How to play Plague effectively?

@daddyo

First, tips

For one, you have to understand how Plague functions before using a lot of her tricks. Plague works off of sickness over damage, if The Plague doesn't put everyone into sickness, than you won't be using her effectively.

Here's the thing, like Legion, Plague works off of damaging her Survivors OVER downing and hooking them. The thing is though, unlike Legion, Plague can keep them in the injured state for the remainder of the game, this is due to the fear of her "Super Vomit" that will insta-down anyone that's injured and healthy.

what's "super vomit?"

The Super Vomit or "Corrupt Purge" has little cool-down after hitting someone and can be easily swayed to hit a lot of areas UNLIKE hatchets. Hatchets are more accurate, while Corrupt Purge is more versatile and usable in a lot of scenarios and areas that's too difficult to land with hatchets.

In a sense, if a Survivor heals themselves FULLY at a fountain, than they'll Corrupt the Fountain and allow The Plague to gain her Corrupt Purge ability and easily down anyone she comes across. This is why Red Ranks never heal against her, and anyone below that Rank will also not heal... but it's more likely to happen due to this mutual agreement not being shared with each other, like Red Ranks usually have.

What should I do in-game?

Simply put, once you spawn in you should start infecting any nearby generators that spawn around you. This can be done in a few seconds AND while you're walking to the next generator nearby.

If you have a Hex totem, you should also vomit on it to infect it. Why should you do this? Because it'll alert you to anyone that randomly gets sick during a chase OR when you walk away from the totem.

It isn't a guaranteed fact that they got sick off that totem, but Survivors will mostly avoid any generator that's sick, so they'll most likely get sick off of that if anything else. It's good to investigate though, as it'll land you an easy find and chase if the totem is out of its way from any pallets or loops.

Than, once you have a Survivor in your sights, healthy or sick, vomit on them and insure they get infected with the Broken Status effect. Some Survivors will naturally sway side to side to avoid and accurate hit with the vomit stream, so don't be afraid if you miss most of your vomit.

As long as you get a decent amount of hits with your Vile Purge, you'll eventually put them into the sickness. AND, it gets easier to infect them when they go straight for a pallet, simply follow behind them with a fully charged/almost charged Vile Purge and start to vomit on them RIGHT before they get to the other end of the pallet.

If they're smart, they'll either keep looping or they'll drop it and easily be infected afterwards. Remember, use Vile Purge to infect Survivors (obviously), but if it's a narrow space they have to walk through or intentionally go through, than make sure you're charged or decently charged to get a VERY EASY infection off on them!

second, perks/builds

Due to the change that patch 3.5.0 will bring to Ruin, i'll be altering my build to better reflect a suitable build for you to use.

What you'll need is Corrupt Intervention, Dying Light, Thanatophobia, and BBQ & Chili. You can also still use Ruin, but the point of this build is to actively slow down generator progress while having some tracking capabilities.

• Corrupt intervention [Plagues Perk] (This is a good alternative to Ruin, and it's arguable a better pick INSTEAD of Ruin. This perk will block 3 generators that're the farthest from your spawn for 80/100/120 seconds depending on it's tier. Simple AND works great with Plagues ability and tips, simply infect any nearby generators to your spawn and walk to the farthest generators that're blocked, you'll either find a Survivor hiding around the area OR going to the closer generators. Those generators are infected, so you won't be gen rushed off the spot)
• Dying Light [Myers Perk] (This perk is best suited to be combined with Thanatophobia, Thanatophobia simply regresses the Survivors Healing, Sabotage, and Repair speeds WHILE Dying light puts a flat 3% debuff to those categories. Now, 3% isn't a lot at first, but when you fully stack Dying Light, it can add up to a 24% debuff at the max 8 token stacks! To get tokens, just hook any Survivor that ISN'T the obsession)
• Thanatophobia [Nurse's Perk] (Thanatophobia works very well with Plagues inherit ability to keep everyone Injured for most of the game. All Thanatophobia does is give a 4% debuff to Healing, Sabotage, and Repair speeds like Dying Light, which when all 4 Survivors are injured goes up to 16%! Meaning, when combined with the 24% max debuff from Tier lll Dying Light and Thanatophobias 16% max debuff, that's a 40% debuff to all of those action speeds! This is why this build is considered to be one of her best, debatable the best for her)
• BBQ & Chili [LeatherFaces Perk] (Simple perk, it gives a aura reading for any Survivors outside of a 40 meter radius AND a bonus 50%/75%/100% BP increase in post-game. Every Tier has the same aura reading radius, but the BP percentage increase depends on the tier it's in)

