Done with Hexes

Duh. It's high risk, high return mechanic.

What did you expect? A frickin treasure hunt for survivors?

Hex totems are supposed to be vulnerable.

90 seconds cleanse? Too bad.

They have the most powerful effects in all of DBD and yet you want to have the cake and eat it too.

Either don't equip Hex totems if you're scared of them being cleansed or just suck it up and think it's bad luck.

Yeah, and I found an entitled killer who wants everything revolving around himself.

Why should hexes be a treasure hunt?

It's your obligation to secure those totems if you chose to play risky tactics. That's why you see the god damn totem the entire time.

Yet you blame the survivors for cleansing what's there?

Pathetic to say the least.

So what's your point?

Make Hex totem effects apply with no totems?

You killers ######### and moan making excuses and yet you guys clearly don't get the mechanic of the totems in the first place.

You SHOULD guard the totems. That's your secondary job if you decided to run hex totem perks.

I don't get why it's so hard for you guys to understand.

So just because the killers CHOSE to run hex and just because they have no time to GUARD their totems, the SURVIVORS must run around for a treasure hunt?

Wut?

What logic does that make?

Did anybody force you to run a risky Hex totem?

Cuz if they did, please tell me so I can report them for hacking.

Bloodfavor works nice on killers that have a secondary attack that doesnt count as a basic attack. And people being downed near pallets is quite more common than you'd expect. Let alone that in most cases, 16 meters is plenty of distance to gain a second hit without having to care about any pallets. It is a bit too niche to work as it does right now, but the devs are a bit too afraid to block pallets too long(look at Cruel Limits for example, it blocks ALL vaulting locations, except for dropped pallets). This is simply indicative that this game needs more counterplay than just pallets. Like breakable windows.

Devour Hope "but requires the killer to already be doing very well to get any mileage out of it due to the build-up time". Not really, there have been plenty of games where I've been able to get 9 hooks and only kill 1 survivor simply due to them tanking hookstates efficiently, Devour Hope, even at 3 stacks, has a lot of value that goes ignored. Especially on m1 killers like Trapper and Myers that dont really have any way of effectively close gaps.

You should be running Haunted Grounds more often I hear. In a lot of cases, if you have ANY information perk, you can easily get more than 1 down out of it.

Lullaby is a tad weak, but not hearing any skillcheck trigger is worthy of it being a hex totem. Even if you already do decent, if ignored too long it makes the difference between a win and a loss. Which is essentially the secondary effect of any hex totem: forcing survivors to do anything other than just gens.

NOED well, you're right, except in your token based totem argument. Lullaby has an effect as long as it is active: if you fail a skillcheck, you get a 5% additional penalty. Devour Hope allows you to kill survivors without finishing any sacrifice.

Retribution is a very strong perk. Especially combined with any other hex totem. Giving survivors the oblivious status when they cleanse any dull totem means they do not hear you coming for 45 seconds. Cleansing any hex totem reveals their aura's for 10 full seconds(remember me saying that Haunted Grounds combined with ANY information perk easily would grant you more than 1 down? Retribution with Haunted Grounds is powerful enough to end games THAT is why it's a hex totem).

Ruin, nothing to add

Third Seal, VERY strong perk might I say. A lot of survivors actually dont look for this perk actively when they are affected. "but you can still see when a survivor gets downed or hooked." Well, that has nothing to do with blindness tho, that is simply the survivor HUD. But you CANT see where a survivor is downed, you do NOT get to see an alert where someone gets downed. You can see where a survivor is hooked for 5 seconds, sure, but after that, you do not see them, nor their hook. Heck, if you're on the opposite side of the map, survivors wont have a clue as the bubble they see is the same size on their screen, regardless if you hook them 2 meters away, or 100 meters away. Third Seal is a hidden gem. Remember Trail of Torment originally being buffed to keep killers Undetectable untill they down a survivor, yet quickly getting nerfed to include injuring survivors also? Third Seal is why. It's not the strongest effect, but it's definitely too powerful to be a regular perk. You'd be surprised how many people reach their second hook state because survivors are blinded. Or the new suggested OoO change? Third Seal is going to be it's main counter. My only grudge with this perk, is that it requires you to hit survivors actively and only applies to the survivors you hit.

Thrill of the Hunt, again, ALSO notifies you of people working on any hex totem. Solo it's relatively weak and doesnt do anything but grant you extra BP and a way of telling if survivors are cleansing dull totems(the counter goes down when they do). However, like Retribution, it's amazing at totem defense. So if you have a perk like Ruin and want to make it last, slap on Thrill of the Hunt. It's quite strong.

Undying, I mean, the old perk was far too powerful to be a perk. It's slightly weak right now as I think there should be a difference between cleansing Undying and cleansing a specific hextotem, but it's information is still quite nice(again, Haunted Grounds, people running around a totem without knowing = free down with Haunted Grounds being respawned). Still quite strong as it revives a hex totem that would otherwise be gone.

So out of all the hex totems, only Bloodfavor is one that I argue to be too weak, due to it having a cooldown it does not need as it's already reliant on basic attacks. You thinking other hex perks are worthless is you simply not thinking outside of the box and just slapping whatever is deemed meta by the community.

You're really looking at hexperks individually for most of the perks. And they are hexperks because their effects are too powerful to be normal perks. Thrill of the Hunt not being a hexperk would essentially give you a permanent Thanatophobia without doing anything. Third Seal being a normal perk would simply be too powerful, unless you give the blindness effect for a limited time(which is at most 1 minute), making it a very weak perk. Giving it '3-5 minutes... ..THAT might be useful." would be too powerful to be a regular perk as you essentially blind a survivor for the entire match without them having any way of reducing that time. Blindness is a heavily underestimated effect. Retribution working whenever a hextotem is cleansed without it being a hextotem itself is utterly worthless unless you add other hextotems, which then doesnt change a thing from what it does now. That would be like DS never working, unless you also use Unbreakable. Besides, Retribution works on ANY hex totem, not just itself.

