I HATE flashlights...
I know I know, another "I hate flashlights" post. But I need to vent. You can flame me in the replies if you want, but please just let me rant.
I'm new to killer, (after playing the game as survivor for a little over three months). I'm not good at it, but I'm learning and I'm having much more fun as killer than I did as survivor when I'm not against really good survivors or a swf.
Anyway, I'm still learning a lot of ins and outs of the game. Which map offerings take me where, the layouts, gen pressure etc. I have lost count of the number of times I get turned around on RPD and The Meat Packing Plant, blah blah, blah. Preamble out of the way.
I hate flashlights, well not so much the mechanic itself. I just hate how spamable and easily abused it is and how the killer can be pre-stunned midway through performing an action, like picking up a survivor or breaking a pallet. This is especially evil on open maps, when you can't look anywhere, up or down because you get immediately -locked into a direction.
I literally came from a game where all four survivors were a very obvious swf, as they were swarming gens, swarming downed survivors, swarming pallets, swarming hooks to body block. Pretty much doing anything but gens. At one point I was stunlocked with three or four flashlights. I. Could. Not. Move. I was literally being blinded from angles that shouldn't have because two of the survivors were behind me in my peripheral vision, which really shouldn't count, but for some reason it does.
Honestly, I don't know what the devs could do to stop the abuse of flashlights. But I do think they should make a change so only one flashlight at a time can stun a killer and only from the front, not the side or behind.
Anyway, I know what I said above, but I have a couple of suggestions about how to deal with the ability to rapidly click the flashlight on and off or even during a flashlight save.
1) Adding a cooldown from when the flashlight is first activated to when it's turned off again, like not a long one, but enough that you can't spam it anymore.
2) Have it decay faster the more you use it, even with add-ons.
3) You must be head-on to achieve a successful flashlight stun/save.
Anyway, as I said above, feel free to disagree with me. But if you have any advice, I'd gladly take it. Also, in before "Git Gud". :P
Comments
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I mean using flashlights take skill that most players suck at. Most of the time they hurt the team then help
But if your really frustrated with it may I suggest lightborn. It makes you immune to flashlight and blinds of all kinds.
This maybe a weak suggestion but there is overwhelming presence. It reduces item item charges when used in the terror radius.
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Join our Lightborn giga chad club. We got you covered.
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Lightborn can save you! Come to the dark side 😈
Jokes aside, yeah I do agree that it's really annoying to have someone using a scroll wheel to make a flashlight sound like crickets.
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You are new killer and you are asking nerf for something instead of trying get good?
Just use Lightborn and try to adept. After a while, you will not need Lightborn. Flashlights are fair.
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I'd rather get 4 beamers than 4 medkits or 4 toolboxes any time of the year,,the only way flashlights can be abused is double locker saves where literally there's nothing the killer can do to prevent a beamer save as long as survivors can get the timing
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Most players don't know how to use flashlights well (I suck at saves, for example).
I get that they can be used to be an annoying little cockroach to the killer, but I wouldn't put a cooldown for the activation. Clicking is also a form of communication among survivors, just like spam crouching, and we already don't have many of those.
I personally prestiged Hillbilly very early when I started playing a couple of months ago, to get Lightborn, since I had bad experiences with flashlights. I suggest you might do the same ?
But it's very rare to find survivors that are so well-coordinated and determined to bully. In fact, most swfs you will encounter will be average at best, not much better than their solo counterparts.
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Just bait picking up and hit when they go for the save,
Just look at walls when you know there's beamers, and if you're out in the open, refer back to step 1 and hit the beamer user, they'll typically run away if you pretend to chase them,
And lastly,
If you aren't willing to do any of that, then, run lightborn like a chad or even franklins and never worry about it again
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Flashlights can be a massive pain in the behind if the person who has it knows more about using it than you do about dodging it. The occasions where several survs have flashlights and trail to get every possible angle for a flashlight save are rare and will more often than not cost them the game - since they don't do gens, as you correctly observed. As for any other flashlight save: you will eventually learn how to dodge the vast majority, even out in the open. Pallet and vault blinds are usually more trouble than worth as well and learning to play by ear to a certain extent helps immensly with not losing much time.
