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In defence of Dead Man’s Switch.......if you dedicate your entire build to it.
I think I’m better understanding DMS, and the limitations it has when used strictly on its own.
Many killers focus on that it doesn’t help regress gens, and it prevents any ongoing active regression (Ruin for example). But what (seemingly) many killers don’t acknowledge is that it prevents other survivors from continuing repairs on a blocked gen while you are engaged in a chase with another.
Regression is all about buying extra time. DMS does the same via a different method, whilst additionally preventing someone else immediately running back over to the gen to resume repairs while chasing someone away.
Now that I’m using it more often, I’m starting to see that the design of DMS had dealing with SWF on comms in mind, hence why on its own DMS is very limiting. Because if it were any more stronger on its own, in conjunction with other strong meta perks, it would be a NIGHTMARE for solo survivors.
This is EXACTLY why it’s an Obsession perk, and introduced shortly after a small number of other Obsession switching mechanics/tools. I’m almost certain that the devs intended that for DMS to realise its full power, an entire build needs to be built around it to prevent other oppressive meta perks to also be used with DMS with the same level of power.
So i’ve been using DMS, Gearhead, Furtive Chase, Nemesis. (We’ll talk about Gearhead later).
”But you’re using 4 perk slots to make one perk work. That’s crazy!!!”.
Yes, but it works EXTREMELY well. 6 to 8+ activations of DMS is extraordinarily strong. Like really strong. And as stated earlier, it completely trumps any voice comms related to coordinating gens while the killer is chasing someone else the killer just got off of a gen. Because, well... it’s blocked innit! They can either wait DMS out, or jump on another gen that they might also be potentially chased off of.
There’s a few other healthy gameplay tid bits when combo’ing DMS, Furtive, and Nemesis. I.e. things that are FAR less tilting when using these 3 perks together:
- “Just eat the stun”. Seriously. Don’t respect pallets, don’t respect DS. Eat the pallet. Pick them up. Open that locker. Go on, take a ride on the wild side.
- “Just eat the blind”. Unless it’s an attempted save, let them blind you. Let them waste their battery. You’re likely to spot their aura the moment the blind duration elapses.
- Tunnelling kinda then becomes dependent on the survivors. I.e. there’s likely to be far less tunnelling because of the frequency of Obsession switching, UNLESS there’s that one hero that is always doing the save, or other things that would lead them to become the Obsession “sorry, but it’s obvious there is Obsession switching occurring, and my goal is to go after the Obsession wherever sensibly possible, so this is YOUR fault. YOU chose this.”
- It’s quite clearly and anti-camp build. The killer gets NOTHING out of this by waiting by a hook. Survivors see the DMS notification. They’re not going to willingly get off a gen unless they’re stupid or chased off.
- No need to spend time kicking gens. This is a pretty big deal. Being able to chase someone off of a nearly completed gen, ignore kicking it (because you can’t) and engage in a chase with them straight away without risk of the gen being finished 3 seconds after the chase started is a pretty big deal, with the only caveat being no regression is occurring during that period. It’s actually not a bad trade off.
About Gearhead.
As someone that uses M1 killers (mostly Clown & Doc), I get more reliable use/synergy with DMS than the alternatives. I almost always (almost) know which gens to chase survivors off of. But let’s go over other things you could use, particularly if you’re an M2 killer.
Discordance - risky. In my experience most experienced survivors are savvy enough to quickly suspect when Discordance is being used, and they’ll never coop on a gen again for the remainder of the match.
Surveillance - the only caveat here is that it only works on kicked gens, something the build is trying to avoid wasting time on. And of course if the survivors are on a gen you’ve never kicked, then only the extra hearing distance helps.
TT - potentially a better choice, but there is the cool down to contend with, and smart survivors will let go of a gen upon seeing a survivor downed, anticipating the pick up. Meaning they can jump back on after TT, the killer will not know about it, and the survivor can continue repairing through DMS potentially never being chased off.
BBQ - I don’t think I need to cover BBQ’s shortfalls.
Whispers - a decent choice. It wouldn’t be hard to determine which gen(s) you need to pressure when Whispers procs.
You could forego any perk that tells you which gens to pressure, and just do a lap. I’ve sometimes used the build with Remember Me or Rancor, and still had success. Personally I find Gearhead the most reliable in getting the absolute most out of DMS.
