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Surge Opinions?
Having used this bad boy again all day, i came to the same conclusion as i've done before. (Mind you that this conclusions is solely based on Wraith being the user.)
I really really really like this Perk.
Seeing 2-3 DAMAGE GENERATOR score events pop up with just 1 down feels good, especially knowing that regression also starts.
I mean i don't love the Perk, y'know? I'm not surprise-hitting with M1s, completely stopping chases, y'know?
And okay, maybe it's not on PGTW's level, but i kinda don't mind: I like not having to go out of my way to kick Generators.
That said, the cooldown really really really feels like an unnecessary hindrance to it, and without it, i think i might even replace PGTW in my main build with Surge.
It feels so terrible to down someone in the last 5 seconds of its cooldown, which happened i think 7 times today.
The immediate regression is 3x smaller than PGTW, which still sounds good when combined with my earlier-mentioned 2-3 DAMAGE GENERATOR score events, while in reality it's way more often just 1 or 0, since 100% & 0% Generators obviously don't count. (Also: Generator deadzones exist.)
You could have a really good slowdown Perk here that could be a competitor with PGTW & Hex: Ruin.
But i guess that's the problem here, right? That combining these 3 would then lead to massive slowdowns?
In that case: Why even have other slowdown Perks? Why add a new one with The Twins?
No, i'll always feel like Surge would be close to perfectly fine without its cooldown.
Probably could've worded things better, but i don't care at the moment, if you point out stuff then i'll edit.
What's your thoughts on Surge?
Comments
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I've been using surge for ages and as long as you play killer who downs with M1 it's imao equally good as pop as long as you play into it, applying pressure around gens you've surged. Even better, paired together they synergise quite well either full active time of pop in gen regression if survivors don't touch gens you surged and if they do you get pop on top.
CD is warranted as it's actually pretty strong, only buff I would give it is to trigger from all downs (like infectious fright), not just M1 so that killers with dowing power can use it as well.
It's not meta worthy perk but it does what it does really well and that's consitently applying gen regression so that you can focus on chases without wasting time kicking gens, kind of like mini-ruin.
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It's the Enduring of regression perks. Nice to have, not that useful in the long run, and more of a feel-good perk than anything else.
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I like Surge. I just wish I could use it on Killers who down mostly with their power. It’s definitely better than PGTW if your looking to keep your tempo as a killer as you won’t have to do chores such as kicking generators as often.
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REMOVE 👏 THE 👏DAMN 👏BASIC 👏ATTACK 👏REQUIREMENT
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Surge has always been a perk with 2 too many conditions out of its 5 conditions.
Surge's conditions:
Down a survivor.
With a basic attack.
With generators in range.
While off of cooldown.
If the generators within range aren't already regressing(removed in the mid chapter patch so it now works with ruin).So it still needs one more condition to be removed for it to be a meta competitive(Not a meta perk but a contender for it) perk(Most likely the basic attack one).
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Downing someone just out of range of a generator happens too often. Plus we got ruin + undying for hands off regression that isn't tied to only basic attacks. Surge needs a bit more range or a bit more regression, right now it's just a perk with conditions that doesn't even give much payoff.
I do like the idea of the perk but I always felt it came up short.
Edit: I completely forgot it had a cooldown, that's even worse.
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Honestly the only thing that surge needs is to have the basic attack restriction removed.
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Surge as a perk has the same weakness as low mobility killers. On a map like the game, it can work great due to the small size of it and how close gens are often put together. On a map like red forest, it suffers greatly due to how often gens are spread out far and wide. For surge another issue with it, is you can down a survivor just slightly out of range of a gen. Leading to it lacking consistency all the time. The cool down on it, stops it from being useful if you are snowballing. Since you don't get much of out of it, if you down two or three people with in a short time. It only works on basic attacks, making it only useful on a handful of killers. Which unless a survivor messes up their pathing, they can get a fair bit of distance away from a gen on a hit, unless the killer is running save the best for last, than maybe they can down them with in gen of a range, should a survivor just go, time to get out of dodge.
