Are boon mechanics broken or unfair?

Totems are fine as they are.

As for your comment on the newest boon Exponential being broken, I completely disagree. It's very under powered considering that you need a lot of criteria to be met. You need to be in its range when you get downed, the killer to NOT pick you up immediately, and for the killer to not know the boon is there. If any one of these conditions aren't met, exponential is useless to you.

As for boons being broken in general, I disagree with that as well. Survivors only typically know where 1 or 2 dull totem locations are in the map per trial, so they're gonna keep casting the boons on the same ones. This can also work as a catch 22 in the killer's favor, as he'll know where to apply pressure on map.

The general way Boons work is fine. The only Boon that's actually probably overpowered at the moment is Circle of Healing, so that could use a healing speed decrease. But Shadowstep and Exponential are probably ok as is, and even if it turned out that one or the other needs adjustment they can just have their speeds or radius of effect adjusted to balance it out.

Boons are fine, generally, they just need to stop Circle of Healing stacking with medkits.

Snuffing should just break the totem. Survivors have 5 totems to bless throughout a match and would require them to be smarter about when and where they bless.

I don't like either suggestion of limited uses or having to snuff the same totem multiple times before it breaks.

This would solve the unfairness that boons currently have where killers have no real answer to them besides tunneling the survivor out of the match.

CoH likely will still need to be nerfed, but that's an individual power problem on the perk rather than a core issue with boons.

always sucks when you have an swf all with boons continuously running to them for heals, no scratch marks or the unbreakable, which all can be applied on one totem btw. But if 1 or 2 solos bring boons its not as useful, also considering you need to find a totem before you bless it.

Boons are too strong and easy to abuse, especially CoH

They should work with à token system where to recover à boon token after placing it you gotta do something tied to it (for exemple: heal another survivor to recover à token of CoH)

And they shouldnt just break the hex under it, but "block it" which would create à situation where the surv choses to either boon the hex but the killer can get it back, or destroy the hex but the killer cant get it back at the loss of the totem

Your options are bad. They should break after 1 totem snuff that’s it. Taking multiple snuffs does nothing, the game is over by that point to matter at all.

The problem with boons is not that they are an infinite resource, the problem is that Circle Of Healing is too strong to be an infinite resource. Shadow Step and Exponential are fine, those being infinitely relightable is nowhere near as much of a problem.

I say again, the infinite resource part is the design of the mechanic, there should at least be an attempt to balance the perks themselves around it before throwing it out.

When people talk about Boon: totems, I've realized more often than not they're really only addressing Circle of Healing specifically, rather than the actual strength of Boon totems as a whole. Circle of Healing is undoubtedly the strongest and the least balanced, but the other boons that exist so far like Shadow Step or Exponential are reasonably balanced out between the effects they provide and the time investment required to set them up beforehand.

As far as the idea of snuffing out boon totems permanently goes, there are FAR many more interesting ways to balance out both Circle of Healing, and Boon totems as a whole, rather than treating them exactly like their Hex: Counterparts. Because they aren't at all like they're hex: counterparts and a few distinct differences separate their balancing philosophy- it's exactly like comparing Hillbilly to Leatherface "because they both have chainsaws!" and stubbornly INSISTING this superficial similarity means they should be treated as identical when they're clearly not.

Here are a list of interesting changes that could apply to either boons as a whole, or to circle of healing specifically.

Range reduction.

• The most obvious and straightforward solution, a large part of the issue regarding boon totems (but specifically and especially Circle of Healing) is that their effects cover far too sizable an area of the map, especially when multiple survivors are running Boon totems you can essentially blanket nearly every active zone of the map. A capability which directly contrasts the original "small safe haven" idea that boons were originally created around. This has less to do with the issue of covering vertical space as well, which is more of a strategic quirk, and more to do with the sheer radius that Boons remain active in. Reducing their range from 24m to 16m (perhaps even 12 meters if the devs are feeling bold) and would go a long way in solving these issues.
  • This may be relative to individual perks. Perks like Circle of Healing are far too strong with such increased range, but perks like Shadow Step or Boon: Exponential rely almost exclusively on greater ranges to be of any use.

Totem/Perk Cooldown.

