Trickster Update

I like the crosshair addon, and I do think making it a toggleable basekit option would be great! But I do have one small complaint: it feels just a little too big, sometimes even obtrusive. As someone who frequently plays FPS games, I would love if the crosshair was just a hair smaller, maybe just 10% or something like that. Otherwise, the Trickster feels fun!

I like the Trickster visually and conceptually. But I don't enjoy playing him at all. He was already a rare Killer against Survivors, but after the changes, I doubt I'll be playing him much. There were many situations during PTBs where I simply couldn't get close to Survivors, especially on maps with high textures. Killer players also want to have fun, so they choose Killers with easy-to-kill abilities. If I want to play a long-range Killer, I'd rather take a Huntress, I won't have to hit the survivor many times.
Style points are useless, just an empty visual addition. I really want them to rework and make more killers playable, because when playing as a survivor, I encounter the same killers in every game, like Wesker, Spirit, Huntress, Animatronic, and Ghoul. In my ~1,000 hours of play, I've only encountered Trickster, the twins, Freddy, and Onre a couple of times.

At the very least, the “Cut Thru U Single” add-on should be Trickster's base performance. As rank increases from D to S, Trickster's base movement speed should increase. The current 4.4m/s is a nerf disguised as a rework.

The new map has too many unsafe pallets in the shops. It makes the shops feel unless.

Once the (few) good pallets are gone, survivors have zero resources to use.

1. Re-increase Trickster's speed (he feels far too slow that survivors can easily lose chase by turning a corner)
2. Make Trickster more controller friendly (On controller his aim is let's put it bluntly terrible)
3. WHY DID YOU FORGET YUN-JIN FROM ALL-KILL IN YOUR ALL-KILL COMEBACK CHAPTER, you the devs said you're going to give older ORIGINAL characters voicelines when you get the chance HERE'S YOUR CHANCE! Why are you wasting it??? Ps. New Yun-Jin from All-kill cosmetic since Trickster is getting two new cosmetics, it's only fair, poor Yun-Jin getting table scraps for dinner.

Heres my essay as a 7k hr long long time Trickster player who enjoyed old Trickster more

TLDR: 7.5/10

If this goes to live as is it will be a good buff that sets Trickster to his old stronger state but slightly stronger, but it's worth note-ing that he still is very weak to most people

My biggest wish is for higher combos to be harder to get and more rewarding (and lower ranks to be more punishing) and main-event to be removed.


MAIN-EVENT AND S RANK:
Biggest thing for Trickster has been main-event has always sucked and now with the addition of the combo system it bloats the kit in a very bad way that makes playing as, against and balancing Trickster worse in every way (I get into this very deeply in this post and this is my main problem with Trickster)

As long as main-event has existed it only get hits and value where normal knives also would and sucks really bad (also no one like using it or playing against it)

If you're at a tile you can't use knives around would you rather the big S rank reward be: more knives that you can't use or something such as 115 movent speed that changes how you play everything. When you realize that you also realize people thinking main-event is good is the biggest lie ever told in DBD, easier does not mean stronger and main-event only exist to keep him easy.

The easiest fix is to remove main-event and just buff the S rank (full passive with no main-event would remove so much bloat and make the combo system feel more complete)

Heres my List of S rank changes:
An S rank last at most 25-30 seconds (That you can still lose setting you back to any rank below B)
115% Movement speed
And current (PTB) death throes basekit
15% Pickup and hook speed
and some throw-speed buff
^ all for the duration of the S rank ^
An S rank running out would set you to B rank but hooking would cash it in setting you back to A (This rewards hooking which is always good)

A rank should also be 115% Movement speed as well, as I think that's where good players should spend the most time.


COMBO:
In any way getting a combo should be harder, its very not hard to be accurate so missing should be way more punishing to the combo score, as its far to easy to max out the combo and missing has no effect on it, and with my changes I think missing should be the only thing effecting it. (I also think all stun and saves should lower your style points to be more in line with gaining style points from non-chase actions but that's a nitpick)

The only way to lose a combo is to use main-event (so you never should, hence more bloating the power and making S rank harder to balance) or to run out of time, and in my time playing only effects big maps, so if you get a big map you will start every chase with a lower combo, and I think its worth considering removing the combo time limit (+ main-event) and having people have a combo of any rank permanently if they don't miss, and the higher the combo the easier it is to lose such at 2 misses losing S and 3 for A etc.

