http://dbd.game/killswitch
Developer Update | August 2025
Comments
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Then they die. They wouldn't have any protection left.
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The biggest problem with these changes is that they literally just don't benefit lower-tier killers at all. Specifically the "buffs" you get after getting a unique hook. There's a reason you don't run Furtive Chase or BBQ on Pig or Trapper; even if you have the information, the time it will take to cross the entire ######### map means those survivors will already be in a completely different location. A killer like Blight or Billy can benefit from them significantly more.
The devs seem to be promoting this playstyle of "find survivor, down survivor, hook survivor, repeat", but this is only really doable on higher-tier Killers who have very strong chase and mobility. These Killers don't often need to camp or slug because they're powerful enough to already be doing something else by the time a Survivor is going to get unhooked.
This update makes me very unhappy; I feel like it will massively widen the gap even moreso between high and low-tier killers, not to mention making certain Killers (Pig, Sadako, Twins) even less playable than they already are. Makes me very pessimistic for the future of the game; I hope these changes do not go through to live the way they are.
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Only part i disagree with is in the Anti-Slugging, giving Tenacity style crawl and recover. Getting a free Unbreakable recover is enough tbh. So they have a choice to hide OR recover. Not both at the same time.
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Yeah i feel my suggestion in someone else's thread is just way better because my suggestion aimed at anti tunnel but in a way that buffs killers. How do you buff killers while also reducing tunnel? By providing haste buffs to both sides that works in the killers favor over time making the tunneled player stronger during tunnel situations but won't make a bad player better if they run a straight line from the killer and won't benefit their team if too many mistakes occur which yes a survivor should be punished not the killer. I'm a 99.99% survivor main and im not very good at survivor.
Below post in dbd suggestions is my overall idea for a deep dive it's extremely balanced but could use some tweaking if haste buffs are too strong in some cases.
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3989401/#Comment_3989401
I don't have much thoughts on the anti slug changes but those might be semi okay i just think mostly the anti tunnel changes are bad.1 -
I try not to tunnel because it's the thing I most hate encountering as Survivor. In situations like this, however, I'm not above Deep Wounding or slugging for pressure, the latter off which should be just as effective in the new anti-slug.
Either they get picked up by a teammate or a perk, I get a fresh hook quick enough that I am free to go back and hook the slug, or they're out of play for the 90 second it takes them to pick themselves up.
The first two are just as likely now as they would be then, the third still leaves that survivor out of play for a minute and a half.
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I appreciate Unknown buffs, but buffing teleport is the wrong way of strengthening them. it's the least skillful part of his kit, and it's already what most average Unknowns rely on.
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Wow, that's a lot more than I expected. Honestly feel like some of this should have been done one piece at a time to see the impact, but overall it looks good. My worry is that it won't work, and then people will misidentify what doesn't work.
Custom Game settings: I think this is a bad idea. The game should be the game, if people want to make their own rules, great, but BHVR should not be spending time worrying about things like tournament play. It sets a horrible standard for how people will discuss the game.
Slugging: Recovering without pressing a button is nice, a version of tenacity is what I thought was going to happen. I don't think self-pickup is necessary, even at 90 seconds.
Tunneling
Hiding the unhook status: YES! Great change.
No collision: I've always thought that this will feel silly, but its been a common request from killers so we'll see how it works out.
Unique hooking: Despite a lot of the comments here, lots of killer players just got a buff. This goes with how BHVR has generally behaved with things like the anti-3 gen, killers lost an extreme strategy, but gained overall benefits in every other situation.
Lessened for S Tier killers: I have strange feelings about this. It's been called for a long time, but it basically admits that the game is going to have a top tier of killers. It's probably inevitable that this was the only way to balance them, but there will be lots of discussions going forward on which killers do or don't get included in this group.
Going to quote the next part:
Added new effects that disincentivize tunneling:If a Survivor dies before 6 total hook states, all remaining Survivors gain a repair speed bonus for the rest of the Trial.If the Survivor that was last hooked is Sacrificed or Killed, generators cannot be regressed or blocked.
Generally a good idea, though we'll need specific numbers to actually get an idea of the impact.
I do wish this was a sliding scale and I think the 2nd part isn't really relevant (the idea of not hooking a survivor twice to kill them does not nearly matter as much as number of overall hooks).
Example
Survivor dead on 3 hooks: gens can't be regressed for rest of match, gen speed boost
Survivor dead on 4 hooks: gens can't be regressed for three minutes, gen speed boost
Survivor dead on 5 hooks: Gens can't be regressed for one minute, gen speed boost for 2 minutes.
Elusive mode: Sure, sounds good.
