Clown Has Been DBD's Worst Killer For 1 Year. He Needs Help.
Most players don't seem to understand how Clown's Power actually works. The short answer is, it doesn't. Basically it's placebo and most value gained from it is due to Survivors giving it more respect than it deserves, ruining a good loop just to avoid the gas. This has been known to a few since his release and the problems have never been fixed.
Remember in PTB when holding a Bottle slowed his move speed, similar to, but not as much as when Huntress holds an Axe? That was changed just before he released, but the base effect of his gas slow was nerfed.
What remains for Clown is a self-slow during his animation of throwing the bottle. It's fairly subtle, but any Clown main should've noticed this by now. You can feel the slowdown. It's been demonstrated that in beeline races, he runs at default Survivor speed if he spams bottles, illustrating the self-slow effect.
The net effect of this with no add-ons is usually zero in any chase, it varies slightly by how long the Surv remains in the cloud. This means you will reach a Survivor at the same time regardless of whether you use Bottles, however using Bottles has potential downside since if one of them misses due to e.g. phantom geometry collision and unreliable Bottle hitbox, Survivor gains net distance due to Clown's self-slow.
There are only 3 conditions in which using his Power benefits Clown rather than having no effect, or even slowing his chase:
1) The slow is enough to prevent Fast Vaults, turning them into Medium Vaults. In order to get any net value out of this however, the Surv must generally run through an entire Cloud's worth of gas slow, and then do a Medium rather than Fast vault, as simply the difference between Fast & Medium is still roughly net neutral if the Surv does not also experience enough Hindered duration.
2) Pallet/Jungle gym standoffs. Occasionally the Killer and Surv enter Pallet mindgames where the Surv's best chance is to run opposite of Killer, usually back and forth as Killer changes direction. In these cases, Clown's self-slow effect is minimal since the loop has come to a standstill and his Power can help him catch the Surv with precise play. In Jungle gyms this same mindgame can occur and the coughing can help alert Clown to which way the Surv has ran.
3) With add-ons (mainly Flask of Bleach) which improve the slow effect, resulting in something like a net +5% run speed for Clown, which isn't much but at least results in the Power doing something.
At the very least, his self-slow needs to be removed or he will basically remain a Trapper with no traps. A vanilla M1 Killer with a Power which is not worth using. And frankly to be decent at his job/niche, his Power would even then need a buff.
Ideally he'd get a more fun and engaging rework with another bottle type to cycle between, maybe a drinkable one which causes Exposed or gives him faster action speed, Pallet vaulting etc... he just needs help.
Comments
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Laddie, Clown ISN'T the worst killer in the game. If anything, he's A-tier in my book. The worst killer (As of right now), is Freddy. There are a few issues as to what your saying.
- Clown ONLY gets slowed down for a second AFTER throwing the bottle. Not during, or before.
- You're not trying to force the Survivor to stay in the gas, only to force them to get into it the first place, since the hindered effect is still applied 2 seconds after leaving the cloud, long enough to close the distance significantly or land a hit on the survivor. Either way, if the Survivor is hit with the gas, it's a potentially free hit for Clown.
- Survivors DON'T avoid the gas because they're respecting the [Bad Word] out of it. They avoid it because they know that if they run into the gas, they'll get slowed down, therefore, giving the Clown a free hit. Which is why Clown is good at shutting down loops.
I've played Clown so much. So much to the point where I feel I main him. The Clown is a strong killer, a great one, a fun one. The Clown (to me) is the makings of a good killer. Fun to play, and has a place in the competitive ranks, (Which I don't plan on reaching.) The fact that you think that the Clown is weak is suggesting you're not playing him correctly, or you don't quite understand how his power actually works.
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Are you denying that his Power has no net effect in a chase?
If Clown throws a Bottle and a Surv runs into it, Clown doesn't gain ground unless Surv makes some mistake or vaults within 2 seconds. This is the point of why he's bad.
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Regarding your 3 problems with my post:
1) it does not matter whether the slow occurs during his bottle throw or after. It clearly occurs every time he uses his Power.
2) I didn't imply the goal is to get the Survivor to stand in the gas, but the longer they're in it, the longer they're slowed, and if you can get them to run through an entire cloud instead of just touching it, that stacks with slower vault speed to create one of the only conditions by which his Power has any use whatsoever.
3) My entire post explained why getting hit by gas doesn't give Clown a hit and why Survs do not need to respect it unless certain addons are used.
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- A single second of being slowed down isn't much compared to 2 seconds of being slowed down. I'll admit, when the Survivor got slowed down by the gas, I wasn't able to hit them due to me being unable to catch up. But not every single time. It happened around 20% of the time. The rest of the time would be where I actually forced the survivor into the Gas, and got a free hit.
