The Legion and Perk Diversity

Since the Legion is coming out tomorrow I wanted to highlight the biggest problem that his design creates that the misplaced buffs have still left: perk diversity. What I mean is there's barely any perks that work on Legion so creating a good build for him is extremely difficult. His power does not work with the vast majority of decent perks in the game and outside of his power he is a M1 killer with 110% movement speed so good luck with that.

For example, no Exposed perks are worth taking on Legion, because his power does not do anything with the Exposed effect. I understand that being able to down in one hit at ~125% movement speed would be broken, but it would have been nice if it at least did something, like made your swings take out more of the bar or something. But because of this, this knocks out the following perks from being usable:
No One Escapes Death
Devour Hope
Rancor
Make Your Choice
Iron Maiden (HIS OWN TEACHABLE)
Hex: Haunted Ground

The other major area of perks that he cannot use are healing-based perks. This is because Mending, despite the definition of mending when talking about a person is literally healing, is not considered a healing action, and they went as far as to remove other actions from the healing action pool when they should have done the opposite. You can argue that healing perks work because they still need to heal after, but the problem is, there is NO REASON to heal against Legion, because his power can't down you without 3-4 hits, and otuside of his power he's a 110% movement speed M1 killer so you can just loop him. That is why you see a lot of people in the PTB countering him with No Mither. This knocks out another rather large section of perks:
Nurse's Calling
Coulrophobia
Sloppy Butcher (unless you really want Bloodhound tracking but you can honestly use Bloodhound by itself)

But beyond that there are just some various perks that do not work on him or are redundant for other reasons:
Stridor -- Devs said he's supposed to be deaf in Frenzy, if they stick to that this won't do anything
Save The Best for Last -- Does not impact Frenzy's attack cooldowns
Enduring -- Does not impact Frenzy's stun and you'll often be vaulting over pallets
Brutal Strength -- No point because pallet vaulting
Spirit Fury – As said with BS you won't be breaking pallets
Predator -- Can't see scratch marks in Frenzy
Tinkerer – Detrimental to Frenzy's location reveal
Unrelenting – Already has virtually no cooldown on missed Frenzy attacks
Insidious – No reason to camp with him
Bamboozle – Does not block pallets after vaulting
Franklin's Demise – Does not work on Frenzy
Play With Your Food – Already gets a speed boost with Frenzy and it takes too long to make a difference for it to be worth his normal state
Thrill of the Hunt – How are you going to protect multiple totems at 110% speed and your power has a long stun?

And then there are simply bad perks you should never run anyways and also don't help help Legion:
Spies from the Shadows
Monstrous Shrine
Thanatophobia (though if buffed it would work wonderful on Legion but 15% max is not worth it)
Territorial Imperative
Surveillance
Shadowborn (while not bad, Monitor and Abuse is a straight upgrade)
Fire Up
Beast of Prey
Overwhelming Presence

So what are we left with? Out of the 54 killer perks in the game Legion can make potential use out of...22. Less than half. And that is speaking generously. That is far less than any other killer in the game. A lot of them in this pool are extremely situational like Lightborn and Mad Grit. The only perk he can make more use of than most other killers is The Third Seal because of how fast you can get that first hit off, but that's ONLY if they are grouped up, and even then, it's a hex perk and Ruin is also mandatory, so good luck with that.

The only universally good perks he can make use of are Ruin, Agitation, and BBQ & Chili, nothing unique to him and just stuff every killer can use, because Legion's design does not allow build variety or perk diversity. If Mending was a healing action or if exposed perks did something with Frenzy or if Frenzy was compatible with more effects, it would be better, but as it stands now, Legion is poorly designed and works with barely any good perks.

