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So now that the dust has cleared. How effective was dead hard really?
I know when the nerfs were announced some people came to old dead hards defense citing "Ill just run the loop one less time and not greed". Or something like that. But it seems now without that safety net a lot of survivors get caught out very easily. And with the other basekit changes and stuff like brutal strength being more effective (for me personally) i get downs so much quicker. And also people cited "well everyones gonna play sprint burst instead afterwords so nothing will change". But its actually nice to see smash hit,overcome,balanced and lithe fairly frequently. Dead hard held the king spot of exhaustion making it pretty much THE exhaustion pick. So now that the dust has settled how much of a choke hold did old DH have? And in general chase did it have a much bigger impact than you thought?
Comments
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DH was killing the game almost by itself
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This might sound like a exaggeration but the game was dying in its low points cause of DH. I know there were other issues like COH and MMR but DH was the main reason killers were leaving. Now the tables have turned now all the survivors are leaving
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DH had the pick rate it did for a reason. There were innumerable situations where survivors could use DH to get to a pallet or window without the killer having any way to stop it, extending chases by a considerable amount. DH also countered a lot of killer powers in ways that didn't make any sense, particularly with the Trapper's bear traps. On top of that, it was on demand, whereas other exhaustion perks had significant tradeoffs. Why use Smash Hit, which might get you killed or becomes useless when pallets are all dropped, when you could use DH on demand and stay in the loop? I'm glad it's been reworked.
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I never used Dead Hard. I thought it sucked and it wasn't a fun perk. I'm literally 100% surprised by how Dead Hard made everyones panties go up their butt cracks, honestly. I thought it was the worst endurance perk ever. I'm so sick of hearing love stories about it.
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The most op perk to ever exist in this game, nothing has ever come close to rivalling it.
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All I can say is I can't believe people were seriously trying to claim that sprint burst is even remotely as powerful as old dead hard.
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It was a third health state, you"d be dumb to NOT use it
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There's really no way to tell because with the Dead Hard nerf, Killers also just given free kills by the developers in this patch so they felt like an "unstoppable force".
If the patch had actually been fair instead of developer added cheat software for killer, then maybe a judgement could be made on Dead Hard. But who knows.
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It was just a big get out of jail free card. It deserved the nerf and is the best change to come out of this patch.
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I refused to play the Perk because i acknowledged just how big of a crutch it was.
I relalized that for as long as I run it, I would never actually improve at the game - because why would I, I can always just press a button and get back to safety immediately.
That's why I always picked Sprint Burst over it - and now that has paid off, because I play pretty much the same as I did prior to the changes whereas I see a lot of people who overrelied on DH crashing down hard.
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By your reasoning, we could say that survivors got free escapes when they had the original Dead Hard and the devs did the right thing and nerfed it so now, survivors have to earn their escapes rather then get easy escapes.
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I think that's missing what semblance of a point Gindaen was making.
But basically, there's no way to prove that the shift in game state is due to DH, or even how much of it is due to DH, because there were half a dozen other nerfs alongside it.
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Well the main defense was "ill just loop twice instead of 3 times because of DH" so youd think not much would change. But seems like that defense crumbled hard. Survivors think they can make these loops and just crash down. That's a example where i think DH had a significant view of how people played. And now they gotta figure out how to manage without. But i guess it is hard to make a overall view so thats fair.
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You just called me dumb.
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Probably more powerful than we thought. I didn't expect it to have that dramatic of an effect. I kind of wish the DH nerf had come before all of these other changes. Doing everything at once makes it really difficult to sort out what changes have done what.
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It was overpowered, now it still is the best Exhaustion Perk, but counterable
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Dead Hard was the strongest perk on either side by a large margin. Now it is not.
I really wish they would have changed dead hard on it's own to see how the balance was affected just by changing that perk, and then making all the other changes they made. I think that would have been a wiser decision.
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Once OP stuff gets nerfed, other stuff that wasnt used as much starts being explored. DS being nerfed brought up more DH uses.
Slowly people figured out how the invulnerable distance can extend chases (not to mention how flexible it's usage was). Dead Hard was apparently much more powerful then what was believed.
That's why survivors stayed dedicated to DH. In the coming future, I theorize that Lucky Break/Built to Last may become the next perk to be used more.
