Trickster Update Feedback

at best, it put him moving 1% faster than a 4.6m/s killer. For a killer whos greatest weakness is holding w at that. MFT was problematic not specifically because the hast had no duration, but because it had no duration and unfair numbers. While also having varying effects across the roster, which was a whole other problem…

I must be coming across different levels of Trickster that I've experienced today. I've seen Trickster rip through endurance, downing with ease with Main Event in my own games today.

Easily downing people with their blades due to the lower hit threshold.

So, I don't know if my Tricksters I face are just highly, highly skilled Tricksters or if the forums are genuinely suffering as this new Trickster is out. I won't comment on his/her strength because I am aware of how it takes time to get used to a new version of what the killer was prior, but the idea that Trickster is completely helpless due to a speed nerf is where I get disconnected from what the forums is describing versus my own personal gameplay.

I literally watched today, not even an hour ago - a Trickster from my own game ripping through the endurance of a survivor, downing them, downing the person who unhooked them, and downing the person who helped unhook in basement. Now, this was quick succession and you could argue, sure - it was Coldwind but I do not adhere to this whole notion that Trickster is horrible. Yes, I've played old Trickster and this new Trickster from my experiences of seeing him (I was actually genuinely surprised that I did not see a single Kaneki - I don't know if that's a cause-effect here, I'm just pointing that out).

So, yes I learned to counter this specific spam heavy - I hit you with less blades. I will hold chase moving forward, I will punish you by doing generators, and I will get out of the game otherwise I am getting pelted at with less knives and a long main event that occurs.

But I digress, I am aware that some people might struggle with Trickster but I hardly if ever came across some noobie Trickster and probably can count it on one hand - but that is my two cents regarding the killer.

I just become very gen efficient just so I can get out of the trial, so that I'm not constantly pelted and downed easily. Don't even get me started on the new map full of dreaded 50/50s.

I love the aesthetic, I love the fact that Behavior put a lot of effort into it (even I still see the same copy/paste stuff, I am so surprised we do not have textured fruit?) - minor gripe, but why does the fruit look all congealed and alien like? But that is my opinion on the chapter.

My favorite perk from the chapter was of course Flow State because I like to play macro heavy, it's a macro perk - didn't really care for Five Moves Ahead but it doesn't fit my playstyle it is whatever to me.

I have genuinely not had a worse time playing killer in my life.

Same

This rework was a failure for me.

I played a fair amount of him when he first released due to being a K-Pop fan and loving his whole aesthetic, but I quickly fell out of love with him due to his relatively low power level at everything except maybe camping a hook or basement. I had high hopes given how long this rework was in the works, but I'm sad to say, that I won't be picking him back up again after finishing his Chapter Quests.

His ranged power still feels considerably weaker than every other ranged Killer, with him only being able to deal fractions of a health state per throwable. Being relegated to 4.4 m/s doesn't feel justified to me in most situations. Maybe it's necessary for balance — I'm not an exceptional Trickster player so I don't know the ins and outs — but he just feels incredibly slow and like I spend most of the match playing catch up instead of actually chasing.

The style system is flashy, the UI is nice, the voice lines and animations are all really neat, but every match I play him I find myself wishing I'd picked any other Killer.

Pretty much the same reasons any 4.4 killer has for struggling. We still are in a pre-run exhaustion meta. With stuff like sprint burst and lithe to get distance ahead of time. Then maps have more shrubbery and pallets that people can just run around to make sure trickster cant hit them or spends so much time catching up. While everyone else cranks gens. The trickster drops they have a lullaby and a tr to warn the next survivor to prerun. Rinse and repeat. You can go to maps like grim,ormand,or badham and constantly run circles around the buildings and he wont get any pressure on you being 4.4 not even counting the knife slowdown. And either the options are nerf exhaustion perks (which would fix the problem for all cases) adjust maps to not encourage this style. Or just buff trickster. Which we know which is the easier decision to make and take less resources.

I get the point you are making here however it does have 1 major issue with it. The point you are making isn't more so a point but a personal preference of yours.

Let me explain. So you don't want 4.6 trickster because you really hate the 8 knife health state. While I on the other hand really hate the survivors holding W and pre running with sprint burst and having to play catch up/walking simulator because trickster is so slow at 4.4m/s.

So then the issue becomes which one do people hate more?

Walking Hold W Simulator 4.4 6 knife health state trickster or

Fast 4.6 8 Knife Health state trickster who takes slightly more knives and can feel like tickling the survivors.

They both sound like they have their downsides yes but they are at the end of the day both preferences and I think the only way to make a decision on something like this is to gather a Poll or Community Vote on what they prefer more since it isn't much so balance wise, it's just an argument on what people prefer.

I personally think because of trickster's new movement speed being really slowed down while throwing multiple knives they could even justify 4.6m/s 6 knife health states given he gets slowed down so much while throwing or perhaps a slower throw rate.

