How is Iron Will not a problem but Spirit is?
Arguments on why Spirit is a problem is that she’s too opaque as you can’t tell where she’s phasing making it impossible to counter her, and also that she takes no skill to play despite being powerful. Now, I’m a firm believer that Spirit should get changed to give survivors more information, so please keep that in mind before you verbally assault me over an opinion.
Now given these two reasons people bring up on why Spirit is a problem, couldn’t we say the exact same thing about Iron Will? Iron Will completely robs killers of information while in a chase as it makes it hard to mind game at certain tiles due to no sound cues that are so important for the killer to have. Also, does it take any skill whatsoever to slap on a perk that makes you almost completely silent while injured for the whole match with no downsides? Both seem very counter productive. And now after Stridor got nerfed, Iron Will is even more strong with it’s only counter being completely useless on every killer now.
Now, if you disagree with me, please feel free to have a reasonable debate with me. It’s fine if you disagree as this is just my opinion but this has been something that I’ve thought about lately and just wanted to get my thoughts out there to see what other people think.
Comments
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Iron will is fine. You can counter it be seeing blood and scratch marks on the ground.
You can also counter spirit by walking instead of running, but if she doesnt see scratch marks she will know you're walking so you havent gone very far.
Can we stop with posts about "op" perks? In some years there will be nothing worth running if things keep being nerfed.
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I think Strider should be reverted if Spirit wasn't a problem.
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Yeah you can see scratch marks and blood but the problem is you don’t know exactly where the survivor is to make a proper mind game.
Also about Spirit, I disagree as she can hear you if you’re injured without Iron Will.
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You can also counter losing by simply winning instead.
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Yeah it should be reverted. It was a stupid nerf as the perk is useless now.
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Nerf spirit (properly, not some random changes to some of her addons or to a perk) and then I'd be fine with doing something to iron will
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Survivors with Iron Will still give the killer information. You can't hear their grunts of pain, but they still make footstep sounds, scratch marks, falling grunts, pools of blood and you can still physically see them unless you're playing Spirit.
Spirit doesn't give any kind of information unless you're at her face and can see the animation reset but even then she's still moving at Mach 3 speed on your direction.
The "no skill" argument makes no sense because perks aren't supposed to be skillful. They're meant to help you and Iron Will is one of the few reliable survivor perks that we have right now, so I don't think it deserves a change. "It makes it hard to mind game at certain tiles", you could say the same about perks like Bambozlee and STBFL, they also make chases harder for the survivor counterpart.
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No. Unless it is changed to where it does not work with spirits power.
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Can you now use something logical in your argument or are you not willing to discuss this topic without silly remarks?
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All I'm saying is that if Iron Will was so strong, and the countering perk "Stridor" has existed since August 16th 2016, why was it only ever Spirit players that used it? And why is Iron Will only ever brought up in the Spirit debate, and rarely anything else? Surely, if this perk was so strong and makes finding survivors impossible, almost everyone would be using Stridor to counteract it?
Spirit was, and is still, a problem due to a lack of feedback and counterplay in general. Because guess what- shockingly, with footsteps fixed, it doesn't matter if you have Iron Will or not because she can still hear you!
Iron Will has counterplay, known as eyeballs. The only time it's really an issue is when paired with Lucky Break, but that's a Lucky Break issue.
Gann, I love most of your posts but I think playing Spirit so much has gotten to you at last.
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I totally agree. Strider was fine. They should have changed the killer itself not a perk.
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I agree with this
Balancing Spirit would be the better decision, rather than just balancing the perks around it.
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Well honestly, there are a lot of double standards about things like this
Remember when a lot of content creators were decrying that killers like Deathslinger and Pyramid Head were 'boring' and 'had no counterplay' because their main way of getting you is when you are locked in an animation like window vaulting
Except the fact they never criticised Huntress for the same thing. Double Standard
I do think Iron Will is very strong for what it is, there are some small 'counters' to it. I'll list a few very specific examples:
- Killers like Plague and Nemesis completely counter it, because they have powers that cause coughing - which Iron will does nothing against. Clown and Doctor also have ways of countering Iron will, just not as effectively.