(TLDR Basically a similar point made in a video by Bricky if you don't feel like reading: https://youtu.be/QbjyMjw6gHA )

Comments

  • HatCreature
    HatCreature Member Posts: 3,298

    Devour Hope at Tier 3 gives you a 10 second Haste effect which could help, could of course. Haunted Ground has the amazing potential that you could be chasing someone normally and suddenly they're exposed giving you an easy hit maybe. NOED gives you a smaller but permanent speed boost, he'd almost be a normal speed killer at that point. If Bamboozle blocks windows in Frenzy then it's an ok perk on him. You could charge through a window and hit multiple people and if there is a pallet you could force them to funnel into the pallet and get some more hits in. I think Tinkerer would be great om him because if you're within range your TR will go away and you could strike everyone on that Gen as a surprise. You can do that with Discordance but I think this would be better. And all killers benefit from PWYF, he could potentially a 15% speed increase and chase people normally for once in the match, then when the boost is gone switch back to your power.

    I guess that's it, all the other perks yes don't really work for him. He has one of the best tracking abilities in the game imo but his natural speed will always be a hindrance until his ability is powerful. I'm thinking of trying these builds with them.

    PWYF, M&A, Thanatophobia, and Ruin---This will give me a small edge to find people, a little speed boost for normal chases, since they don't want to heal they get a penalty and there's Ruin.

    Discordance, Distressing, Unnerving Presence, and Huntress Lullaby---I'll be zipping around the map causing those small kill checks, any Gen with two people is going to trigger me going over there, and if I hook people in time those small skill checks will be hard to hear ;)

    After those it gets kind of hard lol

  • MyNamePete
    MyNamePete Member Posts: 1,053

    isn't this game the most balanced work of art

  • Goldengeartwo
    Goldengeartwo Member Posts: 79
    Hex: Ruin is pretty standard. 

    Many perks do indeed not work that well with Legion. With the exception of Monitor and Abuse and Remember Me. Thanataphobia would be great if the perk was better. 

    Honestly, you could perhaps use a Hex-majority build. Ruin, Haunting Ground, Devour Hope. With Monitor and Abuse. 
  • Wolf74
    Wolf74 Member Posts: 2,959

    Another shortcoming of the Legion.
    Just plain bad gamedesign.

  • PigMainBigBrain
    PigMainBigBrain Member Posts: 1,893

    @Braduk said:
    Since the Legion is coming out tomorrow I wanted to highlight the biggest problem that his design creates that the misplaced buffs have still left: perk diversity. What I mean is there's barely any perks that work on Legion so creating a good build for him is extremely difficult. His power does not work with the vast majority of decent perks in the game and outside of his power he is a M1 killer with 110% movement speed so good luck with that.

    For example, no Exposed perks are worth taking on Legion, because his power does not do anything with the Exposed effect. I understand that being able to down in one hit at ~125% movement speed would be broken, but it would have been nice if it at least did something, like made your swings take out more of the bar or something. But because of this, this knocks out the following perks from being usable:
    No One Escapes Death
    Devour Hope
    Rancor
    Make Your Choice
    Iron Maiden (HIS OWN TEACHABLE)
    Hex: Haunted Ground

    The other major area of perks that he cannot use are healing-based perks. This is because Mending, despite the definition of mending when talking about a person is literally healing, is not considered a healing action, and they went as far as to remove other actions from the healing action pool when they should have done the opposite. You can argue that healing perks work because they still need to heal after, but the problem is, there is NO REASON to heal against Legion, because his power can't down you without 3-4 hits, and otuside of his power he's a 110% movement speed M1 killer so you can just loop him. That is why you see a lot of people in the PTB countering him with No Mither. This knocks out another rather large section of perks:
    Nurse's Calling
    Coulrophobia
    Sloppy Butcher (unless you really want Bloodhound tracking but you can honestly use Bloodhound by itself)