- 2 Seconds can make a large difference, and you'd be surprised upon how 85% movement speed for 2 seconds can close a gap. I've also forgotten to include the fact that the Clown isn't supposed to hit the Survivor directly, only set it down and herd them into it. Again: Which is useful on loops.
- In some cases: Again, yes, not ALL times when Survivors are hit by gas, Clown is unable to catch up to hit them. However, it still closes the distance, and may potentially force the survivor to break the loop, or risk taking a hit.
I'm gonna be honest here, I'm not very good at defending my points in general. Mostly due to me failing to know what you're saying half the time. But I can assure you: Clown is NOT the worst killer, nor is he weak. He has downsides to even out his power, and is NOT a mini-huntress. Ask anyone else, they'll likely agree.
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Here's a list of buff suggestions I accumulated from a thread I made way back.
- Minor exhaustion debuff part of base gas. Would require survivors to "take a breather", aka stop running away (thus letting the Clown close in faster) if they want exhaustion gone.
- Intoxication duration increases based upon time spent in the gas.
- Reduced reload duration.
- Release clouds of gas while reloading.
- No slowdown while throwing.
- Increased intoxication duration (Eether 10 or 15 by default).
- Increased slow effect (Flask of Bleach by default).
- Generators inside gas automatically start regressing if there's no survivor working on them.
- More bottles, more fun.
- Exposure effect on survivors hit by a bottle (Redhead's Pinky Finger add-on by default)
Link to the thread itself → https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/61217/so-clowns-the-least-lethal-killer-on-pc/p1
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It doesn't matter if Clown is slowed 1 second versus 2 seconds for Surv. The total amount of how much Clown and Surv are slowed is equal. Test it. Those times you got a hit after slowing them with bottle, you would've gotten without using the bottle as well.
Post edited by Dathro on0 -
Boi you seen Ghostface?
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clown isn't weak at all, he's extremely underrated actually. The reason people dont play him isnt because he's weak, its because he's boring. BHVR should focus on fixing weak killers not the boring ones.
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At red ranks he is weak trust me in grey/yellow/green yes he is underrated. #Saveclownfromextinction.
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Clown lacks an effective way to pressure the map and get survivors to slow down. He's definitely a weak killer, but his chases are pretty nice. Afterpiece Tonic is probably one of the best made powers. It makes sense to use, helps out in the chase, and can get a lot of variety out of its addons. It is also just fun to hit people with a bottle.
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I wonder why the Clown makes old man noises when he vaults.. it really ruins potential mind-game tactics because the survivors can literally hear when he vaults.
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He's a very tall, very fat man whose spent a lot of his adult years smoking and abusing laughing gas. How would you expect him to sound?
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Doctor is much worse without add-ons.
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Instead of just replying to the thread title, could you respond to the contents? His power doesn't do anything. Lowest impact Power by far.
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This thread details why it actually doesn't help in a chase without specific addons. The concept is a good one, the math is why it's useless.
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I dont understand how can anybody say clown is bad when there's useless Freddy and even worse Legion out. Clown is good and should remain unchanged.
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Clown is caught in this endless cycle of becoming worse and worse and buggier and buggier as the community keeps telling themselves he's good or underrated, the fact that some guy here is saying he's A tier while having spent a lot of time on Clown is frankly depressing, almost as depressing as Clown's face.
Clown isn't ignored because he's boring, or basic, or is a DLC with mediocre perks. He's ignored cause he's complete garbage, dumpster tier and is easily one of the worst if not the worst Killer in the entire game, as OP mentioned his entire existence is a placebo and more often than not a lot of the time you think your Gas got you a hit, you would've gotten that same hit without the gas as well. The only and I mean ONLY time his power functions is if Survivors for some reason try to actually fight a long loop vs Clown and respect the gas, in which case yes, it does that, but smart survivors will simply disrespect it entirely, leave the loop as you grab your bottle, or camp the pallet, and you're boned.
The fact of the matter is all he has is ''Anti Loop'', he doesn't have actual chase because throwing bottles slows him down and the bottles are INSANELY slow as projectiles. So what does that leave him with? No pressure, no mobility, no snowball, no hard punish. He has NOTHING but this one gimmick, and if players are smart, he even sucks at that.
