Dark Devotion discussion
Continuing a series of threads on the least picked perks according to Nightlight, next up is Plague's perk Dark Devotion (0.63% usage)
Dark Devotion - You become obsessed with one Survivor. When the Obsession loses a health state, your Terror Radius transfers to the Obsession for 20/25/30 seconds, and its radius is set to 32 meters. You are granted the Undetectable status effect for the duration. The Survivor with the transferred Terror Radius is also considered to be "inside the Terror Radius" for other purposes.
The Killer can only be obsessed with one Survivor at a time. Undetectable hides the Killer's aura, Terror Radius, and Red Stain.
This perk is pretty unusual in that not only does it give the killer Undetectability for a bit of time but it even effectively has a decoy terror radius as well that moves around with the Obsession that can further confuse survivors. In addition, because the terror radius is still present on the map, unlike with other Undetectable effects this one is compatible with things and has some unusual combos with things which require you to have a terror radius (e.g. Infectious Fright, Legion's Feral Frenzy Killer Instinct, Coulrophobia, etc.) And as of the big rework in 6.1.0 it can even trigger off all damage, including things like Trapper's Traps, becoming injured from being Infected by Plague, special attacks like Victor's lunge, Huntress' hatchets and Trickster's daggers, and so on.
Personally I'm a little surprised this perk doesn't see more play since being Undetectable is quite a nice effect and all those unusual combos you can try with having the Obsession have your terror radius sound like things people would try now and again for fun. The main downside I can think of is it requires damaging the Obsession, and if you're unlucky you just might not get a chance to do that most of the match if they're being really sneaky or are a strong looper for instance. Also if you hit the Obsession and stay near them your Undetectability might not get you as much value as if you split off and go after someone else, but then again once the Obsession knows you have this perk you can fake going away, they'll ignore the terror radius altogether because they'll assume you left, and then you circle back and smack them down at a gen. 😄
If I had to guess, though, I'd say this perk might not see much use simply because there are a fair number of people who think being Undetectable isn't that good against swf players and players with Spine Chill. And it is certainly true that solo survivors without Spine Chill are easier to ambush than swf players who are actually paying attention on comms and alerting each other to where you are. Honestly I think this downside is maybe a bit overblown, in my own games I tend to do fairly well with stealth killers and Undetectability even against swfs, but there's no denying it's easier against the solo groups.
Overall I'm not really convinced this perk necessarily needs a buff despite its low usage rate. But I guess if the devs did want to buff it a bit to help it get picked more often the simplest way to do it would be to increase its duration to, say, 40-50 seconds. (Again, I think 30 seconds is a decent amount of time for this effect, but I certainly wouldn't turn down 10-20 more seconds on it if it was added. 🤷♂️)
Another possible way to indirectly buff a perk like this would be to adjust how Spine Chill interacts with Undetectability to make it harder to detect Undetectable killers with it. That's a whole other can of worms of a discussion, though, since threads about whether Spine Chill should or shouldn't be changed pop up somewhat regularly and are kind of contentious. On top of which I believe there's still this thing up in the air from the rework of whether the current version of Spine Chill is temporary while the devs add a visual terror radius indicator to help the hearing impaired. So really who knows what might or might not happen with that one!
Comments
-
my issue with dark devotion is that it kind of requires you to leave the obsession after hitting them, otherwise you really can't get much value out of it since most of that 30 seconds is gonna be dedicated to downing, picking up and hooking the obsession if you keep chasing. i'd either just buff the numbers or make it reset the timer after downing the obsession while it's still active.
4 -
The timer should be reimposed, but a bug that is already 2 years old does not allow it to do this, I already wrote about this bug
Just need to fix the bug and then the perk will be more useful
3 -
Why does the perk even have obsession condition? What would happen if it got removed? I pressume it would gain some (more targets) and loose some (easier to identify DD is in play, bit easier killer tracking after hitting another survivor), but overall this should be nice buff to the perk.
0 -
It has a play with your food problem in that you have to be leaving the obsession (either on the ground or injure them and leave) otherwise the perk is not going to be doing anything. Some killers are not so good with undetectable or are stealth killers. Some maps make this perk basically useless. It is not a bad perk per say, it just has a lot of issues. Honestly a perk like tinkerer is just far better since you get the stealth effect with a perk which is guaranteed to provide value unlike Dark Devotion. Buffing the duration would be nice, but is still not going to fix this perk's core issues. None the less, I welcome a buff to a perk like this as I enjoy trying to make them work.
1 -
useless perk. as solo. i will instantly spot this perk as soon as it is active. If its useless vs solo, its likely more useless for SWF. I have two opinions of this perk. The first opinion is that if this perk was intended to be a stealth perk, then this perk is far complicated to be a stealth. The fake terror radius does not fool me as survivor and the obsession triggering condition adds a perk tax to use a obsession switching perk to improve consistently in triggering the perk effect.
My suggested buffs would be:
-Remove Fake terror radius 32 meter, Just make it grant undetectable for 30 seconds after injuring a survivor by any means.
-Remove obsession mechanic.
