Help with choosing a 4th survivor perk?
Hey all, short and sweet: I've been running a super NON-meta build for six months now because it fits my playstyle. In short, creeping in the shadows and cat and mouse play. Lots of information perks. But the problem with this is that if I'm caught, I'm essentially screwed. So with three perks pretty much forming the nexus of my gameplay style, I was wondering if anyone had any helpful suggestions.
My current build: Bond (non negotiable), Kindred, Dark Sense. The 4th perk is usually Prove Thyself so I can pick up some BP scraps and help with coop actions because, contrary to popular belief, not everyone who avoids direct confrontation just hides in a corner and doesn't help out. I just prefer stealth to chases. To me, PT seems like the relative weak link and I wanted to see what the rest of you thought.
Things to consider:
- I prefer for the last perk to be something that either aids in defense, provides a good boost to aura reading, or helps me to easily earn more BP. Part of the sacrifice of a stealth build is losing boldness.
- Please, no comments like "why do you play like that" or "immersive players are lame", etc. That's not what I'm asking and I'm just going to ignore those comments. As I said, I participate. Greatly. I'm often picking up the slack of hatch-campers and combat-rushers, in fact. I have my playstyle, others have theirs. I'm not saying mine is "right". It's just right for ME.
I'm open to any perk discussion and suggestions. I have all survivors so nothing is off the table. Thank you for any advice!
Comments
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I struggle to give you advice because your playstyle is actively hurting your team. I understand you want to play immersed, and I TOTALLY get that. I wish the game was more scary and less....I guess action would be the right word.
I'd say premonition, spine chill, or alert would fit the bill of what you're looking for.
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My suggestions:
Swap dark sense for either Alert (if you have it) or Spine Chill. They are much better and more reliable information perks that will help you a lot more. Alert will help you keep track of the killer's location as well as what pallets are broken and so on. Spine chill will give you an early warning when the killer is getting closer to you
As for Prove Thyself, if stealth's your thing - you could try Quick and Quiet; it's not a super amazing perk but it might help you in a pinch and let you get away with quickly vaulting over something when the killer's getting closer. Fast Vaulting into lockers to quickly hide yourself is also an idea.
I would recommend Iron will, but it's a meta perk but to be honest - it's mostly meta for it's usage in chase. The stealth is just an added bonus
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Since you are playing in a cat and mouse playstyle here are some good perks to try and divert the cats attention
Pebble
Fish perk
Blast mine
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Spine Chill. Increased action speed and you never get snuck up on.
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You play cat and mouse with your teammates? Bond and Kindred don't complement each other. Dark Sense is bad
My call: Fixated, Sprint burst(Iron Will), Spine Chill (Alert), Diversion
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Thank you for the recommendations. If anyone else sees this, please weigh in. I'd like as much input on the subject as I can get.
I've been thinking hard about Spine Chill, the problem is that I don't find myself paying that much attention to the icons and, on top of that, I can't tell what direction the killer is looking in so I don't know which way to go. Is there a trick to that? I only tried the perk once or twice.
Iron Will sounds good.
Regarding hurting my team, I strongly disagree. I have done so many gens and stealth saves while others were looping that I'm guessing it's consisted of at least a third of my total playtime. I'm also the only person I ever see cleansing totems (which I legitimately enjoy doing). I'm not hurting my team, I'm doing the same thing that they are - improving our chances of victory. Just less recklessly. If anything I'm usually the one to die after doing much of the work because when I DO get caught there's not much I can do.
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Iron WIll is always a good Perk. But seeing your build, maybe Open Handed would be a thing for you? Since you have Aura Read-Perks in your Loadout.
Like, 52m Bond. Sounds not bad.
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I have the same playstyle, more or less. I love doing totems and small game is a must. If the killer has NOED, he will have regretted not spending the time to find me. Muahahaha.
But they never run NOED. So jokes on me.
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Here you go I guess... 😒
-Spine Chill
-Alert
-Iron Will
-Bond
Oh my I am sorry but just wow. "those useless loopers not helping the team!"
You were only able to do those things because they were looping. The people getting chased are taking all the pressure off of everyone else allowing them to do gens/saves/bones. Playing immersive just means that you are relying on everyone else to get hooked. But it is worse then that because you are not doing gens/saves/bones as fast because you are taking longer to get to them and getting off them every 5 seconds because you heard a heart beat.
And yea, you are going down fast because I don't wanna be mean but... You don't know how to loop... Yes, it's hard. It is in fact where all the skill in playing survivor comes from. Yes, you will die allot. But eventually getting chased will give you a massive high feeling. You will feel excited. I still remember the first day a killer actually ######### gave up on me... Feels amazing...
