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Possible Decisive Strike Nerf?

I have seen a lot of discussions going on about people wanting Decisive Strike to be nerfed. It has been on a lot of peoples' minds for quite some time so I figured I would try to rise up to the challenge and attempt to provide what I believe would be a fair nerf for Decisive Strike. I'll include the current Decisive Strike effects as well as my proposed changes down below for you to compare both versions side by side.

Current Decisive Strike:

Using whatever is at hand, you stab at your aggressor in an ultimate attempt to escape.

After being unhooked or unhooking yourself, Decisive Strike will become active and usable for 40/50/60 seconds.

While Decisive Strike is active, when grabbed by the Killer, succeed a Skill Check

to automatically escape the Killer's grasp and stun them for 5 seconds.

  • Succeeding or failing the Skill Check will disable Decisive Strike.
  • Successfully stunning the Killer will result in you becoming the Obsession.

Increases the odds of being the Obsession.

The Killer can only be obsessed with one Survivor at a time.

"There's nothing to be scared of." — Laurie Strode

Proposed Change To Decisive Strike

Using whatever is at hand, you stab at your aggressor in an ultimate attempt to escape.

After being unhooked or unhooking yourself, Decisive Strike will become active and usable for 40/50/60 seconds.

While Decisive Strike is active, when grabbed by the Killer, succeed a Skill Check

to automatically escape the Killer's grasp and stun them for 5 seconds.

  • Succeeding or failing the Skill Check will disable Decisive Strike.
  • Successfully stunning the Killer will result in you becoming the Obsession.

If another Survivor is hooked while Decisive Strike is still active, Decisive Strike will deactivate until the next time you are unhooked provided that Decisive Strike hasn’t already been used.

Increases the odds of being the Obsession.

The Killer can only be obsessed with one Survivor at a time.

"There's nothing to be scared of." — Laurie Strode

I believe this nerf to Decisive Strike is fair and wouldn't take away the aspect of what the perk was originally designed for: to prevent the killer from tunneling you off the hook. The current version of Decisive Strike leaves some players to feel frustrated for various reasons. One primary source of frustration can be seen in the example below:

The Killer hooks Survivor A.

Survivor A gets unhooked and Decisive Strike is now active.

The Killer goes after someone else and eventually catches and hooks Survivor B, leaving Survivor A alone for a time.

After hooking Survivor B, the Killer goes to find someone else, in this example, Survivor A.

Killer catches Survivor A and picks them up only to get stunned by Decisive Strike.

Despite the Killer not tunneling Survivor A off the hook, they are punished for putting too much pressure on the survivors. This results in Decisive Strike gaining another purpose that was not intended (as far as I'm aware) which was to cancel the killer's pressure. In other words, the killer is punished for doing their objective.

I'm not 100% sure if this was the game design team's intentions when designing Decisive Strike, but they can always correct me if I'm wrong and straight up confirm if this was their intentions.

Overall, I think that the proposed change I made would be fair. Survivors would still have a solid amount of other perks to use to help them survive and I think adding this one effect to this one perk wouldn't be too harsh, but I want to hear what others think of this idea. It would be cool to see what other people have to say about this suggested change despite them liking it or not. It gives not only me an idea of what the community is looking for, but you as well, allowing you and I to make more suggested changes on this forum.

Comments

  • BabyCameron10
    BabyCameron10 Member Posts: 950
    edited January 2021

    They should just make it so that if a survivor fully heals, DS deactivates. Never really understood the “Deactivate after hooking another survivor” sorta thing. Doesn’t really make sense IMO. And besides, no matter what they do to DS, it will always be problematic.

  • icemancat
    icemancat Member Posts: 150

    The problem with that idea is that it can be abused by survivors. If a survivor knows that if they fully heal, they lose the effects of DS and can no longer punish the momentum of the killer, something they wouldn't want to do. The point of "Deactivate after hooking another survivor" is to prevent the survivors from intentionally cancelling the killer's pressure as I stated in my initial post. Cancelling out the killer's pressure with DS is something that I don't believe the developers originally intended unless they say otherwise and even if it was intended, it has caused a lot of frustration with a lot of players.

  • SkerpiTwitch
    SkerpiTwitch Member Posts: 327

    Get it down to 30 sec, it decativates once some other survivor is hooked. Deactivates once you are fully healed.


    Start with that

  • AetherBytes
    AetherBytes Member, Alpha Surveyor Posts: 3,049
  • Thanotos_Omega
    Thanotos_Omega Member Posts: 100

    The solution here is very simple make it so you can only run it but can't also run every other freebie noob tube perk, so you have to pick between unbreakable, adrenaline, deliverance, decisive strike, borrowed time ect

  • Bwsted
    Bwsted Member Posts: 3,452

    This idea has been suggested many times and the issue is always the same, i.e. that it would encourage camping AND tunneling. It's very easy for many killers to proxy or stealth and force the 1 for 1. At that point, simply slug the rescuer, down the unhooked person, go back to to hook the rescuer. Bam, DS deactivated despite the clear tunnel. The meta would simply become to ignore altruism and leave people to die. And then the game will die like a certain Death something Garden...

    There's no easy way to fix DS because there's no easy way to fix tunneling, which in itself is a logical tactic but also a game-killer when unrestricted (and yeah I know DS is not exclusively anti-tunnel and all that).

    I'd personally be in favor of deactivating upon doing gens, or at least making the timer go down faster when repairing and also to fix the synergy with Unbreakable. Maybe you can't fully recover from the dying state when DS is active.

