Does 2V8 have a Wesker problem?
If there is a 2V8 Killer poster boy, it's probably Wesker. It's not an exaggeration to say he is in at least 50% of my 2V8 games. And I'll be honest here and get this out of the way, I intensely dislike this Killer and I always have. There's nothing BHVR could really do to make him more enjoyable for me to face except maybe take away his third dash or make his dashes slower and I know that's never gonna happen. He's a golden goose to BHVR.
I mean no disrespect to his mains when I say this because I know there are impressive things that you can do with the character, but I do feel like Wesker is baby's first A-tier Killer. What I mean is that he seems to be one of the easiest strong Killers to get results with. His power is not as difficult or as punishing to learn as Spirit, Nurse or Blight, he doesn't get screwed over by indoor maps like Billy (and his power is better in loops), he doesn't have an awkward transition between powers like Dracula to break the flow of his gameplay. Oni has a comparatively slow start. He also has some slow down and info built into his power, which can feel necessary in such a fast paced mode like 2V8 (I think this is also the reason why Nemi is a popular choice, despite not really getting any crazy buffs to his active power).
Trapper, Huntress and Wraith are fairly well represented (I suspect because they are free). Ghostie is popular as a simple, easy to play choice for the more casual Killers playing. But Pyramid Head and Chucky may as well not be in the mode for how rare they seem to be. Whenever you do get one of these other Killers, they're often paired with a Wesker anyway. There's almost no escaping the guy.
So what can be done to challenge the Wesker supremacy? Can the other Killers be buffed at all to make them more appealing and to promote variety?
I can't make suggestions for Killers that I don't play. But I think Chucky could use a quicker dash. They could rebuff his turn rate to get Drift King Billy back into the mode and make him more fun. I do quite well with these Killers and they're by no means bad. But I think players are looking for a different experience to what they get in 1V4 from their Killer of choice (hence why 3 dash Wesker/Dracula are so popular). Most Killers as they currently stand in 2V8 don't offer that experience to the same extent. Chucky has 1 extra long mega dash but that's about it and Billy feels not much different to play than his 1V4 version to me. Since Legion's expulsion (who did tick the different experience box), I've been without a Killer for 2V8.
We've seen how an extremely popular Killer in 2V8 can disproportionately negatively affect the experience (especially so if you hate them). It's the reason why Legion was removed. And the problem is only magnified since 2V8 already suffers from a lack of variety to begin with. Even if you like this Killer, it's got to be stale seeing the same guy over and over and over again.
I felt this issue would improve over time as more Killers were added, but now that BHVR don't have the goal to add as many Killers as possible, I don't see an obvious, easy solution to this. Repeat prevention is out of the question with the queues as long as they are and Wesker enjoyers are still likely to queue up to play as him, no matter what. Wesker is close to the ideal 2V8 Killer (a simple strong power with some slow down).
I'm just so tired of seeing this guy and it's killing 2V8 for me. Am I alone in feeling this way? For all I know, everyone else loves playing against this Killer and can't get enough of him. But when I'm onto my third Wesker in a row, I'm pretty much done with 2V8 for the day.
TL;DR: Wesker is in too many 2V8 trials and I think this is a problem when Killer variety is already very poor. Can/should anything be done to change this? Or does everyone else enjoy back to back Wesker matches and this is more of a "me" problem..?
Comments
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This is the result of meta. It's the same in 1 v 4 which is why there are so many s tier killers around and low tiers are few and far between. The only way of dealing with it is to make all killers equally viable so there is no tier list making all killers equal. That is impossible due to the wide range of powers and how different killers are.
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Since 2v8 started I've wanted them to rotate in/out killers. Have 10 killer options each iteration and either keep the 5 free killers and rotate 5 dlc characters in/out each iteration or rotate in/out the 5 top picked killers. This would force a variety from iteration to iteration since just adding killers isn't working and buffing killers is more likely to turn away survivors making the killer waits worse.
If they were to start rotating killers the first couple days will be the best for variety while people figure out strongest combos that will be seen for the remainder of that iteration. Even though would end up seeing strongest combos for rest of that iteration its better than just seeing the same combos in every iteration like we are now. It would solve the issue of conflicting killer status effects in HUD or items clogging the map since can rotate in/out those killers. Could also more easily avoid broken combos, can just make sure they don't appear in same iteration.
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Its survivor sided mode (devs said it on their stream that this mode is more favored for survivors) and class like escapist counters heavily every killer who has no mobility which can be used to catch up to that survivor. So its no wonder people play stronger killers to have more better results and fun when they wait around 30 minutes for a killer game.
