A thorough, respectful, and in-depth discussion about DS
No BS "don't tunnel" comments please, nor any insults or comments that are just a little bit snarky meant to bait an annoyed reply (just git gud).
As it stands right now, Decisive strike is probably the most powerful survivor perk in the game because of what it does and how powerful the effect is. The issues with the perk include (if I missed any please tell me):
- The perk lasting too long
- The perk can still activate even when not tunneling a survivor
- The perk can be abused with lockers and unbreakable
- The perk can allow a survivor to work on objectives without having to worry about being downed as much
The most common arguments for keeping DS the way it is includes the following (If I missed any please tell me):
- Tunneling happens often and it helps mitigate this
- The killer can choose not to tunnel to counter it
It is not an anti tunneling perk as mentioned by the devs- It has been nerfed enough already and is balanced
- You can get rid of it early on if you eat the DS
To counter the "argument" of the perk not being an anti-tunnel perk really quick, just think for a second. A perk that discourages the killer from tunneling just in general by creating an obsession as well as punishing the killer for continuing to chase a recently unhooked survivor seems like it would be an anti-tunneling perk right? Well, that is correct. The perk is definitely an anti-tunnel perk.
My opinion: The perk is too powerful and needs to be nerfed correctly the next time a nerf for it comes.
Why? Because of the arguments described above.
The perk lasts a full minute. A full minute in dead by daylight is a very long time and during this time the killer can't even hook you because they would then take a 5-second stun. There are few times where you can eat a DS to get the perk out of the way while still being able to maintain pressure on the other survivors. Just the mere existence of an obsession is enough to make the killer refrain from tunneling anyone and instead of slugging a recently unhooked survivor. Just eating one DS can be enough for the survivors to make a comeback and escape which isn't necessarily bad as sometimes it is used against a tunneling killer, but there are a lot of times where you have to slug someone out of fear of getting hit by it. Doing this benefits all other survivors because you don't get a hook state out of one when you probably should have.
Even when not tunneling a survivor, you can still get hit by a decisive strike. This is a fact. There are moments where you aren't tunneling a survivor that was unhooked recently and when you pick them up they hit you with DS. This is ridiculous. Sometimes, when a survivor is unhooked they can run into you. This is technically not tunneling because the killer didn't actively seek out to catch you after the hook, but it still activates DS. This can also happen when you chase and hook another survivor, still ridiculous.
The perk is very abusable with lockers and unbreakable. By abusable, I mean create a lose-lose situation for the killer that is straight up unfair. If a survivor that you want to slug to avoid DS jumps in a locker, there is nothing you can do except wait for the full duration if you want to throw the game. If used with unbreakable, you have to slug them and have that survivor pick themselves up. If you want to tunnel, then you get hit with DS. In the current state of the game, the killer can be encouraged to camp a little or tunnel someone to get the upper hand. However, these strategies counter that.
The perk allows survivors to work on generators without having to worry about being contested by the killer. I feel I don't really need to explain this. They can use the 60 seconds they get from DS to reset and do gens with guaranteed safety. They can literally do it right in your face to annoy you and try to bait you into grabbing them. If you try to slug them, then they can jump in a locker to force a DS.
My logical explanation against the counter-arguments: They are flawed or wrong. Again, you have to look at this from a very logical perspective.
Tunneling does not happen nearly as often as many people believe. Honestly, I don't even get tunneled during rank reset which is when all kinds of ranked killers and survivors play with each other. Yes, it does happen and is not exactly rare, but it is uncommon enough to survive without the use of DS. In fact, skilled players are going to be mostly unaffected by tunneling. I watch many different survivor streamers and the amount of tunneling that they have experienced is minimal. Over-tunneling someone is actually detrimental to a killer in most situations because they lose pressure on everyone else.
A killer choosing not to tunnel a survivor using DS which is the counter. This isn't a counter DS because the situation is still in favor of the survivor, and the killer loses a hook state on a survivor.
It may have been nerfed many times, but it is still not balanced. Just because it has been nerfed many times does not mean that it is fine. In fact, it might even be stronger now because there is no counterplay to it. Before you could at least dribble a survivor with DS, now you can't do anything except wait 60 seconds which is not a counter but a detriment.