While surge when it works, does save you time from having to hook a survivor [unless you count hooking a survivor as something you were already going to do anyone, since to kill off a survivor you have to hook them or slug them out.] and from kicking a gen, it might even possibly stop a gen from being done in your face in rare cases. However it does lack consistency. Where if you look at something like pop. You down a survivor and hook them, bang. Do that and long as one gen or more is remaining, you get to use pop. Which pop doesn't relay as heavily on rng as surge, when it comes to gens being close together. Gens can be so far spread out that no such thing as a three gen exists and you can still make some use out of pop. While it would be way harder to do so with surge. While the idea of surge being able to hit more than one gen sounds nice, in reality is more often than not, one or zero gens. Rarely will you get two or three gens. That and oh hey a survivor is working on a gen, it got hit with surge. Still going have to kick it, if you want it to regress. If surge hit the three closest gens or three random gens, the regress you would get from it, would only be 24%, slightly less than pop.
You can win games with only surge as your single slow down perk but odds are it will be alot harder to do so. With how many things that get in your way of using the perk. Surge has to be one of the few killer perks that is not a hex perk, that relays on rng of the gen spread and everything going just right to make use out of it.
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If it made the generators regress faster than normal, I'd probably run it.
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I've been using it for my meme build for a while now. I don't think it's particularly good, but in my specific case, it is probably the best option for a slow-down perk that I have. Drop the cooldown and the requirement for basic hits only, and we'd be in business.
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I'd love to use it on Killers like Blight where you're very aggressive and not spending time kicking generators, but there's way too many restrictions.
I'd like to see the cooldown be removed and that it no longer effects generators that are already regressing. This maintains consistency with other gen slowing perks and you can't stack Surges in one area.
The most frustrating thing about the perk is that you have no control over the cooldown. It doesn't matter whether you're playing really well or poorly, it depends on the perk's cooldown.
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I don't even think that PGTW + Ruin + Surge would be such a great build. Surge works with Ruin, but PGTW kinda gets countered by both perks
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Surge is a decent perk but is very... underwhelming.
There are 3 main regression perks: Ruin, Pop, and Surge. Of those 3, Surge is the weakest—It has the smallest effect but also a ton of conditions.
Pop - Hook a survivor, and then kick a gen within 45 sec for 25% regression immediately.
Ruin - Just get them off a gen and watch it regress at 200% the normal rate.
Surge - 1) Down a survivor. 2) Be within 32m of a gen. 3) down a survivor with a basic attack. 4) Have the perk be off its 40 sec cooldown. What do you get? 8% regression.
Now, Surge did get a noticable buff that it's the only one of the 3 regression perks that can damage gens that are currently regressing, giving it more synergy with Ruin/Pop. That said, there are far too many conditions for such a small effect. It doesn't need much; just a few tweaks
1) Have it trigger on any downs
2) Reduce the cooldown to 20 secs (i would say remove, but if you're a Bubba with a chainsaw, you can get an insane amount on regression on potentially multiple gens
3) Either increase the range to 40m or increase the regression from 8% to 12% (this one is just my personal opinion; I know some might disagree with this one)
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I think removing cooldown AND basic attack requirement would indeed be too strong. And just thought about an alternative and think that the 1/2/3 closest gens (depending on tier level) should explode. That would remove the distance requirement and would be really strong on tier 3, therefore maybe justifying the cooldown. That might at least be an alternative to removing the cooldown
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Surge is extremely good on Killers that down with basic attacks. It synergizes beautifully with Ruin and Undying.
Because it stacks with Ruin, I think the cooldown is fine. It just wish Surge was like Infectious Fright and worked on Killers that down with their power and on locker grabs
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If they threw in some extra bps for every gen you get with it, I think it would become more popular just for BP farming alone
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It makes Surveillance viable so it's a good perk
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Ruin is a better perk and combos better with Surveillance. Unless they changed how the two interact with one another.
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Which killers is it worth it to you? Only one I ever run it on is ghostface
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Fair enough. It's just that every time I remember Surge I remember that one Otz video where he runs Surge and Surveillance on Ghostface and he occasionally talks about how great it is that you don't have to kick the generators.
