Dead Man's Switch Buff is not gonna be OP

ok so i let go of the gen and let it explode to pain resonance. then when i hop back onto the gen a crow comes flying at me so i have to let go again and activate dead man's switch. i cant get back on the gen for another 40 seconds because of a ranged attack from across the map, so the killer doesn't even need to bother coming over to me. what do i do now?

People keep saying artist but it seems far scarier on a Fred with class photo.

They can just not let go of the gen until they actually see Freddy. Class photo will give itself away pretty quickly.

I would tend to agree, though I do still think the perk sits somewhere between "super good" and "too good".

The big arguments are Class Photo Freddy and Artist, but they indeed do have counterplay: against Freddy, simply stick to the gen through the teleport - he can only actually teleport to 1 gen, so worst case scenario you take a hit (or get grabbed lel, which is however unlikely since you can still regularly react in time); against Artist, simply let go of the gen and wait for the swarms to pass, then go back on the gen - she can't keep her crows up indefinitely, and so even if she delays the launch anticipating that survivors will have let go of the gens, she does have to launch after some time.

On top of this, scenarios where you can see the killer after the hook (and be it due to Kindred or other aura perks) allow you to identify which gen Freddy is actually teleporting to, or which gens Artist is targeting with her crows. Also, the longer Artist delays her crow launch, the more time survivors of course have on gens, and the less time Dead Man's Switch will still be up for once they do get forced off them. Further, the first set of swarms do not even "force" survivors off gens, as they can simply tank them and keep working until the second set of swarms.

Letting go of gens as the hooking animation starts is of course also general Pain Resonance "counterplay" that works against the Resonance + DMS combo as well.

That said, forcing survivors off gens manually is something people underestimate. Not only are there high-mobility killers that can do so rather reliably even over large distances, but in gen cluster scenarios DMS could become very oppressive on just about any killer (with some being paticularly problematic, such as Doctor). Usually in "3-gen" scenarios like this killers can't easily commit to chases if the survivors are smart enough to run away as far as possible from the gens, but with DMS, a single down can turn this dynamic on its head by giving the killer free time to commit to chases while the gens are blocked, and that will of course result in another down, which can trigger another DMS. This is something that might warrant tweaks.

But I hold that the perk is not overpowered. And on the contrary, I am very glad that BHVR dared to come out with at least one notable perk buff like this in the update, attaching no unfortunate cooldowns or restrictions to it. I want a more diverse perk meta, and while the killer perk meta still naturally revolves around game delay, there are now various different highly viable game delay setups, each with an enjoyable amount of differentiation in the playstyles and strategies of playing to their benefits on the killer side and against them on the survivor side. Corrupt, Weasel, Ruin, Undying, Tinkerer, Deadlock, No Way Out, Pain Resonance, Pentimento, Thrill, Plaything, Thanatophobia. That now Dead Man's Switch will join this pool of options is great, and it is particularly so because it has anti-synergistic relationships with some of them (Ruin does not regress blocked gens, Deadlock does not block gens that are already blocked, you cannot kick a blocked gen for Weasel), which will encourage diversified builds. For example, I can see Thrilling Tremors see more play again alongside DMS. Resonance will of course become even more attractive. And DMS also encourages completely different tactics than other delay perks, of going around the map forcing people off gens before committing to chases, or using abilities with the sole intention to do so. Stealth killers can benefit from it because survivors will either be reluctant to let go of gens due to DMS, which can allow the killer to sneak up and get free hits or grabs, or they are scared to stick to gens, so DMS will block them (or survivors just won't be repairing them for some time anyway).

I hope the perk will come to live just as it is now. I would give it at least a month on live before looking at whether it is actually undesirable in this state.

She send 3 crows to 3 different gens if she's not in chase for information. Once she hits a survivor with a crow the survivor either leaves the gen or gets injured/downed.

I haven't watched the ptb tbh (seems pretty boring) but if it isn't strong then great 👍

Ha, thanks for reading. I actually suggested this very buff for DMS on the forums just a few weeks prior to the update (https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2678874#Comment_2678874), and while BHVR likely had this perk and change on their radar well prior to my post, I would like to believe it might have still contributed a bit at least to their decision to actually go through with it.

I think one thing that's particularly cool about DMS is that it changes the dynamic of killers approaching survivors on generators. Usually, survivors in these scenarios can choose to run or hide relatively early and waste a good bit of the killer's time before they find them or catch up to them. With DMS in play, this kinda gets turned on its head: now if the survivor leaves early and triggers DMS, the killer can just leave early too and go pressure someone else, with the survivor's time "wasted" having to do something other than that gen. If the survivor on the other hand wants to take some of the killer's time, now they have to stick to the gen instead in order to make the killer have to actually come all the way up to it if they want to force the survivor off. And of course, sticking to gens comes with certain risks, and generally means there will be a smaller starting distance to the chase if the killer commits, which benefits the killer. All in all makes for cool new situations with a new set of decisions to be made on both sides.

And then if freddy actually teleports to their gen its a free hit, which he would if combing with Thrilling/BBQ/Pain Resonance

Then they run away and go heal in a boon 😂

And I genuinely can't remember any killer that got any meaningful nerfs from PTB to live except for maybe Plague. Yet every time a new PTB for a chapter comes out its always a cryfest about how they don't want the new killer to be nerfed, same goes for perks and in this case its Dead Mans Switch.

You also have killer players crying about Survivor perks that get introduced that even have the slightest potential of being viable. May I remind you of Distortion, Head On, Inner Strength, Lucky Break, Exponential, Power Struggle, Built to Last, Counterforce and so much more that I can't remember them all off the top of my head? Survivor mains cry for nerfs as well don't get me wrong, but it just seems like a lot of people think this is just a one sided thing.

The Artist.

"Meaningful nerfs"

The Artist changes barely if at all affected her viability, her changes only affected her at lower level of play where people would continue to loop her even if she placed a crow

The Plague being slowed down even more when charging up her power and then not even reaching 115% anymore is an actual meaningful change, the visual of being fully infected as well used to be a lot more blinding for Survivors and reduced their vision quite heavily. And the only compensation buff she received was a 15 second increase to Corrupt Purge. Don't get me wrong, thats a pretty nice change but that movement speed nerf definitely removed some of her viability at loops.

Thats not how it works..

If you told someone 3 years ago that a perk like this woudl b created they simply woudln tbelive you. The amount of stuff killer has now is absolutely bonkers nuts.

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2805498#Comment_2805498Unless you think Sluzzy and Borisky are the same person, they're not.

It’s more or less a way to make it slightly less oppressive without giving it a bigger nerf, which I don’t think it needs.