- Killers who have insta-downs don't have to worry about it as much since they will be ignoring the injured state entirely (Unless survivors choose not to heal)
- Niche perks like Bloodhound, I'm All Ears and so on can mitigate it to a certain degree.
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Iron Will has been bugged for years that its nearly consider a feature by now. The perk originally didn't mute all sound from the survivor. You could still hear the breathing and heavy breathing while they were injured as it only surpressed injured audio. This like all audio changed with the engine update 1.4.0.
Iron Will is a problem because its not working as it originally was.
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Ok fine. Perks should have downsides though and Iron Will lacks literally nothing. Deliverance has a prerequisite, I’m All Ears has a cool down, and so on.
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That’s fair. Although Iron Will is incredibly strong against most killers, which is why it’s warranted enough to be considered a strong perk. It just needs some kind of downside.
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Iron Will hasn't changed in a LONG time. It's always existed in its current state, and didn't seem to be an issue at any point. The only times it has caused problems is when all sounds got bugged there for a while, every single update for a few Chapters in a row. That whole completely silent Survivor bug was irritating.
It provides gameplay options besides Hold W. Trying to juke a Killer and break LoS, then hiding, is a legitimate option and something I never see people do. Most Survivors hold to the Loop Meta and would rather just sprint around. Stealth gameplay, and actually trying to avoid the Killer's notice, isn't as rewarding (Devs need to add score rewards for actually doing this tbh) but it's a hell of a lot safer. You don't get views on Twitch for safe gameplay and people tend to emulate that.
The only issue with Iron Will is it now counters a chunk of Spirit's power, the way it should be imo. You're wasting a Perk slot on a chance it might be a Spirit if you hold to the meta of looping. People who prefer to break LoS, juke the Killer, and hide use it because it's part of how they play, and most likely how they've always played. You get nice score Events when you lose a Killer during a chase, and while not as action filled as a NASCAR race of loops, it is pretty rewarding in itself.
It's always been a pretty balanced Perk. You're assuming you are going to get injured at some point and you prepare for it. There are numerous other ways to detect Survivors, so Killers aren't really losing much information, and that's at least 1 Perk slot that isn't BT/DH/DS etc... Listen for grass, watch for the birds (no one really runs Calm Spirit much), look for blood (did they enhance this recently? It seems blood is a good bit easier to see lately), scratch marks, and whatever else you can use to track a Survivor. There is a reason why there is a Tooltip during the Loading Screen that says "Watch Survivor movements to PREDICT where they are going." You don't need a Quest Marker for it.
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I just listen to their footsteps, you can still hear that.
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What I'm hinting at is that you didn't provide any solutions. OP isn't arguing that tracking is hard with Iron Will, mind gaming loops is. You cannot rely on blood and scratch marks when you're trying to win a loop against a Survivor, they will never let you. To simplify, you are not countering Iron Will by looking at blood and scratch marks, because that's not where the main issue is.
And, you don't counter a decent Spirit by walking, because that's not how a good Spirit plays. Sure, from time to time they'll go for those big brain long phases, but the way you play a Spirit is that you phase in shorter bursts and the second a decent Spirit notices something is off, they'll end the phase and slap you.
Is that logical enough for you? Both things can be an issue at the same time and both of them are worthy of discussing, which is what OP is trying to do.
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It’s still pretty inconsistent though. Sometimes survivors could walk when LoS is broken and the killer has no input on that.
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On this case we'd have to change a lot of perks on both roles. Perks like Tinkerer and Kindred have very strong effects with no downside.
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Depending on the update and time of day.
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Oh also sorry I don't play spirit, I don't know if footsteps are still bugged for spirit, but for most other killers footsteps seem to work well. Even when they walk I can usually hear the soft pitter-patter direction in a loop
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Oh I play both sides and 100% agree Tinkerer needs a nerf.