Tomes: We're getting new tomes and lore? How does this work with quests? I know everything else overshadows this, but good.
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I'm sorry but you're the devs who refuse to even attempt to deal with issues that result from SWF having extra info (So fun when a 4-man discord team states where you're going after you hook one of them and they don't have to take any perks to get that info…), but you're going to actually start removing information from the killer?
Killers require info about hooks to know when their perks are going to work, how the game is going, who is dead on hook, etc. A killer playing balanced is a nearly guaranteed loss outside of newbie ranks. Just about any top-tier killer main would tell you that if you spread out your hooks to all survivors, you're going to lose the game. The survivor meta is so hyper-optimized that so long as they remain a 4-man it's a clear win. You're basically trying to incentivize the killer losing a game so that the survivors have a more fun game by only being hooked one at a time, one new person each time.
Just put this into perspective: It is now considered tunnelling to kill a survivor if they die immediately after I have HOOKED EVERYBODY ELSE… That's not tunnelling, that's "Screw you for playing killer."
Giving a bonus repair speed if someone dies too early? You're going to literally punish killers for nothing short of just bad luck. When it's duplicate characters, we're just going to end up punishing ourselves from not keeping perfect track of them all, oops JakeClone03 just got hooked as the 1st, 3rd and 5th hook (and I can't tell it's him because I don't know when he gets unhooked now so I assume it's a different jake in a chase), now everyone else is repairing faster. This isn't anti-tunnelling, this is outright punishing killer mains for playing your game.
Outright horrid changes that only encourage killers to quit.3 -
So, when are you going to nerf the delay after the trial of "Kagune Leap" from "Kaneki"?
The development team does not understand what the problem is at all.-2 -
Thinking back on the Myers changes I'd like to add one more thing.
The rework also strips him of his identity as a "tier scaling" killer which is very unique to him, with the only other killer having anything similar being Nemesis, and also of his identity as a stealth killer. The toggleable ability makes him either just "stealth" or just "killer".
As many others pointed out, the rework strips him of his uniqueness for just a different flavor of Oni.
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Some changes make zero sense, like the anti-slugging promoting slugging by crawling away at extra speed so the killer doesn't found you. Free Tenacity because… we need more free perks.
Oh, and that note on Clown… we asker for reverting the changes, not for that. The problem you created is going to persist, keeping this gameplay for Clown is pure stubbornness.
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Nah, it still doesnt sound fun. Being penalized for hooking someone who decides to not even attempt to hide is stupid. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in a game. People acting like dying in a game is the end of the world so now as a killer you have to walk around and pretend not to notice someone. Ridiculous. I'll just play something else, too much of a hassle at that point.
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Interesting changes, looking forward for them. The only question. Why do Blight, Nurse, Ghoul, Billy and Dracula are less rewarded for hooking individual survivors? Is it because you consider them stronger and more opressive than other killers, or is there some other reasons?
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I imagine their high mobility is the deciding factor. Other mobile Killers like Sadako, Dredge, or Spirit are more inhibited by parts of their kits (limited teleport destinations, lower base speed, that kind of this) that don't really affect the listed killers.
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slugging has been all too easy ever since no one can 4% without luck offerings cuz no one brings em, however i feel like these changes arent enough, and also not the right direction, if a killer wants to 4 man slug someone (lets be serious no one is doing that on any other killer other than billy nurse and blight and maybe oni consistently aka doing it every match) they will still be able to do it its just that people will bleed out much more rather than getting 4 hooked ESPECIALLY on indoor maps, im an adept of slugging ive been doing my billy matches slug exclusive since the overdrive rework playing spies deerstalker only, and again i think this will just make more people mad at me bcuz i will have to bleed them out one by one cuz lets be serious slugging 4 people and then hooking them within 90s is difficult especially like i said on indoor maps and without agitation, i'll test it out but again i think people will be even more mad at me and dc (not abandon) even more than nowadays
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No, but their mobility, which coincidently makes them the strongest killers.
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Maybe he gonna scream like him
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Positive - Anti tunnel/slugging looks good. Dracula tweaks look good.
Mixed - Kinda iffy on the Myers changes, have to see them in action but I'm hoping its good!
Negative - Ghoul/Clown need more changes then that.
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I agree with you. I won't play if i have to keep track of everything. If I wanted to micromanage everything I'd play Civilization. This one change has completely lost the plot. This game is for causal play. Catering to people who whine about not winning or playing too crappy to stay on the board isn't going to make this a better product. It's a game and occasionally people are going to lose. It is what it is.
