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So why does SURGE have a cool down?
Since infectious fright doesn't need one (when it's arguably one of the best killer perks around) I'd really like to know what obscure reasons brought the devs to give surge a cooldown considering that the requirements are the same and 32 meters usually includes 2 or at most 3 gens in most maps
Maybe @not_Queen would like to enlighten us here as well as they did in the other thread?
Fyi: this thread does not intend that IF needs a cooldown, but that most cool downs should actually be removed (with some exceptions like I'm all ears probably)
Comments
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I agree its silly for it to have a cool down. Same with Thrilling Tremors
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To balance it out. Just like Zanshin Tactics needs a cooldown to not be overpowered.
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Also a note that regressed generators doesn't get affected by Surge, so its not that broken. They refuse to refresh the meta, its always the same perks. For gen regression, the most used perks are Ruin and Pop. If they buffed other perks we could make fun yet viable builds.
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The only way it could be "op" without a cooldown is if survivors stubbornly continued working on gens when several injured are nearby and those injured can't or won't lead the killer away. It only procs on undamaged gens and the regression is on par with lullaby.
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Zanshin tactics? Why would it be overpowered without a cooldown?
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Girl, all I want is surge to be able to be triggered off of general downs and not m1 downs.
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Because then you could see pallet aura's at all times.
We can't have that now can we.
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While I can see an argument against the magnitude. Thrilling Tremors is one of the perks that DOES need a cooldown.
Picking up a Survivor is something that can be done repeatedly even on just a single Survivor. And being able to chain uses of the perk to permanently prevent gen progression is a bit TOO effective, since without a cooldown there is no window to hop on a gen, and the perk is only balanced because it has that weakness.
I can understand a LOWER cooldown, but not NO cooldown.
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Fair point. 16 seconds maybe
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BHVR are afraid to make viable killer perks.
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I would remove the cool down, and give it a condition: it deactivates indefinitely after using it once, but reactivates after hooking a survivor.
But yeah, Surge doesn’t need a cool down because the only way it can affect a generator is if it’s not regressing already.
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Chained uses are a part of the problem. Not just repeated uses on the same Survivor
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Downing multiple survivors, picking one up, hooking them, and being able to go and pick up the other survivor is something that should be rewarded because it’s on the survivor for putting themself in a bad position/his teammates for not reviving him in time.
As well as that, being able to hook a survivor and chain Thrilling Tremors by downing and picking up another in 16 seconds is definitely something that should be rewarded.
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Would also be interested in knowing why they feel it needs the extra limitation of the down being from a basic attack (not to mention why they added that requirement to Knock Out; pretty sure the small buff didn't warrant an extra nerf...)
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Surge has 4 conditions for activating:
- Must down a survivor with a Basic Attack.
- Must down a survivor within 32 meters of a generator.
- Must not be on cooldown.
- Affected generator(s) cannot be currently regressing or blocked.
For a perk that does very little damage to gens at only 8%, which can be repaired in about 5 seconds if a survivor was on said gen when it got hit with Surge, 4 conditions for its activation feels like a bit much honestly. If they just took out the basic attack requirement, or the cooldown, the perk would be much more useful overall.
With the Basic attack requirement gone, Killers with damaging powers like Huntress, The chainsaw boys, Oni, and Demogorgon (of whom the perk was coincidentally introduced with) would have much more utility with the perk, opening up its usefulness to a larger roster of killers and making it more universal. I've said this before: The "Down with basic attack" requirement didn't work for Infectious Fright, and it sure as hell isn't working for Surge.
Alternatively, removing the cooldown makes the perk activate more often on gens that aren't currently regressing, which in turn applies better pressure on larger maps, and delays survivors 5 seconds to repair the damage, buying more time for the killer to hook a survivor, and encouraging chased survivors to lead you away from the generators their allies are working on.
Surge's Primary strengths are that it saves the killer time on kicking gens, delays repair time by 5 seconds, and can affect multiple generators. In a 3 gen situation, this would be a major problem for the survivors if it weren't for the small amount of damage it does. I believe 3 gen situations and small maps are to blame for why the devs went overboard on creating the situational conditions for its activation; fearing that if they didn't, killers would be able to completely control the gens while hunting survivors, but in practice, surge rarely goes off on more than 1 gen at a time, and even if it does, its not like it applies enough damage to be regarded by survivors as anything more than a minor annoyance.
Overall Surge would still be an under powered perk if either of these 2 conditions were removed, but with just one of these QoL changes, Surge would be more appealing, useful, and far better compared to how it is right now. Personally, I would be fine with Surge's cooldown if the basic attack requirement was removed, because I feel that Basic attack requirement is the one that limits its usefulness too much, and makes it a garbage tier perk that's currently only useful on a small amount of killers instead of being universal to all of them.
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Just image...
Brutal strength has 30sec cool down after each kick
Agitation has 120sec cool down after each hook
Endurance has 60sec cool down after each stun
Bond has 60sec cool down after 5sec team mate reveal
Selfcare has 180sec cool down after finishing healing
Urban evasion has 90sec cool down after 30sec of use
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Seriously, they arguably could change it to any attack AND remove the cool down and it still wouldn’t be broken... but I can see no reason they don’t change at least one of them. Making it activate on any down would be the best
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I wouldn't mind the cool down removal. In fact there are a few killer/survivor perks that don't need their cooldowns. If i were to guess, it's because they were afraid of Surge on small maps
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Don’t give them ideas, I always think how some of my favorite perks would be needlessly nerfed if they created them today
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Surge shouldn't have a cd and should proc on ALL downs. If so, it could join the meta.
I disagree with this. I thought of this but you can definitely abuse the mechanic by keeping one person slugged and just picking them up/dropping them to proc TT.