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Small game. Free points and helps do totems.
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A fourth survivor perk that may work would be "We'll Make It". It turns your build from an objective-focused build to an altruistic build, but with a 90 second healing boost, you can quickly turn the tide on a situation where all survivors are injured. Especially if you switch Bond for Empathy.
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As long as you know when and how to take aggro I’d say your playstyle is fun !
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Iron will 100%, stealthing mid chase only started becoming a thing for me once I unlocked that perk
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Drop Dark Sense for Spine Chill or Alert. I recommend Spine Chill but Alert is fantastic if you like seeing the killers aura. Additionally you can keep track of what pallets and walls they break throughout the match which is incredibly valuable information.
Drop Prove Thyself for an Exhaustion Perk of your choice.. Since you sound like you like to avoid confrontation I'd recommend Lithe. Lithe makes you very unattractive to killers. When they hit me the first time I use that speed boost to get to a good window / structure and vault to get Lithe off when they get close. When I go zooming off from Lithe they almost always drop chase with me because I can make it to a really safe structure with those two bursts of speed.
I also highly recommend dropping Kindred for Iron Will. You can't attempt to play sneaky without Iron Will.. Unless you're playing as Kate or Ace I guess (They are the most quiet survivors when injured but far from silent).
Prove Thyself is nice but honestly survivors need to be spread out. Stacking up on gens is one of the worst things you can do.
Kindred is great for solo queue but imo highly overrated. Additionally you can ask someone else to run it or just hope someone else runs it. When I was new I would NEVER switch it for anything but now I get a bit more selfish with my perks. It's important to have strong perks that help YOU out.
There's nothing wrong with playing this immersive play style but I encourage you to not be afraid of confrontation with the killer and to get better at looping and losing the killer. Successfully escaping the killer will buy your team time and preserve yourself. It's unrealistic to expect anyone to loop a killer for multiple gens and good killers won't even commit that long to a chase and will drop it so don't listen to anyone here that says you need to do that or that you need to stop playing this immersive style.
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Thank you so much for the suggestions. Some of you have given me some good things to try. A couple I was already debating (such as Open Handed and Spine Chill) but others, such as Iron Will, I hadn't considered. I appreciate it.
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If in doubt use Head On for no reason other than it's funny
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Very thoughtful, well-reasoned advice. Thank you. That's part of why I hate the "oh no, you're the loser that ruins the game for everyone else" talk. Not only because I see firsthand that it's not true, and that I'm usually the one who takes one for the team, but also because...well, I like to play the way I like to play, and nothing I do actively interferes with the other survivors' ability to play how they want and attempt a win as well. I hate the people who just hang back and hide as much as anyone, if not more so, because Bond and I are attached at the hip. I see what people are doing.
That said, you're right about needing to start branching out and becoming more comfortable with looping. I hate the looping game. I HATE it. It is so counterintuitive to what I expected when I first got this game. I was looking for a stealth game like Monstrum, not a chase simulator like Call of Duty. That said, I do understand how important looping is and how players who are good at it can really make a big difference. That's actually why I made this thread - I've decided to start venturing a bit beyond my comfort zone.
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Is that the one you apply directly to the forehead?
Directly to the forehead?
Directly to the forehead?
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Spine Chill. Once you face stealth killer with it on you won't ever go back.
Decisive - people assume noone runs it after the nerf and tunnel like crazy, let them have a surprise
Flashbang - just fun, especially after you learn the timing
Small Game OR Counterforce with map - so you don't get to cry about noed like 99% of survivors :)
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Take out Dark Sense and Prove thyself for Windows of Opportunity and Open Handed.
SEE ALL. NONE WILL ESCAPE YOUR SITE.
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Bond, spine chill, alert and kindred.
Take off dark sense, it's really a useless perk no matter the playstyle unless you're extremely new imo.
Not a fan of immersive play BUT it doesn't bother me as long as you still are productive so respect to you man.
Alert is really a hella good perk and underrated. Gives good info and the same with spine chill to help you avoids chases.
Hope that helps!
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For that kind of gameplay I would scrap that combo, go Counterforce/Openhanded/Kindred/(WGLF for points or Any Means Necessary) Since you will be off gens immersed, this lets you reset the pallets and remove tough hexes. I would suggest Alex's toolbox to sabo hooks since you will most likely be near a chase and can do sabo saves or maybe even pallet saves.