    But beyond that there are just some various perks that do not work on him or are redundant for other reasons:
    Stridor -- Devs said he's supposed to be deaf in Frenzy, if they stick to that this won't do anything
    Save The Best for Last -- Does not impact Frenzy's attack cooldowns
    Enduring -- Does not impact Frenzy's stun and you'll often be vaulting over pallets
    Brutal Strength -- No point because pallet vaulting
    Spirit Fury – As said with BS you won't be breaking pallets
    Predator -- Can't see scratch marks in Frenzy
    Tinkerer – Detrimental to Frenzy's location reveal
    Unrelenting – Already has virtually no cooldown on missed Frenzy attacks
    Insidious – No reason to camp with him
    Bamboozle – Does not block pallets after vaulting
    Franklin's Demise – Does not work on Frenzy
    Play With Your Food – Already gets a speed boost with Frenzy and it takes too long to make a difference for it to be worth his normal state
    Thrill of the Hunt – How are you going to protect multiple totems at 110% speed and your power has a long stun?

    And then there are simply bad perks you should never run anyways and also don't help help Legion:
    Spies from the Shadows
    Monstrous Shrine
    Thanatophobia (though if buffed it would work wonderful on Legion but 15% max is not worth it)
    Territorial Imperative
    Surveillance
    Shadowborn (while not bad, Monitor and Abuse is a straight upgrade)
    Fire Up
    Beast of Prey
    Overwhelming Presence

    So what are we left with? Out of the 54 killer perks in the game Legion can make potential use out of...22. Less than half. And that is speaking generously. That is far less than any other killer in the game. A lot of them in this pool are extremely situational like Lightborn and Mad Grit. The only perk he can make more use of than most other killers is The Third Seal because of how fast you can get that first hit off, but that's ONLY if they are grouped up, and even then, it's a hex perk and Ruin is also mandatory, so good luck with that.

    The only universally good perks he can make use of are Ruin, Agitation, and BBQ & Chili, nothing unique to him and just stuff every killer can use, because Legion's design does not allow build variety or perk diversity. If Mending was a healing action or if exposed perks did something with Frenzy or if Frenzy was compatible with more effects, it would be better, but as it stands now, Legion is poorly designed and works with barely any good perks.

    (TLDR Basically a similar point made in a video by Bricky if you don't feel like reading: https://youtu.be/QbjyMjw6gHA )

    I said this before during his ptb phase, this killer has probably the worst synergy with perks out of any killer in this game...which is...wow....

  • HatCreature
    HatCreature Member Posts: 3,298

    @PigMainBigBrain said:

    @Braduk said:
    Since the Legion is coming out tomorrow I wanted to highlight the biggest problem that his design creates that the misplaced buffs have still left: perk diversity. What I mean is there's barely any perks that work on Legion so creating a good build for him is extremely difficult. His power does not work with the vast majority of decent perks in the game and outside of his power he is a M1 killer with 110% movement speed so good luck with that.

    For example, no Exposed perks are worth taking on Legion, because his power does not do anything with the Exposed effect. I understand that being able to down in one hit at ~125% movement speed would be broken, but it would have been nice if it at least did something, like made your swings take out more of the bar or something. But because of this, this knocks out the following perks from being usable:
    No One Escapes Death
    Devour Hope
    Rancor
    Make Your Choice
    Iron Maiden (HIS OWN TEACHABLE)
    Hex: Haunted Ground

    The other major area of perks that he cannot use are healing-based perks. This is because Mending, despite the definition of mending when talking about a person is literally healing, is not considered a healing action, and they went as far as to remove other actions from the healing action pool when they should have done the opposite. You can argue that healing perks work because they still need to heal after, but the problem is, there is NO REASON to heal against Legion, because his power can't down you without 3-4 hits, and otuside of his power he's a 110% movement speed M1 killer so you can just loop him. That is why you see a lot of people in the PTB countering him with No Mither. This knocks out another rather large section of perks:
    Nurse's Calling
    Coulrophobia
    Sloppy Butcher (unless you really want Bloodhound tracking but you can honestly use Bloodhound by itself)