He needs Flask of Bleach baseline, with FoB staying to bring it up to 25% with the addon, Gas should blur the vision of survivors a bit more baseline, and the gas' slow should also work on Vaulting/Action speeds, by which I mean, while in the gas, survivors take 20% longer to drop pallets and vault pallets or windows, this could give him the opportunity to actually punish pallet camping in some capacity. Additionally as mentioned he needs to not slow down when throwing bottles, a Power that is meant to Slow survivors slowing yourself is ridiculous. It might sound like a lot, but again, this is the ONLY thing his power is made for and the ONLY thing it CAN do, he NEEDS to be good at chase/loops or he loses every time (like he does now) and right now, he just isn't.
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Thing is clown is weak against great survivors and red ranks. That's not FUN at all losing.
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Clown worked wonders for me until red ranks. Only after that did he become a poor choice. I agree it'd be nice to have him work in the best ranks too, but in no way is he the worst killer in the game.
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@xllxENIGMAxllx Its fun for the survivors escaping.
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I wouldn't say that he's the defacto worst killer in the game, there's still Lf, GF and Fred after all. But he isn't in a very good state either.
@Nephs nailed it right in the head with the clown. The thing is he could be good. But right now he's just boring and too one dimensional. He still doesn't end chase as fast as most of the top killers can, and he comes with the con of not having any map pressure or slow downs.
If he can end chases faster or has a passive way of slowing down games and give pressure then he'd do way better. Plus having no movement on top of that.
There's a just way too many better reasons to pick up any other killer than him.
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@se05239 Yes bro of course but that's it. Clown is my favorite walking killer (billy don't count) i want him to be fun and viable. #saveclownsfromextinction.
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his power is literally one of the best anti chase abilities in the game...
his problems lies in another aspect of his design: map pressure. he has literally no map pressure, therefore he gets genrushed super easily, losing a lot of games.
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Explain to me mechanically, using math, how it helps him in a chase, in light of what has already been detailed ad nauseam in this thread regarding his Power having a self-slow, and I'll tell you why you're wrong.
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You keep on mentioning he self-slow's himself using his power, but so do most of the killers when going to use their powers.
- Spirit has to stop moving for a moment of time to use her power.
- Hillbilly and Leatherface have to charge up their chainsaw.
- (This part is I think, I know nothing about this killer) Nurse walks slower to charge her blink.
- Trapper and Hag have to stop completly to place their traps.
- The Plague walks slower charging up her vomit.
- Michael walks slower when Stalking.
- Freddy (no add-ons) has to wait SEVEN seconds to even hit his victims.
- Huntress has to wind up her hatchets to throw them.
- Wraith walks slower when uncloaking.
- Pig has to charge up her Ambush, which while crouching, she moves slower.
Not trying to say Clown's a good killer, but that self-slow part is kinda irrelevant when every other killer, in some way, also self-slows themselves.
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This is the same argument people would use when saying Clown should be a 110% movement speed Killer back when he was released. Truth is, Clown is a different type of Killer than most, despite the "simple M1" playstyle he has. His power is about slowing down Survivors, not about trapping them, not insta-downing them, not hit them from distance, not teleporting towards them, and so on. If he gets slowed down, you are making his power less efficient for no reason.
Now, comparing it to your examples:
- Spirit covers more distance, and she has to completely stop to use her power. (In reality, the only reason she has to stop is because she has to be stationary to properly create a husk.)
- They get slowed down because they get insta-downs out of their chainsaws. Hell, even people have suggested LF shouldnt get that much of a slowdown.
- I will avoid Nurse for obvious reasons.
- Trapper and Hag dont rely on slowing down Survivors (well, Hag has an add-on for that, but I digress), they rely on completely immobilising Survivors or teleporting to that exact location.
- Plague has range that makes up for that slow.
- Myers is about standing still while stalking (mostly).
- Freddy has nothing to do with this. You could have mentioned the slow he gets from pulling someone to dream world, but that slow was unnecessarily lengthened during his hideous nerf, which even the Devs agree was too much.
- Huntress, has range, like Plague. She inflicts damage.
- Wraith also gets a speed boost after uncloaking, and it is non-stop mentioned how this part of his rework was handled badly, as the slowdown + the haste cancel each other.
- Pig also gets a strong burst of speed after that, and with it she covers more ground than what she would have from normal walking speed.
