Saboteur is horrendously designed in its current state
As a Saboteur main since 2016 I personally feel confidant in trying to open a discussion about current Sabotage, the developers red headed step child of DBD mechanics that they've tried to pretend doesn't exist over the past 5 years
Sabotage and Saboteur have had its ups and downs through the years, things like regenerating hooks, old hangman's trick, mad grit, end game collapse, and the faster pace of the game has made Sabotage less and less relevant to the point it was considered exceptionally weak by a majority of the playerbase. Saboteur itself was discredited as an exclusively SWF playstyle that was still weak, however as someone who mained the build for nearly half of all survivor games I can contest it was strongest with one player handling the setup.
As someone who loved the strategy and map awareness required to play Saboteur to its full extent, I had managed to make it work through various means over the past years. 99%ing 3 hooks in a web at the killer's strategic points allowed me to dominate the area at the cost of one less person putting out pressure on generators. It gave my team the ability to bounce back from a 3 gen or a clutch escape at the exit gates.
Saboteur on its own for players who are unware used to let you progress sabotaging hooks without limit at a speed penalty, as well as destroy hooks for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. This means the Saboteur the perk let me control the map without having to bring an item every game, at the cost of time which could be made up by smartly locking down areas
With the release of Yui brought Breakout, a new era for Saboteur which allowed me to safely and consistently 3 hook web without fear of unfavorable hook spawn rng. Sabotage was now much faster and more reliable
Immediately after we got the horrendous Sabotage rework. Destroying the several builds and years of strategy I had setup
Saboteur was nerfed to have a 60 second cooldown even if the animation was canceled, it was no longer infinite meaning you couldn't setup 3 hooks to be broken. Unless the killer makes the huge mistake of running to the other side of the map it is now impossible to get a Survivor free by yourself with just Saboteur on its own. You have to run a toolbox or coordinated players to destroy the 3 hooks
On top of this, 99% hooks took less than 0.5 seconds to destroy, now upped to 2.5 seconds. The killer can now cancel a Sabotage attempt now that it takes over 5x longer to destroy a hook they're near, and you can't reattempt a Sabotage attempt because now the perk is on cooldown and because destroying a hook is longer than the killer's hit cooldown. Even worse is how slow getting off a hook after it's destroyed is. Previously you could run immediately after disabling a hook, now there's a noticeable stun after destroying the hook, meaning the killer will always hit you after destroying a hook. Even worse is if you took a hit earlier (which is mandatory now that you can't disable more than 2 hooks in one run) you will go down, allowing the killer to just take you to the next hook. It is ineffective and weak
Killer dropping wiggle progress was nerfed down to 25% from 33%, meaning Breakout was directly nerfed
Sabotage in its current state requires zero strategy to use at the cost of its effectiveness, there's no setting up webs or understanding how map hook generation works. As of right now the only consistent way to get Sabo saves is coordinated teams deliberately taking hits with multiple toolboxes, it is a brute force method with zero skill or player expression involved.
The few new strategies are held back by Saboteur going on cooldown regardless of a successful hook disable or not (in cases of Infectious fright, getting hit, or it being canceled manually)
"SO WHY NOT BUFF IT?"
Current Sabotage is incredibly toxic. Due to its zero investment, buffing Saboteur would let even a single Survivor prevent every hook possible without any skill, just by brute forcing insta-disabling hooks
In my opinion Sabotage should be reverted, it was highly skill intensive and opened the door to longer games (which is a good thing for killer). The only beneficial change for new Sabotage was being able to sabotage from all sides, even if it was at the cost of "Saboteur Vacuum" which had uses on its own
Comments
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I miss old sabo, new sabo doesn't even keep progress when using a toolbox, I feel I have to trade a hit to get it to work when playing solo due to the time needed to arrive to a survivor who went down on time. It's a pain.