• Because Boon totems are limited by their range and setup time, they are granted the exchange of replenish-ability- this is a core component of their balance. That being boons can be reset an infinite number of times, but always at the expense of time which could have been spent accomplishing objectives like generators or saving hooked teammates. However managing expenditures in time is made easier when a single survivor can immediately re-bless a dull totem after it has been snuffed out by a killer. This is especially difficult for a killer who may need to take balance the time of cleansing multiple Boon Totems placed by multiple survivors. Providing a cooldown to boon totems will limit their active use during a match, and can be done by either a traditional cooldown system placed on the perk itself which sets it on cooldown after the associated blessed totem has been cleansed (IE 90 second cooldown). Or instead, by preventing a specific totem that has recently been blessed from being blessed again for a slightly shorter duration- that affects all survivors in the trial (IE 60 second cooldown). For example if one survivor had their totem cleansed, that same survivor or any other survivor would not be able to bless that exact same totem again themselves.

More distinct audio cue.

• Boon totems were originally created around the idea of providing a temporary breathing space for survivors- as opposed to a Hex's constant map-wide pressure. To facilitate this, "soft chimes" were added to not only allow killers awareness of a Boon being active, but the general space in which they were active as well. However, due to the complexity of certain maps, as well as vertical space also being a factor- the soft chimes that exist are often not distinct enough for a killer to be able to quickly and efficiently be able to pinpoint exactly where they are, forcing a killer to waste precious seconds to find it. Increasing the volume, predominance, and clarity of direction, of the chimes amongst the other sounds in Dead by Daylight would give killers a subtle edge and an easier time finding boons and snuffing them out.
  • Separately, this may however have to do with audio occlusion bugs & issues which DBD has historically suffered from many times in the past, and less any deliberate confusing audio shenanigans on the part of the developers themselves.

Aura reveal.

• To supplement this idea of temporary safe havens, and to more easily deal with instances of "permanent boons" (where a boon is set up in an inactive area of the map without generators that a killer could / would not go searching through without sacrificing time or pressure) there is also the idea of revealing boon totems auras. After a certain amount of time has expired (90 seconds, 120 seconds, etc.) a Boon that has been attached to a totem for that duration of time will periodically have its aura revealed to the killer. This will provide killers with pinpoint accurate visual information as to the areas survivors continue to return to throughout the match and thus erasing the killers pressure. Thus giving killers the option to move directly to the totem as quickly and efficiently as possible to snuff it out.

Distance extinguish.

• In addition to the previous idea, it may be of interest to explore the option of being able to snuff out blessed totems from a distance. This would allow killers to not waste as much time crossing great sections of the map, and stay in active zones to apply pressure while also removing a safe haven area. This would likely operate on the same duration condition as the former proposal- after a certain amount of time has expired- a killer will be able to cleanse a blessed totem from further and further ranges. After 60 seconds -16m after 80 seconds - 24m, after 110 seconds - 32m, and so on and so forth. Number values are of course subject to change.

Healing speed reduction / removal.

• This is a Circle of Healing specific idea, and it's not a novel one- the strength of providing infinite self heals is strong enough without making those heals faster. Reducing the healing speed bonus from 100% down to 75%, 50%, or perhaps even removing it entirely would go a long way in taming the strength of Circle of Healing. Only allowing survivors to heal themselves in a regular time of 16 seconds and reduce the time efficiency of healing that circle of healing so easily provides.
  • Reducing the heal speed of healing others may be subject to separate balancing (IE: Remove self heal speed bonus, but keep healing others at increase of 50% or 20%).

Increased time to bless totems.

• It is what it is. Little explanation necessary here, for a change that is relatively boring- just increase the amount of time it takes to bless a totem by a few seconds. Making blessing a totem a greater commitment for each individual survivor.
  • A more interesting and thoughtful way to implement this change may be to increase the amount of time it takes to bless a totem every time the action is repeated. Say when you Bless a totem you gain a token, with each token the amount of time it takes to bless another totem is increased by 2 seconds, up to a maximum of X tokens. Values subject to change.

The idea for balancing boon totems to keep them in line is not to eliminate them completely from a match, but to allow killers more frequent and easier opportunities to cleanse blessed totems such that Boons have a greater amount of counterplay available to knowledgable killers who can adapt to them.

Just Circle of healing is busted, the others are completely fine.

Shadowstep doesn't cover blood pools, and exponential has such a small range to be effective. Trust me, Circle of healing is the strongest, there's a reason some tournaments ban it