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Grim Embrace: the weird addition to the anti camping/tunneling setup
Ahoy guys!
tl;dr: if Grim embrace would get a buff, the perk could actually be really cool for both sides.
So, in case you've forgotten, with the release of Artist Grim Embrace was added into the game:
I'm not sure if you've ever played against it at all, I personally never saw it against me as a survivor (to be fair, I mostly play killer), but I've decided to use it consistently in the last couple of weeks. I wanted to share my experience with the perk and why I think the powerlevel of the perk is underwhelming, but also its design seems a little bit odd compared to other, more popular perks.
The original idea
The most effective strategy by far as a killer right now, to focus on one or at best two survivors and focus on them to kill them as early as possible. I am personally not against this strat, since it does test teamplay, as healthy survivors without hooks have to bodyblock the killer and take hits to protect their teammates, but many survivors do not enjoy playing against it. There is also the problem of proxycamping and facecamping, which can be effective, especially if the survivors do make a mistake (like someone going down next to a hooked survivor). This playstyle I find boring to play as and to play against. Either way, we are all on these forums, and we can all see many people are not happy about it.
What if, instead of changing the game at it's core (which would probably require MAJOR reworks), BHVR could add powerful killer perks that focus on focusing on all the survivors at the same time? I think this could create a different meta for killers. We already have BBQ, but that only rewards you with Bloodpoints if you focus on different players, however, No Way Out is a great perk (I would rate it Tier 2), with a great design and powerful bonus.
What about Grim Embrace...? But first, we have to talk about...
Deadlock
Deadlock is a strong perk (I would rate it at Tier 2). I really like Deadlock, because I can use it instead of Ruin+Undying, or Ruin+Pop and fit in some other weird perks to try out. Why is deadlock so powerful? Because you have to do 0 investment to make it work. Literally, 0 second investment and you have guaranteed gen slowdown that activates 4 times, gives you sufficient information about gen progress and extremely hard and risky to counter by the survivors (only counter being survivors doing 1 gen at a time. It's risky because this way the killer can disturb multiple survivors).
If you think about it, Deadlock is a lot like NOED. You don't need to do anything for it to deliver a strong effect that is hard to counter by the survivors. And this is why deadlock is actually great for facecamping and tips the balance. Earlier I believe if all survivors immediately jumped on gens against a facecamping Bubba, they could outgenrush him, but with deadlock, it seems like it's impossible at the moment.
Despite me liking Deadlock, I have to admit, and it's badly designed. Check Pop, Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance: No way Out. All perks that reward you for doing well. Even Ruin only starts its job, if you harass the survivors from the gen.
Powerlevel
The first problem of Grim Embrace is evident: you have to hook 4 different survivors to block off the generators. In high MMR this is not going to happen a lot of times, since the gens many times will be done before you hook the last survivor, meaning you are on a timer to complete your little quest, but the quest actually involves handicapping yourself. If you really trying to make the perk work, you will often not have anyone dead on-hook when the last gen pops, thus it's just not strong enough.
Also, the reward of your quest doesn't actually seem that good. 40 seconds of blocking all the gens? Sound good! Well, they will stealth it out many times, which often actually makes you have to facecamp the survivor you've just hooked, because you have nothing else to do.
To solve this issue, you see the aura of your obsession for 5 seconds. Needless to say, if the last survivor you've hooked is the obsession, F. Even if you actively try to avoid it, this will still happen a decent amount of times. Also 5 seconds many times is just not enough at all. Many maps are just too large to benefit from it and the obsession will hide until you are there (To be fair, they think they are hiding from BBQ and Chili). There is no reason for them not to hide since all the gens are blocked.
To make the perk viable I feel like making those 40 seconds longer would just make it a more boring perk, and it wouldn't actually solve its issues, in fact, could make it worse (camping the 4th hooked survivor is more viable than ever).
