Possible Balancing for DS

Well, they would have to camp someone untill they are dead to "play around DS", because it would activate upon the first unhook, not deactivate upon second hookstage. And there are already killers who camp someone to death this way to "play around DS". This change doesnt really change the games of toxic killers, but it does massively improve the game of more casual killers. It allows them to slug someone after unhook for essentially free without the unhooked survivor going on a generator. The problem I see with DS is not on how it works, its on when it can work. DS in EGC is essentially a free escape for survivors(especially if they have Tenacity and/or Hope). Free escapes should not be guaranteed. The only way that DS could trigger in this version is if that survivor hasnt been hooked all game, which is an incentive to hook all survivors once ASAP, meaning the killer aggro is less focused on 1 individual, overall reducing the amount of survivors that get sacrificed before they have had the oppertunity to earn a black pip.

TL;DR: You cant change the way toxic play, you can improve the quality of gameplay for people who have to face against toxic players.

Slugging shouldnt be a solution to a perk tho. Slugging is meant to be used to slow down the game. Slugging being the "solution" to DS is what created the DS Unbreakable combo in the first place, and that combo allows a survivor to essentially be untouchable after their hook. If they use Unbreakable, you still have another moment where you would need to slug to avoid DS. DS is a problem and has a massive impact on the way a lot of killers work. Having to assume every survivor has DS massively impacts the game in often a negative way because you cannot confirm it untill you pick them up. Meaning you have to find out all 16 perks survivors are running to exclude DS, and considering there are a ton of perks you cannot confirm either way, that means its practically impossible to find out if a survivor is running DS. It's essentially RNG in a game where RNG can already be the difference between a win and a loss, that is far too powerful to be essentially RNG.

BBQ is fine as it is tho. It's aura reading isnt even close to being the best. Rancor, Bitter Murmurs, Nurses Calling, I'm All Ears all have stronger aura readings than BBQ does, especially considering they cannot be avoided by hiding in a locker. The biggest reason BBQ is being used is free bloodpoints for hooking unique survivors.

Hit people after they get unhooked and then chase their unhooker, if they have endurance from BT, they are forced to mend, meaning they cannot do gens untill they have mended. If they dont, you can leave them slugged while chasing the person who unhooked them or pick them up to get rid of DS early in game.

The first 2 actions gives people at most 2 people working on gens, because one is mending/slugged while another is being chased. The 3rd option allows you to have a guaranteed person that no longer has DS. The first 2 options slow down the game significantly, but temporarily, the 3rd option allows you to have a survivor you can remove from the game as soon as you need 1 removed, slowing down the game not as significant, but permanently.

I suggest running Thanatophobia with the first 2 actions, because that also slows down survivors who are on generators. Its not the best perk in the game, but it definitely gets value out of every single game where some stronger perks dont always get an equal value out of games.

Actually, that is exactly how lockers are used. You run into one to avoid a hit, then run into another one to avoid another hit. If you time things well inside the killer shack, you can actually have enough time to vault out of the window. Besides, the Dev's also consider lockers to be part of a chase. Just look at the design of Dance With Me. Dance With Me was released before Head On and Inner Strength were even a thing. There is not a single reason to design Dance With Me to include lockers.

And the best offense is a good defense. Bloodwarden can be used to get a 4k, even though its a defensive perk. Haunted Grounds has massive offensive potential for a perk that is designed to protect your hex totems. Hag's defensive trap placement on a hook is used offensively all the time. Saying its being used offensively is no reason to cause a nerf. Otherwise Bloodwarden needs nerfing too, and we all know Bloodwarden doesnt need a nerf.

So again, your massive killer bias showing here.

Undying and Ruin games are the most boring matches I have faced. Good killers dont need it, so you're stuck with a bad and/or toxic killer for a very long time. Just like DS and Unbreakable isnt really used by good survivors other than just a deterrant to toxic killers, but mostly used by survivors who simply arent good enough and have to rely on that power to reach higher ranks. Both are extremely boring. There are awful perks that lead to much more fun than the overly overpowered Undying/Ruin and DS/Unbreakable combo's.

At least, as long as those combo's allow terrible players to get good results, that is.

You can bodyblock without DS too. Sure, its riskier without DS if I am injured, but if I have been hooked once and the survivor he is chasing has been hooked twice, its still better to bodyblock. And I agree its unfair in later stages of the game, but early game? Works perfectly as intended. DS early game has the same effect that NOED has lategame. DS prevents survivors from being removed easily in the early game while NOED prevents survivors from removing themselves too early in the EGC.

