Shattered Hope discussion
Continuing a series of threads on the least picked perks according to Nightlight, next up is the generic killer perk Shattered Hope (0.63% usage)
Shattered Hope - Whenever you snuff a Boon Totem, the totem is destroyed instead. When you destroy a Boon Totem this way, the auras of all Survivors inside the Boon Totem range are revealed to you for 6/7/8 seconds.
Ironically I've actually been using this perk myself the last couple of weeks since Circle of Healing starting poking its head in occasionally to the top 3 most used perks list. And I've gotten to actually destroy a Boon with it most matches so it's not been totally terrible in that respect. 🙂
That said, I certainly wouldn't be against it getting a slight buff to increase its popularity a bit. I think the main reasons the perk isn't popular despite being a generic perk are probably:
- If the survivors don't bring Boons then the perk is useless so its strength depends partly on the state of the perk meta. Fortunately at the moment Circle of Healing is still very popular (around a 20% usage rate on Nightlight for instance) so odds are you'll probably see at least one Circle of Healing or other Boon close to every match or so.
- Another issue is, even if the survivors bring a Boon, in order to make use of this perk you actually have to travel to and find the Boon to snuff it out and sometimes Boons can be in awkward spots on the map. For instance, if a Boon is up on the second floor of Ironworks it can take you a good 10-15 seconds just to go there and run up the spiral stairways to reach it which is a bit of time to not actively trying to chase survivors. The plus side is if you do invest that time that spot is gone forever with this perk, but it's still a small risk doing it.
- Also the secondary effect of seeing auras within the Boon's range is kind of mild. Yeah, if there happens to be a survivor near you then great! But odds are pretty good that if you are next to a Boon the survivors probably already ran for the hills and aren't that close a lot of the time. (Maybe if there's a key gen nearby and they were hoping to hide it out you can catch them out on it, but I would bet more often than not the aura never triggers from this perk.)
So this perk does have potential, and does have some synergy with a couple of other perks like Pentimento (since you can destroy a Boon and immediately place a Pentimento instead) and Undying (since Undying lets you see auras of survivors next to dull totems which can give you a really good idea of where a Boon is being placed). But it does feel just a bit weak probably on the whole on its own.
Off hand I can think of a couple of possible ways to maybe boost the perk a bit
- Significantly increase or even remove the aura's range limitation. If you could, for instance, see auras of all survivors across the entire map for 8 seconds when you destroy a Boon that would be a fairly nice effect, kind of similar to getting Retribution or Lethal Pursuer for instance.
- Add in an effect to Shattered Hope that helps the killer find Boons in the first place. For instance, maybe have it let them see the auras of Boon totems within 15-20 meters. (For reference I think killers can hear Boons up to about 12 meters, so this would be an aura you can see a little beyond that.)
Comments
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Here's the issue.
1. It's the only perk in the game with potential to do literally nothing. Even Distortion, a perk that can never proc, can indirectly give you information on what perks are/aren't in play. Shattered Hope does nothing.
2. It's like OG Undying. You can break one but there's 4 other totems to potentially go through. Survivors can bring maps, small game, etc to find them if they want.
3. 1 killer perk = 4 survivor perks. You're giving up a perk slot to counter something 1-2 survs MIGHT have. There's going to be a hole in your build somewhere.
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Shattered hope to me is a bandaid fix to the fundamental problem with coh.
You can buff it all you want, but the perk essentially exists to counter a single perk.
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Kicking boon is secondary objective for killer and killer do not like secondary objectives because it impedes on their objective to hook survivors. As a result, you face an opportunity cost between kicking boons or chasing survivors. This is the same opportunity cost of kicking a gen vs chasing a survivor but at least with kicking generators, generator kicking is something that you can consistently do every match as opposed boon kicking. What this perk does is make boon kicking more rewarding. I think if your going to make a perk that counter boons similar to small game/counter-force/detective hutch, then I would suggest the perk to work automatically.
Examples of automatic perks that would counter boons better
Version 1:
Every time a survivor is put into the dying state by basic or special attack, All boon totems on the map are snuffed. Decreases boon speed by 15%/25%/35%.
Version 2:
After hooking a survivor, Shatter hopes activates:
The next time a survivor boon is placed on the map within 64/96/128 meters, The survivor boon totem is destroyed. Shatter Hope deactivates after the totem is destroyed.
I think these two versions of the perk would be far superior version to counter boons. At the same time, Just like the small game/detective hutch/counter-force for survivor, I do not think many killer would run it because they would still see these perks as risk perks where a more consistent perk like Scourge hook: Pain resonance is more prefer in the average perk slot out.