Or the big new thing to try would be the first ever 4.5m/s 112.5% move speed killer which has never been explored before and I think Trickster would be the perfect character for. Deathslinger could also be a contender for this.

For far to long has the move speed of killers been limited to the ONLY 4.4 or 4.6 when there are no reasons it needs to only be those two speeds, there are many other options in between a whole 5% move speed

Wesker instant flicks, instahugs, and bounding off cliffs is bugged. He bounds twice from just holding the left mouse activation button and there's a strange delay between bounds that prevents insta hugs from being performed consistently.

Not being able to bound off elevation feels unnatural and weird, not to mention removes lots of fun from playing him.

How is Blight 115% fine but Trickster 115% too much? There's no consistency in balancing here.

Trickster could be made 115%, have his knives increased back, with no other nerfs, and he still would only be B tier at best. Why are we hindering something so weak?

His primary counter play is just getting held w all game long. This is zero skill and zero interaction game play that shouldn't be encouraged. The amount of time you lose just catching up to even start the chase is absurd. We're talking about ridiculously long downing times. 110% is reserved for killers with powers that also give mobility or fast down times to compensate, Trickster has neither.

This killer needs to be accessible to more players than just the handful of die hard mains.

In this game, even if a dash killer sticks to a survivor's back and misses an attack, they are allowed to continue using M1 while auto-reloading at 4.6.

If the deceleration is this significant when using power, then 4.6 is fine.
The only time 4.6 m/s becomes a problem is when you can continuously place powers that allow you to rapidly approach survivors, such as stealth, dash, or teleport, or terrain-ignoring attacks like First.

For better balance, use 4.6 m/s. If you want to give the Trickster a unique personality, increase their movement speed through rank-ups. If you're experimenting for the future of the game, use 4.5 m/s.

I cleared up my head and thought a little about it throughout the day and now I think I know exactly what went wrong with trickster, so I hope this is helpful for the devs. I may be wrong but hear me out on this.

I think what happened with trickster is that they basically bumped the skill floor (I believe you call it. Sorry if im using that word wrong) really high. A trickster main/someone who plays enough trickster to be above the NEW skill floor this will feel like a buff. This is because they know what blades will hit and the geometry and when to pull the blades up or put them down, when to reload, so on and so fourth.
I'll be honest, I really like this approach. Part of me thinks that the intentions were actually really good this time; make trickster express more skill and be harder to learn, but once you learn him you can be really good. Also pushing him to use his ability more by making M1's not as affective.

However, here is where it went wrong in my opinion. They made the "skill floor" WAAAYY too high, making it miserable to play for most players as long as they are below that skill floor, making it harder to actually learn the character, and just making people not wanna play him due to how difficult he actually is now. You have to rely on blades way more as a newer trickster player, and at this point you don't really know how the blades work, when to pull them up or put them down, what blades will actually hit survivors, so on and so fourth. So what happens is that you can't really get value out of anything anymore and you are punished way too hard for not being good at him. Which as I said pushes people away from playing the character to begin with.

This is not to say there aren't any actual issues with him now. There still is issues (Like treating him like huntress even though he isn't even remotely like huntress at all) with his base kit.

Does the fun start once you actually get in range and theres not a bunch of shrubbery, a pallet chain, Or the survivor doesnt have a exhaustion perk to leave you in the dust unless you wanna follow them for another 30+ seconds and rinse repeat? For instance tricksters own map in every way?

Depends on the map. And stuff like sprint burst still gives a lot of distance to the survivor before trickster gets close at all. Which is one of the issues for 4.4 compared to 4.6. Which if they also put themselves behind cover and hold w from there on with putting stuff in the way you take a very long time to catch up or do anything.

Please please PLEASE add I-frames after the first blade injury state like you do for almost every other health state loss. Too many trickster players just come back to hook to get free downs and injures because there is no delay between injure states with their power. It's EXTREMELY frustrating to play and would help new players a lot to understand how the game works. The inconsistency is frustrating.

he should have trick blades and edge of revival basekit

Who is the insane person on the dev team who keeps insisting on trickster being 4.4?

The people who are advocating for the 4.6 trickster have provided evidence about how woefully lacking trickster is compared to other ranged killers(like the huntress for example), he doesn't have the "range" to be the ranged killer in most games thanks to all the trash you have put on all the maps. Someone said earlier that "you should go for skilled long range shots" I would like to ask "where?" I can barely see people for a microsecond in the distance before they reach another pile of clutter that blocks line of sight.

Now I would like to propose a potentially controversial idea that would make all trickster players both new(er) and old happy…

Make him 4.6 with 6 knives to injure.

Wait, wait, wait, I can already see people complaining and saying"It'S tOo StRoNg!" but let me explain my reasoning first.