As for macro clicking: yes, that should not be a thing. There should be a limit to how many clicks there can be per second (I think three would be fine; if you use a flashy for communication you usually click at a thing or in a direction three times - and if you need to re-aim you end up clicking once or twice).
Chain blinds: does anyone actually do this to lose the killer / gain distance? --- That could be done away with as well.
In the meantime: Lightborn is one option but personally I prefer Franklin's when I see a four man flashy (/sabo) squad.
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Not asking for a nerf, just some balancing. Because I'm not the only one who's complained about flashlights. Idk, just not being pre-stunned before the animation even finishes.
Light born though, is that a Billy perk? Do I need to play him to unlock the perk or just prestige him?
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I must have just been really unlucky to encounter this group because they were just being pains in the asses the entire game. A three-man at the very least. Because they all had flashlights, they all swarmed me while I was trying to hook. Like maybe they also got lucky to encounter a newly minted IV Bronze killer, aka me. But man I have never been so frustrated as I was in that match, normally I can let flashlight saves go, but idk, it was just not fun no matter how hard I tried to face a wall or look at the ground they always somehow managed to stun me before the animation was finished or body-block the hook.
As I said, I don't hate flashlights as much as I seem to because I understand why they're there. And as survivor I don't fun them because I suck at doing saves.
I think I'll follow your and others' advice, and just prestige Billy and get his perks, can't say no to more gen slowdown perks.
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That is my main issue with flashlights and just how spammable they are, it's just annoying and it really shouldn't be a thing without consequences. Want to be a dick and click your flashlight rapidly several times in succession, welp enjoy it breaking or being on cooldown for 60 seconds or something.
Not sure how they'd counter chain-stuns, other than giving the killer like 1 or 2 seconds of immunity for the next stun, so you don't get out of one stun to only walk into a second one while trying to avoid the first. This could also work after the pick-up animation has finished playing too, to counteract being pre-stunned.
idk, just trying to think of ways to balance flashlight usage rather than outright nerf it.
I think I'll just dump all my extra BP into Billy and level him up so I can get his teachables.
Annyway, I will say I am getting better, but idk being bullied doesn't feel good. I was so fed up with their bullshit, I went and opened the gate for them and just went to the other side of the map while EGC was active. None of them left until the final few seconds, which tells me their either wanted me to chase them out so they could get more flashlight stuns, chase points or to T-Bag me.
I know this, because I went to get a glass of water to help clam myself down and they were still there when I got back. lol.
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All hail our lord and saviour Lightborn 😎
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I understand, believe me. The first time I went against such a group, I actually went to face a corner of the map and got myself a coffee, because I was so frustrated (and a little hurt, not gonna lie) not to be able to hook anyone. When I came back, apparently two of them had died to EGC, by remorse of because they were tea bagging at the gate, I don't know.
I don't know which killer you play or own, but if you want to get prepared to face such squads in the future, you can think to get Legion with shards. For once, Discordance lets you see which gens are being plowed by several survivors. It's a very good perk in this meta.
But mostly, Mad Grit. If you feel like the lobby is a swf, they're generally very altruistic and will try to swarm hooks, but Mad Grit makes it so that you don't have a cool down on your missed attacks when you carry someone, and any time you hit someone while carrying a survivor, the carried survivor can't wiggle for 4 seconds. Survivors tend to not know this perk and you wouldn't believe how many downs I've gotten because they're like "surely one more hit and they'll wiggle out".
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Flashlights are seriously not that bad. If you play more, you will learn how to counter them. You can bait survivors for free hits as well.
If you p1 Billy, Lightborn will unlock on all of your killers. You are new killer and Lightborn is new killer friendly perk. So you should use it when you see survivors have flashlights.
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NGL, I was pretty much on the verge of tears during the match, I was just that frustrated. I know, I know tough skin and all that, but being autistic makes dealing with slight annoyances ten times more difficult than it needs to be sometimes. But yeah, getting up and walking away was probably the best thing to do at the time for both of us. Unfortunately, I was unlucky in the EGC, because all of them had the "escaped" icon next to them. It's a shame they didn't try to come and find me to t-bag my face and screw themselves over, but oh well. Adapt and move on I suppose.