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So killer is done right? You've officially made it Gen repair simulator...you need to change the name if the game to reflect that...really...so what us going to stop a swf from perma locking gens? When they just have 1 player annoy the killer so much the only way to get them out of the way is to hook them out of the game to get any other hits in..now gens are locked, killer can't regress, the 3 buddies have free reigns to do gens at their pace. Can't slug them down now to get hooks...oh now! Now they get back up to do it again!!! You've just given survivors the tools to bully killers till the killer has had enough and leaves the game. Good job bhvr...you put this through, you will kill your game. Be smart about this...
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so…nothing, you want killers to not be able to apply pressure to the survivors at all? unless there is something to do which you haven't stated at all i cant think of anything. exit gates cant be pressured because their are 2 of them and are normally on the other sides of the map, so unless your playing a killer like blight you cant pressure them at all, and even blight will have a very hard time doing that. that's why you are allowed to camp hooks in endgame, because it allows killers to apply pressure to the survivors reliably.
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I agree the numbers are important but I still dont see that changing much for any of the existing anti tunnel perks. They will pretty much just be adding the term "allusive" to OTR and Babysitter. Maybe extend the no collision with BT.
Even with the numbers you mentioned, it wont be enough. B tier and lower killers should never and i mean never get a 4k if the survivors are somewhat decent, specially if they arent tunneling for trying to get someone out fast. Even what a lot ppl consider A tier killers are pretty harmless. Loop for a little bit, die away from gens and maybe even corner. by the time the killer picks and hooks 2 gens pop before the killer can get to them. Killer leaves hook and 3rd survivor who was stealthing for the unhook, fast unhooks. Repeat, killer loses since their is no risk to fast unhooking and the killer can never pressure multiple players at a time.
With the current map design and balance 4v1 is not sustainable for the killer and the killer will lose unless the get one survivor early as possible or the survivors throw messing around.
It is very abusable as we seen in the past with the old DS unbreakable meta. The survivors will body block and try to force the tunnel.
One thing that doesnt make sense to me about this update is that they recently buffed Babysitter to 15% which was whatever, not a big deal Babysitter with 10% was already super strong and still made it near impossible for most killers to tunnel but they reverted that because they thought it was too strong but now they are introducing this #########?
Also no collision, which i dont hate, makes basement hurt the killer by hooking their unless its trapper or hag.
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The slugging and tunnelling reduction updates are way more radical and comprehensive than I was ever expecting them to be. Got to give BHVR credit here for pushing the boat out. Broadly speaking they seem like positive changes to me, but the devil will be in the detail.
As the changes are so big and fundamental, I think the community will need more time (the PTB and maybe a few patches) to be able to give feedback and let BHVR collect enough data to get to the point where most players will be happy with the changes. I just hope we can be patient enough to see how it goes. I worry that noisier parts of the community will immediately demand the new systems be abandoned or watered down before most of us even have the opportunity to test them out properly (like a repeat of the Fog Vial launch).
As for the Myers changes, I'm not so sure that I'll like them. It's a big change to his power and that makes me kinda nervous. Personally, I only want small adjustments to his power. Though I'm glad to see they are reworking an add-on for those of us who want to continue playing OG Myers if that's what we prefer.
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What
- If a Survivor dies before 6 total hook states, all remaining Survivors gain a repair speed bonus for the rest of the Trial.
- If the Survivor that was last hooked is Sacrificed or Killed, generators cannot be regressed or blocked.
Why am I being punished for getting someone out the game early?? This is ridiculous and will have drastic unforeseen consequences. Onryo condemned is now literally unusable for example. Survs didn't need any basekit slug or tunnel changes in the first place lol they have perks like OtR and Unbreakable for exactly that.
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I would imagine it’s because they all have good mobility and need less help. A blight generally takes less advantage of and needs less of haste and bbq than a Ghosty or demogorgon. That’s a bonus IMO. Because what’s effective for higher tiers is barely noticeable for lower tiers. This should help all killers in the long run.
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With the new Basekit BBQ, could you now Revert it back to how it was before? Giving the 4 Stacks on First Hooks and a 100% Bonus to all Categories at the end of the Trial?
Sounds like a good Reward for Hooking every Survivor.
(Come on DEVS you play this Game aswell. We all know we loved it. Let's just bring it back.)
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Bad survivors need to be able to spend time in a match to improve, not die immediately because they were easy to tunnel. And bad killers have been rewarded by tunneling and slugging for a very, very long time.
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I hope you will fix Lara's face animations at this update
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Can someone explain to me how anybody at BHVR looked at this and thought "Good work"? Because at least on paper, I can figure out a dozen ways survivors can abuse all of this already.