>^ The combo system is meant to reword skill, and I think if you play well, you play well and there's no changing that and the combo system should reflect that, these changes do that.^

This would make the combo system so much easier to balance as if we assume having a high combo is hard anything can be added without being unbalanced.

and have laceration decay time scale 0.5 per combo (Every good Trickster think the decay time is too short and I love the idea of everything scaling with combo) + (This would make Trickster more fun to play against especially with main-event being remove, coming from someone who loves playing against Trickster)

> > > If you're at a tile you can't use knives around would you rather the big S rank reward be: more knives that you can't use or something such as 115 movent speed that changes how you play everything. When you realize that you also realize people thinking main-event is good is the biggest lie ever told in DBD, easier does not mean stronger and main-event only exist to keep him easy.

I need to state this so hard because its finally a realistic ask now that the combo system exist, old Trickster had knives and main-event, now he has knives and the combo system - removing main-event would let the combo system shine so much more and I beg that combos actually become hard so we can move on from main-event once and for all. (Removing main-event would turn the combo system from a 10/10 to a 20/10 please have the team consider this and its place in his kit)

ADDONS: Addons on PTB have been very lacking but I'll keep is short as this has been criticized enough, but this is just as important as getting the combo system right, Trickster at least needs these new addons. Add/bring back:

Recoil meme addon (NEW)
A revert addon that gives 115% movement speed with 8 knives laceration Meter (NEW)
Both bring back what old fans enjoyed and 100% need to be added ^^ (both brown rarity)

7.4.0 iridescent Photocard (Live)
7.4.0 Edge of Revival Album (Live)
4.6.0 Death Throes Compilation (maybe with removing S rank as a downside) (OLD/REWORKED)
PTB Cut Thru U Single << Buff/Basekit



ty for the read and the PTB much love to the team

I actually kind of dig the idea of Trickster staying 4.4 m/s normally and then unlocking 4.6 m/s in A- or S-Rank.

I think that strikes the perfect balance of players struggling to play him on indoor maps (like the new map) and him being too oppressive at zoning.

Listen to the Killer players for ONCE and keep Trickster’s speed 4.6.

I've liking most of the changes but the 4.4 speed is so unnecessary punishing and pulls a lot of the fun out of playing him. Please put him back up to 4.6.

Revert him back to 4.6 and 8 knife hits. 6 knife hits is too strong and it doesn't have any counterplay if he's right behind you.

It's so easy and fast to injure/down a survivor

Trickster Feedback

while the changes the Trickster received are fun and have made him more engaging to play his overall power level for the average skill level players has been weakened due to the changes, which will make him even less popular to play. The biggest change of course is his movement speed being lowered to 4.4 MS.

I know the reason it was lowered is because the amount of laceration needed to injure was changed from 8 to 6 increasing the speed at which he injures and downs survivors. But he suffers greatly from the 4.4 MS killer weakness of survivors just pre-running before he gets close or using perks like sprint burst, which negates his power most of the time.

his addon variety has increased with some fun combinations but making an addon that increases his MS back 4.6 makes it so the others are subpar by a large margin and several other addons are just worthless in comparison. But with some changes I think the trickster can become a force to be reconned with.

Addon Recommendations

here are some recommended changes to addons that I believe need a touch up or a full change

first I want to say that the Cut through you single effect of giving 1% haste per style rank should be base kit so all these changes are under the assumption that it has.

Common Addons

Trick Pouch (update)

• Increases the maximum carried blades by 8 (was 4)
• Start the trial with 8 additional blades (was 4)
• reduce base reload speed by 25% (new effect)
• reduce the bonus reload speed gained by each style rank by 50% (new effect) (I'm not sure what the bonus reload speed is exactly, so I'm just basing it of the idea that its 10% per style rank, so from 50% bonus reload speed at s rank to 25%)

Memento blades (new effect)

(giving the killer a recital should be an accessibility feature not an addon effect, pc players have been using overlays for years. console players should not have to sacrifice an addon slot for that.)

