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Dead Hard Nerf Concept
To lay the groundwork for why Dead Hard might deserve nerfing:
In the hands of most Survivors, Dead Hard is fine.
In the hands of the best Survivors, I think it's safe to consider Dead Hard a little too strong. The main issue here is not its intended invincibility dodge, which is reasonably mindgameable by Killers, but rather its on-command nature allowing Survivors to guarentee they'll get extra time out of chases, without needing environmental props like Lithe, Balanced Landing, Head On or Smash Hit, or without having an activation condition that makes it more unwieldy like Sprint Burst.
Dead Hard can be used tactically in loops to get extra mileage and waste more time, and its near-universal versatility makes it a little dominant amongst high level play. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here saying Dead Hard is a god tier gamebreaker, other Exhaustion Perks can and do compete with it, but it could stand a tunedown IMO.
Alright, now that the preamble's done, here's the idea for nerfing DH, and it's not a big nerf at all:
If you take damage, you become Exhausted for 5 seconds, unless you are already under the effects of Exhaustion with a remaining duration higher than 5 seconds.
This adds an extra condition to Dead Hard besides simply being injured, which is not much of a limitation for experienced Survivors. When you get hit, you NEED to stop sprinting for some time before Dead Hard is usable. There's a lot of avenues in chase for Survivors to get this done, especially if any pallet mindgames are going on.
I also think this helps play into Dead Hard's theme of refusing healing and encouraging Survivors to play games while refusing to heal. The Exhaustion will disperse really quickly when you have some downtime, so if you're going Injured for long stretches of time, Dead Hard will work just like before. It's just if you're playing as normal, you'll have to jump through one extra hoop if you want to use Dead Hard in the same chase you've taken damage in.
Comments
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Still don't understand why Dead Hard needs a nerf, as the same argument could be made for all exhaustion perks. Their intent is to get extra mileage. Just because a survivor can loop one extra time does not make Dead Hard overpowered. More distance can be made on all the other exhaustion perks, especially Sprint Burst, which is more versatile and powerful than Dead Hard.
Dead Hard is fine.
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It’s a third health state, it hard counters pretty much every killer power, it makes mindgames at loops worthless since if you close distance the survivor can gain that distance back at the press of a button....it’s one of if not the strongest perks in the game.
Thats why consistently now every rank 1 survivor I see runs this perk. Every single one of them thats a good runner has this perk. What does that tell you?
It needs a nerf and stat. It’s insanely overpowered.
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Well, I think the idea is good, but I think the proposed solution might actually exacerbate the issue.
Presumably, the idea is to nerf DH in the hands of skilled survivors while retaining its mediocre functionality for more "meh" survivors. The requirement to walk for 5 seconds can be especially oppressive on those younger players, while more experienced players are able to identify a good loop and idle around. Plus, as the purpose of DH is typically to make it to a loop, this built-in exhaustion may prevent that, as it requires that you find a loop first, not make it to the loop.
I think that there should be more of a discourse into whether or not DH is in dire need of a nerf or not, first. Despite its reputation, DH is pretty "meh." After all, the very idea of exhaustion perks is to extend chases by making distance (with the exception of head-on, although it is quite fun). Balanced landing can turn unsafe heights into an opportunity for escape, like Thompson House. Lithe lets you get an easy getaway if you identify a window. Sprintburst lets you safely get to loops that you would otherwise be unable to reach. Smash hit will let you turn unsafe pallets into an opportunity to make massive distance. DH will let you make distance in the final stretch, if it ends up working. It's still quite situational, as you have to 1) be familiar with looping 2) have an opportunity to actually use it. Sometimes, the killer will be too far to use it efficiently, other times the window will be too close to be effective.
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*exhausted on the ground*
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Dead hard can be used jsut for distance to a good pallet. I ave been E keyed into a strong pallet hundreds of times.
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I don't think DH needs changes. Can be frustrating at times, but the perk is doing what it is supposed to do and if someone uses it with skill instead of bumping into a tree good for them.
In any case the solution proposed by OP would just make it unusable for the majority of players, while skilled ones (the real target for the nerf) would be barely be affected. If anything must be done against said skilled players, add a brief moment after activation in which interactions aren't possible, so it can't be comboed with pallets or windows. Again, I don't think it's necessary and would make the perk way less interesting and reliable.
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Thats a server/latency issue.
Think about all the times DH does work. Thats why its so powerful
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youre kinda right. not tryna bully you with this but heres a tip:
if someone dead hards once, the next time try to bait it and make them waste it. gets them every time
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