Killer rotation would be interesting but I still believe it wouldnt change much like people would still pick stronger killers because they are worth the cue time especialy when you play solo and not with friend.
Like trapper when he sets up 4 gens can be done and first half game is on shoulder of the other killer, ghostface higly depends on map and teammate for his ability so blight isnt good teammate for him, nemesis was now only good with wesker because for some reason you couldnt see chests auraus with sprays so weskers infection did lot of slowdown and nemis stayed longer so he wasnt do slow. Killers like these are huge risk for failure especisly when you meet strong survivor team so no wonder people pick the best here like wesker,oni,dracula, blight (I would say nurse is now way better in 2v8 and billy after his nerfs because there is milion strong pallets with class that builds them back) etc.
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Wesker is currently extremely popular because the developers put him back out in a bugged state that they never fixed, so you see players take advantage of his bugs. It's honestly pretty tiring dealing with the sheer incompetence of this dev team.
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He's in a lot of matches because there are only a handful of killers. They just need more killers. I'm not gonna play Trapper. Wesker is also more fun in 2v8 than in 1v4 with the third dash.
What I mean is that he seems to be one of the easiest strong Killers to get results with
Definitely not the case for me. I have more hours in Wesker than anyone else yet he has one of my lowest KRs. He has single handedly keep my overall KR lower than I'd like, purely from my own IP-devoted stubbornness.
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Personally I definitely feel the Wesker fatigue. That and Oni. Before Wesker was fixed it was mostly Drac, Billy and Oni but ever since he was fixed it’s been nothing but Wesker. I don’t mind the 3 dashes, but he does seem to get it back extremely quickly. I’ll manage not to get hit by them and make distance but that distance is instantly destroyed because he ends up getting another 3 dashes back so quick.
I dont want him removed from 2v8, and while a killer rotation would be nice In theory I think it would bum players out because the killer options would be even smaller. They can do the same thing they do to entice survivor to play though, and add BP incentives to specific killers. The incentives could swap from killer to killer encouraging more options without limiting the small amount we do have.
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i feel like Unknown would be a great pick in 2v8
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That's actually a great idea
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That would be fun! I could definitely see unknown doing well with how many targets there would be.
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While I do think Wesker is fairly popular however I think Oni is the top poster boy currently he's in 70% percent of matches because he's Meta S tier in this mode
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imagine 4 survivors are grouped up healing and u suddenly teleport and scare the wits out of em
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I dont see him do that good here like he would need massive buffs or he would end up like pyramidhead almost same as in 1v4.
He has too hit two times to get injure so his cooldown would need to be lower like for 3 seconds and his tp clones would get wipe out by double of survivors and his cooldowns for tp clones spawn and tps cooldown would need massive reduction on cooldown.Otherwise he would be harmless there and way worse than huntress or slinger which damage instantly and get along with other killers.
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Are we surprised that one of the most consistently popular Killers in DBD is also one of the most consistently popular Killers in a mode where the majority of Killers aren't playable? The only real way it might shift is if they managed to get Ghoul in 2v8, and I can't imagine that being well received.
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never touching this mode again if that happens
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I see him in most of my 2v8 matches, and as you mentioned his power is fairly easy to use and with the built in slowdown makes him a popular pick, especially with the bug on top of it.
The only solution is to either nerf him or buff other less popular killers. But then again buffing other killers won't guarantee that he will be picked less. I think the only choice is to give him a slight nerf.6 -
He's not OP.
He's not unfun.
I get why people want to play him.
But I'm… Just… So… Tired of him in 2v8. He's guaranteed every game at the moment. If I'm killer my buddy is a Wesker. If I'm survivor I'm running away from Wesker. Switch to 1v4, I recognise that terror radius, it's Wesker.
Sometimes the burn marks on my toast look like Wesker.
I hear a smug chuckle at 3AM, it's Wesker under my bed.
Went cloudwatching with my partner, every cloud was Wesker. When I tried to point this out to her, she too, was Wesker.
Help.10 -
I can try to help, but 7 minutes is all I can spare.
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takes off sunglasses and grins
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"you only delay the inevitable…"
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i have more but ill spare you…for now smirks and drives away on my Yamaha
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I don't really find he is OP, just bugged rn lol
I really enjoy facing him so I'm okay with people playing him. Oni on the other hand is the one killer I'm tired of, his hits read so awful when they do the turn/flick thing w/e it is.3 -
It's not just a meta thing, it's also a fun thing, imo. I think BHVR would be able to attract Killers to play their mains as long as the experience is fun and unique enough. It's definitely impossible to equalise the powers though, I agree with that.