You can take the perk out early, but it is an uncommon situation and different for most killers. Killers like Wraith or Pig have very few times where they can give up pressure to take out DS early from one of four survivors possibly running it. A stronger killer such as huntress on the other hand can because she can get back into the game and keep up with survivors much easier.
Conclusion: Decisive strike is too strong and should be nerfed.
Decisive strike alone is a very powerful perk, too powerful, and should be nerfed to be an actual anti-tunnel perk. The perk doesn't even have to be on a survivor to help. If there is an obsession from an obsession creating perk or addon, the killer has to play like there are 4 DS users or suffer if they do have it. The perk should be nerfed to the point where it can prevent tunneling from happening but still be fair. DS gives each individual survivor 60 seconds of being able to do whatever the hell they want and it can feel pretty lame sometimes. I know that tunneling is a very lame thing for a lot of people, but I think that this problem can eventually be solved without relying on decisive strike.
Please stay polite and even kind in the comments.
Comments
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Why do people keep saying it got nerfed? It’s literally stronger than ever.
Old DS you could ignore with Enduring, was impacted by Unnerving Presence, and you could juggle people to keeps.
The brief period where DS was bugged and the stun was half duration on a ton of killers made me miss old enduring so much.
Current DS is “I’m gonna sit in this locker and either eat my DS or wait a full minute while my team slams generators”
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As a survivor main I can 90% agree that DS should be nerfed to be more fair. I have witnessed times in which DS has caused killers their kill and after spending some time on the forum I can see why it's frustrating.
However I have a concern. I'm concerned about overnerfing it and it sometimes seems like that's the direction many killers want to go down. I'm also concerned with the fact that nerfs suggested can destroy legitimate instances of tunneling.
If you think my concerns are unfonded please let me know.
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Honestly there needs to be more counter-play involved with dealing with DS. I understand needing a way to get away from the killer after an un-hook but it comes down to survivors using DS in an offensive way against the killer. If PGTW can have its time reduced because killers can do other things before using Pop, the same logic can be applied to DS. I'm more along the lines of having the Obsession being the only one that can use DS, since you know its an obsession perk...
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I would never abuse ds because if I missed it I would be so embarrassed but I like it because sometimes I get farmed off the hook.
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Yes, the only time you can really "eat" the DS is if the match is going well in my favor (e.g. I have a few hooks and 5 gens remain). Otherwise, I have to slug you every time now. And as you mentioned, the SWF teams use DS as essentially an invulnerability perk and will unhook in front of your face at the end of a match to get the save. Surely this is not how the perk was intended.
Even a simple deactivation of DS during end game collapse might be a sufficient nerf. As written the 60 seconds is more than enough time to crawl out the exit gate and the killer just has to sit there and watch you trudge to freedom.
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Overtuning DS is a worry of mine as well
But creating a decision for survivor by adding conditions of deactivation (or shortening the activation timer)... like healing or progressing the match in any way would make the give and take of using the perk easier to handle... IMO
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I agree, over nerfing it is definitely not the best way to handle it.
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It is called decisive strike. Read the perk description, understand Laurie's lore.
What do killers expect the perk to do? You answered your own question, its been nerfed to hell. If anything, it should be re-buffed so the killer has no idea it is coming.
Conclusion: You aren't supposed to win every game and killers are not entitled to put someone on the hook simply because they downed someone.
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I feel like you didn't even read the discussion.
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"Killers are not entitled to put someone on the hook simply because they downed someone." What are we entitled to then?
"It's been nerfed to hell. If anything, it should be re-buffed so the killer has no idea it is coming." Okay, you're delusional. Ds is got buffed from that "nerf". It's one of if not the best perk in the game for survivors.
"It is called decisive strike. Read the perk description, understand Laurie's lore." Lore shouldn't play a part in how unbalanced something is.
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To play the game. A survivor should have ways of fighting back, it is called trying to survive.
I'm not delusional but if someone has something in their hand to break free from the killer, you as the killer shouldn't dictate when it is used.
It's not unbalanced. A person only has 60 seconds to use it. You are always guaranteed to hook the person and if you don't try to hook them again within 60 seconds, it is a dead perk and they played the game with only 3 perks. That is a huge sacrifice. Of those 60 seconds, you can occupy yourself hooking someone else and the timer is almost always gone. I think since it is only a 1-time use perk, it should be used at any time, pre-hook or after-hook.