I'm a budding Trickster main, in case my pfp didn't give it away XD, I can't help it, I'm a sucker for the insane artist trope. Ahem, anyway, I'm also stockpiling points into Legion atm, because I was watching Otz play him (them?) a few nights ago and Legion seemed like a pretty fun killer to play. And it just seems like a good strategy to have some points dumped into another killer, in case you want to try someone different. Also just having teachable on hand just seems like a good strategy even if they're just low tiers. Looks like I'll keep adding points into Legion, I'm really close to prestiging Trickster to get his tier one perks for my other killers. So that'll be fun, then I'll start dumping perks into Billy and maybe Bubba when the DLC goes on sale again.
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As you improve at killer, you'll learn to love flashlights.
Flashlights draw in especially cocky survivors who'll happily throw the game for themselves just to get a single sick flashlight save. When you learn to exploit this cockiness, you'll find that flashlights might be actively worse than bringing nothing for the survivors.
But yes, I can agree with not being able to spam the flashlight.
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Screw tough skin ! You're allowed to feel hurt when people are being ######## to you. It's natural. You're not any less valid as a player, whatever other people on this forum or elsewhere might say. Games are supposed to be fun.
I wasn't sure about your pfp haha !
You should absolutely try out Legion ! I've been maining them for a few months now, and they're a joy to play. Their add-ons are very varied and lead to different styles of gameplay. My favorites are the Pills and Sketch Mural, that makes your frenzy last very long and make you go faster every time you hit someone. On smaller maps like Dead Dawg saloon, it's really fun to play ! :D
But you also have a lot of status effects you can apply, and changing your chase music with tapes is really fun as well.
(People don't tend to like Legion a lot though, so fair warning : you'll probably have people DCing or giving up on hook sometimes)
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So how do you counter a flashlight blind when pulling someone from a locker something like that shouldn't be able to happen but it does.
Until they lock survivors at say 20sec left you have no idea what they could bring in as they can swap from no flashlights to 4 in the last few seconds and you don't have time to swap 1 perk for lightborn which can be a very fun match for killer getting blinded at every chance and from angles that shouldn't allow it i.e you can't see them but yet they can blind you from the side.
Answers like that is like saying survivors just need to learn to get good again after patch 6.1 and adept to the new changes and every point the OP has suggested this isn't the first or last time people will complain about flashlights, more so on the side of spamming it and blinding the killer from angles which survivors shouldn't really be able to.
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You'll learn to counter them once you have a bit more experience and game sense. Until then, lightborn is a perk on a free killer and makes you immune to blinds, franklin's demise is the best anti item perk but is on a licensed killer and infectious fright is also quite effective against flashlights as it will tell you if someone is lurking nearby after a down.
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Thank you, it's hard to remember that I'm allowed to be angry even at a video game. You'd think I'd be used to it, especially coming from League of Legends. But no, any game with a hint of competitiveness is enough to bring out the trollish and at worst, toxic behaviours in people.
Like I said, I'm just a sucker for the Crazy Artist trope. Not to mention the voice work on Ji-Woon is top-notch, like most killers vocal effects, especially laughs I find grating, Clowns especially (sorry Clown mains but the "laugh cough laugh" is really irritating xO). But I Ji-Woon's voice lines and laughs are pretty entertaining, even infectious at times.
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to try Legion when I get the chance. He looks so fun and the ability to vaulyt pallets too is pretty useful. Might wait until my rank resets, before trying him out but will see. Since my MMR seems to be in a really weird spot, in where in one match I'll be against a team of baby survivors and I feel like I'm bullying, the next they'll be competent and have reasonable outplay and no side is stronger than the other. Then I'll have games like the one that prompted me to start this thread, in which I'll be abused for no reason other than "flashlight go buuuuuurrrrrrrrr". Or I can loop you like no tomorrow, while my friends who are in discord do gens, because they know exactly what you're doing Mr Killer-man (or woman if you're playing a female killer lol).
I'm not worried about people DC-ing, I've had people outright suicide on some maps. Like I was on the Doctors Map last week with a three-man SWF. The SWF went out of their way to find me or at least waited for me by a gen, pointed at me then the hooks. So I obliged and hooked them and they suicided immediately. Like I don't know what was going on with them, maybe they hated the map, maybe they hated Trickster or maybe they had some urgent situation IRL to deal with. But I and the final player were just scratching our heads in the endgame lobby, we were all so confused I've also had people DC on death hook too. Which is kind of funny, because they're just that salty about dying.