For example, I like playing Trapper in 1V4 but I wouldn't dream of playing him in 2V8. Partly because if I'm waiting 20 minutes for a game, I feel I should pick something stronger so my teammate doesn't have to hard carry us. But also because he's a map control Killer and the maps are simply way too big for that play style to feel satisfying to me. He's not strong but he's also not fun. He's a good option for those Survivor duos where one half doesn't play a lot of Killer but they still want to join their friend for a couple of rounds.
On the other hand, I can definitely see Slinger mains still having a blast playing him in 2V8 despite not being a strong choice, because he's different enough to the 1V4 version to be appealing to them. Wesker just happens to be both fun and very strong for 2V8, which pushes his popularity even higher. I don't think many other Killers can tick both of these boxes in 2V8.
He's always been incredibly popular in 2V8. The bugs this time around just add to the frustration factor of seeing him so often.
I don't play Wesker myself, but I have played the others and I guess what I really meant to say is that his power seems very straight forward compared to the other strong Killers in the mode, with (comparatively speaking) no obvious downsides or as severe a learning curve.
I think if your Wesker Kill rate is anywhere near 60% you are doing just fine. I think the more you play a Killer, the more accurate your MMR becomes and the harder it gets to push past a certain performance level. You are probably better than you think you are. I know my own personal kill rates are kinda "fake", anyway. I have a habit of letting the final Survivor go when I win and I rarely walk away from a trial with less than a 1K (over time, that evens out at a 50% Kill rate and is the same for all my mains). I also play fairly casually with perks I enjoy and mostly by the "rule book", so I know I could push it higher if I really wanted to.
So I go by average hooks instead, which puts Billy and Chucky at the top with 7.89 and 7.88 followed by Legion and Trapper with 7.27 and 7.11. Trapper actually has my highest Kill rate because of his ability to win trials instantly on occasion. Scott Jund made a pretty good recent video explaining why Trapper is weirdly simultaneously one of the strongest and weakest Killers in the game. There is a lot of nuance to Kill rates, imo.
I like your incentive idea. Variety is less of a problem in 1V4 because there are 40+ Killers. (I assume) most players are in mid MMR, where every Killer can do well and feel viable. But I still think there is a problem with Killer variety at the extremes in 1V4. Low MMR is chock full of free Killers like Trapper, Huntress and Wraith, alongside the bottom tier Killers like Ghostie and Legion. This was alleviated a little bit by the Killer daily challenges encouraging players to play Killers that they're a bit crap with (big mistake to have gotten rid of these, imo).
They're solving the issue in top MMR by adding lots of very strong Killers, but I honestly don't know what we're doing making Blight 110%. All that's doing is saying to BHVR that we want to face more Ghouls in top MMR 1V4.
But I digress, something to sweeten the deal to encourage more Killer variety could work for 2V8. Might even help the queues a little, since it could tempt some players away from queuing up to play Wesker for a game or two.
I guess one approach would be to throw absolutely everything at the wall to see what sticks and accept the risk of adding things to 2V8 that might get a Marmite response from players. I suspect easy to add Killers like Clown and Trickster wouldn't get much of a warm welcome but then who knows, maybe they would actually work OK for 2V8? Maybe even Ghoul would be fine. None of these Killers have the unique potential to annoy an entire lobby the way that Legion could.
The only way to know for sure is to try it and find out. But then you run the risk of adding a Killer that gets so many complaints BHVR feel they need to remove them and they lose a bit of good will from both sides in the fallout (I'm still annoyed we lost The Legion).
I worry that 2V8 has prematurely left this experimental phase because it's become way more successful than BHVR ever expected it to be (especially with the casual Survivor crowd). It's made them take a more cautious approach with what Killers they add because they don't want to potentially derail the 2V8 hype train. Short term that might be the right call, but in the long term I think that decision might prove fatal. That said, so long as DBD still attracts new players who will always find the experience to be novel, it has a future. If that's the focus then none of this matters, but I think veteran players might begin to tire of 2V8 before long if they don't keep adding content or find a way to promote variety.
Ha ha! You know, I do enjoy doing impressions of him to myself when I play, so if there's one good thing about him it's that.
"Paaaaw performance, indeeeeed."
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This is where the fun begins with buffing him he would need 3x the number of clone capacity and spawning speed and his teleport cooldown greatly reduced and his UVX would need to be able to fire every 5 seconds
There we go he's now good
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We can also keep adding more killers to the pool so we don't have to see him as often sure he's popular but this helps dilute the Wesker concentration
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Funny enough I play trapper and most of the time it's a blast since most of the survivors are casuals they really don't pay attention to my traps sure I get some matches with competent players and I'm blitzed but the casuals outweigh the pro players in the mode
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2v8 is unfavorable towards the killer side by design. Killer side also has long queue times and the whole "play while you wait" where you have to go through 2 survivor games just to play 1 killer. It's not really a surprise that people are sticking to killers who are the most fun to play while being the strongest of the limited rooster.