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As @DudeDelicious said before, surge is the only perk in the game that has 5 requirements
1- Down a survivor
2- Basic Attack
3- Gens within 32m
4- That are not damaged or surged
5- Oh, and within the cooldown
5 Requirements, and under what reward. AN ASTONISHING 8% GEN REGRESSION AND DAMAGE.
So yes, they are afraid of making half decent perks, and whenever you ask them why they come up with something like
"After testing our analytics and in-game results it shows that surge would be overperforming with killers that don't use basic attack downs, and repeatdely activating the perk made us decide it needs a cooldown and it cant work on the same generator, also after seeing how OP damaging gens is, we decided to make it only affect gens within 32m (base TR)"
It's ridiculous because a perk like surge will never "Overperform" because of it's little reward, 8% regression and gen damage. Oh well
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Because the devs don't want to risk breaking the stronger Killers. However most of the perks they've done this for wouldn't break any of the Killers. They either have a BS basic attack requirement, too long of a cooldown, or an unnecessary cooldown. You could remove the cooldown and basic attack requirement from Surge and it'd be perfectly fine.
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I know you can't do it forever but you can still do it more than what the perk is balanced for and the snowball potential if it had no cooldown is stupid good.
The perk is balanced because the gens aren't already blocked when the perk is triggered, so the Survivors have the ability to play around it depending on what they are trying to accomplish. Removal of the cooldown prevents this after the first use.
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Some time ago I would've agreed with this, but honestly I changed my mind and I think that it's good that fixated only works on uninjured survivors.
Honestly it would really be too strong on injured survivors too, other than the fact that it would promote a kind of play that personally as a survivor, but especially as a killer, I find extremely boring to verse: stealth. I'd rather be looped for 5 gens by an extremely good survivor than not fininding anyone until games over because they just urban evade around
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Devs have some weird fetish for adding a drawback to weak perks.
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I'm just sad Surge doesn't work with Distressing, My doctor would love that.
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I feel like every new chapter I’m reading a perk thinking, “man this wouldn’t replace one of the top 6 meta perks but I could really use this,” and then BHVR adds two extra sentences that completely neuter the perk for some reason.
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Doing this would be far often to the killer's detriment than favor. You have to sacrifice hooking survivors in order to be able to do this. Also, this doesn't prevent gen progression on generators that are actually being worked on so this is far from permanently preventing gen progression. Not to mention you could only prevent gen regression for 48 seconds at most with a single survivor before they're hopping off without a hook. Doing this also waste a significant amount of the killer's time since they have to repeatedly go through both the pick up and drop animations in addition to all the hooks they're abandoning.
The only thing I could see this being useful for is some kind of slug only strategy. But even then, it would be really easy to counter for any survivors that are smart enough to adapt to different situations. Picking up a slug is easier than unhooking a hooked survivor. They can move to convenient locations after healing.
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I guess it COULD set up a situation where if you down someone who is AFK and then reputedly pick them up and drop them gens would be permanently blocked... I mean that’s super narrow for them to add a cooldown to Tremors but it at least provides a reason.
Even if that’s the thinking though cooldown could be lower and still not allow that infinite looping
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That's a pretty extreme case, but even then, it's not like you can't do that without tremors. If you carry an afk survivor to one gate and keep dropping them in front of the panel till they escape your grasp and bodyblock it for you, then you can just personally go to the other panel and bodyblock that one. You accomplish the same thing without tremors so it doesn't really help you take the game hostage anymore so than in general being a jerk that needs to get banned.
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Maybe so you din't hit several gens in quick succession with killers like Bubba or Oni.
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because infectious fright doesnt give you survivors aura and its only good on certain killers, but surge affects generators and devs dont want to make anything that has to do smth with gens way too furstrating for survivors such as adding 8 seconds repair time lmao
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If I down someone with Bubba, move far enough to have more gens in range and then down someone else I deserve regression on all those gens. It’s not like downing 2 people at once would regress everything by 16% since after the first they wouldn’t be affected
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Pop is 25% regression every single time, works on all downs, has no cooldown and lets you pick and chose which gen gets regressed.
In order to beat that you need to regress not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 4 gens with Surge.
The direct regression is negligible. The value is pretty much only in the time save aspect, which means it's effect is suited for a snowballing playstyle where you need to jump from target to target non-stop and thus don't have time to kick gens.
However the cooldown and basic attack requirement both are awful for snowball Killers, which usually use special attacks to down and by definition are trying to get downs in quick succession.
Basically the conditions actively work against the type of Killer that benefits from the effect. Which is why even the Killers that SHOULD really like Surge based off the payoff, instead use PGTW because the perk just doesn't trigger when they want it to.
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That's not an issue BECAUSE it only effects gens that are not regressing.
If you down 2 people back to back then both downs will only give you additional value if either A: There is a 3rd/4th Survivor staying on a gen while you do this or B: If you've moved a significant distance before procing the perk again.
Now I'm not saying those are rare conditions, because they aren't. But usually that limits the 2nd proc to only 1 gen, with the other gens still regressing from the initial down. Useful? Yes. Overpowered? Definitely not.
But even then it's still not much regression, the value is pretty much exclusively coming from all of those OTHER benefits you keep trying to stress. Those benefits are decent yes, enough to make it a valid perk concept, but NOT enough to justify a cooldown.
Heck, it still wouldn't even be stronger than PGTW is outside of synergies. It would however at least allow it to be stronger WITH those synergies, which it should be by the nature of what a synergy is.
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I share the sentiment. Look at Trail of Torment. An interesting perk that's shafted with the gen glow.
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Even If it didn’t have a cooldown. i doubt zanshin tactics would be op
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