• Laceration will not decay below 50% of the stacks gained ( hit a survivor with 4 blades, laceration will not decay below 2, because stacks reduce in increments not percentages hitting 5 knifes will also stop laceration decaying below 2 not 2.5)
• reduce the the time before Laceration starts to decay by 5 seconds ( 8 seconds before Laceration start to decay not 13)

Inferno wires (update)

• Decreases showstopper's cooldown after main event by 30% (was 10%) (from 3.6 seconds down to 2.8)

Uncommon Addons

Caged Heart Shoos (new effect)

• after injuring a survivor with showstopper gain 5% haste for 10 seconds
• you no longer gain haste for each style rank

Bloody boa (new effect)

• upon reaching S rank become undetectable for 22 seconds (new effect) (for those who don't know when you reach S rank the tricksters lullaby radius disappears so stealth works on him now)

rare addons

Fizz-spin cola (new effect)

upon activating Main event Fizz-spin cola gains a token up to a maximum of 4, for each token you gain:

• 1% haste during main event
• 0.75 seconds increase to showstoppers cooldown (up to 7 seconds before you can start throwing blades again, 4 seconds base)

On target single (update)

• increase the time before laceration starts to decay by 25% (form 12 seconds to 15)

very rare addons

Trick blades (update)

• Blades can ricochet of walls and objects 1 time (cannot ricochet of the ground. I know some of you would exploit this T_T)
• hits after a ricochet deal 100% more laceration

Edge of revival album (update)

• Blade hits from more than 32 meters away deal 100% more laceration
• Blades thrown will now come from the centre of the screen (when you throw a blade it alternates coming from the left and right so its not dead centre at close range. animation might look off though)

Cut through you single (new effect) (assuming the old effect is base kit)

• at the start of the trial gain maximum style points (instant s rank)
• reduce the duration of main event by 50%

with these changes I believe that it would round up tricksters kit nicely allowing for many different builds while having a decent base kit.

I want to add something onto this conversation(talking about the bloody boa), while its true that in S rank your lullaby is gone, you light up like a neon Christmas tree, people will see you coming from the other side of the map(on most maps anyway, in indoor maps you have a chance to sneak up on people) anyone with a pair of functioning eyes will see you coming as glowing neon pink and yellow trickster is really hard to miss. Also as a side note I feel like the developers made tricksters breathing sounds much louder then before making stealth harder if that's really the case.

style system is fine. 4.4 m/s is okayish (tradeoff for being more lethal than huntress in the open), but if you make him 4.4 it makes no sense to have movement speed reduction while in throw state. and for the love of god, stop giving him less and less blades each update!! he needs at least 50 blades so he doesn't rely on reloading so much. huntress gets away with it cause each one of her projectiles deals a health state, but trickster needs constant pressure and stopping to reload too many times is very detrimental for him. and please put more lockers in HIS map. sometimes it's hard to find one.

I miss the laceration effect on the survicor pov

Hello, I’m a one trick Trickster main of 4 years, I have well over 4k hours and this killer (and All-Kill in general) is my special interest. I’ve played the last couple days on the PTB a bunch, doing normal matches and testing alike so I really hope you will consider my thoughts on this patch as someone who cares very deeply about it and has a lot of experience with this killer.

BASEKIT
The details are fantastic already - 6 blade laceration and reducing his terror radius again feels very much like what he’s supposed to be. However there are some small things that I feel could be tweaked still for the live release.

• Laceration decay is much too fast. In a lot of chases, he lost laceration just by catching up on the PTB. The blinking to warn of decay is a good touch, however the time before it starts to warn you should be notably longer.
• Style rank decay is a little too fast too. On large maps, it feels bad to watch the ranks decay without being able to get into a chase quickly. Maybe there could be a buffer period after a hook before it starts to decay again, for a few seconds to allow the killer more time to move away from the hook and find others.
• The anti-camp radius for the Main Event could be lowered a little as currently it’s much too large.
• The ‘rewards’ for each rank could use small buffs to his action speeds like reloading etc (and of course actually making his throw rate increase as it currently doesn’t on PTB)
• Main Event is also a little underwhelming as his throw speed isn’t very fast and it doesn’t last very long either, so it could do with a touch up too.
• 4.4m/s can be fine on its own HOWEVER, I do think Cut Thru U could be made somewhat basekit, especially if you made it so that in S rank he was 4.6 the whole time. It helps to give him a move speed middle ground that doesn’t leave him terribly map dependent whilst giving survivors something to still watch out for. 
• I think his S rank 44m Terror Radius could be dropped to 32m as 44 is astoundingly large. 
• I honestly don’t think 44 blades in his kit is too strong and think he could easily revert back to that. With bug fixes and tweaks, bringing his blade count up will make him feel a lot closer to his old self which was just fine as it was.

