Thanatophobia's design is bad rn, here's a sidegrade to it:

Ssajbambusa

First part is explanation of how current Thana affects matches. If you want to get straight into proposed changes, please check the part 2 (below).

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Thanatophobia has been changed many times over the years, however I believe this perk current iteration is literally the worst it has ever been.

For a while it simply had 5% stackable penalty for each hooked, dying or injured survivor, applying to every survivor in the match... and with generator repair time increase it had to be toned down - I agree with this.

Part 1: Current reality

Right now however, it is only useable on two killers - and two killers who it was complained about FOR EVER - who are Plague and Legion.

There are multiple killers who can benefit from perk that pushes survivors to heal or get injuries easily and these are: Hillbilly and Cannibal, Wraith, Ghostface, Twins, Nurse, Hag, Deathslinger and Trapper/Cenobite with their iridescents.

Wow that is quite a big pool! It is, the problem with current Thana is - It is somewhat strong when all four survivors are injured at once... otherwise it's between 2-6% penalty... and it's super bad.

Chainsaw killers + Ghostface: They benefit from Thana simply because it encourages survivors to heal. Their built in instadown doesn't really care if they are healthy or not in a lot of cases so time spent healing is often time wasted.

Wraith, Ghostface and kinda Hag: They get surprise hits very often for basically free... the problem is, survivors already want to heal against them due to stealthy/unpredictable nature of their powers... so they will never see all four survivors injured.

Twins and Nurse: While not stealthy, these are absurdly strong when everyone is injured to the point of people compulsively healing against them wherever they can... so again, no four stacks ever.

Deathslinger and Trapper/Cenobite with iri addons: They get injuries basically for free. Problem with all three of them is their chases can take very long after getting the first injury or simply one survivor can hide for ever and stay healthy. Iri traps can still be disarmed by injured survivor with no penalty. They will not see all four stacks either.

Honourable mention: Oni. Everyone heals as soon as possible, because when survivors allow him to gain his power he is arguably the most dangerous killer in game currently (Except for top 5% Nurses I guess).

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Why does it matter? Simply because 3 stacks of Thanatophobia is laughably weak, while 4 are obnoxiously strong! I'm sorry, but 6% is really, really small debuff - literally any other slowdown perk will result in more time gained by killer.

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Finally we get to Legion and Plague. They get injuries basically for free with their powers. Legion even has a built in detection tool for healthy survivors, while Plague's injuries just happen by survivors running/performing actions.

Healing against Legion is considered a waste of time, because they will injure you for free anyway as soon as they find you... and Legion will find you! Common tactic is to simply not heal against the Legion, because he is just a normal m1 killer after the first injure. Now survivors have to face 20% penalty or 'waste time healing'. Very strong.

Plague makes you broken so you literally cannot heal against her. You can cleanse, but it gives her AoE ranged attacked... so the common tactic is to never heal against her! Now survivors have to face 20% or give Plague option to be at her strongest (Just like OnI). Very strong, there is no good answer to Thana on Plague.

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And this is a problem. These two killers were already VERY COMPLAINED ABOUT for being obvious Thana users... and with current patch they are the ONLY killers who can use it with actual benefit.

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Part 2. Propositions for changes

With all of the above in mind I came up with solution that achieves two things: Thanatophobia can be used on other killers and builds too and not be useless, it no longer is as strong and oppressive (when it comes to generator speed) on these two killers who will use it anyway.

• Thanatophobia: For each injured, dying or hooked Survivor the perk gains 2 tokens. For each dead survivor, the perk receives 1 token.
• For each token all Survivors receive an Action Speed penalty of 0.75 / 1 / 1.25 % to Repairing, Sabotaging, Cleansing, Blessing and Opening both Chests and Exit Gates, stack-able up to a maximum of 6 / 8 / 10 %.

Thanatophobia is now only half as potent at it's strongest. (Nerf)

It provides slightly bigger penalty per injure (Buff)

It now affects more actions - most notably the Exit Gates. (Buff)

It now grants half of it's value when survivor is dead. (Buff)

I didn't went for healing speed as it's obvious devs don't want it to be win-win perk, more like encouragement to actually heal - you have other perks for healing slowdown.

I always thought that Thana not accounting for dead survivors is a bit silly... Thanatophobia literally meaning the fear of death. It makes no sense for it to literally not work when three people are injured and one is dead (this is thematically more 'scary' situation than when all four are injured and alive!). I don't want to turn it into a tunnel perk (even though old Dying Light was really cool perk thematically and absolutely broken with old mories) so it only counts as half of penalty for dead survivors.

It affecting more actions just makes it more universal perk, while having it's numbers toned down doesn't make it very oppresive (2 additional seconds on Exit Gates at it's best... it's not that strong, but can result in unexpected death every once in a while).

Finally it gives slightly bigger bonus per injure... So while weaker at 4 injured survivors than current Thana, it is stronger than it on 1/2/3 injuries - which was exactly my goal.

I wrote it down as someone who plays both sides for 6 years with breaks every once in a while, playing both against very experienced and very inexperienced players alike. I feel quite confident in when it comes to seeing DbD for what and how it is.

Devil_hit11

I just want healing reduction speed back. the perk was suppose to incentive killer to spread injure pressure and keep everyone injured. the whole repair bonus aspect was there to give a lower bound reward for survivors that refuse to heal and decide to play injured the entire trial(to counter the perk).

Ssajbambusa

@Devil_hit11 You have other perks for this. I don't think it will ever come back, mainy due to fact that old Thana was giving some value, both when survivors healed and stayed injured... and as we know, devs are allergic to perks which actually give killers benefits.

fake

I am amazed at the developer's good sense in reworking perk, which was the most playable in Prague and the Region, into garbage that is useless outside of Prague and the Region.

I think the change that Thanatophobia should have received was the first one health change to create the biggest percentage slowdown.

Before the nerf it was (5.5/5.5/5.5/5.5%) with a maximum of 22%.

Now it is (2/2/2/14%) with a maximum of 20%.

My idea is (6/4/4/4%) with a maximum of 18%.

GrimReaperJr1232

I have a different suggestion.

When a survivor is injured, they get a 4% debuff + 3% per injured survivor.

7, 10, 13, and caps at 16, the same as current Gift of Pain.

Gandor

It was suggested multiple times. I have no idea why devs decided to just plain nerf those numbers. I think the best idea was to make any subsequent injury less valuable then previous one (so lets say 6%, 11%, 15%, 18% - but specific numbers could be tweaked). Instead devs decided to double up on making it useless on everyone but those 2 killers.

Overall I think this is OK, because thana is no longer so damn oppressive on those 2 killers AND other killers have a lot of other perks to slow generators (namely regression perks like CoB, OC, Eruption, Pain res and then slowdowns in deadlock and DMS - which is enough as you can only take at most 4 perks anyway). So yes, thana is now bad on everyone else, but killers still have options