------------------
The other way to look at this perk is that its a perk meant to confuse the survivor using the heartbeat instead of stealth. In that case, the perk should work like doctor's calm-add-on in T3 where applying an injury grants all survivors on the map a 32 meter terror radius. The calm add-on makes all survivors hear the heartbeat as if the killer was right on top of them. The perk would have synergy with terror radius perks as a single hit would trigger all terror radius perks. The main issue is that only coulrophobia has a decent effect while unnerving presence and overwhelming presence are really bad perk effects. I do not think this version of dark devotion would get used but the perk could potentially become better in the future if more powerful terror-radius perks are added to the game. At very least, dark devotion would be more confusing to play against then current iteration.
The perk would read as follows:
Whenever the Obsession loses a health-state by any means and thus enters the injured state, Dark devotion activates:
-You become undetectable for 20/25/30 second.
-All survivors gain your terror radius in 32 meter radius.
----
Currently, the only killer that I have tried using this perk and have had some success with it is Legion with Susie's tape for chaining feral frenzy hits. Beyond this meme build, it is not very good perk.
0 -
Fake terror radius will always momentarily confuse. There is no reason to remove it. More so in lower MMR ranges. Also there are more TR based perks. The most prominent one is starstruck. Meaning if you are able to down and pick up within 30s, then your second version could make everyone exposed...
0 -
starstruck activates when the killer pick up a survivor. this perk activates when you injure a survivor, only obsession though. Agitation is better perk when it comes to activating starstruck. m1 killer have too little duration to use starstruck while nurse does not really get stunned by pallets(for nemesis to switch obsession to trigger this perk), so the perk is synergy you are describing is not worth it.
0 -
really? Hit obsession, down her within 30s and pick her up. No matter where they are, everyone is exposed. The next person you meet within 30s can be downed in 1 hit. This does not sound so bad to me. Sure enough, without obsession condition it would be even better
0 -
30 sec for m1 killer is too little. I wouldn't use it on other killers. only nurse can use starstruck because her time to down is around 30 seconds, with other killers, you just hold-w against the status effect and the perk has no potency. you can already run distressing+agitation for 52 meter terror radius. Starstruck simply is not good perk for pretty much for all but one killer.
0 -
I don’t know, I’ve gotten decent value out of Starstruck plus Agitation before. Even if you just get one or two instant downs from it the whole match it’s worth a slot, and it’s amazing how often survivors try to bodyblock you after the first carry before they realize you have this perk. It really punishes bodyblocking squads. 🙂
0 -
not my experience with the perk. the perk generally expires from survivors running away. By the time you get to them, the exposed debuff is gone. I have tried the perk on 5-6 killers for like 10 games. I tried on wesker, its ok but somewhat of gimmick that relies on survivor playing poorly. I don't like gimmicks. I like running perks that work against me when I play survivor because it verifies the effectiveness of the perk for when I run it as killer. I use this same logic for survivor perks when I am playing killer though Its strange to suggest improving a survivor perk because your only making your killer gameplay harder for yourself when playing against it. very awkward.
0 -
That's why I included Agitation, you can outrun survivors if they're near you with that perk when you pick someone up. Without Agitation it's not as good.
0 -
your only moving 8% faster. I am not going down anyone at 108% speed. backpack(Agitation+Iron grasp) build is a joke build. I have played few killers trying something like that but it just looks so silly. The thread derailed from dark devotion to SS.
0 -
I've definitely downed people moving 108% speed with Agitation who started near me. You can't do a long chase with it but you can definitely get someone who is out of position nearby when you pick the person up that you are carrying.
0 -
downing someone at 108% m/s is like playing tier 1 burger king myer's. I understand that bad survivors exist, but starstruck is not a serious perk that I could ever consider on any killer besides nurse. 30 second is a joke-level of duration for normal killers. fun fact, when ghostface was put into PTB, His mark had 30 second duratio. it was changed because his mark would run out if you chased anyone with it active. On release, it was increased to 45 seconds. After his recent update, it was increased again to 60 seconds. what this shows is how much of discrepancy there is between a high-tier killer time to get hit on survivors compare to everyone else. SS is meme-tier perk on every other killer except for nurse, with or without agitation.
Post edited by Devil_hit11 on0 -
Actually Tier 1 Meyers is 105%, he's faster when he uses Agitation (and one of the funniest backpack gimmicks is Scratch Mirror Meyers with Agiation and Starstruck, etc, since he's still Undetectable while doing it. 😄)
But yeah, I've downed people while using Agitation who were, again, too close and out of position when I picked someone up. It doesn't matter much if you're 108% versus 115% when they're already right near you.
0 -
i never let killer hit me while they're carrying a survivor. that is textbook bad survivor play. I also hate teammate that give killers free hits. those are most pointless teammates to carry in soloq. the only time where letting killer hit you is ok is if you 100% know that them hiting you results in the killer dropping the survivor on their shoulder. typically only relevant in hook sabotage gameplay.
0 -
I love Dark Devotion when it enters my randomized builds! It's not only a useful perk that can confuse survivors, but also it's unexpected and I feel it's one of those perks that is not just fun to use, but fun to face.
This perk has given me plenty of worth during my matches, and what I tend to do if survivors aren't close together is break chase, then rejoin if possible. That survivor is also not necessarily aware, and when a chase is broken they can get a false sense of security, only to be taken when unprepared; (this tactic is alsp how to get rhe most out of the Nemesis perk).
1 -
I think it should have a slightly longer (perhaps 35/40/45 seconds) duration and also should reset the cooldown if the Obsession looses another health state (currently you keep the duration of Dark Devotion, even if you hit your Obsession again).
0