Considering survivors cant have hex totems without significantly impacting killer gameplay, there are 2 "easy" but fair solutions:

1. add in a timer for early game that lasts 3 minutes and gets reduced with 1 minute everytime a generator has been fixed, during this time, DS has free reign, giving killers no reason to tunnel survivors at all.
2. Give DS a secondary use that is guaranteed to trigger no matter what with both being a positive impact for survivors while also removing any RNG for killers.

I rather have the second one, because it is a counter to a slug mori, meaning the killer cant leave you slugged to come back and mori you while downing his second target in the meantime.

DS on its own isnt unfair. It's lategame potential is unfair, which I am trying to address, but thats it. You cant force a DS, you require the killer to interact with you to force a DS to work. Just in the same way you cant force a Pop goes the Weasel, that requires a generator with progression and a hooked survivor. Just like DS requires you to be hooked and picked up to work. Any killer refusing to hit a survivor with DS is simply an idiot.

It is 100% bias, because you consider it to be unfair. You have 0 grounds to call it unfair. You know what is unfair? Killers are practically GUARANTEED to have a pip. Meaning its practically impossible to lose a pip. Survivors dont have that luxury, once they get removed, what their team does is irrelevant. Even if all 3 other survivors do all the gens and escape, you still lose a pip. Yet as killer? Even if you lose, you still have a black pip. Let alone the amount of bloodpoints you recieve. DS is far from being unfair. Lets take the maths of someone else and lets assume you chase the survivor you just got DS'd by and assume the survivors are doing a 1/1/1 gensplit. You take about 30 seconds before you down that survivor, meaning you have 90 seconds total of survivors being spread over 3 generators. That is the absolute worst case scenario you can face. But guess what? You hooked that survivor earlier, so you took away 20 seconds of gen progression and now have a second one to remove gen progression. Even in that worst case scenario, you only lost 50 seconds of gen progression at best. Including perks like Thrilling Tremors, Surge, Thana, Dying Light and you lost even less gen progression. This means you have 2 generators with 10 second progression and 1 generator with 30 second progression at most. That is the worst case scenario. Im sorry, but that is laughable to call that unfair.

The best case scenario is them all rushing 1 generator, causing them to not even finish that generator before you downed the same person and hook them again. Meaning 1 gen is finished if they get lucky, but they have 1 survivor that is either dead or dead on hook without having DS to save them, meaning they would have to decide to sacrifice that survivor or tank hookstages for that survivor. Both are in your favor.

DS is not unfair. Pop alone fully counters the effects that DS could have. If you still think differently, you would need to represent your case on why DS is unfair without contradicting yourself. I claim that Pop alone was more than powerful enough to counter a full team of DS, why do you think it got reduced with 15 seconds otherwise?

Eh, Ill just make a quick list to address the primary points rather than addressing all the secondary points

"If you're just accepting the one survivor is getting away no matter what before deciding to eat the DS, though, why not slug them instead?" 1. Because I dont want DS to be in the EGC. DS is pretty much a free escape during the EGC, I rather not have any survivor be given an free escape. 2. Because the results are practically the same, except with 1 DS less. The only scenario's I can think off where it makes a difference requires you to be facing an optimal SWF for the results to be different, in which case, you're probably underprepared anyway, or you're aware and brought an ebony mori to avoid any DS in the first place.

"Additionally, outside of a SWF, teammates might come to rescue the slug without knowing they have UB" This is true, but often there will be 1 or multiple survivors coming towards the slugged body in the first place because they know he might get hooked, then decide to switch places in the chase while I'm already chasing the survivor who unhooked them. Then they notice im not tunneling and search the other survivor to heal them up. Except in this case, there is no DS. Unbreakable is pretty much balanced, there is no punishment on killers unless killers try to go for a game-ending multi-slug. Considering I caught that survivor earlier too, they are obviously relatively easy to catch and I can freely slug them the remainder of the game after I hooked them a second time as a means to get other survivors off generators. More often than not, the fellow survivors will try to do ANYTHING to prevent me from hooking that survivor to a point where they practically throw themselves at me for a free hit, which reduces total chase times with harder to catch survivors by a significant amount. Again, you'd have to be facing at (near)optimal SWF teams before you encounter a situation that it leads into a more negative situation than having a DS survive untill the EGC is.

"the survivor will get right on a gen" Only after they have confirmed you're not chasing them anymore. Ofcourse you shouldnt eat a DS out in the open where a survivor can run straight and look behind them to confirm you're chasing them or not. Location, placement and environment does matter. Just as you wouldnt Pop the nearest generator, you'd prefer to keep Pop untill you find a generator that has progressed far enough to get optimal results from it. But there is plenty of situations where you can eat a DS for practically free and remove 1 free escape-out-of-the-realm card. Let alone that it allows you to tunnel that survivor later if it's needed. Because lets be honest, there is a point in the game where you need to remove a survivor from the equation no matter what. But the vast majority of games, at least 80% of the games I play, survivors dont play that tryhard where they instantly go on gens unless they happen to run towards a gen after using DS. And this isnt simply purple or low red rank players either. This is rank 1 survivors vs rank 1 killer gameplay. Ofcourse you adapt your playstyle to counterplay the opposing team, however, there have been at least 20 different scenario's where I could eat a free DS. Some scenarios that are more common than you expect: you see survivors around you ready for a flashlight save, its essentially free to waste their DS because DS gets triggered the moment you pick them up, even if the flashlight save is faster. Meaning you dont get the 5 second stun.

