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With the second Stranger Things DLC dropping in 2 days, I feel like we have a really big elephant left in this room that needs addressing. While Steve has unintentionally remained in the community consciousness due to the "Stegull" meme and Nancy not only is getting a visual update with ST2, but also still consistently has some of the better (if admittedly niche) perks in the game, we're left with one character who's left out like a sore thumb as the game has evolved: The Demogorgon.

Demogorgon's state in the game has not been kind as everything has evolved around him. He is currently below the statistical average for killers, finding himself below Hillbilly and Vecna (the first one... the one from D&D) and only slightly above Wraith, Pyramid Head, and Dracula. This pick rate doesn't get any better if you go back a few months on Nightlight as if you look back at November, Demo's pick rate was even worse with him being on-par with Unknown and Knight at that time. I don't think it's a stretch to say the only reason for Demo's recent "popularity" (in massive air quotes) is his boss being added to the game soon.

What's even worse however is Demogorgon's kill rate. Now he's not the worst by any stretch (somehow both Springtrap and Nemesis have worse kill rates than him) but he is very far below the average kill rate, underperforming in comparison to other notoriously weak killers like Ghostface, Trickster, and Dredge. Otzdarva's latest tier list (which granted, was made 3 months ago) puts Demo at the bottom of C tier, only marginally above the "forever awful" trio of Ghostface / Trapper / Skull Merchant and placed below many infamously weak killers like Bubba, Pig, and Clown.

Demogorgon to me is the definition of power-creep. Everything they do is done better by other killers: pallet-shredding in chase with dashes is done better by Blight, the Myers rework, Nemesis, Singularity, Dracula, and a handful of killers like Wesker and Chucky with the appropriate addons. In terms of raw anti-loop, many killers do his job much more efficiently even if they lack Demo's pallet-shredding capabilities. We've had so many killers since Demo who have far better global teleports between Freddy, Xenomorph, Dredge, Springtrap, and even Unknown and Dracula to a lesser extent. And even in terms of raw mobility and map-traversal we have Houndmaster, Vecna (the first from D&D), Krasue, and good ol' Ghoul who can get around much more easily than Demo. This isn't even mentioning the ungodly levels of clunk that Demo has gotten throughout the years as his code has gotten old and dusty: he's a relic of an era that's long-since past and the lack of good updates have shown.

Now I don't think that Demo's current design is somehow unsalvageable. A simple "dash forward, hit survivor, break pallet if hit pallet" most certainly works. Now I do think that unfortunately a lot of new map design (particular with Pallet Density) has harmed Demo overall, notably with far more "small loop" pallets which consist of one pallet surrounded by two small rocks or other similar props. These types of tiles are ones Demo really struggles on as he can not easily line up a Shred attack, while other anti-loop killers either have a faster draw on their attacks (Deathslinger, Xenomorph, Vecna the First the D&D), the ability to play around the tile in other ways (Chucky, Wesker, Dredge), or can just break the damn pallet to continue chasing far faster than Demo can (Nemesis, Singularity, Dracula.) I will still propose a hypothetical Demogorgon power rework but I'm going to focus most of my post on changes that can be made to Demo's basekit to make them better, as I know changes to the base power are a lot more realistic of a request than an entire killer rework when many other killers (Skull Merchant, Trickster, Krause?) need their own reworks.

#A Hypothetical Demogorgon Power Rework

I personally think it's rather a shame that while Demo goes into a "crawling" stance quite often (mainly in their menu animations), this more animalistic side of their design isn't really a part of their gameplay. Demo for all intents and purposes is just "a guy with a weird head" in terms of animations and never really stops walking on two legs. So this idea came somewhat from the Myers rework but the main intention was to introduce more skill-expression into the Shred attack and also allow Demo to play around those small tiles that Demo struggles with.

Instead of simply opening his mouth, charging Shred would cause Demo to start prowling on the ground as it begins to charge its attack. When fully charged (working similarly to how it does now: longer charge = more distance), Demo would do its iconic screech before running forward on all fours. This dash would have similar turning control to Oni, making wide turns but also not colliding with terrain. If you ran into a pallet or a survivor, you'd simply hit them and either get an injury or break the pallet much like Demo works currently.

I think this design retains a lot of Demo's core appeal while allowing him to better play around many of the newer tiles. I also think this doesn't step on the toes of other killers as while we have dashing killers that break pallets (Dracula Wolf) and we obviously have Oni, we don't really have a killer who does short-ranged "charging attacks" rather than swift dashes or long charges / dashes. I think leaning into the more animalistic side of Demo would allow them to stand out in comparison to the other anti-loop killers in the game.