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The strongest thing even 3 minute Sabo had was it got people off gens, and created alternate objectives for survivors. If you had anybody running Sabo, it was a free killer Ruin, in exchange for Survivors being able to semi-safely work on gens in a section of the map that had 99'd hooks. I don't think anyone worth their salt would complain if Sabo was reverted to it's old 3 Minute timer 99 the hooks strat, because it will get people off of gens, which is usually the main complaint I hear from people who play a lot of killer. Survivors only really have gens (with the occasional chest, totem, unhooking, and healing), and chases. Sabo is a secondary objective, it could end up not working in the survivors favor, or it could work tremendously well. As it stands now, it's current only semi useful in Mettle of Man or Breakout Builds as the killer has to hit you or have the hook get sabo'd, because they can't hook during the sabo animation (even if you're saboing behind the hook).
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You would probably also have to revert Hangman's Trick to its previous state because it was the only specific anti-sabo perk.
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I kinda miss old sabo. I wish we could bring it back in custom matches. Just tweak it so that you can't sabotage bear traps
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I would love this, Old Hangman's Trick was an awesome perk and I know people who ran it 24/7
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Wait really? Were sabo squads that common back in the day?
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I also agree with all of you, the sabotage action was a fun secondary objective which leaved more options for the killer to play in a match. With the change is almost imposible to success alone with a sabo build. Nowadays I never see someone running a sabo build because of their weakness.
:(
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As a person that played a lot with sabotage actions and still doing it, I want to disagree with you.
New sabotage is better than any types of old versions and by knowing right timing even with common toolbox, you can predict on which hook the killer is going, break the hook almost in his face and have a small window of the time for not getting a hit too. After it, you even can body block or be around if the killer prefers to try to use another hook or just run away if the killer drops the survivor.
Sometimes, hook spawns are insane for you. Sometimes, you can have 3 hooks nearby that makes sabo plays really useless. It's really strong at the end of the match (especially if the killer picks a survivor in the gate) and you have a huge chance of success to save your grabbed teammate.
If you're sabotaging a hook, the killer can't use it. It's a perfect thing for saving a teammate that had 2nd state on hook. You can take a hit and after it start to sabotage a hook. Yeah, you trade yourself but the teammate will have a chance to live more thanks to you.
The thing is that you can sabo a hook in any position of the hook placement. It means that in some scenarios you can break a hook behind of it. A killer may not notice you that you're breaking the hook or even if the killer saw you he needs to stop you and waste a time for it. You can also stop for breaking the hook in the moment when killer will swing to you and if the killer wants to hook, you can start to break the hook again and the killer no longer has an ability to hook carried survivor. It creates a mindgame that really love to see in DbD. And if you're lucky, you can use sabo tech (about it you can read it below)
Also, we have a really strong strategy. You need Alex's toolbox or any of toolboxes that haven't reduced speed of sabo actions with some add-ons that increases sabo speed, Dead Hard and Break Out. You need to stay in front of the hook and after the killer hits you, you're breaking the hook and use dead hard. Also, you can use Mettle of Man for gaining some stacks by doing this.
Oh, I'm not even talking about sabo tech that I discovered in the previous year and can piss off a lot of killers (you're starting to break the hook right in the moment when the killer is going to hook. Cause of the latency, you have a small window of time (around less than 0,5 seconds (or <1 sec if the killer is vacuumed to the hook from specific spots) and if u succeed, the killer will stuck in this position during you're breaking the hook. The grabbed survivor can't wiggle too. After breaking the hook or canceling the action of breaking it, the killer & the survivor get the ability to move/wiggle again.). If you faced against a person that doing this thing, It probably was me. Sorry about that lol
One more thing that makes sabotage is strong but still rng depended is it's not a common thing. You're rarely see a really good sabo player that doing it very well and makes a killer to drop carried survivor.
What about Saboteur?
It allows you to know hook placements nearby to dying survivor when killer is picking up him and carrying him. And an ability to break a hook.
Well, firstly, it will be better if it shows when the survivor got downed. With this small period of time, you can predict with more chances of success which a hook the killer is going to use. And
And secondly, if you cancel the Saboteur or killer prevented it, the perk goes to cooldown. It will be great if the perk goes to cooldown after of breaking a hook and you can start to break but not finish it for not getting a perk to have a cooldown.
Conclusion is that sabotage is underrated IMO. If you know/have:
- timings of sabotage action
- hook placements that nearby to you and carried or remember some hook spawns
- good teamplay (even good random players can help you a lot)
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