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I have figured out a few things just by playing, like always pausing for a few seconds near a pallet in case they drop it. Though sometimes there's a weird hitbox or lag issue where I'm nowhere near the pallet when it is dropped and I still get stunned, sometimes the map is so dark I don't even see the pallet until it's dropped like the Silent Hill map or RPD.
I've noticed that if I chase a loop with one of my knives drawn, the survivor tends to hesitate before dropping a pallet because they know I can get them on the other side of the drop, even more so if the loop has short walls. So I guess if I can play around that, I'd have better luck before outright breaking the pallet.
The situation that I was in for and that became the inspiration for this thread: is the downed survivor was near the window of shack, while the rest of their team was on all sides of me. One in front of me on the opposite side of the window, one to the left and the last to the right. I couldn't turn my back to the window because then I wouldn't be able to pick up the surv, and the moment I even tried to slug the rest of the team, the one guy with the medkit would heal up the slug while I was just stunned by a different flashlight. One guy kept jumping in and out of lockers, so I suspect they had Head On, to stun me while coming out of lockers. Their either sucked at the timing or just relied on Flashlight saves, but he was annoying af, even though I'd constantly be grabbing him.
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I hate flashlights with a passion, too. The light is so bright, it hurts my eyes. The flashlight blind screen is obnoxious (it used to be bright white but what it is now is still garbage). That's why I run lightborn. I will gladly run with 3 perks when no survivors have a flashlight equiped than be blinded by a found flashlight.
Lightborn is my go-to perk on killer (or franklin's, and watch the survivors panic about their precious tool).
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The only way flashlights are "abusable" is by doing the locker save tech back to back using comms. Otherwise flashlights are a really easy counter, you just need to learn it.
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can't take anyone who says they hate flashlights seriously because medkits are soooooo much worse
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I hate both. Medkids are so irritating as well.
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Yeah, I mean it's almost a sigh of relief if I see 4 flashlights though. only because that's 4 people not having an 8 second heal
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I almost always run lightborn. If you’re not going to run it, try to look down and turn away. I hate being flashlighted soooo much, and lightborn is really a saving grace.
IMO it’s worth the perk slot, then you never have to worry about it. Doesn’t matter how many flashlights are in the lobby and w which add ons, don’t have to worry about them finding one in a chest…also, some survivors heavily rely on it. I’ve had dc’s more than once as soon as they realize I’m “ruining their fun” by running lightborn.
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Just some quick tips if you’re a new killer having trouble with flashlights and flashbangs
- If you can always look at a wall or obstacle when picking someone up to make it harder for a flashlight user to get a line of sight on you.
- If no obstacle is nearby, keep a close ear and eye out if you think you maybe were followed by a flashlight player. You can sometimes hear them running around if you pay attention during the chase. Also if you take a split second to quickly scan the area before you pick someone up, or take a second to break a pallet or kick a nearby gen, you might spot another survivor skulking around for a save as well.
- If you do pick a survivor up in the open, try and do an unexpected 180 so a potential flashlight player might be behind you instead of in front of you. That way the only way they can get the blind is by running all the way up to be in front of you and the timing is a lot harder to hit.
- Lastly if you get blinded at a pallet, don’t worry about it, just listen for the footsteps or breathing of the survivor while you’re blinded and you can roughly chase them hopefully. In fact them blinding you means they potentially didn’t get as much distance as they could have had they simply run away so they may even have hurt themselves a bit by doing the blind (although they do get a nice bloodpoint bonus for it so they probably are happy with that. 🤷♂️)
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Your mmr should be different for each of your killers, and it doesn't reset with rank reset (ranks no longer affect mmr), so feel free to try out any killer at any time !
Trickster's voice actor did a DbD stream last month, he hadn't really played the game before, but I'm not sure if he'll keep streaming or not. (Of course, I wouldn't understand anything, but his voice is nice!)
And yeah, people have been giving up a lot lately. It's just even more frequent on most disliked killers like Nurse, Blight and Legion haha.
Anyway. Best of luck in your next trials, I'll see you in the fog !
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Oooh, I did not know that. Thanks! MMR really confuses me istg.
