematic on its own, if not for one small fact; the Dredges map mobility is already quite weak in comparison, and very map dependent.
Where Vecna can immediately fly with little to no restrictions, giving him full control over his mobility, as can Dracula, the Dredge is not only limited to locker spawns, but additionally gives a significantly louder warning in the process. Even without locking a locker, Survivors can still get a guaranteed 6m + headstart on the Dredge compared to the aforementioned candidates, and with locking lockers, can gain up to 12m on the Dredge before a chase even starts. I feel like some small quality of life buffs can give him better parity to other modern killers, at least:
- Grant the Dredge +5% haste whenever he exits a locker for 6 seconds. I feel it wouldn't be too oppressive, and would at least give him a fighting chance against competent loopers.
- If not removing his teleport cooldown on game start, could it be reasonably reduced to 10 seconds (instead of 15)? I feel that it would be a fair buff to his power, as he wouldn't even really be able to abuse lethal pursuer, and he would be able to actually pressure gens at game start.
- Perhaps another reduction to time to open a locked locker? Reduce from say, 2.25 → 1.5 seconds, to make it less oppressive? I understand that there is intended counterplay against the Dredge, but being able to effectively shut down his power and gain a whopping 9 meters before a chase even begins can seemingly extend chases by minutes, even when a skilled Dredge player has done nothing wrong.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk
Comments
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No disrespect intended here, just providing critique. I play about 60% killer, 40% survivor, and not a lot of dredge. I'm not an expert.
However, I think the biggest, most map consistent, and least RNG buff they could give him is effectively a sadako tv type of thing. Put a special locker right next to generators, this way his power is less map dependent.
In response to your ideas though
- Giving a flat haste buff I'm not for. His power can be very weak do to needing the lockers to be in a convenient spot, but making it so when his lockers are more conveniently placed he's even stronger doesn't sound good to me.
- The initial Teleport delay I think lets survivors prepare for a teleport, and seeing as they all spawn grouped up now, it's necessary to give them that window to get away from each other. I do think lowering it to 10 seconds is reasonable however.
- I kind of don't bother locking lockers most the time, unless he's in chase, but even there I reserve it for those, "the generator is almost done, so I need to make sure he can't come back here," moments. This might be a huge misplay on my part. I don't think they should raise the time at all, but lowering it a full 1.5 seconds I think would make it pointless.
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If You're even within attack range of a survivor once exiting a locker, you won’t even need a speed boost. If they aren't right beside a locker though, you're likely not getting a hit anyway. That said, they should extend the window to get the teleport hit score event
His game start tp timer as well as his ordinary cooldown is only 10 seconds. Idk where you got 15 seconds from.
Absolutely not. Haddie's Calendar is already partially basekit as of his buffs last year, and locking lockers is the only counter to his tping. If it was that short, then whats even the point in locking lockers? Survivors need that reaction time to make something if they're doing a gen for example.
Dredge isn't even a bad killer tbf, idk what other changes he needs. Hes quite balanced in the current roster
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I can agree with points 1 & 2, but I need to clarify point 3.
I'm not asking for devs to reduce it BY 1.5 seconds, I'm asking them to reduce it TOO 1.5 seconds, from the current 2.25 seconds.
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I don't think Dracula is a fair comparison. His teleport function is slow, crappy, and severely limited in distance. I don't even use it. He can become bats immediately, yeah, but you still have to move around the map and the counter is literally just standing still. People stupidly running and leaving marks is what gets them nabbed.
Combining Lethal Pursuer with a reduced or removed teleport cooldown at start would be a nightmare for survivors. Having the killer on top of you the moment the game starts would result in endless DCs.
I could agree about the locker sound notifications and speed of exiting if the lockers weren't often right on top of gens (though i know that varies.) It's the same with Springtrap's doors being so close. There has to be some warning. It's not fair for survivors to have no time to even initiate a proper chase. If anything, I'd argue for lockers closer to gens across the board if they were to change locked-locker exiting, but they're not gonna change the maps just for Dredge.
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For your first point, that's why I'm suggesting a haste bonus. Because a killers ability to chase should not be dependent solely on whether or not it's a good map for them, which is the case for Dredge, arguably the most map dependent killer in the game.
Thank you for the correction. Still, if Dredge being in the middle of survivors is problematic in the first 10 seconds of the game, then how is it not as problematic for, say, a Blight or Hillbilly to do the same thing? They can secure downs far faster than Dredge, but is accepted as healthy game design.
And frankly, Dredge has multiple counters to his power beyond locking the lockers. Teleporting to even an unlocked locker generates a LOT of noise, making it very easy to pre-run, especially if the survivor has exhaustion perks (which is nearly every game). Furthermore, the survs can do this up to 2 times PER location in a game at many places, which fundamentally wastes far more time for a Dredge than any counter to, say, Vecna.
Finally, I don't exactly agree with Dredge being good. Not only is he weak by BHVR standards (at a 52% kill rate compared to the target 60%), but at higher MMRs, he struggles like crazy. Having to run mindbreaker just to even have a chance at catching a survivor isn't a healthy solution to his weaknesses, and at the very least, he shouldnt be completely at the mercy of map rng.
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I think it'd be more interesting if he was Undetectable and quieter when exiting lockers. His whole gimmick when he released was like "this is the first scary killer dbd has dropped in awhile" and BHVR should still want those reactions to being jumped by this thing while doing a gen.