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It needs a bit of love if you ask me. buffed to 12% and make the CD like 20s and work on any kind of downs not just basic attacks.
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I want to like Surge, but I feel it suffers from something that most non-meta perks suffer from. Why should I take Surge over PGTW or Ruin/Undying?
It's map dependent and arguably less reliable as a result, plus the cooldown is annoying.
It's by FAR Demogorgon's best perk, and I want to like it, but unless it gets something else to make it competitive, I can't see using it.
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Remove the basic attack cooldown (most important) and perhaps lower/remove the cooldown (would be nice) and I'd use it perhaps (I don't use ruin/pop though, usually nothing or corrupt). Basic attack limitations are frustrating though and unnecessary on some perks, like they actually managed to nerf Knock Out because they thought this was necessary for some reason. This perk is clearly not as good as PGTW/Ruin, it needs some love to make it more useable.
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I, respectfully, disagree.
While it certainly hurts Sprint Burst users, the counter is to simply run away sooner. Additionally, since it is only 5 seconds, it isn't unreasonable to say that a Survivor could get their Exhaustion back by sitting at a pallet.
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I don't really agree that it would be OP, personally. If it gets to a point where a Killer would be able to make gens pop in super quick succession because of their power, they're kinda already in a winning position as-is. I actually think effectively removing the distance requirement is more likely to break Surge than removing the cooldown.
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cooldown plus it's low regression on a generator is what makes me pick other perks than it. Even if it activates on multiple gens there is usually only one gen you care about and the regression it provides isn't enough to defend it.
i really only use this perk on hag since it saves me time to set up traps and because i usually have gens close to each other but on any other killer i would rather use pop goes the weasel.
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I started using it on Demo recently and its ok. The main problem is the basic attack restriction. M1 killers tend to take a little longer to down so there's much better regression perks for them. Surge would be a lot better if that restriction were removed and the cooldown were slightly lowered.
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the perk is really only good on high mobility or ambush killers, doesn't suit demo imo. As a perk i do think its demo's best perk again because it is just really good on those types of killers who can get close and land a hit.
edit: there are better regression perks than surge, imo you can get a lot more use out of pop simply because it doesn't rely on basic attacks and it provides more regression at practically the same amount of times it activates.
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I think it'd be great on Demo without the basic attack part as Shred is so useful for him. I think it works pretty decently if you play Demo as a defensive killer where you control one side of the map. It's just you have to hope they aren't a good looper or you catch them off guard (which is tough for stompy boi) or in a dead zone.
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i know i play demo and i also agree that they should remove the basic attack requirement i was just pointing out that pop is a better perk.
if they removed the cooldown and basic attack requirement i would use this perk more often since it can work really well if you snow ball.
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Agreed on Pop. It does have one advantage though, I guess. And thats that it can be triggered way more than Pop. You can get a lot of use out of badly timed hook saves with it. And it can work on already regressing gens afaik.
Maybe I should try it with a slugging build. Might be interesting.
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I feel that the general consensus of Surge is that while it's a potentially useful perk, especially after the last update that made it apply its 8% damage to already regressing gens, it still has too many conditions for activation that hinder it, and make it a poor choice when compared to other Gen defense perks. Currently its conditions are:
- Must down a survivor.
- down a survivor within 32 meters of a generator.
- down a survivor with a basic attack.
- it can only activate once every 40 seconds due to cooldown.
The problem with the First and Second conditions is that healthy survivors against a standard M1 killer will almost always get further than 32 meters from a generator after the first hit, especially on the medium-large maps where gens are spread out more, leaving the only killers who can down a healthy survivor quickly like Ghost Face and Shape as the ideal users.
The problem with the Third condition is that it just outright restricts the killers who can get any utility from it to killers who can down survivors quickly with a "basic attack". The only killers who can currently do this consistently are Ghost Face, Shape, and Plague since they all have a way to either expose the survivor, or put them in the broken state, which leaves them vulnerable to a 1-shot down. Compounding upon the problem with the first and second conditions, these 3 killers seem to be the only ones who can actually get any use out of Surge.
