Confessions of a Self-Care User
It's common knowledge that a lot of people on these forums don't like Self-Care. That's fine. You do you.
What I'm doing today is just sharing why I use Self-Care on ALL of my builds that I have the perk available for, outside of custom games with friends.
I'm the type of survivor that likes to have two health states. I'm quieter when at full health, and I'm not immediately screwed if I make a mistake in a chase against a majority of the killer roster. I don't hate Iron Will, but a second health state feels more beneficial to me.
"BuT jUsT uSe InNeR sTrEnGtH oR a MeDkIt ThEn!" Sure, I could do that, or I can also go with a perk that has INFINITE USE, and isn't completely negated by a single perk that a killer is likely to bring after seeing at least two other items in the game. I don't like that Inner Strength is tied to totems, something I hunt fairly often to deal with NoED because you lot won't, and I hate that Med-kits can be dealt with Franklin's Demise entirely.
Both of those solutions also run off a limited resource, which again, I hate having. Yes even as a Pig main that has a limited number of my primary power.
Lately in my main build that I am running, I've also got Resilience, so having a perk like Self-Care that allows me to be at 99% healed, activating Resilience, and being at basically full health because I have eyes, ears and Spine Chill to tell me when the killer is near to pop my healing. Something I cannot do without comms is warn the other survivors of what I am doing. Extremely detrimental as a solo player.
There have also been a lot of times, again as a solo player, where I've had to scramble and ditch the person who just unhooked me because the killer is returning to the hook. No survivors then make contact with me for a solid while, so I'm left alone to heal myself. Even at red ranks. With a lot of survivors also caring about splitting up and "generator optimisation", you're then not always guaranteed to be nearby another survivor provided they also haven't removed themselves instantly.
One thing that everyone covers is the amount of time that Self-Care takes. It's literally the same time PER SURVIVOR as getting someone else to heal me base, and with Resilience it's even slightly faster for me to heal myself if we want to go there. Don't get me wrong though, I appreciate the healing if you're here and going to help me, but you have to actually be there to heal me.
Now something that is also rarely covered is that Self-Care in a split team can also rob the killer of some potential pressure. Let's say that they are a stealth killer, with A Nurse's Calling, and they see me Self-Caring or you healing me. They down me because I can't get away in time because I didn't notice them. If you're there too, they can just slug me and chase you meaning the killer has even more pressure with two of us now removed from doing generator work, where as if I get done by myself, then there is a chance they will leave me. Especially if there is the threat of Decisive Strike. No this will not come up very often, but it's still something that I have had happen to me on both sides. I know full well the risks of using Self-Care against a majority of killers, and I take measures to ensure my safety while I do so.
It's also surprisingly easy to get, especially since Claudette and Dwight are two of the best characters for a brand new player to start with, or at least those are the two that I recommend in a heartbeat. Claudette is base game, where as Nancy is locked behind a paywall of the Stranger Things DLC or Auric Cells, or the luck of the draw with the Shrine of Secrets. Med-kits are tied to the Bloodweb, and for anyone who knows about cycling them for specific perks/add-ons/items can tell you, "consistency" is not a word that the Entity knows.
I'm not here to convince anyone to switch to Self-Care as a healing option, or say that it is objectively the best. Just that this is the how and why of my use of the perk. I don't expect to make any friends by saying all of this and I don't care either way. I'm not an immersive P3 Blendette that hides in a corner all match to heal, since I now main Yui who's also my only prestiged character, but just an average player in red ranks who likes to have two health states and unrestricted perks where possible. I can't trust anyone as is, and usually have a mentality of "I can do it just fine myself" in a variety of things, not just in game.
Use whatever perks you want, but don't demean, harass or make insulting remarks to people who use perks you don't like. If you think less of them, keep it to yourself. Nobody asked and nobody cares if you do.
I'll see you all in the fog.
Comments
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It's not that you're using it, it's HOW you're using it. If you sprint into a corner to self-care each time you're hurt, then that's VERY bad, if you use it reasonably, and prioritize gens over healing, then it's ok.
And believe me, Kindred or Bond is much better for healing purposes. You gain a lot of additional info from these perks and see teammates that can heal you.
And please, don't self-care against sloppy butcher. Just don't.
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Not going to lie, I don't understand why people bad mouth the perk as much as they do. It is a decent perk and it is definitely not a Killer perk as some people like to claim.