As for Ruin, the new Ruin can work with Plague as it gives a 200% (PTB Version still) regression penalty to any generator that stops being repaired. You can try and use this with Plagues build, but Corrupt Intervention is a better fit, and if you don't have Hags DLC, it's more accessible too.

last, add-ons (summary)

This will be a summary of some decent add-ons to use, I won't go over everything as my fingers will fall off from typing every possible combo... this happened with the Wraith build suggestion, so i'd rather keep things simple. If you want some other combos, than do read the ones that're below to get an idea for lesser budget combos to use.

infected emetic + incensed ointment

Simple yet effective, this is one of the best combos to use that borders on the line of expensive and budget! Infected Emetic simply makes the Vile Purge effectiveness Moderately better, and combined with Incensed Ointment, it makes the cool-down for Vile Purge Moderately decreased while also making the movement speed for holding Vile Purge Slightly faster!

Think of it like Demogorgons Rat Liver, it makes it easier and faster to turn around a corner with a fully charged Shred, same with Plagues Vile Purge, a Fully charged Vile Purge is easier to maneuver with AND the cool-down is decreased, making it easier and faster to do rapid vomit hits on generators and other things.

All of the Emetic add-ons are great to use, so keep that in mind.

Vile Emetic + Black Incense

Easily her best add-on combo, hands down. Vile Emetic just Considerably increases Vile Purge effectiveness (making it A LOT easier to infect Survivors, like a lot...) and Black Incense gives you a 5 second aura reading for any Survivor that vomits during their infection.

Why is this amazing? Well, if your entire team never heals to avoid the Corrupt Purge (Super Vomit), than they'll vomit constantly and let you see their auras for the entire match!

An amazing combo, easily her best.

Vile emetic + infected emetic

This is just for if you want to instantly infect the entire team with little effort, it'll infect every Survivor insanely fast and make it easier to get into the debuff progress for your build (depends on her build...)

Basically it Considerably and Moderately increases Vile Purges effectiveness, what more can I say? Decent combo indeed.

Vile Emetic + Ashen Apple

Now this combo can work with Infected Emetic as well, but this is the better of the two. Vile Emetic increases Vile Purges effectiveness Considerably and Ashen Apple gives The Plague one free Corrupted fountain AND also increasing the infection times on objects Slightly as well.

Why is this useful? Well, the fact nobody heals on The Plague is one, and 2nd, it'll give you a lot of Corrupted Fountains, mainly because everyone won't stay in the infected phase if they can get one shot slugged by a stream of Corrupt Purge, or they won't heal but easily get downed if found.

Pretty solid build, and it's very unexpected if the Survivors don't see that fountain beforehand.

end note

If you want to use add-ons like Iridescent Seal or Devotee's Amulet than go ahead, but it just increases the time Corrupt Purge is active and or makes it easier to move while holding Corrupt Purge while hindering the time you have with it (Which is what Iridescent Seal does...)

Why don't I have any above in the summary? Because nobody ever heals at the fountains against Plague... at least not in Red and sometimes Purple ranks. It's a waste of add-on slots if you know this, so that's why I didn't add any above.

If you wanna use them with Ashen Apple to HOPEFULLY get everyone to heal at fountains than go ahead, otherwise it isn't worth it in my opinion.

conclusion

This took a bit of time to write up still, so I hope it adds to the guides above or gives more information that you might not of known.

You can always mix and match perks and add-ons to how you want them to be, but this is a solid idea of what to use with Plague.

Stay safe out there,

see you in the fog...