Im pretty sure they don't want him being able to insta grab a survivor whos locking a locker. Its a pretty bad and disengaging feeling. With Blight and Billy (other than with lethal) they actually need to find survivors on foot. Their attacks are also avoidable compared to Dredge being able to grab you right when the game starts or tp right on you the second he can move with lethal. Thats stronger than Springtrap's tp time and its far more dangerous and likely that a survivor would get found in 2-3 seconds.
Dredge can instantly exit a locker once finished teleporting. He only does this if survivors didn't lock or wasted a lock early though, and now must suffer the consequences of wasting resources early. Dredge is a killer you play slow and passively charge your power, while eating resources and locks early on. Honestly im fine with a locker bunch only having a single lock, it'll strengthen his early game, but they'd have ti be used very wisely then.
Dredge is commonly considered a high B tier killer, which is considered balanced on both sides. Community killrates are almost always innacurate you should never trust them since it includes even low mmr killers. Dredge is really good in the right hands and with the patience he requires. I mean I have a 75% KR with only 20 hours of playtime on him, and I'm at the peak of mmr, like im talking a swf pretty much every match.
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The only change I'd make to Dredge is something already suggested on here; add extra lockers that spawn where Sadako TVs spawn. That would fix his map RNG issue.
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He feels alright in terms of strength, it´s more of a map issue where he feels incredibly weak on maps like ormond or any map in the coldwind realm because of how few lockers there are on those maps, but as soon as you go to an indoor map or a map with good locker spawns like the ormond mine he´s at least B tier. I think a better change would be if there were guaranteed locker spawns close to gens like a killer specific prop.
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In response to Proposal 2
The reason the devs won't do it is because of the early game insta-down potential. Survivors facing a Dredge have a tendency to lock the nearest lockers to them as soon as the match begins, and if you had early game aura reading like Lethal Pursuer, or even Darkness Revealed, without that cooldown in the beginning of the match, you could instantly pull off his unique TP grab on a survivor.
His TP Grab is unique for 2 reasons:
- If at any time during his slow TP, a survivor interacts with the target locker, they trigger the grab.
- Dredge always prioritizes going to a locked locker in a double locker setup with the only exception to this rule being the grab. So if a survivor decided to lock both lockers instead of just 1 while Dredge is TP'ing to them, he will ignore the locked one and always get the grab.
Currently (as of Patch 8.2.0) Dredges Daytime TP cooldown is at 10 seconds, even at the start of the match, and if you combine his Ottomarian Writing Add-on (-2 seconds to cooldown), and Lethal Pursuer (11 seconds start of match aura reveal), you can actually pull of an early game grab on a survivor right now, with the caveat being that you only have a 3 second window of time to do it in. The difference between doing this now vs with your proposed buff is:
With the cooldown at the beginning of the trial, Dredge players have to design a build, and time it perfectly in that 3 second window to get the early game grab.
Without that cooldown, Dredge players just equip LP, and are practically guaranteed to pull it off any time in the first 11 seconds of the match.
One is a braindead early game advantage, the other takes building, planning, perfect timing and player skill to gain that advantage… Which do you think the devs favor?
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I like the idea of 1. Not sure if 5% is good or to less or too mutch but the idea of a short haste after teleporting would be nice.
For 3.) Not sure if the time is too short it might not been worth it to even lock em.
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Blight and Billy both give some warning before arriving. Neither can teleport. Billy's chainsaw gives away his activities immediately. Blight has to headsmash his way over to you. You'll hear his terror radius coming. There is at least some time to prepare. If Blight just jump scared you by busting right out of a locker you spawned at that would be too much. I feel like an instatelport would only be permitted if his teleport range was radius-limited like Dracula. And that would have to apply to him universally. Don't think you'd want that. He's already got a more versatile teleport than The Unknown and Sadako.
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Sorry for the week late response, but I'll leave this here.
I appreciate your feedback, so I will elaborate on my earlier points:
Dredge already has incredibly limited insta-down potential, being limited to locker grabs that are exceedingly rare (barring Dramaturgy shenanigans). Even then, the window to actually properly grab a survivor is so small, that I think that he should be rewarded for committing to a build using a very counterable perk (due to items like Fog Vials, or perks like Distortion). With the special lockers, I agree that they would be a huge boon to Dredge's overall power; I do wonder if the devs have the time or resources to currently implement those however in a timely manner. That said, I think locked lockers are just an entirely separate issue in their own right.
In regards to locked lockers, in the time that it currently takes for a Dredge to break a locked locker, a survivor with an exhaustion perk can easily gain 13.5+ meters before the chase even begins, which is absolutely game changing. This is especially in consideration that easily over 60% of all players run at LEAST one exhaustion perk nearly every single game. This can extend chases by 15-30 seconds at MINIMUM. I feel that this is simply reducing the gap between Dredge and average-tier killers, making him more in line with modern DBD standards.
1.5 seconds is still enough time for any survivor to gain at minimum 6 meters WITHOUT exhaustion perks, which is still very useful to your average survivor.
Between that change, and the 5% haste upon exiting a locker, I just want to close the gap between a C/B tier killer to be more balanced, and to actually have some chase power beyond his incredibly weak remnants, which as said, can be countered by holding W.
I do wonder what other ideas you may have in mind, especially regarding the devs currently busy workload.
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