"As a hex, you've got to be playing against non-SWF gamers who are just totally oblivious to everything going on and are just holding M1 on that gen all day." This would apply to NOED, Ruin and Crowd Control aswell. Heck, 1 quick vault and survivors would be looking for Crowd Control, making it last arguably shorter than the average hex perk as survivors actively search for it. Is Crowd Control being active for 1 minute really stronger than Third Seal being active for 50% of the match untill survivors realize how much they're actually ######### for not having cleansed that totem for so long but then realizing they have no way of finding the totem other than brute forcing or using Small Game? Third Seal is strong because it appears to be weak. Just as the new ruin is stronger than old ruin because it appears to be weak. All hex totems are too powerful to be normal perks(except bloodfavor)

"A perk that survivors can turn off NEEDS to be game-defining"

Not neccesarily, it needs to make an impact on the game that gives you the oppertunity to change the endresult, sure, but they dont need to be game defining. Heck, by that reasoning, NOED and Ruin both do not fit either. As both are not really game defining by equipping them. Ruin is worthless if you do not chase survivors off gens. NOED is worthless if you are unable to get someone on the hook.

"Anything linked to a hex totem needs to be stronger than Sloppy Butcher, Whispers, Pop Goes the Weasel, BBQ, or any of the other standard, always-good default perks that are not vulnerable"

And they all are. Obliviousness in perks is rare and not easy to pull off. Deathbound only works outside a range and only if survivors heal each other. 99 each other and finish yourself with a medkit and there no longer will be Deathbound applied to you, and even then, its only 60 seconds and you can avoid both statusses. Retribution's obliviousness applies to you whenever you finish a dull totem, regardless of the situation, making it far more likely for a survivor to run into you because they do not expect you to be close. Let alone that Retribution's oblivious effect and hex status isnt really noticable since they moved that information to the top right of the screen. Does Whispers, Pop, Sloppy and BBQ give you survivors running into you for free hits? Totem defense perks NEED to be totems themselves, or they need to be having potential totem defense as a secondary effect(like thana, which has a primary effect of reducing gen speeds) otherwise they are essentially empty perk slots.

And yes, you could rework weaker hexperks into decent or weak normal perks that have a more generic application. But hextotems arent there to be generic applications. The more generic they are, the stronger they are, sure, but lets not forget the original hex totems being ruin, third seal, noed and thrill of the hunt. One totem defense, one endgame perk, one slowdown perk and one effect over time perk.

I have made and tried very effective builds with all the hex totems on different killers. Third Seal has gotten me more kills due to random survivors not being able to locate the correct hook in time of a survivor going into second state, let alone people using maps or Detective's Hunch to find totems, all useless. Thrill of the Hunt is arguably one of the best totem defense perks, the more hexes you have, the stronger this perk gets since survivors need to cleanse dull totems to reduce its effect. You could argue the effect needs to be stronger, but in 99% of your games, you're able to prevent a survivor from fully cleansing that totem. Especially if you add Thana. It's main effect is notifying you that someone is working on a Hex. Something that was one of the reasons why old Undying was considered too powerful. Retribution works really nice with Undying and Haunted Grounds and has ended a lot of games that otherwise would not have ended. Not a single other normal perk combination has that power.

"with the others being either weaker than normal perks to begin with" I mean, I'd argue you to be wrong here. With the exception of bloodfavor ofcourse. Some hex totems could be made stronger, but turn them into normal perks without heavily nerfing them and they'd instantly be meta or useless unless you already use another hex totem. But I'll make a short list just to give a small taste of how perks would be if they were nerfed to be normal perks:

-Lullaby, no longer have the 6% additional regression on missed skillchecks, reduce the warning sound by 10% for each unique hook. Which is far weaker than Lullaby is as a hex and not really worth running as a normal perk.

-Bloodfavor, instead of a 40 second cooldown, an 80 second cooldown(bloodfavor again, being the absolute worst excuse of a hex totem, being even outshined by people running Thrill of the Hunt as their only hextotem for extra BP).

-Third Seal, give survivors blindness for 60 seconds after being hit by a basic attack(maybe 120 seconds if you're lucky).

-Retribution, no longer give the oblivious status effect for cleansing dull totems, instead, give a 3 second aura read on survivors who finished cleansing any totem.

-Devour Hope, no longer can kill survivors by your own hand, get a 2.5% movementspeed bonus after hooking a survivor for each unique hooked survivor, give survivors a 30 second exposed timer everytime you hook someone after having hooked all survivors at least once.

-Haunted Grounds, would be a completely different perk, it cannot be converted to a normal perk as it is now.

-Thrill of the Hunt, no longer gives you a warning for cleansing a hextotem, it just gives BP for totems standing. Maybe an added 1% slowdown per totem standing if you're lucky.

-Undying, gives a 5 second aura read when a survivor passes a dull totem, 30 second cooldown.

Out of all of these, Devour Hope and Bloodfavor have the only potential to be a normal perk and being decent at that. With Bloodfavor obviously being already as close to a normal perk as it can be.

These totems are hexes because they are either designed to be defending totems, or because their effects are too powerful to be a normal perk.(Ignoring bloodfavor, which is an absolute joke of a hex perk).

I might have said Third Seal instead of Thrill a couple of times still, trying to edit them all out.