1. Trickster is a ranged killer who has to hit MULTIPLE knives to just take a health state.
2. His knifes travel in a straight line and don't really arc or drop so he can't realistically go for long range shots and cross map shots are essentially impossible. Walls and distance are his primary counter and most survivors already pre run so being 4.4 is even more punishing than normal.
3. He doesn't have any sort of map traversal aside from running and praying you make it in time before that sable behind a wall pops the last generator.
4. Survivors also have SO MUCH going their way in this game, longer hook timers, longer unhook endurance, shorter generator times, and busted perks a la the new and improved fast track making the generators fly.

If you want to say that everyone would run this I am going to shoot that down that idea right now. At most the majority of players would play this for a week maybe two and then everyone will go back to playing Blight, Nurse, Dracula ,and Ghoul(let's also not forget that Blight was buffed last patch because they fixed some of his bugs). If this proposal is actually put into the game then the people who actually like and played trickster before and after the first rework will both get what they want. If people are still going to claim it's too strong, no its really not, because look at the other top tier killers they are leagues above trickster and can win games significantly more easily then him, you really think that trickster even with these changes proposed will be as much of a threat as the Nurse and the Blight? Seriously? At least the trickster has counterplay, the blight just rushes and down you in record time, and the nurse just teleports right behind you and injures you. Pallets, walls, windows, and distance mean the square root of nothing to them, trickster still has to respect these things and play around them.

Heck a YouTuber/streamer managed to do just that, they made a 4.6 trickster that needed to hit 6 blades to injure and IT WAS BALANCED. If I manage to find the video I'll link it later.

Unless you make his knives pierce through terrain(this is a joke don't actually do this) 4.4 will always be bad on him. Of course you would have to adjust the other numbers in his kit if you do a 4.6 / 6 knives trickster but it is doable and would make him much more approachable and enjoyable for all players.

as someone who has mained trickster consistently for years,

with this rework, the 4.4 speed isn't as crippling in my opinion as the lack of a flow. the entire point of this remaster was for the player to create that flow, being rewarded and going up in ranks as they do so. however, a lot of the other aspects of this update, especially in chase, seem to actively impede that:

• the absolutely insane drop in speed with the more knives you throw just to land a hit with a much more erratic aim than before (seriously, i'm being forced to run memento blades to get that crosshair because the controls were nuked)
• the amount of carried knives being reduced so badly that many people, including myself, have to run brown add-ons just to not constantly be stopped mid chase
• the speed at which the rank meter drains when most survs are just attempting to hide or are on the other side of the map due to his nonexistent map traversal, giving absolutely no opportunities for style points

with these combined factors, i am basically forced to run constant meta perks if i don't want to get smoked, despite having pretty good aim after getting adjusted again. this really doesn't feel nearly as fun as before. that being said, how would this be fixed?:

• make him slow down only when he misses blades, and give a very small speed boost when he gets persistent hits. not only does this encourage new survs to dodge and duck, but it encourages the trickster player to practice his aim and create more flow, rewarding accuracy
• more max knives. this was my main frustration with chase was that i ran out so fast, even frequently refilling after every hook and search
• the rank meter really shouldn't drain that fast, especially when the match is forced into silence from his bad traversal and hiding survivors. running aura perks can only do so much.. if the meter DOES drain that fast, give more ways to obtain style points. great ways to do this would be whenever he refills on blades or kills a survivor entirely. the style points you get for destroying a pallet vs actually downing and hooking someone felt so insane, almost encouraging us to just hold w regardless as if that will fix anything

in other words, what i think was done well with this rework:

• more trickster lines is always a win (though i still do prefer him as a silent decorated killer sometimes) + the ui for the rank system feels very clean and i personally get very immersed hearing those silly guitar riffs
• the more aggressive you are, the more style points you tend to get, which encourages you to go in and hurt survs as intended
• the changes to certain add-ons is very accommodating (though i suppose that isnt saying too much)
• the 6 blades to damage with the new ui does feel relatively balanced, though the above criticisms greatly cripple some of the effects of it

yes, i am no expert and my logic is definitely flawed in some spots, but i think these changes could be taken into account along with others' criticisms. i highly agree with his skill floor being ridiculously elevated, like high mmr level skill without much reward. i've been playing him for ages and its difficult right now, i cant imagine how it must be for people just starting out who wanna try out a cool killer

while this update seems pretty drab right now, i am excited to see how gameplay evolves with this new rework. an add-on that's similar to myers' fragrant lock of hair would be awesome, reverting trickster back to his old playstyle for those who really miss it and don't want to give up maining their favorite psychopath

tl;dr - trickster falls short in flow, resulting in stagnant gameplay only saved by meta perks, but this rework could be incredibly beautiful with some minor adjustments for balance

please give us some controller settings. also the crosshairs addon doesn't seem that great.

I also think Trickster should have kept his 4.6 movement speed. I also feel having less blades makes him feel weaker as well. Cause from my experience while playing on controller. He felt okay but also like I said weak. Due to the lack of blades and speed that he use to have. And sometimes he also feels weird on controller. Cause when aiming some blades don’t hit where they should go.