Suggestions
I think a change like this could make this perk a really great anti-tunneling and anti-camping perk in the game:
Every time you hook a survivor for the first time, you get a token. For each token, you block the most progressed generator for token*10 seconds. So basically you hook the first survivor, you block for 10 seconds, you block the second survivor, 20 seconds, then 30seconds. When you reach 4 tokens you block all gens for 40 seconds. This would make it easier for you to realistically complete your "hook everyone" quest with a small amount of slowdown if you are doing your job.
By showing you the most progressed generator it also gives you a new target, so there is less reason to camp the hook.
This change would create a "you are rewarded for each unique hook" effect, but also let the survivors and the obsession counterplay it, by letting them know you have the perk, they can choose not let you hook the last survivor before the last gen is done.
Sorry for this long rant/idea. I just feel like a perk like this could be really fun to play with, but on high MMR it feels useless in like half of the matches, if not more.
What do you think?
Comments
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If you think about it, Deadlock is a lot like NOED. You don't need to do anything for it to deliver a strong effect that is hard to counter by the survivors
Not to be petty (but I'm going to be) but the killer has to play the majority of the game with 3 perks banking on all 5 totems to not get cleansed to even have a chance at value.....not to mention it can still be cleansed. So I disagree with it being for free like DL is.
I do like the buff for Grim Embrace....the current value of the perk does not justify handicapping yourself finding, chasing, and downing 4 different survivors in succession.
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Grim Embrace can be really good, if you manage it to active soon enough and gain pressure from it. Problem is that you have to find and hook all 4 survivors, which can be an issue sometimes.
So far overall I don't like that perk, but your buff might help.
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Funny thing is that the ideal way to play grim embrace now is still to semi tunnel, nothing states all survivors need to be alive when it triggers
Hook survivor 1, then 2, then 1 again, then 3, then kill 1 and then hook 4 while making sure survivor 2 or 3 is the obsession
In a lot of games this is the point where gens are about to get done resulting in a 2 escape or 3 escape with some bt/ds shenanigans
Grim embrace locks it down and gives you an aura so you have some time to create pressure that 3 survivors can't deal with anymore.
Using it like that it's honestly not bad
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The way I read this perk was, If you hook 4 times, your 5th hook is free since 5th chase does not put gen pressure on the killer. It has same problem that devour hope has without the rewards for devour hope. DH when it hits 5 stacks entirely will close out the game. This just helps you close out the game but you do not win the game outright. you often need pair it with BBQ itself to ease burden finding all 4 survivor individually back to back.
The other aspect of the perk is that the perk intentionally gives the killer reverse corrupt intervention. CI is a perk that gives best possible early game for killer. This perk gives you the worst possible early game for killer as your killing survivors in slowest possible way. so in order get any value from this perk, you need run corrupt intervention mitigate your intentional bad early game in order to get mid-game reward. I'd say your rework suggests to just combine deadlock+grim embrace into one perk which might make killers tunnel less, but this would only occur if the perk is rewarding enough to win by not tunneling. If its not rewarding enough, than nobody will use it as alternative is superior tactical choice.
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60 / 70 / 80 seconds duration should make it much more worth running & rewarding for playing super fair and risky at the same time for the killer (time cost).
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I really like your suggested change!
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I don't think Deadlock is badly designed at all, it feels like a mid game Corrupt.
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Why would the Devs make this change (Not to be a downer but I'll do it) cause there's Deadlock a perk that blocks a Gen when one is finished
Why make Grim Embrace do the same thing but for every unique hook (1 hook per survivor)
Let's come up with a different idea... I'd leave Grim Embrace alone for now
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Grim Embrace is fine in principle, it’s intended as something of a high risk high reward perk. If you manage to hook everybody then you get a nice reward, but if someone evades you the whole match you don’t. Assuming the time the gens are blocked after it triggers is high enough it’s fine.
So the main question is does the perk block gens long enough to make up for the risk of it not triggering before gens are done? If so, great! If not then just increase the time they’re blocked until it’s worth using. Set that timer high enough and the perk will be worthwhile, set it too high and it will be broken. It’s the only parameter you need to tweak to tune this perk, it doesn’t need any other more complicated change than that.