Finally the problem with the Fourth condition is that, while it can take a killer 40 seconds to down a survivor, good killers can start snowballing and down survivors 1 after the other within 20-30 seconds apart from each other. This means that for 2 downs back to back, Surge only activates 1 time, which feels wasteful considering the meager 8% damage it does to generators that would require 3 activations to even come close to equaling the damage Pop Goes the Weasel does in a single activation. Compounding this with with the first condition, that is potentially 3 activations of PGTW totaling to over 75% damage to generators vs. 24% damage spread out over a minimum 120 seconds.
The primary strengths of Surge are:
- it can affect multiple generators at a time per activation.
- it can damage generators that are already regressing.
- it saves the killer time on kicking gens themselves.
- it can pair with Surveillance to give the killer information on which gens are being worked on.
While these strengths are nice and amount to saving the killer precious time in regressing generators or finding survivors when paired with Surveillance, they also don't hold a candle to the sheer power you get from other generator regression perks like Pop Goes the Weasel, and Ruin, Both of which have far fewer conditions/restrictions for activation. This makes most of the community right to believe that Surge is far too underpowered to warrant having so many conditions for activation, because after all: Why would you equip a perk that only does 8% damage to a generator, Once every 40 seconds, only if you are close enough to said generator, on the condition that you down the survivor with a basic attack, Just for the reward of saving you time on kicking said generator, when you can otherwise down a survivor from any distance with any attack, and be rewarded with a 25% chunk of damage to the generator from PGTW?
Sadly we all know the reason why this perk has so many conditions for activation despite its meager damage: 3 gen situations. While designing Surge someone on the dev team must have said "but it can damage multiple gens at once, won't that make it OP in a 3 gen situation?"... I mean, Come on, you all know that's how that discussion HAD TO have gone down, and is definitely why they overcompensated for it with so many "conditions." Originally Surge was going to come out with 12% damage per activation, but apparently upon having this conversation, they overcompensated even further on this as well by knocking it down to 8%, but in all honesty, even with 12% damage per activation, it wouldn't even come close to slowing down survivors enough to stop them from defeating a 3 gen by split rushing when surge's primary condition for activation is: Down a survivor.
Bottom line, If they removed the "Down with Basic attack" requirement, and the Cooldown, Surge still wouldn't be as useful or as powerful as any of the other gen defense perks we currently have... but at least it would be more useful to more killers on the roster than it currently is.
TL;DR:
Surge has too many conditions for activation that restrict its usefulness to only 3 killers on the current roster (Ghost Face, Shape, and Plague). For the meager reward of 8% damage and saving time on kicking gens yourself, there are better alternative perks available that do greater damage and have fewer restrictions which makes Surge "Trash tier" by comparison. I believe the sole reason Surge is so restricted is because the devs feared it's potential power in a 3 gen situation, but considering that its primary condition for activation is that you have to down a survivor, this logic is flawed. Even if they removed 2 of the conditions for activation, basic attack and cooldown, Surge still wouldn't be Overpowered in a 3 gen situation, or any situation honestly, but at least it would be useful to more killers on the roster.
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It's ok. There are much better perks though. I rarely need 8% on separate gens, but I can always make the case for 25% on a specific gen.
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Because of that cooldown I never use Surge.
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Basic attack requirement is dumb and timer should be removed. If you're downing survivors in under 30 seconds then shouldn't you be rewarded? Knowing BHVR though they aren't going to do anything about it and probably just say it's underrated.
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This is the thing about certain killer perk cooldowns that really bother me. Some make sense but others are just silly.
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I don't agree with that. Apparently many people complain or are concerned about the CD as it affects the perk negatively too often. Apparently also killers get striked by DS without even tunneling also is a problem, and Pop got nerfed because 60 seconds allows too much action between hooking and kicking. And I think that none of these common situations appear only in already decided games. Quick multi downs can be a game changer, but survivors can (and have enough tools to) recover from that, unless all 4 are down.