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Just saying, as a killer main, I absolutely love when people run it
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The main issue people have with Self Care users is that a lot of them REALLY want to heal themselves. Like, all the time. This causes poor time management and can often be the reason generators don't get done fast enough. If the survivor knows when to use it and when to work on gens or save others, then they are good survivors that can actually make good use of the perk (like I'm assuming you are). I see a mixture of these good SC users and the heal-happy SC users in red ranks. I have seen people not use SC the entire game because there was no good moment to do so, and I have seen two people being on a hook while the one other survivor standing is self-caring across the map. It aint a good feeling.
On another note: SC and Resilience is juicy af. Resilience and Spine Chill are pretty sweet as well. Slap Dead Hard into that build and you can basically Dead Hard while healthy if you play your cards right. Although, you'd still be one-shotable if you got caught really off-guard or make a bad play, but that might be a really fun build to try out
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I feel exactly the same way and appreciate your post. I’ve had so many instances in solo where a stealth killer comes back to the hook, downs me while being healed then goes after the other person. It’s rough in solo. I can’t always get people to heal me even though I’ll fix the gen with them first and motion for it just before it pops. I’ve been called names for running it usually noob. That’s why I usually have messages disabled.
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Its not too bad with botany and botany is an underrated perk. So many heals I’ve made just in time with that perk, and you can feel it eat into the killers pressure.
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I have no problem with people running self care. Self care was meta not too long ago.
I remember I was playing on my PC a few months back and my teammates name was “F self care.” Had a whole thing in his bio about some anti-self care group he belonged to. EVERY TIME they got hurt, they came running my way as I’m on a gen, pouting to be immediately healed. If you care that much, bring self care and heal yourself 😂
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Botany definitely makes Self Care a super nice perk to have. My friend runs that combo all the time and I do occasionally as well.
Although, I prefer DM instead of Botany now. If everyone's injured, it lops off 3.5 more seconds than botany does, and its hook save speed is really nice. It's only really worse if you're the only one injured, in which case there's not much of a reason for me to heal myself lol
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Run iron will sprint burst or iron will deadhead practically the same thing. Also relying on a second healthy state doesnt improve your skill or force you to learn to make less mistakes in chase. That being said run what you like I will do the same.
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Honestly self-care is a great perk however there a lot of people just use it badly and that brings a problem with people hitting a 0erk in general not the poor usage.
Also putting this to rest the concept of just use bonds and find somebody on a generator is not as good as a lot of people think it is. The amount of times I've been working on a gen only to have some random survivor just start running up to me and teabagging me for me to heal them instead of actually jumping on the gen with me.
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good post. I am not sure if other perks affect self-care, but otherwise, can be good in healing focused build.
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Self care shouldn't exist imo, takes away the teamwork element. Another aspect I dislike is that SC users often refuse to healed by others thus slows down progression.
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I generally don't run self-care. But I feel that desperate measures has changed my stance on this.
My current build is , self-care, desperate measures, mettle of man, botany knowledge.
The strategy is not to rush gens, but instead prevent the killer from snow-balling. I'm rank 1 as both killer and survivor and I noticed as killer that survivors who rush gens usually lose when I snowball the game.
So this build is very aggressive about protecting and healing team mates and if I can reduce the pressure that the killer is applying our team can win. I've yet to lose (lose as defined by having the killer kill 2 or more people in a match) while running this build. This is at red ranks.
The way it's played. Get on a generator until a team mate is hit. Once injured I get off of the generator and immediately attempt to find the survivor and killer. It's important that I don't sand bag my team mate, but at the same time I act as a distraction or body block for the team mate. If the survivor goes down and I think I can stop him from getting hooked I do. If I can't prevent the hook then I wait until it's safe and I unhook the survivor. I will generally run with a yellow medkit (which with these add-ons lasts all game). I don't use the medkit unless the killers terror radius is nearby. If the killer interrupts I body block to allow the survivor to escape. I can heal myself at 95 percent speed compared to having a team mate heal me. I'm telling you, this build is insane. I've actually had mettle of man go off in a few games.
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I hope I'm never in your group while you spend the whole game hiding in a corner wasting time while everyone else is creating pressure to escape. Use bond, after-care, iron will, resilience, bring a med kit, go have someone else heal you. it takes half the time. SELF-CARE users annoy me Plus I feel they are a disadvantage to the group while they do nothing to progress the game
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Players like you annoy me to. Nothings worse than someone not doing gens. Think of all the time you spend waiting around. I bet you could do something more productive.