"throughout the entire time after eating that DS, roughly 3 survivors are doing gens; by the time you find and start chasing another survivor after eating the DS, the person who DS'd you is likely either already on a gen, or most of the way healed and about to go get on a gen. There is no reason for a third survivor to rotate if you don't slug or hook a survivor, so eating the DS right away instead of leaving the slug allows the other survivors to keep doing gens." I did address this mostly, but I guess I have to include that you're not focussing your chase towards someone off a hook to eat the DS, you just eat the DS of someone who was freshly unhooked, knowing where their teammate is off to. Meaning at most, 2 survivors are on a generator, with the unhooker possibly on a generator if one was close, but off the generator before they even left any significant impact, while the survivor who DS'd will very likely meet halfway with another survivor, especially considering they are of the belief that I am tunneling them. For 3 people to be doing gens, it would require me to be tunneling. Which isnt part of any set up for an intentional DS. The intentional DS comes to mind when you simply happen to be able to down someone fairly close after coming off the hook while you're on your way and you realize you have the time to do so. It's not like we're just eating a DS willy nilly not thinking of anything else. But the odds of being able to eat a DS because you have the time to do so is much more common than you'd initially think. A lot of people(especially those with a bias towards killers) have the notion that Killers need optimal time management to win games, which is false. There have been plenty of times where I just screw around just for the sake of having some fun and survivors tend to respect it because they get to enjoy the game more. I'm not giving them free wins, I tend to end my games with a 3k, but I dont get serious untill the opposing team gives me a reason to be serious, and in that non-serious time, I get rid of a DS or 2 if the oppertunity rises. Assuming every game will be a sweaty game is simply a bad assumption. Killer is harder to play than survivor, but its easier to win as a killer than as a survivor too. Survivors dont tend to play sweaty early game unless you do.

I'm not saying you're wrong in that slugging is more effective the more sweatier survivors are early game. The thing is that slugging itself is a broken mechanic that should be avoided untill its absolutely necessary. In most games you encounter, there is practically no difference to your winning condition by eating a DS or slugging. Which is also why my design of DS also counters slugging while removing it from the game afterwards. It's not just any idea I had and posted online without thought, I spend quite some time thinking of how to limit its lategame use while keeping survivors inside the game long enough, fully purposing DS' use as an anti-removal perk rather than the botched version it currently is which promotes slugging and camping a slugged body, dropping the quality of the average game. This is currently the best version I could think of that could benefit the quality of game, would reduce early game tunneling to essentially 0(why tunnel when it's guaranteed to work?), punishes people who tunnel someone off a hook for an early game Mori by healing the survivor 1 health state after 60 seconds while they are chased. It fixes a lot of issues DS has against "fair" killers while keeping its strengths against "unfair" killers.

You mean throwing the game?

Thing is tho, you cannot avoid that. Even with the changes everyone else suggested, Ebony Mori is still extremely common in bloodwebs and bypasses all that anyway. The only reason those killers ever tunnel and/or camp is because they ran out, even though I cant see any reason you'd run out of Ebony's. I literally did an experiment on how many Ebony Mori's I could get while levelling a killer to level 50 and then try my hardest to get rid of all of them while still spending BP and getting more Ebony Mori's. After 50 games, I still had enough to continue but after that I got bored.

Obviously I used BBQ to maximise bloodpoint output, but there are some bloodwebs where you get 2 Ebony's and sometimes survivors use BPS or Ghastly Gateau, all earning me enough bloodpoints to keep on feeding the Ebony Mori train. I didnt enjoy any of the games I played, I just wanted to know if it was a legitimate strategy, and I am actually disgusted that it could be if you had some lucky RNG.

I might actually do it again, as I happen to be leveling a killer I am currently prestiging, and considering P3 has the highest chance of getting ultra rare offerings, I want to experiment with how long the reign of Ebony Mori can be. I do tend to be able to predict where the Entity will start consuming next fairly accurately and essentially play a game of bloodweb chess and win most of the time, making some bloodwebs only cost 30k BP to get to the next one(especially if it has nothing I want). If it ends up giving me more Ebony Mori's than I can use(again), I will definitely make a post about it, urging to change Ebony immediately.