What survivor perks are crutches?
I noticed quite a lot of complaints about survivor perks in dbd, so I will give my opinion on them. The perks that are hated are, for the most part, exhaustion perks in general, adrenaline, decisive strike and borrowed time.
Exhaustion perks: yes, they are broken. They basically give you a free get out of trouble card when you should have been downed. They basically gain free distance that require 0 skill to use and can change the outcome of a game without any risk. Dead hard, for example, can be used for distance, and before you say "it is rare that it is used for distance and it does not give much", I get to use it that way every 2-3 games (assuming I have it on, which is rare due to me not wanting to use crutch perks).
Adrenaline: Well, the fact is: this perk is not a crutch. First of all, it requires to be alive when it activates, then you have to need it when it activates (because you might not be in a chase, in which case it is not game breaking) and finally, the killer often runs NOED.
Decisive strike: this perk is half good, half bad. Tunnelers deserve to get hit by it, but survivors often use it to be aggressive, which is just a free get out of jail card. Rework it so that the timer stops when the survivor is in a chase or in the dying state, so that the killer cannot tunnel and then slug, but get the timer to be only 15 seconds long, no time to be aggressive.
Borrowed time: well no, this perk is not dumb, if the survivor hooks rush you get into a chase immediately instead of needing to find another one, so the perk making survivors rush each other is fine. Most of the time, it is not used to rush, but to fight tunnelers, which is a good thing. I even think this perk should be base kit.
What are your thoughts?
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I'm fine with exhaustion perks. I remember when they used to recover while running. They buy a little time but not too much. DH can be baited. Some killers have ways of denying survivors their exhaustion perks. Like huntress add ons that cause exhaustion.
Adren is kinda crutch. Other times it may not even come into play but when it does it really sucks.
DS IS a crutch. No doubt about it. There is no REAL effective counter to it. For you survivor mains who say don't tunnel, just shut up. Survivors with DS active tend to run towards the killer because they are safe. Even if I don't tunnel I eat a DS because they came to me. Then they get pissed when I commit to the chase and finish them off.
BT is fine. It's more for your teammates sake than your own. I also remember when it applied to both people when someone was unhooked. That was broken. Some killers can also work around it like stealth killers or someone affected by deathbound.
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Borrowed Time is frequently used offensively. Making it base kit would lead to serious abuse.
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I pretty much agree with this, sprint burst is the only non crutch exhaustion perk. It takes skill to save it, and the killer knows about it instantly. It's the ones you can save for 50 seconds into the chase and spring on the killer that need looking at.
Bt by itself isnt a crutch, when it becomes a crutch is when you rush the hook with ds. It needs a 15 second cooldown and it will be fine.
Ds is the biggest crutch of them all. Gives them way too much freedom to make stupid plays. Simple fix is if they're fully healed, or touch any interactable, it goes away.
Unbreakable is another one that by itself is fine, but gets weaponized with ds and soul guard.
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I would agree with you that dead hard can be a crutch perk. The reason that I think so is that unlike other perks, it requires you to be injured to use. I do find that most people don't know how to use it appropriately. I would challenge you on the fact that other exhaustion perks are crutch.
In certain maps, Lithe can be very difficult to use due to no windows or ability to chain.
Sprint Burst doesn't come back if you don't know how to manage your exhaustion properly plus it requires you to make the choice of whether waste it at the beginning of the match or walk.
Head On can only be used for lockers and if a killer is right behind you then they will grab you out before you activate it. If you just wait in the locker then you are just wasting time.
Balanced landing only works when falling and you can easily catch people before they activate it on certain maps.
Adrenaline is pretty crutch when you are alive, but you are playing the entire game with 3 perks. Plus as you pointed out you have to be alive.
Other perks that some people rely on are DS, BT, Unbreakable, Deliverance, Mettle of Man.
However, I don't think it is a bad thing. It is good strategy. Still though, people have to realize that most of these other perks are 1 time use only. People should try and play as if though don't have these as they will get better immensely. I only have Sprint Burst in my load out with all of these listed.
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Even as someone who plays killer 75% and survivor about 25% I don't think any perk is ALWAYS a crutch. Sometimes DS is needed to prevent tunneling, but the people who work gens in your face or hop in lockers are abusing it.
BT can be needed against facecampers, but like someone said above some people use it offensively to unhook a rotation right in front of your face... often paired with the above DS so yes in that case they are using it as a crutch or just abusing it.
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What do you want exhaustion perks to be then? Something that does nothing or what requires you to complete impossible skill check every time you want to dead hard? Exhaustion perks have one use for that reason that survivors have one chance if the situation allows them and they won't immediately go down
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And assuming they don't waste it. How many Sprint Bursters or Balanced Landers do you think have inadvertently used their perks without intending to, screwing them over when chase time comes?
My first thought when I thought of "Crutch Perk" was actually Spine Chill. At the very least, I began to feel I was using it as a crutch myself when I relied on it to tell me if the Killer was close by and/or heading in my direction or not. Not using it definitely makes things generally harder than usual.
