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The "Survivor meta" is a lie

gatsby
gatsby Member Posts: 2,533
edited April 2022 in General Discussions
metabuilds.png

Perks like Decisive Strike, Dead Hard and Borrowed Time really aren't that good outside of a SWF. Survivors should really focus on consistent value in solo play not gamble on high risk perks that can go entire games without being used.

If your team doesn't know you have Borrowed Time, they won't necessarily play around it. They might "steal" saves that would have been more optimal for you to get or take hits for someone with endurance.

If your team doesn't know you have Decisive Strike you'll only really get to use it as a last resort. Some teammates will take hits or even go down for a Survivor that they're afraid is getting tunneled and doesn't have DS.

At high MMR, Killers often times fully expect Dead Hard, which limits its use. In fact, some games you'll get more value NOT having Dead Hard because of a Killer respecting it. Dead Hard will have its uses but it will be played around whenever possible and only really get value from playing intentionally greedy, which in itself can be a more predictable playstyle. With the exception being anti-loop Killers that Dead Hard specifically counters like Nurse, Hag and Huntress.

Pay attention next game. The Survivors that survive tend to be the ones running Boons, Kindred, Bond, Sprint Burst, Overcome, Spine Chill, Built to Last, or Resilience. Good perks but not the typical "sweat" build from 2017. The Survivors burning a perk slot on things their team or the Killer might not even let them use tend to die first in my experience.

Comments

  • Tr1nity
    Tr1nity Member Posts: 5,047
    edited April 2022

    You just Garage Floor'd that killer.

  • Cybil
    Cybil Member Posts: 1,163

    If I'm playing to win my solo build looks something like -

    Windows, Bond, CoH, Dead Hard

    Normally I play for my challenges (nearly done all of those unfortunately) or I'll just have fun, but MMR has started forcing me to "play rough" more often.

  • AsherFrost
    AsherFrost Member Posts: 2,340

    Kindred, Lithe, Flashbang, IS.

    Seriously. Try it out. Dropping a grenade to blind the killer, hopping a window and running off like a freaking Gazelle without ever being touched, breaking totems when they're useless for boon placement so you have a heal when needed, and Kindred of course, aka the best solo survivor perk in the game.

  • Seanzu
    Seanzu Member Posts: 7,525

    Eh, the idea of Decisive strike honestly made this game bearable for years (and still does today).

    If DS didn't exist as it did, or does now then almost every match would be instantly tunneling off the hook and picking up with little to no thought, while DS was definitely over-powered in the beginning the mark it has left I genuinely think is a positive one.

  • RakimSockem
    RakimSockem Member Posts: 2,002

    Hard disagree on the idea that "If a perk is so strong that killers have to play around it existing even when it doesn't, then that perk has transcended 'overpowered' and entered the realms of game breaking"

    By that logic, I could say the same thing about having to play around BBQ, Nurses, NOED, etc and claim those are OP because you do have to assume the killer has any of those at all times until proven otherwise. Either it applies to both sides and their perks or it doesn't apply at all

  • Devil_hit11
    Devil_hit11 Member Posts: 9,513

    I mean April 7 matchmaking is like test 1 matchmaking. I wish the game was not balanced around this very casual low-level play.

  • WesCravenFan
    WesCravenFan Member Posts: 2,637

    I want to know what level of high you have achieved to believe that Dead Hard isn't broken as hell in or out of a SWF.

  • Bwsted
    Bwsted Member Posts: 3,452

    The argument never was "good" game. It was literally about "destroyed", in your post just like in my reply to it. You're moving the goal post.

    The bp score shows that there was interaction, not even Doc or Legion, let alone Demo, can make that much without getting something going.

    All the rest are conjectures on your part. I can make up some my own. Devour gets cleansed early and Demo decides to facecamp and tunnel the dead guy. While the others do their best to go for altruism.

    See, conjectures. Just as good as any.