In summary, DMS, Furtive, Nemesis is actually ridiculously strong together, and viable way of trumping voice comms. The only risk is if an Obsession decides to hide all match, and all other survivors never attempt a pallet stun, blind, and are too frightened to use their DS (lol, yeah right). It means foregoing many other meta perks, but that’s the point. DMS on its own having the capability for more than 3 activations without Obsession switching (other than DS stuns) PLUS 2 or more popular meta perks would just be an unbearable unbalanced mess.
Try it for a few games if you’re bored with your usual builds.
Comments
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It's still mediocre at best because DMS activates for 45 seconds after the hook. Not after the Survivor lets go of the generator.
So in practice the most it blocks a generator is like 30 seconds or less. Honestly, Repressed Alliance is better at denying gens and that's a Survivor perk (honestly if RA it was a Killer perk it might be pretty decent like an alternate version of pop kick the gen and block it for 45 seconds)
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30 seconds of another survivor not being able to jump on the gen after someone has just been chased off of it, 6 to 8+ times a match is a pretty big deal. It’s mediocre on its own because of the coordination it prevents. Like I said if it worked as effectively as it does with Furtive & Nemesis but on its own instead, it would be broken with other meta perks.
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I think that it should activate only after a survivor stops working on a gen, not immediately after you hook the obsession and it cannot reset or stack if you somehow hook someone else as an obsession during this time.
Since survivors can easily counter it by just working on the generator (they are given a debuff warning for dead man's switch in the bottom right) I think it should have some sort of debuff if they continue to work on the gen. Maybe a regression penalty by 15% and have their auras revealed for as long as the perk lasts. Maybe, it still wouldn't exactly be a top tier perk.
However, it is a good perk on Freddy with a certain playstyle.
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I like this it encourages the killer to actively pressure gens. A passive block immediately upon hooking would be too unhealthy, especially in the build I’ve mentioned.
Also, it currently doesn’t stack or reset. If a new Obsession is hooked before a current 45 second activation ends, DMS doesn’t reset or stack. The killer either needs to wait before hooking (if it’s onky a few seconds left anyway), or just accept that they’re already doing pretty damn well ending 2 chases in under 45 seconds and probably doesn’t need DMS activating again so soon.
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The debuff only appears if they let go off a gen while the perk is active. Which is basically just there so the survivors know it's a perk causing the gen to be blocked.
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I’ve enjoyed using it but to say it’s a struggle is an understatement. 45 seconds of a gen being blocked is pretty good but survivors aren’t losing progress on said gen.
It is fun on class photo Freddy though
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I've used Furtive and DMS with Freddy before at Rank 1. Survivors don't get off gens unless you force them to. It just encourages the "gens before friends playstyle" plus I always felt like it wasn't worth giving up Pop or Ruin for because if you chase a Survivor off a gen they're busy so they already aren't coming back so who TF cares if its blocked.
Maybe there are some god tier plays you can make with green rank Survivors that use bond and prove thyself instead of meta perks. But in practice at Rank 1 its nothing but a meme build. It never feels like you get as much value from it as other regression perks
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pretty good with oppresion too in theory.
They do let go if they fail the skillcheck right?
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In theory, perhaps. In practice, it can at least partially anti-synergize with Dead Man's Switch because you'd only be able to kick gens that were not being worked on as the Obsession was hooked (since Dead Man's Switch prevents you from kicking gens that someone lets go of).
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One neat thing DMS does do is if one survivor lets go on a gen multiple survivors are working on. It still blocks the gen forcing the rest of the survivors off.
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After this, I'm thinking I might need to try DMS on Blight. Like Ruin Undying works well with Blight because he can get everywhere but... I'm not a fan of Hex perks. No other gen defense really seems to work with him. Like near every other gen defense either requires M1ing for the down or kicking gens, the exception is Thana and Corrupt but like... Blight only really has a bunch of injured Survivors if he's way far ahead and doesn't need the slowdown and Corrupt is much better on Killers with slow early games and Blight doesn't have that.
DMS seems like it could be a good option.
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But that’s healthy. Just like Ruin, it should be forcing killers to up the gen pressure game to get value out of it. Brain dead 100% passive perks like old Ruin aren’t healthy for this game.
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That’s hardly about to happen every time now is it. Of course survivors still get some gens done. That’s expected, and fair.
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Are we playing the same game?!
Yeah, they’ll be separated, but please, let’s not pretend that SWF never communicate “I just got chased off a 90% gen near fun bus. Jump on that one next.” for example. C’mon, many killers see it happen all the time. Chase one survivor off a gen, another quickly jumps on when the killers back is turned.