    But beyond that there are just some various perks that do not work on him or are redundant for other reasons:
    Stridor -- Devs said he's supposed to be deaf in Frenzy, if they stick to that this won't do anything
    Save The Best for Last -- Does not impact Frenzy's attack cooldowns
    Enduring -- Does not impact Frenzy's stun and you'll often be vaulting over pallets
    Brutal Strength -- No point because pallet vaulting
    Spirit Fury – As said with BS you won't be breaking pallets
    Predator -- Can't see scratch marks in Frenzy
    Tinkerer – Detrimental to Frenzy's location reveal
    Unrelenting – Already has virtually no cooldown on missed Frenzy attacks
    Insidious – No reason to camp with him
    Bamboozle – Does not block pallets after vaulting
    Franklin's Demise – Does not work on Frenzy
    Play With Your Food – Already gets a speed boost with Frenzy and it takes too long to make a difference for it to be worth his normal state
    Thrill of the Hunt – How are you going to protect multiple totems at 110% speed and your power has a long stun?

    And then there are simply bad perks you should never run anyways and also don't help help Legion:
    Spies from the Shadows
    Monstrous Shrine
    Thanatophobia (though if buffed it would work wonderful on Legion but 15% max is not worth it)
    Territorial Imperative
    Surveillance
    Shadowborn (while not bad, Monitor and Abuse is a straight upgrade)
    Fire Up
    Beast of Prey
    Overwhelming Presence

    So what are we left with? Out of the 54 killer perks in the game Legion can make potential use out of...22. Less than half. And that is speaking generously. That is far less than any other killer in the game. A lot of them in this pool are extremely situational like Lightborn and Mad Grit. The only perk he can make more use of than most other killers is The Third Seal because of how fast you can get that first hit off, but that's ONLY if they are grouped up, and even then, it's a hex perk and Ruin is also mandatory, so good luck with that.

    The only universally good perks he can make use of are Ruin, Agitation, and BBQ & Chili, nothing unique to him and just stuff every killer can use, because Legion's design does not allow build variety or perk diversity. If Mending was a healing action or if exposed perks did something with Frenzy or if Frenzy was compatible with more effects, it would be better, but as it stands now, Legion is poorly designed and works with barely any good perks.

    (TLDR Basically a similar point made in a video by Bricky if you don't feel like reading: https://youtu.be/QbjyMjw6gHA )

    I said this before during his ptb phase, this killer has probably the worst synergy with perks out of any killer in this game...which is...wow....

    What's funny is that they have told us several times that they look this stuff up beforehand because they don't want this to happen.

  • Wolf74
    Wolf74 Member Posts: 2,959

    The grind through the bloodweb will be terrible with all the perks that you can't use just spamming in your bloodweb.
    Image in a low level Legion with bad luck and just tons of perks to choose from which he can't benefit from.

  • Karkadann
    Karkadann Member Posts: 56
    edited December 2018
    Well, the perk part of the game ruins every serious attempt at balancing the game anyway.

    One has to account for too many variables and combinations.

    And the statement that they do not want to create killers as strong as possible, viable at higher ranks against try-hards, also seem to be an excuse when they do not do a thorough job.
  • Dehitay
    Dehitay Member Posts: 1,726

    The list of perks weak on Legion is long, but the amount of obvious bias is ridiculous here.
    Stridor, Predator, Tinkerer, Insidious, Play with your Food, Thrill of the Hunt, Spies, Monsterous Shrine, Territorial Imperative, Survelliance, Shadowborn, Fire Up, Beast of Prey, and Overwhelming Presence are no more handicapped on him than anybody else. And worse yet, you listed Franklin's Demise and Thanatophobia which are actually stronger on him than other killers. Why not add Bloodhound and Hex: Third Seal to the list if you don't want to be taken seriously. When you have to so blatantly pad your statistics in order to make what could have been a valid point, you just make it seem like you have no clue what you're talking about.

