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"Niche" Does Not Always Mean "Inconsistent"
A little while ago, I posted a thread about how I felt most survivor perks were decent and viable, to push back against the idea that almost all survivor perks are entirely trash. As expected (and welcomed!), the thread generated some discussion and a fair amount of pushback from people who disagreed with me. Between that, and keeping up to date on threads about or mentioning similar concepts, I've sort of noticed a bit of a pattern.
It seems like at least some people consider all niche perks to be inherently inconsistent, and that's why they should be considered unviable. The definition, as many have said, for a viable perk should be "one that consistently improves your chances of winning" - and while I would personally put an asterisk on that to account for strong but inconsistent perks like Reassurance, I'm willing to accept it in its entirety in order to make the point I want to make here: Niche can be consistent.
To me, "niche" just means the perk doesn't have broad value, it's specialised in a specific area. That specific area can be extremely consistent, and even very common, but it would require the player to want to engage with it, which not everyone does. For some examples of what I mean by perks that are niche but very consistent, I'd probably point most towards totem perks. These perks, like Inner Healing, Overzealous, and even Clairvoyance, are all niche in that they require going out of your way to proc them, but they aren't inherently inconsistent; Inner Healing will almost always give you a heal or two, Clairvoyance will almost always give you aura reading, and Overzealous can be made consistent with the right build.
Which brings me to the other kind of niche perks; the ones that can be made consistent but require supporting perks, builds, and playstyles. Overzealous may seem inconsistent on its own, but paired with Circle of Healing, you have consistent gen speed and healing speed available... if you want to engage with totems, which not everyone does. Bite the Bullet may seem inconsistent if you try to just slap it on and get passive value, but it can be made consistent with a source of self-healing to become a viable stealth perk.
None of this is to say that people should want to run these perks and builds, obviously, and I'm not even saying everyone would benefit from them equally- but what I am saying is that you can't fairly discount these perks as inherently trash and unviable based on them being inconsistent, because they aren't. They're just niche, which is a different thing and doesn't disqualify them from giving consistent value that increases your chance of winning.
Comments
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I don't think Inner Healing is considered niche though? It's a pretty nice perk if you're playing solo and it bypasses Sloppy Butcher which is pretty common. I think what makes Overzealous niche is the fact that you get hit and lose your speed, despite wasting time to go find a totem and cleanse it, and totems are finite. if you could get back your charge once you get healed or something, i think it'd be in a good spot. Inner Healing doesn't lose its charge if you get grabbed from a locker while it's healing you. Something similar maybe should be also true for Overzealous, or make it lose its gen repair bonus on down instead of on injury.
On top of that, you'd have to do some math to calculate if it's actually gaining you time or wasting you time. Like it takes you 14 seconds to cleanse it but the perk only gives you 10% repair speed, which isn't even 10 seconds. For it to be worth it, you'd have to take out 3 gens or more with one single cleansed totem, which imo isn't realistic for solo survivor. Instead, if killer had hex totems then you'd gain twice the speed, which would make it worth it but niche, as killers running hexes aren't all that common and you'd need to find it first before someone else. I'm saying all this cause I've run this perk, it's a cute little perk, but to get optimal use out of it you need a killer who has hex totems imo. Again this is all for solo survivors, in a 4man SWF someone else can be the bait and you can be the designated gen person.
So no, I don't think Overzealous can be made consistent cause it's mainly a perk that relies on a killer build for maximum and worthy usefulness, and if someone is bring a hex build they're not bringing insane gen control perks, so you don't really need the repair speed lol. When you need the repair speed (dealing with 3+ gen slowdowns) you can't usually get its maximum effect.
Clairvoyance weakness is that it doesn't show you the aura of the other totems, so you're stuck between picking Clairvoyance for hatch aura or Small Game for totem locating and keeping track of how many are still up. I've run Clairvoyance too and honestly, I've gotten use out of it (for hatch that is) few times. i run it when I'm doing treasure hunting builds with Ace's perk that gives you better items from chests etc. so I can find the chests faster. Compared to a perk like MFT, Sprint Burst and even inner Healing, I would not call Clairvoyance that reliable in general, unless you're playing a completely selfish solo build with sole survivor and wake up.
Then there are perks like Rookie Spirit that needs an update because it's downright bad, not even niche. If it halved regression by half of a gen you touch for the next 60 seconds or something, it'd see a lot more play for solos as well.
It's just that niche perks for solos are actually a lot better in a co-ordinated SWF, ex. Power Struggle, Deliverance. So nicheness
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So, for the record, none of this was to talk about the strength of my example perks, I was only concerned with whether they were inconsistent or if they were just niche. However, to briefly correct you on something, Overzealous activates on blessing, as well as cleansing, which is why I say that it's niche but not inconsistent. Niche because it does somewhat require you to bring other perks to make it worthwhile and requires deviation from the core gameplay loop, but consistent because when you fulfil that criteria it'll give very consistent value.
