Clown Has Been DBD's Worst Killer For 1 Year. He Needs Help.
Dathro
Member Posts: 29
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Here's a list of buff suggestions I accumulated from a thread I made way back.
Link to the thread itself → https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/61217/so-clowns-the-least-lethal-killer-on-pc/p1
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.
Boi you seen Ghostface?
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.
At red ranks he is weak trust me in grey/yellow/green yes he is underrated. #Saveclownfromextinction.
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.
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.
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?
Doctor is much worse without add-ons.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@Nephs I agree with you wholeheartly.
Behavior doesn't want good killers, they want "FUN" killers. The Clown is only good on paper but fails in practice.
Thing is clown is weak against great survivors and red ranks. That's not FUN at all losing.
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.
@xllxENIGMAxllx Its fun for the survivors escaping.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@TheGameZpro3
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:
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.
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.
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.