The Nightmare rework is excellent, but...

[JohnVelma]

I tried playing The Nightmare in PTB 8.5.0 last night (in my timezone), and I was quite impressed. He's fun to play, more effective, and several of his Add-Ons are useful. Overall, I like him a lot, but there are some adjustments made to him that I’m not sure if they're "better or worse," and I’d like to share my thoughts before it hits the live game.

DREAM SNARES

• In the current patch, DREAM SNARES have a Hindered status of -15% and a duration of 3 seconds. But in PTB, the Hindered status is reduced to -12%, and the duration is increased to 4 seconds. When I read this patch note, I felt that losing -3% was quite a lot, and increasing the status duration by 1 second didn’t seem very helpful. However, when I played it, I don’t know why, but I felt that DREAM SNARES in the PTB were more effective and provided more opportunities to hit, probably because the skill charges fast, shoots quickly, and has a short cooldown. It just felt more continuous during the chase.
  
• Jump Rope (Add-On): Increases the Hindered penalty duration when a Survivor is caught by a Dream Snare by 1 second (NEW). I’m not sure if the patch note is wrong or if I made a mistake in translation, because my version says the duration increase is 2 seconds. But whatever.
  
• In my opinion, when the game launches, DREAM SNARES should have a Hindered status of -15% like in the current version, and the status duration should stay at 3 seconds (or 4 seconds, that’s fine). If it stays at 3 seconds, Jump Rope should increase it by 1 second; if it's 4 seconds, Jump Rope should increase it by 0.5–1 second. This is just my opinion, but I feel that since they buffed his ability to shoot Dream Snares, it should be used effectively, not made slower with a reduced % compared to the old version. (-15% is the same as the Clown's purple bottle or the current Dream Snare). It's not an excessive amount. However, the cooldown for Dream Snare could be increased to 6–7 seconds if they’re worried it might be too powerful. But in my opinion, the cooldown for Dream Snare should be a penalty, not a basic cooldown. For example, if Dream Snare hits a Survivor, the cooldown would be 5 seconds, but if it misses, the cooldown could increase to 7 seconds.
  
• Prototype Claws (Add-On): Decreases Dream Snare charge time by 10%. I feel like this Add-On is too powerful. Normally, Dream Snare charges in just 0.35 seconds. The first time I played with this Add-On, the charge time was so fast I was shocked, especially when combined with Outdoor Rope (Add-On): Increases the speed at which Dream Snares travel by 15%. It was incredibly strong. For me, Outdoor Rope is fine and doesn’t need adjustment, but maybe the base charge time for Dream Snare should be increased, and Prototype Claws' percentage should be adjusted to be more reasonable.
  
• Blue Dress: To put it simply, it’s like using Dream Snares in their current form, but with a duration of 8 seconds before they disappear. Honestly, I don't find it very useful or necessary. But if, on the launch day, they decide to keep Blue Dress for people who miss the old Dream Snare style, I guess that’s fine, but it would be better if it lasted indefinitely like before. Or they could completely change its ability because it feels quite useless.

Dream Pallets

• The Nightmare should not be stunned by the Dream Pallets he creates. It doesn't make any sense. I think this should be removed in the launch game. Because Rupture has a 1.5-second cooldown, that’s enough time for Survivors to respond and dodge it, given that there’s both a sound and an aura on the ground.

Dream Projection

• I’m not sure whether Dream Projection being un-cancelable is appropriate. It makes The Nightmare need to be careful before using it because it could turn the situation around. Personally, I think it should be cancelable, because Dream Projection and Switch Dream Ability both use the Ctrl button, and it might get confusing at times.

[EkidonaLangley]

Freddy needs his teleport cancel back, and needs the dream pallets to not stun himself and not be obviously fake to Survivors. I don't even care about the exploding pallets, delete that and give the old pallet logic back.

[Hunterelfss]

I do agree with some of the things you say, like Freddy should not be stunnable when a survivor uses a dream pallet on him; he should be able to cancel his teleports too.

Unfortunately, I don't think his rework makes him strong enough. It's a step in the right direction, but he is still too weak.

One of the addons that Freddy has: when a survivor drops a Dream pallet, they get killer instinct and can teleport to them within 6 seconds. This should be changed to: when a survivor drops a pallet, they get killer instict and can teleport to them within 6 seconds.

There are too many pallets on the map for this addon to get any value on. Once a pallet is dropped, the survivors many times move to different pallets and rarely go back to the same pallet. I don't think this addon is useful in its current state.

Freddy has potential to be stronger, but he needs better tools in chase.

I would make the following addons:

Addon #1: Freddy can teleport to any dream pallet on the map. After teleporting, pallets within 10 metres are converted to dream pallets.

Addon #2: After Freddy teleports to a survivor or generator, pallets within 12 metres are converted to dream pallets.

Addon #3: After Freddy teleports to a generator, all survivors within 15 metres gain an extra 30 seconds to their sleep meter.

If they added Addon #2, and changed one of Freddy's addons to work with all pallets instead of Dream pallets, then when Freddy teleports to a survivor after they drop a pallet, it means those nearby pallets become dream pallets, and Freddy has a lot more pressure and power than ever before.