  • ThatOneDemoPlayer
    ThatOneDemoPlayer Member Posts: 5,623
    edited April 2022

    We're both missing the context, so your guess is as good as mine

    EDIT: It would've been great if we got an actual video of the game and not a screenshot with a Map Offering for a Survivor-Sided Realm, 1 Demogorgon with meh Perks and 4 Survivors with stacked Perks, and then proclaiming that the Survivor meta "isn't that good outside of a SWF"

  • UnknownKiller
    UnknownKiller Member Posts: 3,024

    Survivor meta isnt good but 3 persons escaped and one died so I think is pretty meta

  • kate_best_girl
    kate_best_girl Member Posts: 2,184

    Entirely off topic are you on the overwatch forums too? Someone on there is named ThiccBudhha and I was wondering if that was you lol

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 10,719

    This doesn't prove a thing. Dead Hard is the most reliable exhaustion perk there is. And from experience, the only reason I take off BT and DS is because generally I don't go for saves and the killers I'm facing aren't tunneling me. Against killers who know what they're doing, and tunnel/camp in the most strategically perfect moments, then I'd need those perks. But because MMR sucks, I never get to that level.

    I will give you one thing though. The survivors who beat me, even when I'm playing my heart out, sometimes don't even run full meta. They'll be running DH/BT and then randomly Plunderer's Instinct and Slippery Meat. They're literally halfway memeing whereas I'm having to sweat. Assuming they ran full meta, I'd lose even harder than I already was. It feels as if the only reason you can get kills is survivors' massive screwups, because we know how many second chances they get with those perks.

  • lauraa
    lauraa Member Posts: 3,195

    My Jeryl build consisted of UB, SG, DS, DH. More often than not, I only had 1 perk the whole match.

    But that 10th match where I UB SG into a DS while I laugh to safety? WORTH IT!!!

    i will say though that i prefer Lucky Break over DS. DS is more of a deterrent than an actual lifesaver. If a killer wants you dead, DS will only buy you a minute tops.

    I prefer to not rely on a killers mercy and take my chances with LB. More often than not, they'll give up that first chase. And maybe the 2nd and 3rd.

  • Chocolate_Cosmos
    Chocolate_Cosmos Member Posts: 5,734

    It's real.

  • PlaysByShady
    PlaysByShady Member Posts: 590

    Please get out of here with your well considered thoughts and comments... we don't do that here 😉

  • gatsby
    gatsby Member Posts: 2,533

    None of that. It was a pretty tame game. The Offering Survivor (Ace) actually didn't get tunneled and the gens were somewhat slow.

    Ace just got the least value from his perks. He never used DS or BT. And quite honestly, from my perspective I can't even be sure he used Dead Hard because he got instadowned one chase and Demo is a Killer thats better at baiting it.

    The only perk he might have got value from was Iron Will, which is a perk I didn't even need or use myself.

  • dugman
    dugman Member Posts: 9,714

    Dead Hard does statistically significantly correlate with higher escape rates, it’s not the same as Borrowed Time where killers assume people doing saves near them have it and just avoid hitting the rescued survivor because of it. For example someone posted a month or two ago a 400+ game data set that included the perks used in every match. When you pivot out escapes by number of survivors who had Dead Hard per match there was a clear strong fairly linear correlation where for every survivor that used Dead Hard the kill rates dropped 5-10%. (It went from something like 70% when nobody ran it to 40% when everybody ran it if I remember right with corresponding values in between.) In comparison Borrowed Time was mostly flat, there wasn’t much kill rate difference per person running Borrowed Time, probably because the killer just assumed everybody had it.

    So survivors definitely gain significant tangible benefits running Dead Hard compared to not running it. Killers “expecting you to have it” only gets you so far, the real benefit comes from actually having it and using it for either distance or dodging or both. It’s why the devs have said they’re not currently happy with Dead Hard’s stats but have also implied they might be thinking about making something like Borrowed Time just a base kit effect.

  • gatsby
    gatsby Member Posts: 2,533

    I'm not denying that Dead Hard is a good perk. I just feel it has strong alternatives (Sprint Burst and Overcome) that people don't run because they're conditioned to think Dead Hard is the best. If most top tier Survivors think Dead Hard is the best perk, then you're going to have a placebo effect.