Post edited by PigNRun on3 -
At the VERY least, Clown can slow someone for 3 seconds if they get in the gas. One when they enter it, and 2 when they leave it. If the Clown is slowed for one second while throwing a bottle, he still gained speed. A survivor still has to TRY not to go in the gas, because it DOES slow them enough to where the Clown can catch up, which means you can corral them into places you want them to go by using your bottles, like I've seen some Clowns do. In this case, they may not get slowed, but they're going in the exact place you want them to. As for disproving your opinion that his bottle does nothing that simply walking up couldn't do, 85% movement speed for 3 seconds vs a 115% killer with(since you said subtle), maybe 110% for one second. So, Clown gains 85% movement In that 3 seconds on the survivor. I calculated this by adding 115/115/110 which gave me 340%. Then subtracting that from 255(85x3). Even if it was 2 seconds, Clown would gain 55% movement speed during 2 seconds with 110% movement speed for 1 second. In order for the Clown NOT to gain an advantage to his power in only 2 seconds(although as I said, really it's 3 seconds), he'd need to be slowed down to 55% movement speed for 1 second. If you really think his power doesn't offer him an advantage, test it in KYF and post a video of you in a chase on Haddonfield's street or something with and without the tonic.
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I would say LF and GF are on my list for the actual worst and wow it's funny how the two killers with last word "face" in them have the shittiest powers interesting.
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The difference is those Powers all do something which if successful, is so strong that it more than compensates for the temporary self-slow.
It would be different if the bottle slowed Survivors by so much that it was worth it. By so much that Clown actually shortened a chase by gassing them. But currently it's a neutral tradeoff. It actually does nothing. Clearly you've been reading my comments, so I don't know whether you missed the part about Surv slow and self-slow canceling each other out, or whether you think I'm being dishonest about it.
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1) Ghostface isn't even out yet.
2) While I would never say Leatherface is good, he absolutely must be better than Clown since his stats are exactly Clown, but with an actual Power. He can cut down pallets and instadown, and he bypasses a lot of the nonsense mechanics around unhooking since he can saw both players down.
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boi u seen freddy?
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I think most of your points are valid, but its easy to get distracted when you say Clown is the worst killer, when its clearly not true.
Trapper, LF and current Freddy are all far below him, and he sits roughly in low A high B tier, hes very much average in terms of power level compared to other killers.
The point about his slow is true, and without bleach you do rely on survivors avoiding the gas or otherwise using the bottles to cause them to make a mistake, but then thats no different to trapper, or hag to some degree.
Having a killer being reliant on 1 addon to make them decent isnt ideal, but its no different to many other killers.
So yes, Clown could use a few tweaks, and could be buffed without troubling the top 3 easily, but hes by no means the worst killer in the game.
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You say LF, Trapper & Freddy are below him, but fail to give reasons why. You say Clown is between A and B tier and that he's average in Power, despite everything said in this thread, despite agreeing with me that his Power does nothing without bleach.
It is not the same as Hag or Trapper, not at all. Those Powers are used out of chase. They then help you either get a free hook (trapper) or shorten a chase when you're in one later (hag), as opposed to Clown's Power, which as mentioned, doesn't even help in chase (the one thing it's supposed to do).
Hag traps do not rely on mistakes. They're in your path and you get hit if you step on one against a good Hag no matter what you do. You might argue "stepping on Hag trap is a mistake":
- It isn't much of a mistake if there's no way to avoid this, which often times, there isn't.
- If a Survivor is godly enough to know where all the traps are, and loop away from them, their loops will be SIGNIFICANTLY worse than if the traps were not present, so in conclusion, she does not rely on mistakes at all, her Power is guaranteed value if used correctly.
Trapper's trap, like Hag, forces you off a loop if one is in your way, or you'll very soon be on a one-way trip to the Hook, which is a lot more upside than Clown's addonless Power is ever capable of. You can argue these can be sabotaged, and failing to do so is a misplay, but:
- That often comes down to your teammates sabotaging them or not if you're in chase, and you have no direct control over them.
- It requires constant scouting of the Trapper, which is a resource that would not necessarily need to be spent against non-trap based Killers
- Sabo'ing a Trap is time spent not on a generator, healing, etc...
Clown's Power does not shorten loops or give him a hit sooner - like Hag, and it does not threaten an instadown like Trapper. In threatens nothing.
So how exactly have you reached the conclusion that he is better than Trapper? You can't say Clown's power helps with loops, as we've established it does not.
He doesn't just rely on Bleach to make him good, he relies on it to make his Power useful in any capacity. That still doesn't mean he's good when he has Bleach. It just goes from actually useless, to slightly useful. And the fact that you still get kills with him sometimes is evidence of nothing except that Survivors are potatoes sometimes at all Ranks.
I'm tired of people like you defending Clown as being a mid-table Killer without an explanation of why. I put together a thread debunking the mathematically false, but typical reasoning, and you reject it.
I don't want you to tell me he's average, or strong, or weak but not the very worst. I want you to tell me precisely why. Address the points made in this thread.