Clairvoyance is weak. It is not, however, inconsistent. What it does isn't much, but it does it consistently. It's niche because it requires messing with totems and because it provides auras which only some players will want, and on top of that, it just kinda isn't very good, but to say "niche" to describe it when what you mean is just weak or inconsistent would be misleading and inaccurate.
This does somewhat highlight my point, which is that those three terms - weak, inconsistent, niche - are used interchangeably when they shouldn't be. They're each referring to a meaningfully different concept when applied to perks like this, they don't mean the same thing.
A niche perk like Overzealous that provides reliable value but requires optional actions to charge and somewhat requires supporting perks to make it worthwhile is not inconsistent, and shouldn't be referred to that way. I would also go a step further and argue that it shouldn't be referred to as "trash", "dead weight", or "not worth running", which are the accusations typically tossed out for a majority of survivor perks.
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On this one we gotta disagree Abit, atleast with the title.
Niche to us is as you said, specialized, and the ones we consider niche (for example we don't consider overzealous as niche) do give inconsistent results. They're not bad but they don't always give results. Take calm spirit (which we do consider niche), it stops a handful of perks and some parts of powers, but has a penalty to totems and chests. I've personally gotten great use out of it as many times as it has screwed me over with that penalty (desperate to break devour? To bad) while every other time it did nothing of value. Similar niche perks are consistently inconsistent (ha) like that. They're not bad or trash, but expecting consistency is a spike fall trap, which being honest is why we feel a lot consider them trash.
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I can respect a coherent understanding of perks that simply doesn't draw a distinction between niche and inconsistent, in addition to simply not labelling as many perks niche. I disagree, but I respect that we have different definitions there.
I'm more clarifying my own position on why I feel the terms are misused a lot of the time, and why my position may differ from others.
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Niche perks are inconsistent, because they only work in a very specific situation that doesn't happen enough.
There's plenty of perks that are weak for various reasons. Values are too low, too many restrictions to use, or too high of a cooldown. And I think you are conflating perks that are weak with perks that are niche. Although niche perks can also be weak perks.
Inner Healing is inconsistent, because locating totems and cleansing them (while also hoping your teammates don't cleanse them) makes the perk a gamble. It's not weak, because it's a free heal and that's a good effect, but you could also run a med-kit and run a different perk for a single time heal and not risk never finding a totem. It can be situationally better than a med-kit due to anti-healing perks a killer could run, but if anti-healing builds got popular there's better tools survivors have then Inner Healing due to the fact the perk becomes weaker the more survivors running it.
Plus we have Plot Twist which is a more consistent version of Inner Healing.
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If that is your definition of niche perks, there must not be very many niche perks by your estimation.
After all, Inner Healing isn't inconsistent, because finding totems is 100% in your control. You aren't blindly stumbling around hoping one pops into existence in front of you-- you either have the spawn points memorised or you're bringing tools to help find them. That translates to consistent value, but a niche build in the latter case.
This is what I'm talking about when I say some perks can be made consistent. Inner Healing is one of them. I am 100% okay with calling a perk that requires additional perks to unlock its full value niche, though I wouldn't necessarily say that of IH specifically, but you can't also turn around and call that same perk inconsistent. Its consistency is in your hands, it's not random.
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I never said finding totems was hard. I simply said that the perk requires you cleanse totems which you also compete against the other 3 survivors in trial. Plus some maps can be quite time consuming finding a totem like Midiwch, RPD, or The Game.
Inner Healing is not consistent and I have had many games where I struggled to find unbroken/unblessed totems because I had teammates doing totem cleansing challenges or running boons. If you want a reliable single use self heal, Plot Twist is far better because it's guaranteed.
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I mean, sure, but obviously all consistent perks have caveats, I don't think a perk has to work in literally 100% of scenarios for it to be considered a viably consistent one.
It's kinda like saying all sources of healing, no matter which one or how potent, are inherently inconsistent because you might run into Plague. Sure, that's possible, it's not even unlikely, but it's a pretty acceptable risk. Perks like Resilience and Iron Will are super consistent but you won't end up using them as much against a stealth killer, that's their acceptable downside.
Inner Healing running the risk that someone else might have one of the (currently quite unpopular) totem perks does technically make it inconsistent, but I feel like that's splitting hairs on the same level as my other examples there.
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I didn't mention plague as a reason why inner healing is inconsistent.
It's very clear you've already made up your mind on this and have no interest in actually seeing a point other than your own.
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...No, I was using it as an example to support my counter to your argument.
Healing perks are consistent except for when facing Plague. This is an acceptable risk and doesn't make the perks actually inconsistent.
Stay-injured perks are consistent except for when facing stealth killers. This is an acceptable risk and doesn't make the perks actually inconsistent.
Inner Healing is consistent except for when your teammates happen to also have totem perks. This is an acceptable risk and shouldn't make the perk actually inconsistent.
I certainly feel strongly about my position, yes, but I am very much paying attention to and responding to the actual points being made in response to me.
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