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make the totem breaking base
then make it so shattered hope allows you to break hex totems, and if its a totem with effects on breaking them they trigger
so you can force penti stacks (if you run other hexes), force haunted, force ret, etc
so turns from a perk that should be a base feature to a gimmick perk for guaranteeing value from other perks
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If they were to do that them they should either buff all the boons significantly, increase boon speed, and make snuffing a boon as killer take 10 seconds as well as allowing the boon to work map wide and not have any sound emenating from it
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Minor point but there are a few other perks that can do literally nothing. Lightborn for example does absolutely nothing if nobody brings a way to blind you.
But yeah, some people don't like the risk it won't do much which I'm sure hurts it.
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killer can quick switch to lightborn because they can see survivor in lobby with items. its same thing with franklins, but survivor that use flashlight often quick switch to them because of said perk in the lobby. the med-kit and toolbox are not quick switched because you can drop item in the lobby which counters franklin demise.
With anti-totem perks for each side, the circle of healing perk is not shown just as old hex:ruin was not shown. you need to equip it knowing that the perk could be a risk.
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you know that a killer snuffing a boon takes the time it takes to walk over to the boon which can be upwards of 30 seconds on some maps for some boons, then the animation, then the whole time until a new chase is started or gen is kicked which can be another 30-60 seconds (if a survivor were to place a boon and taking this exact amount of time, gens are still getting done since its a 4v1)
so youre suggesting to add minimum 10 seconds to this action, and making it so the boon can be instantly placed somewhere else (no risk all reward, kinda like it is currently, except its even more in the survivors favor)
and yeah, some boons arent that good, but coh exists, is basically infinite barely slower medkits, and is so ridiculously strong that if a boon is placed its always coh
so map wide 21 second heals. wow that sounds fun. no scratch marks or auras on the entire map? awesome. permanent 16 second unbreakable? the killer doesnt even get time to check around for pallet savers before the person gets up, thats amazing. permanent haste? yeah its 2% but thats still added distance, those poor 4.4s, sounds great
so now you can see youre an idiot, and how my idea is actually pretty good, its still 5 boons a game, and that means the killer still has to go and hunt down 5 totems to destroy bc my change wont even cut down the time of the first part, its just the same spot cant be used twice
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Sure, then again you might just kill the person with the flashlight before they get a chance to use it and Lightborn never triggers. Plus it’s not the only example of a perk that might do literally nothing, it was just the one I happened to mention. Another for instance is Grim Embrace, if you never hook one of the survivors it has no effect. Also Territorial Imperative, if you never get a chance to hook in the basement it’s a dead perk. And you could argue that Dying Light, for example, might do worse than nothing if you only manage to hook the Obsession the first three times.
I should also point out none of those perks are that popular, and this is a reason why.
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1, it can take 2-5 minutes to find totem on some maps. Survivors don't have sound aid and blue visual like killers
2, if killers takes 30-60 seconds to start chase, the problem is killers not boon
3, boons are huge risks. inner healing, overzelous, full hex build (everyone cleanses totems), bad map with hard to find totems (e.g. lery's), doctor wish shocks/retribution/undying, plague and also shattered hope - meaning you can end up without possibility to heal at all
4, it's not map wide. It's very localized. On avarage it takes 30 seconds to move to boon area + heal. That is super risky, because you have to move thru the map where killer can see you - and killer can deliberately fish for you in boon if he knows the location. +14s for actual heal. Meaning boon is worse then self care on it's own if you want it just for yourself. your 21s heal is NEVER reality.
5, other boons are not even worth mentioning. Shadow step will help you only in maps where you can hide your line of sight (meaning interier only) - if you are hit, then you get almost 0 value. Also it's noisy and visible and easy to snuff so the perk is used very sparingly. Exponential is the same - the perk could be valueable if it did not work in small radius only and if the radius at least did not contain strong warning that boon is in the play = you can MAYBE use it once. UB works once no matter where you are. And dark theory. Those 2% on such a limited spot (if you could know it's dark theory it's not even worth to snuff it even if you bump into it) helps you exactly NEVER. Nobody uses that perk. The chance that it helps you is nonexistend. People that bring it are people that play perk rulet and that's about it.
"so now you can see youre an idiot" - and your idea is just terrible. Making shattered hope base means boons are dead. It's the same as saying killer should need to hex totems for 14 seconds and those hexes should have same radius as boons - you can still get value from dhope if you kill people in that spot and you should now see my idea is actually pretty good.