Decisive Strike I try not to use offensively. I use it for what it's stated to be, an anti-tunneling perk. If the killer doesn't play like that, I'm essentially perkless in that slot. If they do, I have a defense.
Borrowed Time I pair with Babysitter to give whoever I unhook the best chance possible, but I try not to use it offensively unless the Killer is actively camping / proxy-camping the hook, and I'm willing to risk a hook-trade in that scenario.
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@korean_zombie consider reading what I said about why hook rushing with BT is not an issue.
@Rullisi if you think that vaulting a window should give you 3 miles of distance for free, then I do not know what to say.
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The ones I dont like.
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@slunder You really complaining about Lithe? It gives you the least amount of boost out of all exhaustion perks but DH and Head On because the boost starts as soon as you hit the vault button, hindering you for .5 seconds. That may not sound like much, but it really is against most Killers. You also have to get to a window/pallet to even use it.
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none, calling something a crutch is something salty people say when they get outplayed. use the games tools to the fullest extent that is your only obligation.
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and that vault must not have a drop further taking benefit away from it. and that vault shouldn't have a wall opposite of the vault further taking distance away from the exhaustion perk. And you use it sub optimally often like if you vault shack and you can sprint into a dead zone or wait for the killers next move. I use lithe as an exhaustion perk but it definitely has downsides.
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i read what you wrote about it and I get your point but I don't think it should be a game mechanic unless you were to give the killer role a base perk of equal strength, say T3 whispers. Which in both cases is unneccessary. You have 4 slots, if you want that perk equip it. But don't give survivors a free META perk buff.
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Anyone else think Sprint Burst and Dead Hard oughta be one in the same perk. Or am I alone in this idea. 🤷♂️
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Crutch perk is something that gives you a second chance, but personally, I only classify it as a crutch if it has a hard counter. So NOED wouldn't be a crutch. Do bones.
Ill list some:
- DS
- Unbreakable
- Soul Guard
- BT in endgame
- Pretty much every exhaustion perk except head on (Dead hard is easily the crutchiest, which is why it's used so much)
- Spine chill
- Spine chill + resilience
There are others, but they have little effect on the match. Technically speaking unrelenting is a second chance, but its effect is so minimal that it may as well not be one.
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@Leachy_Jr Showing your bias a little, don't ya think? NOED is definitely a crutch, it rewards Killers for not pressuring gens like they should. Spirit Fury+Enduring is a crutch combo as well. Following your logic, BBQ is even a crutch. Survivors definitely have more, but they also can't kill anyone. My main point is stop acting like Killers don't have crutches too.
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Anything that gives you an second chance after YOU messed up is a crutch. You messed up and yet were not punished, that is a crutch.
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Spine Chill is not so much a crutch but a 'must have' which should be built in to all Survivors base kit
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DS and object of obsession, DS and unbreakable combo as well. That's it.
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Noed is a crutch. Spirit fury and enduring is simply countered by not going for stuns, so it isn't a crutch. BBQ isn't a crutch, since it rewards the killer for hooking someone.
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Am I the only one used to a very specific definition of "crutch" in gaming, something that helps bad players but actually hinders good players? Lowers skill floor AND lower skill ceiling?
Because by the definition I'm used to none of the perks commonly called crutch perks (on either side) actually fit at all. It's not the bad and inexperienced players that do stuff like 99% their sprint burst, dead hard for distance, ignore healing because of adrenaline and so on. That's the more experienced players that know those things are options in the first place.
The only way I can see it work out in that way is if we go by the "if you were actually good, you wouldn't need <perk>!" line of thinking but that's just "nooo stop using what I dislike" scrub mentality.
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Crutch perks are different depending on people.
A crutch perk is a perk that the survivor is used to equip in order to perform at his/her best, and that feel something missing or don't perform as well when they don't equip it.
From personnal experience my crutch perks are : Iron Will, Spine Chill and Windows of Opportunity as survivor.
Those are the three perks i cannot get read off no matter how hard i tried to play without, i always get back to them the next game.
- Iron Will is just a really strong perk to equip as a solo survivor, so you don't rely on people healing you to not get find by the killer
- Spine Chill is just a good perk to know when to go away ( expecially when injured )
- Windows of Opportunity is so underrated it hurts, on indoors maps it's just the best perk and on outdoor maps it help you to know where is the no-pallet zone and how to avoid it.
As killer my crutch perk is BBQ, coz i see it as a reward for playing a very stressful side, and couldn't see myself play 15 minutes of mental stress and strategy to just get rewarded by 20K BP.
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So there are as much crutch perks as there are players.
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@2ndBusiestmusicnerd I guess you missed the part where I said by Leachy Jr.'s logic, BBQ is a crutch too. It cuts out actually finding other Survivors so you're not wasting time looking around, you know exactly where to go. Sure, you can just hop in a locker, get closer to the hook or run Distortion to counter it, but if BT is considered a crutch it's fair to say the same for BBQ. Same argument applies with him saying Resilience and Spine Chill is a crutch combo, if that's true, Spirit Fury and Enduring is a crutch combo as well. I was simply using his logic to counter his comments.
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