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It was for sure overpowered and deserved a nerf. And post-patch I have frequently been in chases where I got a hit before a survivor reached a vault and thought to myself how if they had Dead Hard in that chase they’d have lunged for the distance and got it. Honestly as a killer you realize how often that sort of thing happened before the patch simply by how often you notice the situations where it doesn’t happen now.
Sprint Burst seems to be taking the place of top Exhaustion perk now, but that one has never bothered me much. Yeah, the survivor gets extra distance at the start of the chase, but at least I see it happen right off the bat and can react accordingly. Dead Hard’s use could come anytime in any chase so it was way more flexible and persistently used.
Interestingly though, despite people who think Dead Hard is “dead”, the stats I saw for the perk show there are still a lot of people using it. It’s not a top 5 perk or anything but it’s seeing at least average amounts of use. I think its because the people who can time it well to block attacks are still getting good value from it. If you can consistently block one incoming attack per chase with that perk that’s a pretty solid effect! The trick is of course it’s not trivial to time it right. But hey, kudos to the survivors who can do it!
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Dead hard carried the worst teammates. Even if they dead hard into a wall it still bought time. Even if they used it to dodge a hit in the open it bought time. And when it was used to reach a pallet or vault it bought HUGE time.
It was an unfair perk that made many killers frustrated and hopeless even when they should have won the chase and game.
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It was horrible for the game and I’m glad it’s gone. There’s a reason it was as popular as it was and it severely limited the effectiveness of several killers far more than one perk ever should.
As survivor I refused to use it because of how strong it was and I also didn’t want to have to get used to playing without it later knowing it would eventually be nerfed.
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Dead Hard was 100% a crutch perk for far too many people. People are just going through pains learning how to loop without it. Plus, if you ask me, the reason survivor feels so miserable isnt because of the changes, but because people throw tantrums and ragequit when things dont go their way. The sooner the quitters and crybabies leave and people who want to actually play take there place, the sooner things will improve. Until then, stay strong my friends!
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call me crazy but i think exhausted on the ground is back with new DH am hitting people that are mid animation and they still go down even when i clearly hit them during the initial animation during the Endurance effect , and thats bad , having in mind that perk got already a big nerf during PTB to LIVE this makes the perk a bit more clunky again in terms of doing a good reaction.
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This
I essentially stopped playing M1 killers because if you ran into a squad of DHs, there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. In the hands of four at least decent players, DH would quite literally kill any chance of being able to do a lot against survivors.
It also doesn't help that the squads that did run DH KNEW they were basically untouchable and made very sure to remind you of this constantly with clicky clicks and tbagging and other ish. Seriously, the amount of BM I receive as a killer has DRASTICALLY dropped because the survivors know that they can't get away with it anymore (or at least not nearly as easily as they could).
Just made the game infuriating rather than fun
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The only time I really used DH was either of I needed to for a challenge or if I was struggling to pip in red ranks. I was not a strong user of it, but even I could get some really good value plays with it.
Lol, DH was so strong that even when there was major latency issues with it, survivors would still use it. For every "exhausted on the ground" DH play there were probably 10 "ha ha dead hard bailed me out there" plays.
Glad it's been nerfed.
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It's exactly the same thing, thank you for seeing it. The entire patch has turned Killer into a giant Dead Hard. And this patch needs to go the exact same way as Dead Hard and be removed from the game.
You can't really respect the killer-role anymore when all it is, is a giant crutch perk that gives the killer role kills-for-free.
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Killers get 15 benefits over survivors: "SEE EVERYONE JUST DEPENDS ON DEAD HARD"
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For context, as survivor, I never ran Dead Hard (except for that one Tome challenge). I had always been a SB/Lithe user, and then I switched to Overcome, which is my current exhaustion perk of choice.
Playing killer, nothing was more frustrating that clearly outplaying someone at a tile, watching them hit "E" to suddenly erase thst mistake, then watching them extend a chase for God knows how long after they made a pallet or vault, then another safe tile they had no business making in the first place. And then, watching someone else do it again later in the match. And you had to play as if everyone was running it, even on the rare instances when they weren't (I'd see DH on 2-3 players every match, if not all 4, on the regular). It was poorly designed, it rarely rewarded actual skill, and it was game-changing in so many instances.