2 or 3 downs within 45 seconds is in no way an already sealed win. But having multiple regression for that applied to multiple gens would surely help out to reach that point, as you have massive pressure AND reverted progress on top
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It's pretty killer dependant i feel.
On stealth killers or m1 killers that can often get a down near the generator a injured survivor worked on it's pretty good.
On power heavy characters it's not quite that good.
As a ghost face i would love the perk
As a Legion it's a good choice
As a Bubba i wouldn't even concider it an option
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its also useful on hag because her traps can lead to a lot of hits near gens and potentially downs, it also gives her time to spend placing traps instead of breaking gens.
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I feel the perk is too limited for it to be consistent. I think either removing the basic attack requirement or having it apply more regression (maybe 12-15%) would make it a good alternative to Pop.
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Three downs in that quick of a succession in roughly the same area with a no-limits Surge would still result in a bit less regression than three uses of Pop Goes the Weasel, assuming that all three of the Popped gens are immediately tapped. I don't consider either case to be overkill.
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Assumed. Also meaning you waste quite some time walking to and kicking the gens, either allowing slugs to heal up or giving easy unhooks or whatever, which is the bonus time Surge would jus grant you without a cloodown. And I think you agree that a triple Pop within a minute is a pain in the A.
I just think that the game has too many scenarios and cannot be summarized in a single scenario, especially not to evaluate perks. We could go on for weeks finding scenarios that favor each of our views and countering the other.
If you take my suggestion, I would say, regressing 3*8% is the same amount like a pop, but you save time kicking them and 3 gens get regressed. Therefore you need the cooldown to be not too oppressive.
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The difference is that you can use Pop three times at various points of the match on whatever gens you want and get max Pop benefit as long as those gens had at least 25% progress. With Surge, you would have to hit the same three gens three times within a short time span to get a comparable amount of regression. That's a lot more effort and a lot more situational for what is at best only a comparable payoff. So I disagree that you need the cooldown to avoid it being oppressive.
What other scenarios are there, really? Hitting multiple gens at once in quick succession is pretty much the best you can do with a Surge that has no cooldown. The payoff you get with that is kinda just par for the course with Pop.
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With many scenarios I just mean you cannot put the game into one single theoretical situation. You don't know which perks the survivors have, it depends on the killer you play, if survivors are near the slugs or not... That's why I in first place said, 3 downs are not ending the game yet.
Second, I don't even get your argumentation. If you think, a game is done with a triple down, what do you need the cooldown removal for?
The comparison I disagree again. The main benefit of Surge is that you don't have to kick gens. Kicking gens is a huge time waste, I also disagree that you are that free to chose which gens to pop. First because of the wasted time (you can't just walk across the map to kick the 80% gen in the corner) second, you could be in a chase that you give up for kicking the gen. Now everyone says the regression is not worth it anyway. Therefore you get the 8% regression on top. Not too much, because put it higher and you have half a Pop, meaning 2 gens in range already gives you a better effect as you dont have to kick it.
Talking about scenarios: two survivors sitting on an almost finished gen, they want to finish (with Adrenaline?). Down one of them and the gen gets regressed, preventing the other survivor from finishing it. 8% can be all you need. You can't do that with Pop, even if the gen is only at 80% when you down the first. Picking up and hooking takes too long to activate Pop. (So this is a specific scenario I mean, which would be totally ignored by a single theoretical description.) Apply this with a double or triple down in a 3 gen situation, and all the effort 4 survivors made is basically lost. Try that situation with Pop, and the killer loses more time with hooking and kicking, while either one of the gens probably finishes or half the team is up and running again.
I don't think that the cooldown is the problem with the perk being viable, I think the range is the bigger problem. You asked for removing the base attack + cooldown, right? Put that together with Infectious Fright on Nurse, Oni, Billy, Myers, Bubba, Spirit or Slinger. gg I guess
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Second, I don't even get your argumentation. If you think, a game is done with a triple down, what do you need the cooldown removal for?
For the scenarios where you are denied a proper Surge because you were a few seconds too inefficient with your chase.
The comparison I disagree again. The main benefit of Surge is that...