  • Wolf74
    Wolf74 Member Posts: 2,959

    @Dehitay said:
    The list of perks weak on Legion is long, but the amount of obvious bias is ridiculous here.
    Stridor, Predator, Tinkerer, Insidious, Play with your Food, Thrill of the Hunt, Spies, Monsterous Shrine, Territorial Imperative, Survelliance, Shadowborn, Fire Up, Beast of Prey, and Overwhelming Presence are no more handicapped on him than anybody else. And worse yet, you listed Franklin's Demise and Thanatophobia which are actually stronger on him than other killers. Why not add Bloodhound and Hex: Third Seal to the list if you don't want to be taken seriously. When you have to so blatantly pad your statistics in order to make what could have been a valid point, you just make it seem like you have no clue what you're talking about.

    Nothing you say is really debunking the point.
    Feel free and show your list.
    Which perks are worse on Legion than on any other killer (any exposed perks) and which one you call better on him than on any other killer (Franklins, Thanatophobia, etc.).
    And of course, the remaining ones are unaffected by him/his base kit.
    Let's see what you can come up with.

  • Dehitay
    Dehitay Member Posts: 1,726

    @Wolf74 said:

    Nothing you say is really debunking the point.
    Feel free and show your list.
    Which perks are worse on Legion than on any other killer (any exposed perks) and which one you call better on him than on any other killer (Franklins, Thanatophobia, etc.).
    And of course, the remaining ones are unaffected by him/his base kit.
    Let's see what you can come up with.

    It's not about debunking the point. It's about obvious bias belittling the point and giving survivor mains viable rationale for ignoring the problem.

    Perks that are weaker on Legion compared to standard killers:
    Nurse's Calling
    Brutal Strength
    Coulrophobia
    Devour Hope
    Haunted Ground
    NOED
    Make Your Choice
    Rancor
    Save the Best for Last
    Unrelenting
    Bamboozle
    Sloppy Butcher
    Spirit Fury (unless you're going for a no frenzy follow up hit with Enduring)

    Perks that are stronger on Legion compared to standard killers:
    Bloodhound
    Distressing (if you're mixing with Monitor & Abuse for survivor locating)
    Franklin's Demise
    Hex: The Third Seal
    Monitor & Abuse
    Remember Me
    Thanatophobia

  • Boss
    Boss Member Posts: 13,616

    @HatCreature said:
    Devour Hope at Tier 3 gives you a 10 second Haste effect which could help, could of course.

    Being someone who runs this Perk 24/7, i can safely say: This ability on Devour Hope is complete crap, not even worth 1 Token.
    Yeah okay, there are gonna be VERY RARE situations where this would actually help.
    But then you might as well run Monstrous Shrine, so you may prevent the 4% in the basement.
    That's how comparably bad i'd rate that DH ability.

  • Wolf74
    Wolf74 Member Posts: 2,959

    @Dehitay said:

    @Wolf74 said:

    Nothing you say is really debunking the point.
    Feel free and show your list.
    Which perks are worse on Legion than on any other killer (any exposed perks) and which one you call better on him than on any other killer (Franklins, Thanatophobia, etc.).
    And of course, the remaining ones are unaffected by him/his base kit.
    Let's see what you can come up with.

    It's not about debunking the point. It's about obvious bias belittling the point and giving survivor mains viable rationale for ignoring the problem.

    Perks that are weaker on Legion compared to standard killers:
    Nurse's Calling
    Brutal Strength
    Coulrophobia
    Devour Hope
    Haunted Ground
    NOED
    Make Your Choice
    Rancor
    Save the Best for Last
    Unrelenting
    Bamboozle
    Sloppy Butcher
    Spirit Fury (unless you're going for a no frenzy follow up hit with Enduring)

    Perks that are stronger on Legion compared to standard killers:
    Bloodhound
    Distressing (if you're mixing with Monitor & Abuse for survivor locating)
    Franklin's Demise
    Hex: The Third Seal
    Monitor & Abuse
    Remember Me
    Thanatophobia