For instance, what prevents SWF from doing this:
- Chose an initial "sacrifice" at the start of the match that will dedicate to just bodyblocking the killer and getting protection hits to force the killer to down and hook him. If someone is hooked after the initial sacrifice, it becomes the new sacrifice.
- After the first hook, now he is practically invisible and silent and free to follow the killer, even see his aura for free to tell his friends where he is until he has to bodyblock again.
- Repeat this process over and over. If the killer dares to last hook him, now he won't be able to even kick the few gens that are left to be done while his friends have bonus repair on top of perks and toolboxes.
- Combine this with Endurance perks, DS and Power Struggle to increase the fun factor for the killer.
- ???
- Profit
Good job, BHVR. Super healthy, non exploitable or one-sided changes at all. But hey, at least now killers get a little haste and aura reading after hooking, right?…
Post edited by Batusalen on3 -
I do agree to some extent. If the feature doesn’t hurt killers who try to avoid flashlights and locker stun saves by slugging until the pickup is possible, maybe it’ll be an okay change? But if it’s not accounting for that it’ll make 4man bully squads more difficult to catch and punish. Can’t pick because of stun and can’t chase because of antislug, a lose-lose through no fault of the killer.
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honestly i really like the anti-tunneling ideas, rewarding the killers for not tunneling is what you should be doing, the only thing i (and most of the people here have a problem with) is the punishments for tunneling are FAR too overturned, I get wanting to punish tunneling, especially in the early game, but giving the survivors gen repair speed when survivors can already do a gen in 40 seconds is really bad and making it so the killer cant regress or block gens after hooking someone twice in a row is egregious because.
1: tunneling a survivor out of the game late game (like around 1-2 gens left) is a viable strategy for killers to get back some pressure, especially since gen regression is a struggle at times so tunneling can be in some chases the only way to turn a match around.
2: this i can see be easily abused by survivors, since a survivor could easily harass the killer and make going for any other survivor a nightmare, but going for them guarantees a win for their team, resulting in a lose-lose situation and giving the survivors an almost guaranteed win if done at 1-2 gens.
please behavior, please rethink these tunneling punishments, killer is already a stressful roll to play as is and doing this will make that stress worse.
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dbd nerfing killer tactics and adding more dash slop as usual, whoevers working on these killer changes needs to wake up
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Short answer: idk
Long answer: There's too many moving parts to make a judgement before we see gameplay.
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A lot of the comments remind me of when old Mori's were nerfed.
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The skilled 4-mans are actually my only concern. But I also don't think the game should revolve around that small fraction of players. They're damn hard to deal with no matter what's in place anyway. They already do quite well as is. It's the mid level and soloqers that really need some help.
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You would still be able to try, and that's the limit to what you should be able to do. You don't deserve a free kill
-3 -
Reading this, personally my first thought is "I'd probably just slug that person".
I know there's anti-slug in this update, but it's not designed to make that slugging less effective. If the survivor trying to be a nuisance and bodyblock me chasing their teammates is actually capable of doing it effectively (which is a BIG if, a lot of the time you just ignore them), then like… smack 'em.
They're now immobilised for 90 seconds, or they drag someone off a gen to pick them up. Even the worst case scenario here of them having Unbreakable is not actually bad for you, you're still occupying two survivors at once + forcing them to use up their perk charge.
I'd certainly agree this attempt would be annoying as hell, but I think it's premature to conclude the killer would be helpless to stop this attempt from happening. You're not exactly going to be left unable to avoid the anti-tunnel penalties here, it's pretty easy on paper to answer this.
Honestly, it isn't even really that different from now, just with the possibilities of a harsh penalty if you fall for the bait.
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As a killer who actively avoids tunneling and tries to play fair (sometimes to my detriment), I'm getting some much needed buffs with haste, basekit BBQ, and increased gen damage. No collison is also great. Adios post-hook body blocking.
As a survivor who gets tunneled and/or slugged every third match, I'm tired of trash killers who can't even land basic attacks or mind-game getting 4ks. 90 seconds is a mighty long time, but punishing killers for tunneling with gen speed-up and no more regressions is very nice.
My only concern is coordinated teams that will try to sacrifice themselves to boost their team, but I think that'll be minimal, like how coordinated 4-mans are already minimal. There are way more soloqers and average players than there are sweats. I also think there should be a timer for hooking the same survivor twice. If I come across the same person, fully healed and on a gen, I'm supposed to ignore them? Or am I supposed to slug them and leave them in time out for 90 seconds?
Really happy the lore is sticking around too.
Glad for the adjustments to Dracula's bats. They were a little clunky. A little sad about wolf form but I will still love being the wolf so whatever.