I absolutelt understand the main benefit of Surge; it's why I use Surge in my meme build and not Pop. I simply don't believe that the benefit as-is is worth either the basic attack restriction or the cooldown. Furthermore, even at 45 seconds, you are given pretty free reign over which gen you want to Pop. Only on the absolute largest maps might you not have enough time to check every single gen for the most ideal one. I think giving up the chase can be fine for getting maximum Pop value. If I didn't, I wouldn't believe Pop would be worth using to begin with. I'm not against the amount of regression Surge currently gives, so I'm not going to speak on that.
Talking about scenarios: two survivors sitting on an almost finished gen...
You can absolutely do that with Pop at 80%. You just need to have the common sense to shoo away the other person first. The scenario you are describing requires a very small window for Surge to actually be better than Pop (specifically, small enough that the time it takes for you to perform your cooldown animation would be enough for the second person to finish the gen). In that very specific circumstance, yes, Surge would be better than Pop. However, on top of me considering such a situation to not be terribly common in the first place, there's also the fact that having a cooldown can actually impede with that scenario because of the chance that you may end up not being able to Surge the gen due to said cooldown. I am also far from convinced that Pop would not be able to perform similar feats through simply playing well, especially in a 3-gen situation where you can afford to scare everyone away before you go for your Pop.
I still very much believe the problem with Surge is the cooldown (and the basic attack requirement). I don't see an issue with what you are describing with those Killers because I believe you can accompish something comparable with less effort using Pop.
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even at 45 seconds, you are given pretty free reign over which gen you want to Pop
that still includes that you waste a lot of time, if you really want to decide which gen to pop. in normal gameplay it is more likely that you are forced to kick a progressed gen that you "by accident" pass by. And giving up a chase is almost never a good option. Having another downed survivor is in most cases the better pressure than having 20 seconds extra on a gen. The lost chase takes you longer than 20 seconds to catch up again.
such a situation to not be terribly common
this is just an example to show what I mean with scenarios, and that this perk can not just be described with "down near gens" as you asked about "more than one scenario". The game is a bit more complex, especially when it comes to "conditions"
something comparable with less effort using Pop
Pop requires hooking. Infectious Fright is best on killers that benefit from slugging. I said that before, having to hook each downed survivor can give the team enough time to pop another gen or to either heal the team or get easy unhooks while you hook the next one. All not necessary with Surge. I can just repeat again: if you add multiple Surge effects on a slugging party, it is way more likely to end the game than with Pop.
Again, I think the bigger problem is the range. There are nearly no complaints about the cooldown on Thrilling Tremors. There were some in the beginning, but the perk is still picked decently often. Surge is too easy to counter by just running into deadzones (gen wise) which is what you do anyway when you have a plan on remaining gens.
We might just disagree, but I'm pretty sure that a removed cooldown would lead to a complete replacement of Pop, at least in higher ranks. Also pretty sure that it would hurt more than Pop if they did so
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it wouldn't do more than PGTW... not by a long shot.
Even with no cooldown, you would have to down 3 survivors within the same range of a generator to equal 24% damage, whereas simply hooking one survivor guarantees 25% damage to a generator of your choosing with PGTW. Basically, downing and hooking all 3 survivors, regardless of what range they are from a generator with whatever attack you have available (m1, or power) would grant you 75% damage that could be divided between 3 generators anywhere on the map. Meanwhile Surge does 1% less damage overall as a reward for downing those 3 same survivors. The only way this could ever be considered effective is in a 3 gen situation where all 3 gens get hit with Surge for each of the 3 survivors you down, and you still only do 24% damage to each gen, at which point, you have 3 survivors down and 1 running around, are you seriously going to start hooking survivors in that situation? If that were me, I'd just chase and down the 4th while hoping none of the others have Unbreakable, and couldn't care less about Surge doing any more damage because I'm obviously steamrolling their team.
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Well, I discussed about that for 2 pages now. The thing about Surge is that you don't have to kick the generator, which is in general a huge time waste. But I'm not gonna repeat all of that. Same for the "the game is over" argument, with which this discussion started between me and TAG
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I think they should remove the cooldown
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