ADDONS

These across the board are a little too weak and niche, so I’ll bullet point my thoughts on them too as I think he needs another pass over these.

• Cut Thru U, as I mentioned above, should be basekit, and I feel that the effect from his current kit (piercing blades) could be restored in its place.
• Edge of Revival too. Rewarding long range shots is a good idea, but to confine it to an add-on when survivors will start to run if you land a snipe from that far, meaning the laceration will decay before you catch up feels a bit too niche. This effect should be basekit, and the addon lowers the 32m requirement to 24m maybe, removing addon dependance. The old splash effect of EoR could be restored too, as I know a lot of other players are fond of his special blade effects that he has had in all other previous kits.
• All of his blues need some kind of buff as these are all a little sub-par except melodious murder. Soda and Watch could use a rework again as their effects will be negligible if the player is experienced, and newer players won’t feel their effects or capitalise on their value.
• Bloody Boa should be reworked, he does not need repeat add-ons like his current kit has and should not have a similar effect as On Target Single (slightly buff one laceration decay addon and keep the strongest one only)
• Caged heart shoes should be buffed substantially as 1% is near negligible. 
• Tequila could use a little longer duration (it is currently bugged to not activate on the PTB)
• Ji Woon’s Autograph at 33% is a little low
• Lucky blade is fine but 3% for 3 seconds is deceivingly weak, could have a tiny number buff
• Inferno wires are also not worth running in almost any scenario and could do with a pass over 
• Trick pouch could use 8 blades instead of 4, especially if you keep his blade numbers at 36 total
• Memento blades should be reworked, and the reticle should be made a toggleable basekit feature for all killers (takes more work to say than to do I know but should be kept in mind!)

MISC

These are some other details (maybe bugs but maybe intentional too) that I think should be noted on. I will also try to submit bug reports for things that are definitely bugs.

• His throwing animation felt off, with it picking up much faster but still having a little buffer before you can actually throw.
• His scaling throw rate did not trigger either and his blades felt different as if they were off centre or heavier. The way they felt previously on Live DBD is definitely a difference that’s hard to place and I’m unsure if this is intentional, but they were fine before and feel too clunky on PTB.
• There are pips on the hud too, showing survivors as they load in that it’s a Trickster and I feel these are unnecessary. Trickster does not need to forewarn survivors who to look out for.
• I think the slashes should be brought back on the survivor screen for each laceration. It is easier as a survivor to track how many blades you are at, and it looks nice.
• His laughs in S rank can be heard cross-map and whilst it is hilarious, I don’t think this is necessary. If this was the intended stinger to alert survivors he is in S rank, I think it could have been an instrumental sound instead like it plays for him. 
• The different chase musics are FANTASTIC by the way, but they have broken trigger requirements. I also think they could be made a tad quieter, as when you are in Terror Radius range, the difference between his TR and Chase is significantly louder and it’s quite jarring. 
• It would be nice if voice lines could be prevented from overlapping as sometimes with the laughs etc. they often play over each other if a lot of actions are done in a short span of time making it quite overstimulating.

To summarise, this rework is a fantastic upgrade from his old kit that Trickster mains such as myself have been feigning for for years. The new animations, voice lines and style rank system add so much flair and depth to his kit and character that as his number 1 fan ever, is absolutely wonderful!! However it still has a lot of kinks that need to be worked out, primarily needed buffs or bug fixes, for the live release in March that I hope can be achieved. Thank you so much for reading and I hope my insight can help! 😁

boy I sure love reworks where a surv can now loop me around large rocks 10+ times before they drop the pallet.

Speaking as a Trickster and Singularity main:

This is probably the worst update Trickster has ever received, and what really frustrates me is that you’re presenting it as a rework meant to “improve” the killer, when in reality it’s just a straight nerf. It’s yet another example of developers not actually playing their own game.

First of all, reducing his movement speed to 4.4, with a 24-meter terror radius and requiring 6 hits, is a terrible decision because it brings Trickster back to his old version — the one that simply didn’t work. Having 4.6 movement speed was essential both for catching survivors who created distance and, more importantly, for generator pressure.

And to those saying it’s fair for him to be as slow as Huntress: you’re completely wrong, and it shows you’ve probably never played Trickster seriously. When Huntress lands a hit, she injures immediately; Trickster, on the other hand, needs to land 6–8 knives just to deal damage.

