Let's Talk About Second Wind and the Upcoming "Buff"

First off, I want to say that I think the sole fact that they're looking at these less used perks is great. Most of the changes that have been added with this 4.5.0 patch are great, especially with small but smart buffs like with Fixated or Open Handed.

Except for the Second Wind change.

Second Wind being 20 seconds to heal yourself compared to 34 is secretly a very big nerf in a fairly common situation. Second Wind can often be considered an anti-tunnel perk. However, there are many issues with the current Second Wind that could have been buffed instead of what we got.

1) It's very specific to activate. You need to heal an entire health state and then get unhooked. First off, if the Killer is tunnelling, which is what Second Wind tries to combat, there's not going to be a ton of situations where you can actually get off that full heal. Secondly, there have been so many times where I use this perk, unhook a Survivor (probably showing them that I've brought We'll Make It, which is very good with Second Wind) and then they self care for a split second and make me essentially need to heal two health states just to activate this perk.

2) It's not amazing at being an anti-tunnel perk. The fact that Second Wind is broadcasted to everyone in the match due to the Broken status effect can cause the Killer to just chase you relentlessly and down you before it can activate.

Even with BT granted to you from a different Survivor, if they're chasing you so much that you can't even mend, even if you still manage to waste enough time, Second Wind fails in its purpose to waste more time when they tunnel you because it only heals the Deep Wound and not the injured status. And considering Deep Wounds isn't very lethal on its own, Second Wind essentially wastes the perk slot.

3) If you happen to be the first found, the perk is greatly weakened. Similarly to Deliverance, this perk requires you to do something and then get hooked to use it. This makes it generally very situational and could cause you to just end up not being able to use the perk at all.

4) Compared to other "anti-tunnel" perks, Second Wind is outclassed completely.

Borrowed Time is immediately going to effectively give the unhooked Survivor an extra health state and doesn't need to be set up. The only thing that you could argue Second Wind does better is that it still activates when the Killer is not nearby.

Decisive Strike is also going to pretty much instantly give the unhooked Survivor an extra health state and doesn't need to be set up. The only thing Second Wind does better is that it will be able to be active while repairing a generator, but there's still a few months to go before Second Wind gets that upside over Decisive Strike.

Now let's go over why this change makes the perk even worse.

Borrowed Time is very common between a lot of Survivors, and as it stands, Deep Wounds takes 12 seconds to mend yourself. With 30 seconds, which is what the current length of Second Wind's self heal is at T3, you get about 18 seconds between getting Deep Wounds from BT and the wasted heal. That's probably enough time to get out of the chase if possible and then mend.

With the new change it'll be getting, that becomes a mere 8 seconds between getting Deep Wounds to having your Second Wind heal wasted. This might be enough to get off the mend before you waste the perk in some occurrences, but if the Killer persists for just a few seconds after the initial hit, you probably won't be able to get it done.

While the change does benefit situations where you're not getting Deep Wounds from Borrowed Time (or Legion in specific moments), situations where there are BT users are much more common than ones without the perk.

And this buff still doesn't fix the other issues with this perk either.

So how would I have buffed Second Wind? There's two ideas I have that I'll share now.

• To remedy the frustration of needing a full heal, change it to just having the requirement of joining in at the end of a healing action. The only situation I'd find this somewhat overpowered in is when you're picking someone up off the ground after they've already recovered as much as possible. But I doubt that there's a situation where people are getting slugged and you're going to still be able to do something with Second Wind.
• Make it always heal to the healthy state, no matter what other conditions you have. Makes the 20 seconds over 30 seconds a complete buff instead of a double-edged change. This also gives it more use over something like Adrenaline which only heals one state.

I really love using the perk, and I'm glad that it at the very least got attention, but I need to point out that you've changed this perk in a less than great way. There are other ways to make it a better perk, but I think doing these two buffs will make the perk much stronger while still being fair.