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Honestly pebble would be awesome for what your going for. Possibly red herring as well. It all depends on how close you like to stay to the killer and how active you are though. If your just not very active with the killer blast mine, repressed alliance, or even flashbang could also work in your favor. Again all just depends on how active you are. If we think specifically cat and mouse then calm spirit might work with the build you already have I would say Iron Will but i've been seeing it so much lately I have a hard time thinking its not a meta perk.
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I'd say spine chill you'll get more notice if the killer is coming towards you giving you more time to get away & mini boosts to vaults & gen fixing ect.
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If you have both Bond and Kindred I'd put on Open Handed every time. Already pretty fun if it just buffs one aura perk, when you have those two it's very entertaining.
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Thank you again everybody. I have a couple of questions:
I looked at Iron Will and it seems to be all about negating the injury noise and not much else. It doesn't seem that this would be too helpful if my goal is to avoid that initial attack (though it would help for the second one, if the killer isn't also using something to see my aura). Is there something more to the perk I'm not fully understanding? Not trying to sound sarcastic, I honestly just don't know because I've never used it. It's really that meta? Why is it so popular?
Seriously considering Open Handed, because that would extend the range of my information perks. That would only be a plus. Of course it wouldn't change anything about me being screwed when I do get caught, but it fits the criteria of what I was asking about.
How do you guys (no gender assumption, just a figure of speech. :) ) go about using Spine Chill? It sounds helpful in that it will tell me if the killer is headed my way, for sure, but how do you know where to head off to without knowing what direction they're even looking at you from? I mean I kind of assume that the killer is ALWAYS looking in my direction, you know?
For those who have used it enough to give an honest and objective answer, do you feel that Prove Thyself does much in the way of bonus BP? My playstyle already hampers my points as it is (doing gens doesn't seem to count as much as going through the loop and hook process, which I find kind of strange). I definitely do plenty of work - please don't misunderstand this - but I accept that because the work I do is largely of the kind that's not directly confrontational, I get less BP on average much of the time. That (and the coop speed boost) is the only reason I've been using Prove.
I guess, in short, you've helped me narrow down the information and distraction perks really well, and I appreciate it. The last thing I'm wondering about is these avoidance / defense perks to try to figure out which one may work best for me. If I'm giving up Dark Sense and / or Prove Thyself I'm giving up some info AND whatever extra BP I may make, so I'm hoping that whatever I use as substitutes would leave me more likely to escape with my teammates (and thus make up the points). And again, I understand that some people view my playstyle as selfish or detrimental but if you played the way I do you'd understand. I'm always doing gens and totems, making the saves when it's logical, and sometimes directly intersecting the killer and taking protection hits. I'm 100 percent a team player. Just a sneaky one. Not just because that's what's most fun for me, but because I am just really, REALLY bad at looping. Really bad. I see other people do what seem like the same things I'm doing, but what I'm doing just doesn't seem to work. The killer zigs when I expect them to zag. They hit me no matter how tightly I try to spin around after that first hit. I don't understand "tiles". I know I have to learn, but at this point being aggressive would screw my team way more than what I'm currently doing.
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I love me some alert. kindred, Alert, WGLF (BP) and any of these We''ll Make it, Botany, Desperate measures, Small game, counterforce, detectives hunch. If you are going to play immersive at least knock the totems out to eliminate hexes and noed.
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I do. I actually greatly enjoy destroying totems. Not just because of the points and the fact that it helps the team, but also because, on a weird personal level, I find the mechanic satisfying to the senses. I love crouching into a little hideaway and hearing those little crunchy sounds. If I'm being perfectly honest I wish that there were more totems - even just dull ones - all over the map. I'd be going crazy.
So I'm definitely leaning towards trying Alert. How does it work? In addition to showing you the killer every time they do something destructive, does it also show the evidence of that destruction (such as a broken pallet) throughout the whole match? Or is it just periodic reminders of where the killer is? Because that's the same as Dark Sense, no? Sorry for asking, I'm not able to play and see for myself just now.
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Same aura but not the same effect/duration. Alert procs anytime they destroy a pallet/breakable wall so it can proc 10-30 times a match depending on map. Dark sense is hot garbage and MAX can show you the killer 5 times when you complete each gen.
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personally one of my favorite combos it Botany (33% heal speed), Desperate measures (14% increase in heal/unhooking), We'll make it (100% increase to heal after unhooking) and Empathy (map wide site of anyone injured). Empathy allows you to know where to help with the healing build and also allows you to know where a survivor was just injured aka where the killer is.