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You want to make boons exactly like hexes, so i proposed an equally stupid idea
Making boons actually breakable by basekit and without any buffs to compensate would make boons useless, as if most werent besides COH already
If you care abt boons so much as killer either use shattered hope or ignore them, simple as that
They take time away from doing gens anyway to set it back up, if its annoying for you, nobody's forcing you to snuff them
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No I made an exactly as stupid idea as "xni" did with his "actually pretty good idea"
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Uh i think you replied to the wrong person dude?
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yes I edited the answer.
But to be constructive. Lifting distance requirement for aura reading for boons should still be OK. Making shattered hope basekit is very unwise idea borderline killing the perks altogether
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I honestly think it isn't a bad perk by any means, however sometimes people could bring zero boons or you can have people with boons on a very large map. For some killers it isn't a big problem to traverse the map and snuff them out (e.g. Wraith), for others it takes ages. So my suggestion would be that in addition to its current effects, downing a survivor within the boon's range will automatically snuff it out (and destroy the totem).
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I honestly think the perk is fine as is, but if it were to be buffed in anyway I would say give you the option to break dull totems as well. The upside to this is if you do come across a dull totem, you can delete the option as a precautionary measure, especially if you know that the boon would be in a relatively safe spot. It's also a weaker way of getting your Pentimento stacks as you'd be searching blindly for totems vs using Plaything and seeing the aura of them soon as they're active and then broken.
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Fair point, but here's 2 counter arguments with lightborn
1. You physically see if someone brings a beamer in the pre-game lobby.
2. There's a chance they could loot a chest and grab one. While inconsistent, there's a chance it could do something in the base game.
Shattered Hope literally does nothing unless specific perks are in play.
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As I said when CoH first came out; killers do not want or need a second objective.
Time investment is one of the ways in which this game is asymmetrical, survivors can safely spend time doing secondary objectives, slinking around the map, scouting out potential plays, hiding, doing absolutely nothing, and their gameplay is not impacted. Meanwhile killers literally need to make the best use out of every second of the game in order to turn it in their favour.
It is not even a straight cut case of the killers time being worth 4 times of a survivor, it's not as simple as that. 14 seconds to boon a totem is not equal to the time it can potentially take to find and snuff it out. It is not a straight trade.
This is why destroying boons when snuffing should have always been a basekit feature, and this ridiculous idea that "some killers might want to force survivors to spend time reblessing" is nonsense. No killer has ever wanted this, because it doesn't work. I've been in situations where I've snuffed out a boon 5, maybe 10 times, and all it takes is one survivor to keen reblessing it, while the other three progress the objective, it's like pissing in the ocean. Simply put, keeping a boon out of action is only possible if you identify the booner and tunnel them out of the game.
Further more, totems should be a finite resource. The second best healing perk before CoH was Inner Healing, which gives you ONE heal per totem. ONE. CoH gives unlimited heals per totem. The power gap between those two perks is measured in lightyears.
So Shattered Hope's ability to destroy a boon should be basekit, and in exchange, boons themselves should have other buffs, such as not alerting the killer to their presence by a global sound effect. This allows survivors to make use of their limited use totems, before killers identify them and snuff them out. This would bring them more in line with other similar survivor perks like Inner Healing, and in line with how Hexes work as finite effects. It would also mean blessing a hex totem wouldn't need to take twice as long.
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Oh that's totally wrong. 61%. If there's someone who can afford to not be efficient, it's killers. Maybe you did not notice patch 6.1
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That's only true if you're camping and tunnelling. I thought we weren't supposed to do that.
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And yet it happens in vast majority of all games. I mean delete all boons for all I care if you remove camp and tunnel.
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I would suggest maybe making it reveal the booner's aura for 5 seconds and expose them for 30 seconds or more. Turns boons into a risk for the booner.
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Sure, but sometimes survivors swap at the last second and might swap out a flashlight, and also even if someone brings a flashlight they might get unlucky and not have a chance to blind you with it if you down them first. Also I just picked Lighhtborn as an example, some other perks off the top of my head that might do literally nothing for you also include Grim Embrace (if you never hook one of the survivors), Coup de Grace (if your lunges either never hit or would have hit anyway without the increase), Dying Light (if you hook out the Obsession first), and Unrelenting (if you don’t miss any attacks that match). Mind you, all these perks aren’t that popular so it’s kind of a common theme.
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