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60 seconds is huge when playing killer. For a full minute, a survivor with DS activated could do a generator in your face and get away with it especially if they use lockers. I mentioned this in the discussion. Also, the huge sacrifice is not that huge when you think about it. That is only one of four other survivors. As killer, your time is very precious and you can't afford to waste ANY time.
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Do know how long 60 seconds is in dbd? Time is all that matters in this game, every second counts. 60 seconds of invincibility is wayyyyy to long. Ds should be turned into a proper anti-tunnel perk, it shouldn't just be a middle finger to the killer because their preforming well.
Decisive will never be a "dead perk". Even if you never actually hit the killer with it, as long as there's an obsession in the match, the killer has to assume everyone is running it.
I know you want survivors to "fight back" or whatever, but they shouldn't be invincible. Survivors should not have a perk that allows them to stab the killer whenever the hell they feel like it, old Ds had one of the worst designs for a perk I think I've ever seen.
I highly recommend you educate yourself by watching this video by Scott. In it, he explains why Ds is such a strong perk.
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I am also pretty sure the devs have said they want the ability for survivors to fight back to be very minimal.
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You can down them, then go after someone else, it would waste unbreakable if they have it, or force survivors to heal them up, which is still WASTED time, you guys act like as soon as someone gets unhooked you have no other option but to instant try and down and hook them again. THIS Mindset is the reason you people have issues with DS, it is counterable, it can be, and it's not that freaking hard, if someone runs at you to get it used, or jumps into a locker, just go somewhere else, you shouldn't have chased them in the first place, play smart and go after the 3 OTHER people in the game
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Yeah, I also recall them saying that.
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Original DS could only actually be countered by dribbling the survivor if they were downed close to the hook. If four people were running DS, you were pretty much going to eat 3-4 DS's, because eventually they were going to be downed farther from the hook. Dribbling also wasted a lot of time for the killer even if they were able to dodge the DS.
When the obsession mechanic was added, now killers could at least have free reign to ignore DS in matches with no obsession. Non-obsessions also had to wiggle to a certain percentage before using DS, so dribbling was only necessary if you were far from a hook. This is clearly weaker and easier to counter than the original version.
With the 60 second timer, it's easier than ever to counter. Slugging is now a decent counter; even if someone's running UB, you can slug if you're close to 60 seconds and still pick them up. If not, though, you can still leave them slugged to waste a lot of time. You can also largely counter DS just by preferentially picking different targets instead of tunneling. I realize that killers still often get hit with DS when they're not tunneling, but you can cut out the majority of the times you eat a DS by just switching targets. This was not possible before. Any slug running DS that hadn't used their DS yet would always have DS active.
It's not in a good state yet in my opinion, but it's definitely been substantially nerfed from its original state. The Enduring and Unnerving Presence nerfs pale in comparison. Even if these perks had their old effects, DS is easy enough to avoid now that it's hard to justify wasting a perk slot just to soft counter DS.
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Slugging a survivor with DS is not a counter. You will not get a hook state out of the survivor so it is more favorable to them. It merely mitigates the perk.
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Not to mention slugging them does literally nothing if they have Unbreakable.
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Or no mither
(jk who runs no mither lol)
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But 60 seconds has almost always elapsed after chasing someone else and finally hooking them. I'm still not seeing how DS is an issue because even if you find the person again within 60 seconds you are likely doing so well you are winning. You could still slug them and that means they can't do anything. Yes I know some throws in front of the killer to use their perk but guess what they are not doing gens so you can slug them or whatever. The best way to win is do gens, not running to the killer just to be slugged, etc.
Nothing against Scott but he's a killer main that never loses (whenever I've watched, I never see him lose). It's like a survivor main complaining about NOED after doing all the gens and totems. .....You won, why are you complaining?
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Slugging is no counter at all. You put in the same time investment and effort to disable a survivor but get no hook state out of it and have to leave them to be rescued anyway if you want to regain the map pressure you wasted on the chase.
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decisive strike a minute long. if you are killer and keep eating the DS, you are not pressuring other survivors. If you can’t get to those other survivors because they’re too good, why are you complaining about a perk and not the game itself. Changing The perk won’t change the chases. Can we agree, that getting hooked again 60 seconds later sucks? It does when there’s nothing you can do about it. So with that, changing ds would be this mechanical mess that would probably bug the game even more.
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