Post edited by Dathro on0 -
@Dathro why do you insist that his slow is not benefiting him? While it's true that he himself gets a small slow when he throws a bottle, the amount is NOT the same as the slow a survivor would get. The survivor is ALSO slowed for longer than JUST the 2 seconds you keep mentioning, since you also have to take into account the time it takes for a survivor to walk through the gas. This is why its generally better to preplace the gas in a spot you know the survivor will want to walk through, so you can fully take advantage of the time it takes for them to get out of it. If I see a survivor wants to loop killer shake for example, ill toss a bottle through the window, towards the middle-ish of the room, before continuing with the loop. The survivor is then forced to walk the entire diameter of the gas, followed by 2 seconds after they get out. Any time they spend slowed is effectively doubling how fast you are closing the distance, It also denies the use of fast vaults, further slowing them down.
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Test it in KYF. You'll see that yes, while there is a little variance regarding how long they stay in the cloud, it is in any case so close to neutral that it's not clear the Power is worth using except niche situations.
I mentioned in original post that it changes fast vaults into medium vaults, but you really need to stack that with a good duration of slow to actually overcome Clown's self-slow and get a net benefit. For this reason, Jungle Gyms are a spot where Clown can get some value from the bottle, but even that's really clunky due to how small the gyms are, since by the time you have a good angle to throw the bottle, and are also not already simply in melee range, the Surv is well on their way to the window already and it's too late to try throwing a bottle unless you throw one over the wall before you enter the gym.
Also as Nephs mentioned, good Survs will see you pull the bottle out and just bail to the next loop instead of going through the gas and window like you want, buying time, because they know this is how Clown extracts maximum value.
Let's say for the sake of discussion I'm wrong here, say the gas consistently shortens Clown's time-until-melee-range when chasing optimally as long as he touches a Surv with it. The question now is, by how much? Test it. This isn't the easiest game to do experiments on since it's difficult to run a loop identically multiple times, but you'll do well enough to see the Power yields pitiful results.
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Can someone show a side by side of how long it takes the clown to reach a survivor with vs without using his power.
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like in a straightaway?
Because I don't buy that the slowdown when throwing is harsh enough to completely cancel out the hinder
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Like. Even if he moved at survivor speed for a full second after throwing his tonic. His average speed over the next 2 seconds:
4+4.6 = 8.6
compared to the average speed for the slowed survior
3.4*2 = 6.8
8.6-6.8 = 1.8 meters gained on the survivor
Compared to without his power
4.6*2 = 9.2
4*2 = 8
9.2-8 = 1.2 meters gained on the survivor
1.8-1.2 = 0.6 extra meters gained by using his power.
And remember, that's assuming the survivor stays in the gas for the absolute minimum amount of time possible. Every additional second is an extra 0.6 meters gained on the survivor (for a total of 1.2 M/S gained).
Actually. Just for fun lets see how long he would need to slow a survivor if his power put him at a dead stop for 1 second.
Using the power initially gives the survivor 3.4 meters of distance. Each additional second is 1.2 meters gained on the survivor so starting at 4 seconds of slow (3*1.2 = 3.6) you start to gain distance on the survivor, meaning if you can keep the survivor in the gas for 2 seconds (since it lingers for the remaining 2 seconds) then you will gain distance on the Survivor regardless of how big the slowdown on the power happens to be.
That a good enough mathematical counter argument for you?
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I think your argument supports my point. First I have to say I don't know that Clown is slowed for exactly 1 second, or that he moves at exactly 4m/s for it. Those are heuristic figures for sake of argument. I think it's pretty close. I would love to do such an experiment but setting up SWF and recording software would be a pain.
0.6 meters gained to me is basically nothing if you compare it to the gain of any other Power. It's like when people say "Thanatophobia does nothing". It's not literally nothing, but practically the same as nothing since it's very rarely impactful enough to change the outcome of a given event.
Lastly I would point out that standing in the gas for a full second is like running through the entire cloud. With good prediction you can force such a thing maybe a few times in a match if you're lucky, usually on really enclosed maps, but usually the Surv only runs through about half the cloud, inside for maybe 1/2 second.
Getting them to stand it in for 2 seconds - you're talking strictly about unsafe pallet standoffs, forcing them to stay in it, which I mentioned in OP that bottles help here, however all Killers can generally get hits in these situations with good mindgames so it's pretty moot.
If you want to party up on SWF sometime I would try to set up a day to test this with you.
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The current crown has a bigger problem than Freddy.
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Croquedead's (Godly Hag main) July 2019 tier list:
"The Clown is definitely the worst Killer in the game. There's no doubt about it. He's hands down the worst f*cking Killer ever."
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Shame. He's got an awesome appeal to him with cosmetics etc. Only wish his power would be viable. or that he wasnt such a bug ridden mess
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