    So out of 54 perks 13 are weaker on him and 7 are stronger.
    34 you claim to be "neutral", including perks that we could scratch of the list anyway like SFTS, Monstrous Shrine, Surveillance, Fire Up.
    But you missed to mention Iron Maiden, Stridor, Predator, which are in my opinion weaker on him.
    And also less benefical/desireable to use are BS, STBFL, Enduring, Unrelenting.
    But even with your count it almost double the amount of perks getting less efficient on him than those that benefit him more.
    That is still not a good step towards "perk diversity".
    Only very few builds will be decent on him.

  • Mr_Myers
    Mr_Myers Member Posts: 422

    hey don't hate Surveillance, its just as strong as Legion, they belong together.

  • FayeZahara
    FayeZahara Member Posts: 965
    Where oh where is the perk variety....
  • FayeZahara
    FayeZahara Member Posts: 965
    edited December 2018

    (takes defribilator to post)
    Be alive again cause so true

  • FayeZahara
    FayeZahara Member Posts: 965
    I'm not one for trying to bring devs and mods into a post. But looking at this post views it kinda matches the views of killer subforum. So im pretty sure alot of the community is looking for perk diversity in legion.
    I kinda want to bring them in and be like this is a popular post (cough cough) getting any ideas from it.
  • You guys may not like the diversity of perks viable on Legion but let’s not play dumb here and act like that’s such a big issue for only Legion. Idk how many of you play around rank 1-5 but there isn’t a whole lot of variety in the perks. There’s about 3-4 different Killers that use a variation of like 10 perks. So many perks to choose from but still only so many that are actually viable at those ranks. So again let’s not act like this is a Legion specific problem. I use Ruin/BBQ/M&A/BS at these ranks on Legion and do just fine. If not playing Legion then I usually use Spirit Fury/Enduring instead of M&A/BS. Just my opinion from my experience. 
  • FayeZahara
    FayeZahara Member Posts: 965

    @The_Yellow_Flash said:
    You guys may not like the diversity of perks viable on Legion but let’s not play dumb here and act like that’s such a big issue for only Legion. Idk how many of you play around rank 1-5 but there isn’t a whole lot of variety in the perks. There’s about 3-4 different Killers that use a variation of like 10 perks. So many perks to choose from but still only so many that are actually viable at those ranks. So again let’s not act like this is a Legion specific problem. I use Ruin/BBQ/M&A/BS at these ranks on Legion and do just fine. If not playing Legion then I usually use Spirit Fury/Enduring instead of M&A/BS. Just my opinion from my experience. 

    Perk diversity may not be great on many killers but legion has the lowest. (I don't like being stuck with 2 reliable combos when most killers have 5+ perk combos.) Spirit has the most and there very little you can't use and enjoy. (She basically has all the combos, plus doctor has alot also) But even with lack of strength choice perk combos on other killers there powers don't ussually cancel alot of perks outright. (legion is the only one who does that with perks) So you could have weak perks and be fine but now most perks there is no point to it. Might as well for new players change all the perks description to say doesn't work with deep wound mechanic. New players can badly invest in alot of bloodweb perks that they can't even use.

  • FayeZahara
    FayeZahara Member Posts: 965
    edited January 2019

    im just hoping they fixed expose in the end on legion cause i love my rancor perk. I want to kiss spirit for creating a perk that is useful in bad games. I want all my killers just to have rancor. It is one of those perks that is like okay obsession been ######### with me and have adrenaline also. Well i have rancor and not eating you ds cause i deserve 1 kill in this game. I can get to endgame with 4 survivors teabagging me as legion going why can't i just take 1 kill while these people gloat. I just don't like new killer canceling out all the previous killers perks.
    Legion perk diversity has kept me from playing game cause want to enjoy new killer and think him getting perk diversity will bring me back. That or getting a freddy who plays like his character in the movies.