    All other solutions so far are either problematic or overcomplicated.

    Pause timer when in chase ----> Do the old Legion moonwalk.

    Pause timer when slugged ----> It encourages to play even more aggressively and it sounds like it makes DS even more 'abusable'

    Deactivate when fully healed ----> 99 the heal

    Deactivate while starting healing ----> you can be interrupted without having a chance to get back into the match

    Healing in general ----> it's gonna be inconsistent because certain killers can keep you injured, like Plague. Which would always have to deal with DS then.

    Deactivate when entering lockers ----> there are legit reasons to enter lockers, even during a chase, like to tank hits, use perks, etc. And if the survivor is legit tunneled, then being unable to force the DS via locker simply negates the anti-tunnel potential, because slugging offers to the killer an alternative pressure option. And that especially if the Unbreakable synergy is fixed, as it should be.

  • Caleegi
    Caleegi Member Posts: 410

    Oh for ######### sake,

    Leave DS alone, its fine the way it is, it has already been nerfed plenty of times, leave it alone.

  • gibblywibblywoo
    gibblywibblywoo Member Posts: 3,772

    The main way DS is used agressively right now is trying to body block/bait chases or repair in the killers face whilst injured. A health state change wouldn't affect the actual problem with DS. Which is using it a as a power play and not an anti tunnel tool.

  • YourFather
    YourFather Member Posts: 89

    In my opinion, in the red ranks DS isnt as powerful as it seems in the lower ranks. Bcs. killers in the red ranks know when to take a DS and when NOT to.

    I personally don't have issue's with DS, but if i would hate it this much i would start maining Pyarmid Head. But like i said, never had troubles with DS players.

    Object of Obsession on the other hand is a perk that i truly hate, and i will do anything in my power to punish Object of Obsession players in my killer games. Bcs. they ruin my Huntress and Deathslinger gaming experience.

    Which is also the reason why i play in the red ranks undectectable killers like Wratih, Pig, Myers and similar. But then again i know if i would be a really good Huntress, or if i would run undectable builds. Object of Obsession wouldnt be this much of a problem for me.

    If you do some research you will find ways to counter just about anything in the game. But, also DBD is a luck based game in my opinion. Where you for example have the good games and the bad games, and you are NOT suppose to win every game. Sometimes the best u can do is not losing a pip. But then again your rank doesnt really matter, cuz its a luck based game. And then again u also know, that u will have a higher chance of meeting better players in high ranks. And those players will test your builds, and they will make u feel like u got better at the game when u succeed against them.

    And if you are mad cuz your playstyle fails against DS, then change your playstyle and hope for the best. For example you could use the "Make Your Choice" to know excatly when DS expires,and to have a chance to instantly down a person.

    Very well, i hope that my response solved all of your problems, and if not. Then don't worry, i can say much more than this, but i hope this is enough for you. Bcs. i can write an entire book here for you.

  • gibblywibblywoo
    gibblywibblywoo Member Posts: 3,772

    The problem with your reasoning is that an organised team can actually be devastating to your gen pressure if they play agressively with it, even if you don't even pick them up for the stun.

    Trust me, no killer worth their salt has a problem with the anti-tunnel aspect of DS. It's the "I'm gonna repair this gen in your face and if you slug me I use unbreakable and am up in 12 seconds, you wait it out and waste 60 seconds, or I stun you and you gain nothing".

    Its the fact that a survivor can go out of their way to play poorly/stupid and the killer gets punished for capitalising on a bad play.

  • YourFather
    YourFather Member Posts: 89

    There is not such thing as Anti-Tunnel perks. Perks are here to make plays, and they can be countered easily.There's like a single killer perk,addon,offering or ability that can counter an entire build of an survivor. And that's perfectly fine. Bcs. survivors get also countered, and not only killers. For example: When i vault i want to disapper into thin air bcs. i use "Dance with me","Quick and Quite" and "Lithe". But... it gets countered by open areas(areas with barely any walls) and Ghostsface's perk "im all ears". Another example: I want to run a DS build with "Deliverance" and "Unbreakable". But... the killer plays Pyarmid Head with a mori offering, three of my perks are now barely useable. Last Example: I want to gen rush with "Prove Thyself" and "Bond". But... the killer has "Corrupted Intervention", "Discordance" and uses "Midwich Elementary School" Offering.

    It is indeed a bad play to not pick up as survivor just bcs. u think the survivor has DS. You have to know when to pick them and when not to. So u dont have to waste 60 seconds, instead u can just waste 5 seconds and get stunned. Or mabye we been a fools the whole time and the survivor just had unbreakable and no DS. Also DS is almost impossible to use in the red ranks if you dont force it.

    Note: survivor recovery without unbreakable is around 30 seconds, and when u use unbreakable its around 20 seconds. Anything less couldnt not be done by the slugged survivor alone. It could have been someone with "We'll make it","We're gonna live forever" or someone with anything but not alone.

    Your objective is to gather as many bloodpoints in each category, so you don't lose a pip. But if u fail to do so, then get good. Pressuring gens is only one of many tasks. And how well u will do those tasks depends on your build,skill,game knowledge and luck. So like i said sometime u just get countered, and the best you can do is not to lose a pip(gather as many bloodpoints as possible).

    I hope this solved all of your problems, and if not. I can still write a book in this comment section, no problem at all.

  • UkilledLegion
    UkilledLegion Member Posts: 620

    If memento mori can use after 2 nd hook let survivors use DS after 1 st hook 30 sec only