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spirit has a lot going for her
Scratch marks, moaning, grass, footsteps, blood + addons
now they buff iron will so spirit actually needs to use her brain against people with iron will = iron will is a big problem
now with the stridor nerf people with iron will can atleast hope iron will can counter her a little bit. but iron will is a problem because spirit cant use stridor anymore to easily track since it was already very very hard to track even without stridor right?
the only problem is the iron will bug what hasnt been fixed for 2 years now.
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Footstep bug got fixed which is good. It was very annoying.
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I didnt provide any solutions because Iron Will is fine. It was literally the first thing I said in my post. :)
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You have to use your brain anyway when you play as Spirit. It’s not skill-less like everyone says. Again, like I said in my thread, Iron Will also takes no skill to use and it lacks absolutely nothing. There’s no downsides, no prerequisites, it’s just a top 5 survivor perk that has everything going for it.
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Damn. Those really are some strong arguments with solid logic. I never stood a chance.
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You're on the other side of the problem now. Before the change Iron will was what all the spirit players said was the counter to her and why she wasn't OP even though she clearly and obviously was. Though if the spirit used stridor it made IW useless because the entire point of the perk is to be silent not a little quieter. So saying IW countered her was just a lie since stridor existed and lots of them used it. IW is fair and the argument that just slapping the perk on isn't fair could be argued for any perk anyone doesn't like. " Oh Pop isn't fair they just slap on a perk and they get gen regression just for doing what they should do anyway." Killer's goal is to defend gens just as survivor's goal is to finish them and not be killed. Or like the others here say Tinkerer's rewards you for something you haven't done which you can argue isn't fair. I think Tinkerer's is fine personally and so is IW and any other perk that makes the killer or survivor silent. You don't like it just as I didn't like using a perk that was basically useless against Stridor.
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I literally explained after why it is fine. Do you know how to read or are you just trying to argue with me for the sake of it?
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The reason why one is a problem and the other is not is because one is a killer issue and the other a survivor issue. Fact is this dev team is, always has been and likely always will be survivor bias. Sure survivors get nerfed here and there but the vast majority of survivor "nerfs" are things that were extremely abusive and outright bullshit (such as old DS and old Object.) I mean take a look at the most recent 3 killers, the best of them was Nemi and he was MEDICORE, average to below average while the other two were doodoo levels of trash. Also how about that pallet validation? And before you say they just made it fair no they didn't, they just swapped it from being bs for survivors to being bs for killers without actually fixing anything. I could go on and on but I'll just say this: actions speak louder than words and the dev team for this game has spoken very loudly about which side they value.
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Difference with Pop is that it actually requires the killer to do their objective, has a timer, and literally requires the killer to go out of their way to kick a gen to get value out of the perk. With IW, you don’t have to think or plan what you’re going to to with the perk, because it’s brain dead just slap on the perk and you’re silent while injured for the whole trial.
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Honestly I think spirit is okay. And yeah I don't know why they nerfed stridor. I think they should reverse it. But iron will is fine.
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People saw Iron Will as a weak perk back then and Stridor was widely used by Nurse mains until the 1.5.2 update. Myself used IW back then and advocated it was a strong perk. But the meta at the time didn't involve hiding or losing the killer.
The strength of IW wasn't realized until after the audio occlusion bugs were worked out and you could hear survivors around obstacles again. With the decrease in pallets and map reworks, stealth has become an adopted strategy in upper ranks thus its increase in use.
While there were some, players for the most part didn't complain about Spirit until Nurse and Billy were made more "fun and interactive". Once Spirit became the easy killer to 4k with and with streamers promoted her did the large wave of Nerf Spirit threads start.
We see more complants when certain killers are played more than others. Survivor correlate they loss because that killer must be busted. This is why nobody bitched about Spirit when she was bugged and turned their attention to Blight instead. Now with her bug fixed and being played again, the Spirit OP threads are started up all over again.