P.S. Looking at other perks, my guess is perks which extend play by about 60 seconds are around where you want them. No Way Out for instance extends play 60 seconds. Pop Goes the Weasel gives 60 seconds on three hooks. An Exposed down saves about 30 seconds of chase and most of the Exposed perks can get 1-3 such hits. So if Grim Embrace had a 60 timer it would probably be in line with those, maybe even slightly higher to make up for the possibility it never triggers at all.
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It would be too much to have a bunch of superpowered killer perks that all accomplish the same thing. In that regard this is why Grim Embrace is the perk that it is.... it's meant to be sort of a mid to late game perk where not all the gens are done and you can take full advantage of the time given to you.
The reason it's so bad is due to gen rushing at higher MMR. Survivors aren't running around like headless chickens and go straight to the gens. Very rarely will you hook all survivors before the gens are done against a decent survivor team. The chances of pulling off a Grim Embrace proc are slim.
Grim Embrace cant be another Deadlock perk because that would change the whole purpose of it. Which is simply to win more. First you have to be winning the game..which is already challenging to do after you get to a certain point in your killer career.
If they focus on gen speeds and giving killers time to patrol the maps then Grim Embrace will shine on it's own.
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I was thinking of a possible change like this, however, as I pointed out in the original post, I feel this could create unfun situations for both sides. Currently, 40 seconds is a really good value. It's 2/3 of the hook state, a pretty significant amount of time to injure, and (given the survivor makes a mistake or many pallets were removed earlier) even a down. Just increasing the base time values would feel like a very lazy change to me. Then again, it could make the perk more viable, of course.
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I agree these games do happen, but they usually happen against not really good survivors, or maybe against survivors that are not doing gens (possibly archive quests). When I tested the perk, the most times I could pull this off was playing Nurse. But I feel like most killer rely on generating some pressure and then snowballing out with 2 or 3 kills when no gens are left.
What I am trying to say, is that if you manage to play the way you've described, you can VERY likely find a perk that would've helped you a lot more. Whether that be corrupt, ruin, or any other T1 or even T2 perk.
When I play killer I want perks that help me win the game, especially when I'm against good survivors on a hard map, because when I'm not, I don't need my perks. In the case you write, Grim Embrace is more of a "secure the win" perk. Not saying it's bad, just not something most killers would look for :(
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I was thinking of the same, that perks have to be different. In my estimation, my suggestion did make it different enough from Deadlock, but I guess not everyone agrees :D
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Yeeeeeeahh... And do you think Corrupt is a well-designed perk?
Again, I'm not talking about powerlevel, Corrupt is (in my opinion) currently the strongest and most versatile perk for killers in the game. But is it well-designed? I'm not so sure about that.
For Corrupt not to be extremely powerful, I would probably make all survivors spawn together all the games... But then again, Corrupt is defly a long different discussion :3
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Again this perk has only been out for a month and a half.... Can we leave it alone
I get it... Getting a hook Vs. Gen being done are two separate things but the end result is the same (a Gen being blocked)
It's like BBQ and Bitter Murmur... Both show auras of Survivor(s) but one is done by a hook and the other is done by a Gen being done
And it would be useful to an extent but being what it is I think it's good enough.... but maybe my thoughts will change in like 6 months to a year
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I don't think that Corrupt is the strongest perk... It certainly isn't as versatile as you say it is
For the first 3 minutes of a match 3 Gens are blocked (depends on Killer Spawn)
Survivors that play against Corrupt will do one of 4 (or 5) things
1) Stay in the area of blocked Gens waiting for Corrupt to end
2) Boon a Totem in the area of blocked Gens (then go find a Gen to work on or stay in the area of blocked Gen waiting for Corrupt to end)
3) Move to the center Gen to fix that one
4) Move to the other side of the map to fix a Gen there as well
5) Get found by the Killer and start Chase
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Yeah these people are not creative enough. 4 hooks with Grim Embrace + No Way Out is 100(!) free and non counterable (beyond denying the hooks) seconds added into the game.
Get the 4th hook as say Bubba, and you could literally just stand there until someone is dead and secure a 2-3k.
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There shouldn't be a counter to every perk in the game
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