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since you like bond and kindred
Bond
Kindred
open handed
maybe lithe or BT or maybe even We’ll Make It
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I hadn't thought of it that way, that's actually really logical.
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Let me tell you why Iron Will is ridiculous: it can completely throw off the killer without you doing anything. Let's say the killer injures you and you run to a loop, it's very possible a killer can mind game themselves at said loop and you could just keep running past said loop to another structure. A highly hypothetical situation but it happens more than you might think.
Going completely silent during chase is huge. It also allows ratty plays like tucking into a corner immediately after breaking line of sight with the killer and them running right past you/fun stuff like that and then trying to make a quick getaway in the opposite direction.
The reason I recommend Iron Will so much for stealth players is that, I know people who opt for stealth play styles aren't usually very good at looping or feel hopeless/like they can't get better at it and I won't lie it's very difficult to get good at because some killer players are just amazing at prediction and mind games. Stealth and ratty tricks are so incredibly fun, I try to mix them into my usual looping repertoire because it's just so fun doing something as gutsy as hiding right under the killers nose and seeing them run past you or lose you because you're harder to track.
But yeah, additionally I think it's not a bad idea to get used to playing injured and Iron Will helps immensely with that. Certain killers it can be detrimental to constantly stay healthy against (Healing vs Legion / cleansing vs Plague etc.). NEVER getting injured is highly unrealistic but with Iron Will you can raise your chances of escaping to heal and live another day.
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Open handed, if you like auras
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My go to build is iron will, bond, kindred, and some sort of either prove thyself, we're gonna live forever, borrowed time, something like that. If you go for immersed I honestly think iron will is a must. Playing as killer you would not believe how many times I found people only because their character was making sounds. Also I've made it to rank 1 survivor many times with the build you use but with dark sense swapped for iron will, so it's probably not a terrible build
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Kindred
:)
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LOL "ratty tricks". XD I love that.
But don't most killers just find you through your scratch marks anyway? I can understand if you're out sneaking and they can't hear you if they come super close but if you're in a chase and you're not too far ahead are they really going to only be able to find you because of your groans? And if those are suppressed is it really that easy to just slip away? Idunno, I'm seeing that LOTS of people recommend it, I should at least try it I guess. I just don't see how that would be such a chase equalizer.
I LOVE Kindred, that's almost my second must-have after Bond. I may wind up trying Bond, Kindred, Alert (thought I had it but I have to still get it on Feng's level 50 web to unlock it. Should have paid more attention) and either Spine Chill or Iron Will. Not sure.
Thanks again for the answers and explanations. Anyone still willing to explain how you effectively use Spine Chill, to not have to guess so much as to which direction the killer is coming at you from?
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Sorry to bump this (I've gotten plenty of answers to the main question so I don't mean to artificially keep the subject going) but it's related: I thought that I had Alert - in fact I thought that I had most perks unlocked - but even though Feng is at level 50 I went through the other characters and none of them have it. When I was leveling her I know that I was more focused on getting preferred perks for HER rather than teaching hers to others, but all her perks are checked off on her bio screen which to my memory is the only way to confirm whether they've been unlocked.
All the same, Alert isn't showing up. I've spammed about 20 levels between other characters now and I'm just not seeing it. Is this just the bad luck of wanting a specific perk (which everyone experiences) or is it possible that I somehow missed unlocking the perk and now it's not going to show up again untilI prestige her? I don't feel like throwing away all her items nor recycling the massive level 50 bloodweb to keep checking for it.
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Dead Hard, without a doubt. I almost run your build, I use Dead Hard, Bond, BT, and Kindred
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I won't lie, I've SOOOOO considered using Dead Hard lol. On one hand the perk is so massively despised that I'd kind of feel like an unoriginal jerk using it, but on the other hand who cares? As long as I'm having fun and not breaking the rules or deliberately ruining anyone else's game it should be fine. That said, the actual practical reason why I haven't used it yet is because it seems somewhat limited. Only a certain amount of usage, if you screw it up the killer just stays right on you. I have to admit that despite not being what I personally consider to be a super good killer I'm not really ever deterred by DH, it feels like more of a brief annoyance than an actual escape. Maybe I'm a better killer than I think? Lol Idunno.
Thanks for the suggestion though. Like I said, it IS something I've considered. And I don't mean to sound like I'm just going to reject every suggestion, especially since several people like you seem to have similar builds. I guess nothing has quite hit the "THAT'S THE ONE!!!!" sensation yet. Might have t try more mixing and matching.
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