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I've done just about every playstyle and just about every build. I own every perk in this game and have put in 1k hours into both survivor and killer. I can gen rush or play altruistically. To think that there's only one way to play this game is silly.
If you only prioritize gens and never heal, if the killer is good you'll just get 4 man slugged. I've done it a million times as killer. Each strat has a counter, learn to change up your strategy when it doesn't work rather than just say anyone who doesn't play your way is wrong.
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Self-care is why Sloppy Butcher is one of my favorite slowdown perks. Good luck trying to do gens when you're constantly running to the corner of the map to spend 60 seconds healing yourself in matches that only last 10-12 minutes.
Also, what is this nonsense about self-care taking just as long 'per survivor' as healing each other? Two survivors self-caring will take 40 seconds apiece. Those same survivors using bond will take 20 seconds apiece without having to run to the corner first, and if the killer shows up the healthy one can tank a hit.
Switch self-care for bond if you're concerned about not playing injured and you'll see the benedits immediately.
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I 100% agree with everything you said here. I ran self-care 90% of the time, until inner-strength came out. I did switch because the heal is faster and it negates nurses calling. But the drawbacks are there too. If more than one or 2 people run it in a match, all the totems get cleansed real quick and you got no heals at the end of the game and iron maiden is in direct conflict with your heal. So you just have to measure which set of consequences work better for ya. I do not mind people self-caring in the slightest, because as you pointed out, getting a survivor to heal you takes 2 people out of play versus 1. I also play solo a lot and do not find altruism in the healing department running rampant in this game. So when left to my own devices it makes sense for me to be able to handle my self.
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"... or I can also go with a perk that has INFINITE USE, and isn't completely negated by a single perk that a killer is likely to bring after seeing at least two other items in the game."
Self-Care doesn't have infinite uses though. The game has a time limit. Self-Care is limited by how much time you actually have. You state you don't take a Med Kit because the Killer might run Franklin's. Which is not that common. But you run Self-Care which is heavily affected by a much more common perk, Sloppy Butcher. A perk that is completely countered by Inner Strength.
I just find it funny that you bring up Franklin's like its an actual deterrent when Sloppy exists in a much more dominant fashion.
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Again another well thought out post that I appreciate...
Plus I learned something with this... As a Pig main myself and as a low "skilled" survivor
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I've been playing around with Desperate Measures and Botany Knowledge with self-care and it's actually pretty nice in situations where most the team is injured.
I timed myself once when 3 people where injured and I self-care'd in about 18 seconds which is not much longer than someone healing me.
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I've been using SC, DM, Botany and Resilience.
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your numbers are way off. It takes 32 sec to self care. It takes ~20 sec with botany knowledge. It takes 40 sec vs sloppy butcher. It takes a teammate 16 seconds.
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If you run desperate measures and botany knowledge you can negate a lot of self cares negative effects. Assuming you don't do that its as useful as a pig trap. Could take 4 traps for the survivor to get off and cause you to win the game from long stalls. Or survivor could get it off first try and you lose all pressure. While there are games you said its come in clutch I am sure there are also games where it cost you the game because you were healing instead of doing gens so the killer was able to get the extra hook and snowball. This is what makes self care arguably the most controversial perk among survivor players. 😬
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totally agree. Running meta perks every single game is boring as hell. I love bringing DM + BT. DM has definitely helped take away a lot of killer pressure.
ive been running DM + BT + Kindred in solo queue. It’s super fun imo
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Yeah, I had tried this same build with BT instead of MoM. I think it may be stronger, but I can't resist trying to make MoM viable.
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Self-care is a bad perk and you're selfish for using it. You're ruining the match for your team by running it.
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I rather have 3 people that selfcare themselves instead of 3 people that don't use the perk and either sit in a corner cause they're too scared to do anything now that they're injured or people that do gens and get down instantly cause they're injured.
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It's really about how and when you use it. People complain about it because most self care users have very poor situational or context awareness. They'll self care through sloppy/thanat. They'll self care when someone is about to die on a hook and they haven't been hooked yet. They'll self care even though there are 2 gens left, four people alive, and they haven't taken aggro the entire game. Etc.