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"you dissapoint me"
i just keep on saying Chris in his voice when chasing someone, thats it
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Probably this would make him viable but I dont see devs buff killers like this that much like the most buffed ones are stronger ones like wesker or they still suck even when they are two times stronger like nemi,trapper.
I fear he would end up just like pyramidhead.
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60% is where he's at and I can't say that's a number that satisfies me at this point, especially when I compare him to my other killers. Even my top 3 are so disproportionate. Wesker, with the most hours, at 60%. Henry at 70%. Then Dredge at 80%. Henry is also A tier, but more technically complicated than Wesker, yet he's 10 points ahead. I too play by the rulebook most of the time, and I give a lot of mercy, but that's across all my killers, so the number of free escapes would still work out about the same for all of them. Wesker is not an easy killer. There's so much crap you can clip into on the maps and good people know that. They wrap around objects the same way they would with a Billy. The third dash makes that much more tolerable in 2v8, but that's never becoming basekit. But yes, I agree "press x to dash" is easier than Nurse or Blight for casual players.
I agree with you about the MMR, and I also think once you hit a certain point, its permanent across all killers. I'm not a fan of making personal MMR score assumptions but I see the same people over and over, night after night, no matter whether I'm playing survivor or any of my killers, be it 60%KR Wesker or 80%KR Dredge. The days of getting babies when I try a new killer are over, and my MMR on both roles must be pretty similar.
Trapper is way stronger than he gets credit for honestly, I honestly hate playing against him. I'd rather play against Blight. He's just often map (and basement) dependant. But the Trappers I go against as survivor tend to win because they're not babies and they know how to play him in a clever way. He's just more macro against good teams, and I think people confuse that with bad. I also think people who do poorly will deem something bad, even if it's them that's the issue.
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I think DBD itself has a problem with Wesker.
I know not many will agree, but in my honest opinion Wesker has one of the worst, most poorly designed kits in the game, if not the worst. I think he is extremely unfun to go against, and I would be happy to never play against him again.
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not only that when Wesker and Nemesis are together the antidote chests are not highlighted. It’s like free slowdown for those two.
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I agree they make most paid killers like this. The only thing they did nerf Xenomorph into the ground. He is in no way a controller friendly killer.
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I didn't want to say it, but it's weskin' time
I noticed this as well when playing 2v8 against both of them. Hopefully this gets fixed when the next iteration of 2v8 rolls around, because it gets quite annoying really fast.
Luckily the spray bottles themselves still shows the auras.3 -
Wesker has always been my most hated killer in the entire game. So seeing him in 95% of the matches has made this 2v8 into a (just suffer for the dailies and go...) event. Looking forword to 1v4 again tommarow.
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Personally in 2v8 I feel most killers are okay - I have a bias but I really don't feel like Wesker needs 3 dashes. He's already pretty strong the third feels a little overkill for how fast he gets them back.
As for encouraging people to play other killers - I feel Wesker is just a safe pick because he's got a lot going for him and considering you can spend 20 minutes in queue sometimes it's better to just pick a safe character than spend 20 minutes in queue to get stomped as someone who may potentially not be a great pick. Wesker is just a safe pick overall.
I wouldn't mind more interesting additions to other killers to make them more appealing but realistically it's just a meta pick for the gamemode. Only way you reduce pickrate is nerf him or buff other characters. Alternatively - BHVR add more interesting killers to the 2v8 roster that people actually want to play. I personally like Wesker although I've always felt he doesn't need the extra information like killer instinct built into his kit. It feels super unnecessary when he's already deadly and has a built in slowdown where survivors need to use first aid sprays although that's more my 1v4 opinion. I'd love for Dredge to get added to 2v8 or even Doctor but I'm probably a minority on desired 2v8 characters.
tl;dr - I blame queue times, lack of roster options and how Wesker feels like he has too much going for him compared to the rest of the 2v8 roster.
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Yeah bug that no one talks about yet it kills every team I played in against this combo because even with 3 sprays in one chest majority of chests arent found in time and weskers infection causes highest damage while nemis stays way longer and makes him actual threat in chase.
Worst killer duo became best one because almost everyone runs around looking for chests with sprays while killers clear the survivors and very small gen progress is done.
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Devs have buffed weak killers before sure might take a few iterations but as long as we all agree and ask they will buff him
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