Now, it's refreshing to see other Exhaustion perks -- so many of which are powerful but more balanced -- seeing usage. It's not just SB players, but I've seen survivors making great use of Lithe and Balanced (the latter is always a surprise -- it went from almost never used unless someone specifcally used a map for it, and usually for a Tome challenge to now actually something I've seen played well), and Overcome (usually paired with Lucky Break, a potentially deadly combo, especially on certain maps). And when I see Dead Hard actually used now effectively, I'm actually impressed, since the person who DOES use it to avoid going down and makes it to something safe to extend a chase is legitimately making a very skilled play in comparison to how the perk worked before.
A lot of players who used the perk as a "Get out of jail free card" at loops are having to adjust to the change, and as been evident, a lot of them are not adjusting well at all.
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it was horrible, but if all survivors had a brain and exclusively used it for distance,
I probably wouldn't have been playing the game at all. So I guess i'm glad that won't be possible anymore.
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Tbh at first I thought DH was D E A D. Especially since after the PTB they nerfed it AGAIN. But I was wrong. It certainly isn't as easy to use as before, but if you time it right you're basically unstoppable.
I even thought I'd have to build my perks around sprint burst (and I usually use it with vigil only or sometimes fixated, so I have to waste 2-3 perk slots purely to get some value out of SB). But I played a couple of games with DH and I think it's pretty decent still.
So for me personally nothing has really changed. You could use it for distance to get to a window or pallet before the patch, you can now time it right, get hit and still make it to another loop.
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Don't confuse flavor text with mechanical descriptions.
Could you explain which part or parts in tandem, are handing out free kills? You didn't respond back to my small essey in the other thread, so maybe you are just throwing around buzzwords?
On behalf of how powerful DH was, just remind yourself of day 1+2 of the big patch. Survivors gameplay utterly crumbled and desintegrated and you can't tell me that this was just due to the baseline killer buffs, otherwise we would have seen similar extreme effects everytime someone equipped Brutal Strength and Save the best for last in tandem, both of which (after a short startup period) gave bigger boosts to a killers performance.
No, the utter destruction and deep rooting shock and awe we witnessed was 100% due to the absence of DH and many, many survivors realizing how much they had come to rely on that perk and some even crutched on it.
Don't get me wrong, there were always survivors who could loop like a god without this perk and not every single survivor used it, BUT every single match of dbd was carried by DH, was influenced by the 3/4 of survivors who got out of sticky situations and boosted by their choice of exhaustion perk.
The rug was pulled out violently under the collective mind of the dbd player base and many more survivors had to realize that "lol git gud, it's just a perk" or "did you really outplay me when I used DH? Just bait it out" held much less water then they cared to admit.
BUT after the shock and awe many, many survivors quickly adapted to the new situation and learned how to deal without DH. This survivors don't mess around, do their gens while one keeps the killer busy and games feel nearly just as pre-patch... Nearly! Because now, if a survivor commits a grave mistake or gets outplayed by the killer, 9/10 times they get hit or even downed for it. And that's actually good for the game.
Some survivors might not realize it, but the game is balanced around the fact that survivors will go down and can't keep the killer at bay et infinitum. You got three hook stages for a reason ; now BHVR just needs to figure out a way for you to actually use that hook stages and not getting camped to death by uncool beta - killers.
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People are adjusting and looping better now but nerfing Dead Hard showed how so many people's ability to run the killer was nowhere near as good as they thought it was.
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It's shocking to me that a perk that had 50-80% useage across all survivors from mid-high mmr still has people defending it as a nothing perk/weak/nerfing it having no impact on the game.
It wasn't the 3/4 survivor equipped perk that has made solo queue keel over in the first 3 minutes of the game, It's .2 seconds off sprint burst injury and a .3 second faster blade wipe!
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Its more effective against killers like oni in power, billy saw, nurse lunge out of blink, etc. Less effective vs m1's which is how it was intended (in my eyes) to be basically.
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it is... you do realize that running BEFORE the killer gets to you is the proper play right? if everyone has sprint burst in a deadzone bam they get away and now you have to get 2 hits on them after maybe whiffing 1 and if they had deadhard then they extended the next chase or they deadhard in a deadzone but dont make it anywhere... so sprint burst is better in that scenario. also say your gen is at 70 instead of being brave with sprint burst just use it as soon as you see them and they have to literally leave you alive or go after you which means they gotta catch up to you
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IDK if you are asking for the numbers, but i would like to know how many DH the survivors would use in a match in average and how many seconds it "bought" on a trial.