#But people like current Demo, so what can be done about current Demo?

There's three main things I'd like to see tweaked with Demo's current kit to make them more appealing, however they are also fairly substantial changes. But if we are to keep Demo's current kit, I think it would need a lot of work to function. With that in mind here's what I'd like to see:

###1. Please fix Demogorgon's Shred timings and hitboxes

The timing part is a simple but ungodly crucial element to mention: Please God add Input Buffering to Demo's Shred. You do not know the amount of times I have charged a Shred, tried to use it, just to figure out I didn't charge it for long enough and end up swinging at thin air like an idiot instead. Please this single change would increase Demo's quality of life massively with very little downside imo.

As for the hitbox of Shred: it's very bad. Maybe not pre-patch Bubba Chainsaw levels of bad (anyone who played Bubba prior to him getting Knife Scratches basekit and a tweak to his chainsaw hitbox knows how frequently he'd bump into thin air) but certainly quite poor. Demo gets stunned for a very long time if you happen to hit an object with your Shred, something that was fine back in 2019 but now makes Demo feel woefully outdated.

There's other tweaks I'd like to see to Demo too. One big change I'd like if instead of being animation-locked after breaking a pallet, Demo instead did the "successful hit" scream and could look around freely. This would not only put him on-par with Nemesis (who can look around freely after breaking a pallet) but also fix a big issue with Demo where he can literally get flashlight blinded after breaking a pallet with power, something that no other killer who breaks pallets with their power has to deal with.

There's not much else I can really say when it comes to hitboxes because without access to the raw code these types of discussions are largely about "vibes" more than balance, but the point still stands: Demo's hitboxes are really bad, and holy shit please add input buffering to this killer.

###2. Bringing Demo's portals up to a modern standard

Something that I think has become really obvious about Demo's portals is that having to manually place them is more of a detriment than a benefit. Back in the day being able to manually place a portal allowed for Demo to strategically camp specific locations like basement or key totems, but given the nerfs to these playstyles as part of the base game (basekit BT) and Demo specifically (pool whistle rework) all that placing portals manually entails is adding a Trapper-esque "walk around the map to pick up your power" element to Demo's kit. And as we all know the most entertaining part of Trapper is walking around the map ignoring generators just to get the ability to use your damn power.

The simple solution is obviously to have the portals automatically spawn near generators using similar logic to Springtrap doors / Xeno control stations / Sadako TVs / etc. But I also think the ability to close portals against Demo proposes a really cool opportunity for counterplay from survivors, as they are able to incorporate a risk-reward system between wasting time to make the killer's arrival slower but also alert the killer that they are at a specific location, so I'd like to propose some changes to how portals work overall.

Portals now spawn with similar logic to Springtrap doors. I don't know if the portal model would have to be changed to accommodate this, but I digress. All portals would start closed (invisible) and would open once Demo went through it. I also think that we could perhaps allow Demo to still "place" up to three portals by trying to teleport while not on top of a portal, still allowing Demo a bit of flexibility in setting up areas they may want to come back to.

Now here's the change I'd like to propose: when teleporting to an opened portal, the transportation is considerably faster. I'm talking something along the lines of Rotten Green Tripe speed. However, when teleporting to a closed portal, you will come out significantly slower. This means that if survivors close your portal, they can be guaranteed a level of safety at the cost of spending time to shut down your power.

However I'd also like to propose another system change: the stealth that Demo gets by exiting portals has always been odd, and especially with Springtrap getting Undetectable that's 5 times stronger than Demo's Undetectable it feels out-of-place overall. So here's what I'd like to suggest to add some unique push-and-pull to Demo's portals: When teleporting to a CLOSED portal, The Demogorgon does so completely silently. I do not know if the Undetectable should also be made longer when teleporting to a closed portal or if the Undetectable should be removed from going through an open portal, but I think this adds more risk/reward to survivors closing portals. It also presents a reason for a Demo to teleport to an unopened portal close to a generator (rather than one directly on-top of the survivors) to potentially sneak up on them.

###3. A Top-Down Addon Rework

Demogorgon's addons is probably the most notorious problem with this killer: with the exception of Barb's Glasses, his best tools on offer are his Browns with most of his higher-level addons affecting the portals, an aspect of the power that barely matters. So given that I've laid out how I'd rework Demo's portals I'd also like to go down the list of his addons to share how I'd rework them. Also I did a tiny bit of rarity swapping for "lore reasons" mostly because I couldn't think of good reworks for some of these addons without altering their rarity.

