Should Legion be able speed up the deep wound timer again?
I'm curious what your thoughts are on this proposal. This is something that been on my mind personally for the past two months or so, and whenever I bring it up in discussions on the official discord it seems to be supported.
Context
It's important to clarify the context on the history of Legion and the deep wound mechanic regardless of whether you are aware of this old feature or not. This is going to be a lot but bare with me here.
Legion and Deep Wound on Release
On release, when Legion landed an attack on a survivor while in Frenzy would deplete the deep wound timer of a survivor by 10 seconds in addition to putting the power on cooldown. This was horribly obnoxious because of how both deep wound and Legion's power originally worked.
At the time, the Deep Wound timer was 20 seconds like it is now, however there were some big differences. Originally, the timer NEVER paused under any circumstance aside from when the survivor was mending or being mended. Additionally, it would always take 30 seconds to mend. Because of this, Legion was able to down a survivor absurdly quicky, stabbing them once inflicting deep wound, and then again between 10 to 40 seconds later while in frenzy.
Legion on release was able to trigger frenzy without having to wait for the power gauge to fully recharge, allowing them to immediately enter frenzy on demand. The addon Frank's Mixtape also originally made the deep wound timer reduce by an additional 15 seconds, which pretty much guaranteed a free down against anyone Legion encountered. Even more so when using Filthy Blade which increased the survivor mending time by 5 seconds (as opposed to 4 now). Legion was also encouraged to do this as basic attacks depleted the frenzy gauge. There's other aspects that added to Legion's stupidity on top of this at the time but that is what was biggest and is most relevant.
First Rework
Legion (and the deep wound timer) received a rework only five months after release. The deep wound timer now paused while in the killer's terror radius (note that undetectable did not exist at the time). Legion now no longer depleted the deep wound timer upon frenzy stabbing a survivor with deep wound base kit, instead requiring Frank's Mixtape to do it and by 7.5 seconds instead of 10. Also basic attacks now only depleted the gauge by half. Filthy Knife was also nerfed down to 3.5 seconds instead of 5.
Update 3.4.0
Deep Wound was changed to take 12 seconds to self mend and took 8 seconds to be mended by someone else. It was also changed to pause the timer while the survivor was running instead of in the killer's terror radius like now, coinciding with the introduction of the Undetectable Status in the same update. Filthy Blade was also nerfed a second time down to 2.5.
Update 4.5.0
Deep Wound timer was changed to be a consistently 20 seconds across all effects and abilities. Additionally, Frank's Mixtape had its timer reduction brought down to 5 seconds.
Second Rework
Legion was reworked a second time, three years after the killer's release and first rework. This is where we the Legion we have to day came from for the most part. Main things of note here though is Frank's Mixtape was completely changed from its old effect to what it does now and Filthy Blade was buffed up to 5 seconds.
Update 8.6.0 (last year)
Mending time was reduced by 2 seconds, which is where it lies now. 10 seconds self mending, 6 seconds when mending others.
Now, all that aside. Legion is well…absolutely terrible currently. Despite their immense popularity among the playerbase they are easily one of the worst killers in the game, struggling to down any survivor with a brain. They can't even really apply slowdown anymore assuming survivors either rarely heal or brought a medkit. Considering how deep wound is significantly different that it once was and is generally significantly less threatening, perhaps the depletion could be brought back. Majority of the time, Legion is just an M1 killer with no power that can maybe get an injury before a chase start. They are functionally just a significantly weaker version of ghoul, doing the exact same thing of rushing over to the survivor for an easier injury and then beginning chase. A chase where the Legion just runs around as a no power 4.6 trying to down the person.
So what are your thoughts on this? Any thoughts on other possible buffs or changes to Legion too?
Comments
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I feel like your detailing of Legion's history is a great argument for why it shouldn't come back. It was a horrible mechanic that made Legion one of the most hated killers ever released and had to be completely excised from their kit through multiple reworks.
I feel like you can do anything else, even go the extremely lazy route of tacking on a dash to them to down survivors, and it would be more appreciated than bringing back the mess that was old legion.
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To be fair, a lot of the things I've seen people complain about was the "moon waller legion" and franks mixtape.
Because the deep wounds timer would go down as long as the survivor wasn't in chase Legions kept getting basically free downs. Sorta like pig stalking an active trapped survivor to make it pop. This problem was more of how deep wounds worked at the time than Legion.
The mixtape basically made it so it took 3 stabs to down (first, second ate about half the bar, third is dirt) but because they could practically immediately go back to frenzy it could be real bs, especially on certain maps.
The above said, Legion is sorta in a fine spot now atm. As absolutely therapeutic as it would be to be able to repeatedly stab a survivor to get downs, they don't really need to be reverted and there's definitely a hornets nest to kick if they tried. If they get that back there'd need to be quite a few changes (ex: they were hag speed on release and not the default speed)
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With your title and your explanation it feels like you did not even play when Legion was able to reduce the Deep Wound Timer by stabbing the Survivor multiple times. Which is why it is crazy that you propose it. To give some explanation:
"Originally, the timer NEVER paused under any circumstance aside from when the survivor was mending or being mended."
This is incorrect. The stimer also stopped when being in chase. Which then resulted in moonwalking Legions, where they followed you without looking at you, which meant your timer went down while actively having the Killer being behind you. This means there was an unavoidable Down.
"Additionally, it would always take 30 seconds to mend."
No. Even if the Mending Timer was 30 seconds, it did not take 30 seconds to mend (aka cure the Deep Wound status). I dont know how long it took, but certainly not 30 seconds, this would have been a crazy long time.
"Because of this, Legion was able to down a survivor absurdly quicky, stabbing them once inflicting deep wound, and then again between 10 to 40 seconds later while in frenzy."
This is also wrong. Downing someone with Legion took really long. If it would have been "absurdly quick", they would have been some of the best Killers on Release, but they were one of the weakest Killers. They were 100% guaranteed to down a Survivor, either via Moonwalking or by simply going after them and activating Feral Frenzy when possible, so they either downed them as a 110% Killer (something which got changed btw and which you completely forgot) or after waiting for the Power Gauge to refill two times after the initial Hit (or one time with Franks Mixtape). And since Legion did not even lose their power when missing in Feral Frenzy (something you also did not mention), the skill expression from the Legion Killer was exactly 0 - either they down the Survivor as a M1-Killer or they wait for the Power Gauge to fill up to stab the Survivor, which was basically unavoidable, since there was no penalty for missing. Or they just moonwalked.
And while this was a guaranteed down, it would take ages to down the Survivor. So Legion was basically unstoppable in the 1v1, but lost in the 1v4, since it took too long to kill people.
I dont think anyone can actually want Legion to be able to down in their power again (except for how it currently works), since it was a weak and very frustrating version of the Killer.
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No enough said
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I did play back then, I actually started playing during Legion's prime before they got reworked. Been a long time though and my memory sucks ass. I suppose I'm just bias in longing for those days having played Legion primarily back then.
Legion being as horrendously bad as they are now though is a genuine issue though. My intent here was mostly to spark conversation as to how to improve Legion regardless.0