It can be good if you use it effectively at the right times with Botany/Resillience. You can even completely jebait killers into peeling off of a chase with someone else and onto you only for you to one-tap heal yourself in their face and Sprint Burst away. You can do some really cool stuff with, but you're hurting your team if you're just mindlessly using it in a corner every time you're injured regardless of the situation/killer load out.
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Don't comment on the post if you're not even going to read it.
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I honestly think self care is stronger than inner strength unless the killer running sloppy. Self care is a 32 sec heal without any speed up perks towards healing while inner strength is a 24 second heal but you also have to use time to find a totem and a locker. which I've seen people running around the whole map to use inner strengh. that is the point where SC is stronger than inner strength even with sloppy butcher because your wasting alot of time for a potential heal but it might not exist.
But these two perks are better with detective hunch or bounty/desperate measures. Which actually make them worth running just depends on the person.
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Botany Knowledge, Spine Chill and Resilience affects Self-Care. Of course, having three perks for healing might be a bad idea but having Botany (33% at tier III of healing speed) with Self Care (you heal yourself at 50%) makes it 83% in healing speed. This combo is good also if you use medkits as well since the healing speed is improved by 33% and the medkit efficiency is improved to 53% if you have both perks at tier III. If I recall, that increases the green medkit to be able to fully heal yourself two times instead of one.
By the way. Botany improves the healing speed when you're healing someone else, at tier III it's like 12 seconds instead of 16 seconds.
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Well, that depends on the context though, if I see I am going to save someone I'd like to have two health states at least to take a hit for someone else, now if I see someone literally at my side then of course I am going to save you, unless the killer is camping then I'll priorize my healing in order to take a hit for you.
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There's nothing wrong with self-care, I agree pretty much with everything the OP said. I like to run Self Care, Resilience, Spine Chill, Dead Hard for my solo build. I 99% myself on the heal and do gens with resilience and if I feel a chase is coming my way, I get in position somewhere and 100% myself and then have 2 health states and 3 perks to help with the chase.
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People who love trashing self care users are probably the same ones who couldn't play without it in 2017-2019.
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Self care user as well. I specialize in "escape artist" kind of maneuvers. You hit me, and within 5 seconds I just disappear (aka hide really well). Most of the time I waste a lot more of a killers time with them looking for me than most people in chases. Self care is there so I can heal up whenever he's not in earshot in case I need to run again.
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Self care tends to get used in a very selfish and time wasting way. When it's used correctly or with other perks that speed up the time it's ok but alot of people dont do this. It's even more infuriating when they use it instead of letting a survivor whose right next to them heal them.
I had a game were I used an anti healing build on Oni( sloppy, distressing, coulrophobia, thanatophobia) and a claudette was self caring ontop of the church window while I was chasing the other 3 in that area. She was up there for a good 80-90 seconds, didnt even bother to move away from my terror radius. She could have done a generator in that time she took or even saved her friend who was hooked on the other side of the church
From experience, this sums up alot of self care players for me. Not all of them but definitely a big majority of them.
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typical console survivor, puah!
(I'm joking, I love you <3, and nice post. Don't get upset over what other people say. You are allowed to be upset only against gen rushers! 🥕 - which, funnily enough, are also the people that cry when someone self cares)
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Self Care itself isn't bad.
The Players using Self Care are bad.
I personally myself prefer to run Botany with a Medkit when possible or Inner Strength for a Pocket Heal instead of having to take myself out of the match for 32 seconds with the possibility of Nurse's Calling or Sloppy Butcher making it more risky.
Post edited by Golden_spider on1 -
Other people can help heal me through Sloppy Butcher even if I have Self-Care, but if I'm running Inner Strength, then I can't.
Well, I have Self-Care and Bond on my old Claudette build, but I'll cover this now while I'm on the topic of Sloppy Butcher. My biggest point of Self-Care is that I can't always rely on teammates, especially in later stages of the game. I won't use Self-Care against Sloppy Butcher where possible but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
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I play like I have one, even if I have two. Just because I like having the option and the insurance, doesn't mean that I play into it.
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Use BOND and let your team get the points. Please stop using Self Care. Please.
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As someone who uses both on my stealth build, no. I will not stop because teammates are UNRELIABLE. It is the single biggest factor.
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True, and it's great when the killer is pressuring a lot with 2 hooks and one down, you are injured then you heal yourself and start rescuing everyone and turn the game table.
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self care users are stinky poo poo heads
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