BROWN

• Black Heart - Unchanged. QoL addon.

• Rat Liver - Unchanged. Allows for tighter Shred hits.

• Rat Tail - Reduces your Terror Radius by 10 meters while holding Of the Abyss. Inspired by Chucky's addons that reduce his Terror Radius and also Slinger's addons that reduce Terror Radius while holding his gun. Idk how practical this would be, but truthfully it's hard to create completely original ideas to rework Demo's awful addons man :/

• Rotten Pumpkin - Unchanged. With the new changes to portals (remain after being closed, become stealthy when closed) this addon actually presents a unique opportunity to allow Demo more easy access to their stealth at the cost of speed.

GREEN

• Barb's Glasses - Unchanged. It's currently one of Demo's best addons and the hope is that giving Demo new addons would make this less mandatory but still good and viable.

• Mews' Guts - Now has an effect similar to current Brass Case Lighter (Blindness debuff addon)

First of all: why was the Blindness when touching portals removed? It only applies when closing the portal now which was a pointless nerf. Other than that I think you could make it so hitting a survivor within a certain period of leaving a portal (45 seconds? 30 seconds?) would give that survivor Blindness for (45 seconds? 30 seconds?) This would allow the addon to serve as an "anti-Windows of Opportunity" addon while also retaining its old (if limited) utility. This addon could also honestly be moved down to Green rarity idk.

• Rotten Green Tripe - Could perhaps only apply to opened portals? I don't know.

• Sticky Lining - A sister addon to Rotten Green Tripe that would instead make traveling through closed portals faster. Good in stealth builds or if you think survivors will keep your portals closed. The detection mechanic on the portals has always been such a strange idea overall, so I think this is a good change.

• Viscous Webbing - Fine now that portals will be around and open more often. Could maybe be buffed slightly idk.

BLUE

• Brass Case Lighter - Rarity swapped with Upside Down Resin.

Similarly to Vicious Webbing another "close portals slower lol" addon is probably fine for raw utility.

• Deer Lung - With the new mechanics of Demo's portals I could easily see this addon being changed to make exiting opened portals significantly faster at the cost of going through closed portals significantly slower. Another potential idea would be to make it so Deer Lung makes the portals work similarly to Xenomorph (IE have to go to a "control station" to teleport, rather than teleporting anywhere you want at will IE IE remove Demo's ability to "manually place" portals) so Demo would have to spend more time getting to a teleportation spot in exchange for greater mobility.

• Eleven's Soda - Fine I suppose but it's crazy that Springtrap gets Bonnie's Guitar String meanwhile Demo is stuck with this. Not saying Demo needs a Bonnie's Guitar String-esque addon but still.

• Thorny Vines - Now causes Shred to inflict Mangled for (70? 60?) seconds. Just a typical Mangled addon to allow Demo to inflict some anti-heal more easily.

• Violet Waxcap - Could either be buffed to compensate for Demo going through closed portals silently (gives like 5 extra seconds of Undetectable when going through a closed portal) or could just be made so Demo gets Undetectable regardless of exiting an opened or closed portal (3 seconds of Undetect regardless of portal?)

PURPLE

• Lifeguard Whistle - Reverted to its original design (reveals survivors on top of portals without charging Shred); I think if Demo can't place portals near totems anymore, the issues with this addons' design (camping Devour Hope totems) is fixed. Perhaps this addon could make closing portals faster to compensate for its strength.

• Unknown Egg - Now causes the Oblivious effect from touching an active portal to linger for awhile. Could either be touch-based or only apply upon closing a portal.

• Upside Down Resin Brass Case Lighter - Upon downing a survivor with Shred, triggers a Surge-like effect within (32? 24?) meters, regressing all generators by (6%? 8%?) and causing survivors to scream. I always thought it was kinda odd that Demo didn't really synergize with their own perks, and this design is inspired by both Ghostface's gen stall addon (Driver's License) and how killers like Leatherface have addons that mimic some of the effects of their perks (Shop Lubricant mimicking Knockout's effect... I mean at least until Knockout was reworked but idk.) Giving Demo an innate gen stall addon would be very helpful for rather self-evident reasons, and if this Surge-esque effect didn't count as a regression even it could be really helpful for Demo overall.

• Vermilion Webcap - See Violet Waxcap. Personally I think Violet should be the "increased stealth when leaving a closed portal" addon while this should be the "stealth regardless of portal you exit" addon.