    Statement 1 is much closer to the truth than Statement 2.

    1. I am a good Survivor therefore I run Dead Hard because that's what I believe all good Survivors run.
    2. Dead Hard is a broken perk therefore it makes me a good Survivor and is the reason for my success.
  • dugman
    dugman Member Posts: 9,714
    edited April 2022

    Again, though, statistically Sprint Burst and Overcome don't appear to show the safe effect on escape rates that Dead Hard does. All three are good perks but the actual impact by Dead Hard is greater. It's not just a placebo effect.

  • gatsby
    gatsby Member Posts: 2,533

    We don't have statistics on Overcome. Its too new and the Devs haven't shared information on escape rates since its introduction.

    Sprint Burst's escape rate probably had the opposite situation as Dead Hard. Sprint Burst users are more common in low ranks, where they don't use the perk optimally. Everyone's seen the low tier Survivor that walks everywhere (or worse urban evades) with Sprint Burst. That reason alone makes the perk hard to judge based on statistics

  • Brokenbones
    Brokenbones Member Posts: 5,698
    edited April 2022

    First of all - Decisive and BT are certainly not only useful when with a SWF group, these perks are the ones that actually benefit solo Q players the most because it allows them to protect themselves and their teammates from effective killer strats or at the very least delay the killer for even longer than without.

    When I play solo Q, It sucks so much when I'm the one getting unhooked and there's no BT and contrary wise it's awful when the killer's camping and since I don't have BT I can't do anything apart from maybe trade (Which, again with no BT is basically only good for the killer most of the time)

    The survivor meta isn't a "lie", It's just not 100% needed to win. Against most killers anyway

    As for Dead Hard I think it goes without saying really, people run it because it's easily the best chase extender perk in the game, bails you out of mistakes like falling for a mindgame and (most importantly imo), it helps against the two strongest killers in the game: Nurse & Blight. It is one of few perks that actually have a tangible impact against these two, to the point that Nurse mains seem to despise DH users a lot of the time and will opt for insta-down perks to try and ignore it

  • AverageKateMain
    AverageKateMain Member Posts: 949

    Solo cue has forced me to run DS. I used to be an anti DS advocate but these days, it's almost Garaunteed cause farming off hook still exists in 2022

  • Cybil
    Cybil Member Posts: 1,163

    I know that feel. I was forced to start playing killer more frequently because of the farming and tunneling.

  • Johnny_XMan
    Johnny_XMan Member Posts: 6,434
    edited April 2022

    Well said. That is exactly what many of my matches look like as well OP.

    Untitled Image


    It's an over exaggerated assumption, especially in this platform (the forums) where the majority of active members appear to be biased towards one side. Everyone who truly understands the game knows that DH isn't the only "strong" exhaustion perk, its just the one that mechanically works the best in scenarios of "close-chase" situations.

    If the devs created other perks that also worked in "close-chase" situations, they would be using those as well.

  • AverageKateMain
    AverageKateMain Member Posts: 949

    Playing as Spirit honestly makes me feel complete. I've yet to use the sweaty add ons

  • katoptris
    katoptris Member Posts: 3,341

    I just assumed the metas are run on both sides. My assumption are correct for the most part cause nothing have changed for either sides.

  • Kurri
    Kurri Member Posts: 1,599

    Though I disagree with your sentiment on Borrowed Time. As a solo player it's still very strong to take to ensure safe rescues and give your team a fighting chance off hook.

    I agree with you a lot I run Borrowed Time, Detectives Hunch, Lithe, and We'll Make It solo.

  • Aneurysm
    Aneurysm Member Posts: 5,270

    The most meta survivor bringing a map offering being the one to die does warm my heart a bit

  • EntitySpawn
    EntitySpawn Member Posts: 4,233

    You mean you didnt use full meta and still over performed? I wonder why people hate the actual meta...

    I agree survivors dont need the full meta, but that dont stop me seeing 3+DH&DS with UB,COH,BT sprinkled in every match I play...