Let’s talk about the Style Meter. On paper it sounds cool, but in practice it’s just another nerf. On the live version, Trickster needed 8 knife hits to activate Main Event; now he has to reach Style S, and while in that phase he has a 44-meter terror radius. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that this is a significant downgrade.

Not to mention the reduction from 44 knives to 36, supposedly to reward “skill expression.” So here’s my question, BHVR: why does every killer need to become increasingly skill-based? Is it really that hard to keep a simple, accessible killer for casual players, like Trickster used to be? If someone wants a high-skill killer, they can play Huntress or Deathslinger. But if a player wants an easier killer where they can freely throw knives? Apparently that’s no longer acceptable — now the more knives you throw, the slower you become.

What’s ironic is that you’ve said most of your playerbase consists of casual players, yet you keep nerfing already weak killers in the name of “skill expression,” while killers like Blight remain 4.6 speed and S-tier for years without meaningful changes.

This just proves that not only do you not play your own game, but you’re also incredibly good at ruining killers that players enjoy. Thanks for destroying yet another one of my favorite killers. Who’s next? Singularity? Don’t worry — I’ll probably have uninstalled the game before that happens.

Visual and audio changes are welcome. I'll cover ups and downs but this is, and I'm saying it to be honest not to start a flame war, overall a nerf to Trickster in my opinion which seems nonsensical given he's not even S-tier. Overall I'd say the changes in an excel spreadsheet sense kind of balance out, but in practice of context they do not.

Downsides

The survivor side of the game is very heavily based on stealth, chase, and looping - this means lower movement speed killers will find it hard to pursue or chain actions on survivors particularly those running meta perks (lithe, finesse, sprint burst, etc.) This would be a fine change but much like Huntress, Trickster suffers from map design having clunky hit boxes on most loops. You can plainly and clearly see over a table but be unable to throw over it.

The end result of map design in its current iteration means many maps will reduce Trickster to effectively an M1 Killer with 4.4, which is questionable at best. The idea of being able to go up to 4.6 movement speed if your style goes up feels in practice like you have to do really well or get lucky on a loop in order to earn back what you got for free before. Lower knife count hurts, but only because of the map hitbox issues honestly. The 'throwing through gaps' giving 3 style points almost feels like a slap in the face in light of that.

Decay speed going down, coupled with movement speed going down, effectively turns Trickster into a 'Show up, execute, if you fail just leave because it's ruined' killer which is only going to encourage frustration and go-next behavior imo. This will be particularly bad with communicative groups. You move slower to get to them, and you slow down even more when aiming knives, so you either land the initial touch down or give up and find somewhere else to go. 4.4 chasing a survivor on a T/L is about as entertaining of gameplay as sitting in the lobby and never getting into game.

Overall I'd say the update certainly was about STYLE, but it came at the gutting of SPEED. Trickster feels less fluid and flowing now, and in a game where time is the primary resource to manage that's a very critical thing to lose. I know the PTB isn't over yet, but this slow-down just feels counter-intuitive to the direction of killer design.

Also, why are we still using lullabye effects? I get they are fun atmosphere, but they immediately make stealth perk load-outs infeasible for the killer. It seems a very steep cost to pay on killers just to give surv's the heebie jeebies. This feels particularly true on someone named the Trickster.


Upside

VA work is chefskiss. Visuals are a nice touch down. I love the lower laceration, which did adjust the misery of a 4.4 chase with the ocassional reward of needing to land less hits. The decay got frustrating once looping hit, but in the instances where I could run someone down in a straightaway I did feel rewarded. His general swagger nails in the sense that 'style' really does land throughout play.

I don't believe much was actually changed around the mechanics of knife throwing but it somehow felt easier on the PTB than it has in the past, so I'll note that as well. Style meter builds quickly enough when I find someone out of position that I feel I'm rewarded inordinantly large amounts for catching them out of position when in reality I'm not - it's just that it feels so good it's hard to remember I could have just as easily M1'd for the same injury.

I played with add-ons but not extensively enough to comment so I'll refrain beyond saying I heard good things.

Summation

In short, the feeling of Trickster is solidly stylistic and rewarding. I don't know that he feels very trickstery, but that's another topic entirely. He feels very fun when you land a cycle or catch someone making a mistake. Unfortunately he feels absolutely awful when you don't find a mistake, or when you can't seem to catch someone in a window of knife strike which is made worse by the walk of 4.4m/s shame you then have to perform to try to find your next potential option.