Heck, even smart solo survivors do this. I regularly run Open Handed, Bond, Visionary. So if while I am working on a gen i can see a survivor just chased off one they’re working on, I know exactly where I’m going the second I’ve finished repairing the one I’m currently on.
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Ok, saying it trumps comms was a brash statement. But the build does put a spanner in the works coordinating jumping onto a gen that was just left due to a chase.
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There is another one downside to this perk. Survivors need to stop repairing that particular gen to get the effect. So, if survivors are on different gens, you can only pressure one. So the others will not be affected by this perk. If you focus on getting everyone off gen, you're losing the time you gain from the perk.
Also, it gives a huge notification to everyone that this perk is activated. So survivors will never get caught off guard. Also, survivors know who's the obsession, so they will know when this perk is going to pop. If they want to unhook, they will leave the gen before the effect kicks in, so it won't block the gen for next coming survivor.
And it has limited usage and needs other perks to change obsession like your build. On its own it has only 3 uses if you don't take any DS intentionally.
To be fair dedicate your whole perk build just to make a simple perk works shows that particular perk is underpowered.
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Your first point is no different than using any other killer perk though. If I’m using Gearhead in the build, I can choose to chase 1 off one gen, and if another highlighted gen is reasonably close enough, I can go commit a chase with that particular survivor. The first survivor has to wait out DMS or find another gen.
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Also, as per my point, it’s actually super strong with Furtive and Nemesis. If it worked this strong without it, plus in a build with Ruin, Undying, perhaps Pop for when an Obsession isn’t hooked, it would be absurdly broken and overpowering.
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I'll try this build for myself, probably on a mobility killer like Blight. You may have saved me some work in studying and researching for my eventual Bad Perk University post on Dead Man's Switch. I always felt that Dead Man's Switch was intended to be used with the Obsession changing perks, but found it difficult to see how to apply it in practice. You seem to know what you're talking about, so I'll give it an honest attempt. Succeeding with "meme builds" like this is always more satisfying than succeeding with a generic meta build.
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Update time, played with the build a couple times. Both times I was thinking to myself, "why did that work?". I'm quite surprised. It's not foolproof or anything, large maps are problematic for this build, but it's not bad. On a good day, it's a nice change of pace.
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Yeah, DMS on its own without Obsession switching (unless going out of the way to eat 4 DS), isn’t super fantastic. But now I’m running it with both Furtive & Nemesis, I now understand why the devs were conservative with it. It’s very strong with Furtive & Nemesis, like REALLY strong, but it’s balanced out by obviously preventing it from being paired with 3 other strong meta perks.
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My reaction to seeing Dead Man's Switch activate on my gen:
"oh no... what ever will I do. I hopped off this gen to go save a teammate. I sure hope a killer doesn't come over and kick this gen in the 45 seconds it takes me to go save my teammate! ...oh wait."
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Hmm your build is certainly unique and creative. You somehow managed to take 3 of what I'd consider to be the most unused Killer perks out there and made a coherent build.
I still can't get jiggy with it, but I respect the effort!
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But the other 2 survivors can’t take over after you’ve gone either. That’s the point of the perk.
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Lets also not forget that the perk TELLS the survivor it's going to block the gen if they get off, before they actually get off lmao.
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What does it matter though?
If the killer is charging towards their gen, the survivor isn’t going to go “oh crap I better stay on because I can see the DMS notification”, unless they’re confident they can finish the repair before the killer gets there.
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Sounds more like a meme build. I rather have something to regress gens. This build might have some synergy but Gearhead is pretty bad 2 basic attacks for a 30 second perk? Furtive chase if you kill the obsession then you lose all your stacks. DMS and nemesis sounds decent though. But eating all those stuns just for an obsession? It can stack up time. If I'm in comms with someone I would say "hey gen is at 80% I'm going to run the killer this way hurry and finish it" they'll just wait for the timer to be gone and repair it.
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Very interesting build! Not the strongest, but I like it. Very good synergy, especially if on a killer with an already small TR like michael, hag, spirit and deathslinger. I think Michael could use it the best because he could easily reach no TR in evil within 2, and he can pressure survivors off gens at range because they'll run to avoid being stalked.
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That’s still buying the killer loads of time to end chases though.
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I'm pretty sure Tru3 already did a build similar to this and it had more synergy.
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Yeah, it’s really quite strong with a good gen pressure strategy. For all intents and purposes it buys the time gen regression would with the added extras of not needing to waste time kicking many gens, and not worrying about other survivors finishing blocked gens while in a chase.
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