Very curious to play as new Myers.
Buuuuttttt I'm also sure half of this won't make it past the ptb. We couldn't even keep the fog vials.
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Hope myer's new slash is considered an actual ability and not a basic attack lunge, cause that and Coupe de grace would be bonkers.
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Here's a scenario that happens to me a lot:
Killer chases me. Loses chase. Chases me again. Misses basic attacks. Loses again. Chases again. Gets whacked by 5 pallets. Loses. Killer gets 0-2 hookings the whole match. Killer finds me because I finished the last gen. Hooks me. Camps me to death.
Explain to me why this terrible player I did better than for the entire match deserves this free kill consolation prize.
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Dracula changes are okay
Vampire Form:
I personally feel like his nerfs for Hellfire should not go through. He is already slower than survivors and making him even slower is going to make Hellfire feel very awful to use even having that 1 Hellfire extra basekit. He is going to be a killer where its easy to Hold W from his Hellfire. I personally feel like just giving Hellfire the buffs and not the nerfs will alone give people an incentive to use Hellfire more frequently. If you do decide to go with these nerfs maybe we can test a charge speed buff to see if that will be an actual good compensation? I just feel like the "compensation buffs" we got is what Dracula players already wanted as a QOL so in the end it's still making Wolf form the obvious pick over Hellfire.
Wolf Form: It is good if we're going to the numbers Wolf Form was at before the changes although right now the charge speed was nice. I wouldn't mind it going back to 1 sec.
Bat Form: W
On the topic of Add-Ons please look at Ring of Vlad and White Wolf Medallion and please give them different effects. They are by far Dracula's worst add-ons and provide no actual value to the player. Sunglasses should also be reworked if we're doing the Hellfire pillar base-kit. In my opinion Sunglasses should just lose the penalty if we aren't going to rework it as makes Hellfire feel awful to use with the charge time and with the reduced movement speed it's never going to be picked.
ALSO one thing I would like to see if have Force of Echo's effects go to white wolf medallion and have force of echo get reworked to a Bat Add-on
(the descrption and the cover art for the add-on literally describes everything for buffing bats but it buffs wolf xd)
Since the description says "An Artifact that grants BATS even greater senses in the dark" Maybe you can make it where they get killer instinct in Bat Form or something that give Bat Form information.
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When are you going to fix the bug where the Nurse flashes to the wrong position? It's been there for almost a year now.
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-1
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I bet once these Killer changes go live Survivors are going to start getting 20 minute long queues.
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THANK YOU. I can FINALLY PLAY KILLER without having to wait 15 minutes for a match, while the game will be more enjoyable for the opposing team. Win-Win. Feel free to rework Nemesis's addons please.
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These changes are awful. Anti-tunneling aside, the anti-slugging is problematic too! Maybe if they make it take a little bit longer, because then a teammate can get you up, but every perk in the history of the game that let you get up for free had to be nerfed because it's so strong, so now they're just giving it to everyone basekit? I really hope the ability to crawl and get yourself up at the same time doesn't go through, but I don't know what they're thinking anymore
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How much longer than 90 seconds? That's a long time. Three gens can get done by three people in 90 seconds.
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tbh kinda wished myer's didn't have a dash ability and instead was just naturally faster with a faster attack speed recovery vs healthy survivors and no insta-down (with the other buffs still present). Otherwise am fine with the changes, interesting to see myers have stances now, hopefully it can be used in intersting ways.
…oh but not a big fan of this part here, I think you should still be able to regress but maybe limit how much regression occurs based on how many survivors are left?- If the Survivor that was last hooked is Sacrificed or Killed, generators cannot be regressed or blocked.
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Well, there will be too much things to test.
But at first, i would like to say somethings:
- With the Sluggings changes, killers should have increased pickup speed and mov speed while carrying. Maybe Forever Entwined and Agitation partially basekit
- Unknown needs 1s less of cooldown on the UVX and 2 more seconds on the total duration of the weakened states. Its one of his biggest problems and what makes playing him stressfull. Unknown has less than a 3s window to injure a survivor with his UVX - considering you HAVE a chance to hit your target before he dispels the weakened. If you don't hit the UVX in this time, you need to restart it all over again, with the 7s cooldown becoming too punishing at this situation. I would suggest buffing UVX and, if Unknown turn out to be much stronger with these changes, nerf a little bit the Hallucinations and the teleport.
- There need to be some safeguard against possible abuse in the anti-tunnel system. There will be situations where you will kill a survivor fast not because you went actively for that survivor, but because the survivor it was doing gens/saving in your face or just lost the chase.
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