I hope I don't get too many people DC-ing and that I get the chance to play Legion.
Thanks for all the tips and advice. Good luck with your trials and I hope to see you in the fog!
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The whole BP boost thing is probabbly why they kept constantly flashlight blinding and saves, along with the added bonus of just being unbearable to a new killer... 😑 😒 🙄
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I know that feeling, and it's the reason I don't play killer more. If I have a bad game as survivor, then at least I'm out of it early and can get a new match. Have a bad game as killer, you have to stay there till the end even when it's clear the MMR has decreed you don't get to have any fun. And the end will be dragged out as long as possible, because of course, you have to chase them out the exit gates and they have to get that last teabag in.
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Everything dugman said is great. I'll just add that after you've been blinded the first time, you're not stunned in the sense that you can aim your camera to look down (some people prefer to look up). This will prevent you from getting blinded several times in a row.
Sounds like you had a rough go. We've all been there. Sending positive vibes your way.
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Thanks for the vibes! I'm fairly certain I was being blinded fron angles that aren't supposed to be possible. Such as diagonally and behind, it's happened twice before and it's really annoying. From what I can tell it seems to be a bug or an exploit, where if you're being blinded from the front and another surv uses the flashlight from behind or slightly off to the side and if youre standing completely skill it still counts as a seperate stun for some reason.
Still, makes me wish that chain stunning wasn't a thing. Like maybe it needs to go on cool down before it can be activated again? Idk. Just an idea.
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Eeer...no
But I would not mind the "Overwhelming Presence" buff idea that I presented
When an item is used inside the terror radius, it automatically loses 10% of its charges
So it means if a survivor clicks a flashlight, it loses 10% for every click
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I do like that idea, but what about killers who have a large radius?
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Well, the actual effect is just cutting the charges in half (100% more depletion rate) so survivors shouldn't use items inside the terror radius in the first place
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Oooh, I get you! :O very good idea.
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I love doing this when they bring 4 flashlights, franklins is really high value. They will often die to get their spicy flashlight back 😎
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I'm going to have to get Bubba on the next sale, that perk sounds amazing!
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It really is, BBQ is also a good perk.
and Bubba is a good killer.
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I've heard good things about BBQ as well, hell I may as well just buy all the DLC at this point. When it's on sale ofc, as the last time I ended up buying the All-Kill, Ghost Face and Silent Hill and all up it only ended up costing the same amount as a new chapter. Has to be some of the cheapest DLC I've ever come across ngl.
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Lightborn, done, problem solved
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You could run lightborn
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Thanks! I'll work on presteging Billy, I've also been told his other perks are pretty useful as well.
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Yeah, Billy has a nice set of begginer perks that you should use when starting out, just so you get a feel for everything
Not saying these perks are only good for new people, heck even with 2k+ hours I still use lightborn because funny, but tinkerer lets you get a solid ground for gen speeds, how fast they go, ect, and enduring lets you be more aggressive in chases without much repercussions, all and all, he really does have very good perks for starters
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Lightborn is a 100% counter, franklins is a bit more risk and reward.
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As already mentioned there's some options you can try, and some that may not have been thought of. You can also use some in combination for good effect.
Lightborn: Prevents you from being blinded, and shows you the aura of the survivor who attempted to blind you for several seconds.
Franklin's Demise: Knocks items out of survivor's hands when you hit them with a basic melee attack. The items lose charges while on the ground, and are completely empty by 90 seconds. While the items are on the ground you can see their aura and the progress of the charge loss.
Overwhelming Presence: Survivors using items in your terror radius have the charges depleted up to twice as fast.
Fire Up: Each time a gen is finished you get a stacking speed bonus that helps increase the speed of a lot of different actions the killer does, including picking up downed survivors. This can throw off flashlight save and body block timing noticeably.
Franklin's is particularly useful, as it works for anything the survivor is carrying, whereas Lightborn will only prevent blinds. Anything survivors pick back up or pull from chests, works the same. Franklin's makes flashlight nazis so MAD. On far more than one occasion I've had entire flashlight squads up and DC once they find out I'm using it. Most are one-trick groups and have nothing to back it up if it fails.
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This OhTofu vid was invaluable to me in my early days:
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Thanks, I'll give it a watch. <3
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