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Yeah I figured someone would point out the flaw in me using pop, but I still stand by IW being fine. Killer player just don't like the fact that they now get the ######### end of the IW Stridor interaction. With how the perk was described this is how it should've worked from the beginning. The perk applies to you a 100% sound reduction. Then Stridor tries to increase your sound by 50% but 50% of 0 is still 0 so its working as it should've from the start. Just unfortunate for whomever used it, but there are way better perks anyway there is reason only spirit uses that perk.
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And yet, if people realised the strength behind Iron Will after those bugs were fixed, again I ask why Stridor stopped being used on anyone that wasn't Spirit for the best part of 3 years
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So what do you consider to be strong enough to have a downside? There is alot of perks on both sides that are strong with no downsides. If you change IW then you have to start looking at all the older perks and start reworking them because everyone is going to start with oh perk x has no downside now perk y doesn't and it snowballs into a bunch of broken not working reworks.
Spirit is fine for the most part the whole point of her power it is to turn it into a guessing game for the survivors instead of the killer. Now that been said I think she needs a clear tell when she is phasing but the killer should definitely have the upper hand when they use there power.
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Spirit needs Stridor for Phasing only what's hard to understand? Other killers don't lose Tracking as much as her, (except Legion during Feral Frenzy) Sound is the KEY element for Spirit during Phasing.
Why other killers don't use Stridor? Because they don't lose as much tracking capacity.
You guystalk about Scratch Marks but Scratch Marks are in the worst level they've been for a long time, there's weird gaps, early decay, delayed appearence and most important of all they've lost nearly all indication of direction. I can't count how manny times i can look at scratch marks and think survivor went one way when they actually went somewhere else. Cause the Scratchmarks appear all over the place with no distinct direction and with gaps so you will see scratchmarks appear in one direction cause of the spread and then the gaps come in and you don't see the Survivor actually went another way. And before you tell me to use Predator, the issue with Predator is it makes Scratch marks so tight that if you aren't looking at the ground you won't see them... If you're looking at the ground you're not having eyes on the Survivor and you can't see where they are going.
Using Bloodhound only works against injured Survivors so you have to do half of the work before you get usefulnes out of the perk. IF you managed to track and hit a survivor already then Bloodhound isn't gonna make much of a difference right?
Tracking Perks which aren't auras just aren't very useful. Hence why barely anyone plays with them, Stridor was vital to Spirit because of everything she loses during Phasing. It'd the same as Wraith not seeing Scratchmarks or blood when he is Cloacked. You need to be able to track.
I've already made a post about why Tracking for killers is horrible. I don't wanna repeat myself. THe game is at a point where it's predictions are more reliable whatever tools the game offers for tracking.
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Nobody will answer you that. Before the Stridor-Nerf, there was a hard-counter to Iron Will, yet people tend to complain instead of using this hard counter. But at the same time they say Survivors should run Small Game.
Suggesting to run mediocre Perks is only ok for one side.
@Topic:
I dont have any problem with tracking with Iron Will, at least currently. Footsteps are pretty good to hear. Iron Will is without a doubt a strong Perk, but not as strong as I would call it OP or anything.
And well, I am all for buffing Stridor again - either into a completely different Perk which does not have anything to do with sounds OR into its previous state, while butchering Spirit.
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We know why Stridor is used on Spirit. Same as why STBFL is used on Demo-puppy or M&A on Myers or Deathslinger. It synergizes with their power or attributes.
My issue really isn't Stridor or its nerf or whatever. It's Iron Will and the bugged state its been in for 3 years.
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I'm just asking why the up-until-recently hard counter to Iron Will has been in the game for the entirety of the time it has been bugged and nobody used it.
Surely, if it is, and was, such a problematic strong perk you would bring a perk to counter it? Or is that a flawed argument since you don't know which perks the other side are bringing into a trial?
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Iron Will is a strong perk against most killers. I'm a Nurse main, nothing to do with Spirit. I don't even play her outside dailies. In other words, I don't give a ######### about Spirit.