As a killer main i used to see 3 to 5 DH uses for each survivor in the trial. One use for each chase, and some esporadic ones in saves and such. In time i lost i had no idead but if it was on a pallet loop i would say 6 to 8 seconds for each DH, because of the distance they would get from using an window or for the pallet breaking time + distance.
Worst case scenario you would get stunned + pallet breaking + distance from catching up + looping the new spot the survivor got into.
I am being pretty generous on my assumptions
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I say it was exactly the other way around, exposing how many survivors had come to overtly rely on DH.
If you were right you would regularly have survivors get utterly destroyed by the combo of Brutal Strength and STBFL, as this perks give higher numbers then the base kit buff, yet that was never the case.
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Sorry I don't think i communicated my sarcasm well, i agree with you that dead hard is the impactful change not .2 and .3 ms shaved off of actions.
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Oh! Sorry, that flew right over my head, indeed ^^"
Now I look like a fool :P
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DH nerf is the reason i installed dbd again. No more "skillful" E's for distance extending chases by 30+ seconds for every survivor anymore. I knew the perk was broken, but now seeing clearly impact it had on the game, im actually shocked. This change could've come way sooner, but im glad it eventually did.
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I don't know if I'd say the dust has cleared not even a week in, but it seems like if you can time it, DH is still very very strong.
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If you think people suddenly stopped bringing DH, you're ..dead wrong hehe.
DH is now hit or miss, very much has to do with skill and a lot of older more experienced players are still bringing it because it gives tremendous value when used properly.
DH was very effective because you could pick the exact situation you wanted to use it in and it was at the click of a button w/ little to no counter.
DH is still effective now & just as rewarding (when you get used to it and learn the timings) but SB is a safe alternative.
DH is risky yet rewarding where as SB is overall a good & safe perk.
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I'd love to see someone try and argue against that.
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Very. It was the best exhaustion perk by a mile without a doubt. Honestly, I would be very interested in observing an alternate timeline where they simply removed DH and didn't touch perks and Killer basekit. That might have actually been all that was necessary to improve the quality of Killer gameplay without destroying SoloQ. It certainly would have been a better option from a balancing point of view. Always change one variable instead of the entire formula if you are trying to fine tune stuff.
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Pretty sure dead hard is the exact same on the "fixing up mistakes" if not more so now with the on hit boost and less people expecting the perk
I used sprint burst,lithe, dead hard and overcome all roughly the same amount. It also wasnt a crutch since good players could be even better with it. It was a versatile, very strong perk in it's old state. Now it's a highly risky endurance state that makes you waste time mending even if you do successfully pull it off
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As much as I miss my dead hard that perk was beyond broken and infuriating to play vs as killer,, devs were right to butcher it,, though I still mis dead harding for saves,, those always looked fancy
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Trying to convince people DH wasn't that strong now it's gone = epic gaslighting moment
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Let his comment reach 100 voteups please!
+1
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You cannot really measure this. The thing is, the DH-Nerf should have come without any other changes, because then we could see an actual comparison.
But since Killers got a massive Buff and ON TOP the Nerf of one of the strongest Survivor-Perks, we cannot really see, how much of the current situation is due to the Buff and how much is due to the DH-Nerf.
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Then riddle me this: every killer in the past could equip Brutal Strength (+20% palette break and gen kick speed) and hit a couple of survivors with Save the best for last (lets go for a moderate 3 hits and +15% on hit cool down). Throw in Thanatophobia for about +10% gen speed debuff.
Why didn't games in the past just implode under this circumstances, that could very much represent a common midgame match? A bit pressure, sure, but UTTERLY desintegrate?
I proclaim that it wasn't the 10% killer buff that threw the game into stupor for 2 days straight till some of the better survivors woke up from their paralysis, it was just the absence of DH. We would have seen the same effect if they had just taken DH away, albeit maybe a little bit less pronounced. That everything happened at the same time is a bit unfortunate, but the 10% killer buff and 10 extra seconds gen time aren't what is what is "handing killers free kills", its survivors unable to cope with the loss of their safety net and confronted with the reality that a lot of them weren't as good as they thought with the rough MMR system throwing them through the wringer till they reach a place that actual reflects their skill level.
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