IRIDESCENT

• Leprose Lichen - Unchanged. If anything this becomes significantly stronger with the new portal spawning mechanics.

• Red Moss - Now makes Demo exit portals silently regardless of if they are opened or closed, on top of removing the global sound effect for doing so. This would have great synergy with the addons that give Demo stealth upon leaving a portal and also give Demo flexibility to move around the map silently and sneak up on generators. In fairness idk if this is really worth being an Iridescent and I'm willing to have this "exit all portals silently" mechanic be attached to Vermillion Webcap or even Violet Waxcap, while "Undetectable whenever you exit any portal" be an iridescent addon with a longer duration (like 10 seconds if leaving an opened portal and 20 seconds if leaving a closed portal.)

#Bonus Mention: Reworking the old Stranger Things perks

While I think Nancy's perks are currently in a good state and both Surge and Mindbreaker have a lot of utility, I think Cruel Limits from Demogorgon and also most of Steve's perks (except Babysitter) have not aged well, so I figured I'd throw some rework proposals into this post as well.

Cruel Limits - YouTuber "Plat By Daylight" made a video about Cruel Limits (that I can't link without automod getting mad, lol) so I'll just extend his rework concept for the perk here: instead of activating upon generator completion, Cruel Limits would now cause all windows and pallets near a kicked generator to become blocked for a short duration of time, allowing you to more easily chase survivors in the area. While this would perhaps have some problems synergizing with Nowhere to Hide especially on more mobile or lethal killers (Billy notable mention), I think this design would be a lot more generally useful overall.

Second Wind - I find it odd how this perk is just "faster Clean Break that only activates twice." It has more-or-less the same activation conditions as Clean Break, more-or-less does the same thing as Clean Break (inflict Broken to heal over time), but only activates on unhook while Clean Break can be activated at any time. So in order to change this perk for one I'd like to see it activate the same way Clean Break does where (instead of having to do "100%" of a heal) it'll activate upon completing a heal: Second Wind's current activation condition of having to "100%" a heal just screws you over if a survivor has Resurgence equipped or if someone else happens to do a co-op heal with you.
Beyond that I'd like for Second Wind and Clean Break to exist as sort-of sister perks to each-other. The way I see it a simple way to make Clean Break and Second Wind different is to turn one into the "heal someone else to heal yourself" perk while the other one remains as "get a light tap from a friend to heal over time" perk. I think Clean Break can remain the "have a friend tap you to heal" perk (as it fits Taurie as a character and also fits the idea of "resetting a bone in place" as it were idk), but Second Wind could now exist as the "heal someone else to heal yourself" perk (as helping others and fending for yourself when backed in a corner fits Steve better as a character.)
After completing a heal on another survivor (same activation condition as current Clean Break), Second Wind becomes "primed." While injured and not Broken, crouch and push the Reassurance button (can't overlap with Pebble, I guess) to activate Clean Break. After doing so, become Broken for 60 seconds. If you are not put into the Dying state during this team, remove the Broken status effect and get healed for one health state. Getting put into the Dying state disables the perk and you'll have to "re-prime" it to activate it again.
As for Clean Break: it would essentially work like it does currently without an activation condition. At any time while being healed, push the Dead Hard button to activate Clean Break, become Broken, and do the stuff Clean Break does. Nice perk for the Resilience Andy's to let their heal-happy friends still heal them while still getting value out of Resilience and other injured perks. And by comparison Second Wind becomes a fantastic self-healing build for people who want to run altruistic builds (Autodidact my beloved) to be able to heal themselves instead of bringing a medkit to heal themselves.

Camradarie - This perk is in a very awkward position where on the one hand it's basically "better Reassurance" (lasts longer, bigger activation AoE) but on the other hand it's restricted not only because it only activates on second hook, but also because it can be hard for teammates to understand that you have this perk equipped. Honestly the biggest buff to Camradarie would just be if it showed up on the HUD for your teammates when you were on (second) hook to alert them that you have it, but I also think Camradarie could perhaps work on both hook phases? I don't see anything wrong with a "selfish Reassurance" in the same way that Off The Record is a "selfish Borrowed Time."
I could also see Camradarie being reworked into a perk that makes the anti-facecamp bar build up faster but I'd like such a mechanic to be done as a rework to Slippery Meat instead. There's an entire separate discussion to be had about Luck as a mechanic in DbD but I think that a free anti-camping perk would be a lot healthier for the game than a licensed DLC one, and that Camradarie's current design doesn't need to be completely reworked (but instead made easier to use outside of a SWF.)