Irow Will to me has always been an issue and thats even before Spirit was release. The only reason other people give a damn about IW and Stridor is because they are getting killed by Spirit. Because Spirit player used Stridor, they blamed that instead of the killer. That is why the Devs nerfed Stridor instead of Spirit. Because survivors can't get there message across blaming a perk. Now Stridor is nerfed and Spirit is back in rotation. All of the sudden Stridor wasn't the issue.
Besides, I don't care about Stridor or Spirit. Iron Will making a survivor completely silent in chase with music covering up all other sounds is my issue here.
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But you still haven't answered my question of, if Iron Will is this powerful, why was Stridor not used? We know it's a strong perk, but there was a hard counter and it was not used- why?
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Eh.
I have seen far more posts complaining about Spirit than about Stridor. The only thing that can be said was complained more often than Spirit or Stridor was Stridor-Spirit.
The Devs did not nerf Stridor instead of Spirit because they thought Stridor was the problem. The Devs just dont know how to nerf Spirit without making her too weak or expecting a huge backlash.
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Because there are better perks. Killer can only use 4 perks against 16. Gens defense is more important?
There are 87 killer perks. Are you trying to say that 83 of those must be useless junk?
Why do survivors run IW so much? I see it used just as much as Dead Hard. Is it because of the off chance they run into a Spirit? Or because it's a very good perk against many killers?
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Yes, Stridor-Spirit. Nearly every complant was Stridor-Spirit and the Devs saw an out. Like you said, it was far easier to nerf a perk over a killer.
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Finally, thank you for the answer.
There are 87 killer perks. Are you trying to say that 83 of those must be useless junk?
No, I'm saying that out of those 87 killer perks, some will counter survivor perks and some will be countered by survivor perks. Stridor was one such perk (until the recent change), and it is (or, was, thanks to SBMM) possible to play and win in DBD without the ultimate super duper ultra meta sweat builds from both sides due to the state of matchmaking, the emblem system in general, and the fact that not everyone does play for ultra sweat mode and instead play for their fun.
Why do survivors run IW so much? I see it used just as much as Dead Hard. Is it because of the off chance they run into a Spirit? Or because it's a very good perk against many killers?
I think it's a bit of both, if I'm being honest. Before the Nurse nerf it was a good perk- still as strong as it was pre-stridor nerf- and yet wasn't ran that much. Post Nurse nerf, when the 4 blink no downside uber slowdown Nurse players found out she needed skill and migrated to Spirit, Iron Will became commonplace because it helped grant counterplay to Spirit players without Stridor. I know the reason I first started using it was because Spirit pissed me off so much.
Afterwards, people discovered it was actually good against everyone and barely anyone used Stridor, or an add-on which increases noise made. So they started not taking it off, because it was just that good, and due to the looming threat of Spirit deciding she'd had enough of survivor players enjoying themselves ever in matches against her.
It's similar to Dead Hard For Distance (DHFD). Initially it was a dodging perk. Dedicated servers showed up and decided that suddenly dodging shouldn't be a feature because someone decided to not update the netcode from P2P to Dedicated, hence the issue with DH and grabs. Someone started using it for distance, instead of for a dodge, and people cottoned on. Now it's used over Sprint Burst.
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If you wanted the dynamics between Stridor vs IW and why it wasn't widely used then here's my personal answer.
Stridor didn't help. 50% breathing from an IW user doesn't help over the chase music. Stridor worked better against non-IW users to overcome the increasingly louder chase music. But still other perks are far better. Doesn't mean IW is any weaker because it's "counter" is useless.
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"Why do survivors run IW so much? I see it used just as much as Dead Hard. Is it because of the off chance they run into a Spirit? Or because it's a very good perk against many killers?"
I run Iron Will, but not Dead Hard. And for me, two reasons:
- Spirit
- Just as a "feel good"-Perk. I dont like to hear the Injured Noise of Survivors. I simply dont like them, some are even very annoying to hear.
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