Bad Perk University: Stridor

Hello class, welcome to Bad Perk University! I'll be your professor for today, and we'll be going over the worst perks The Entity has to offer and see how to make the most out of them. Today we’re covering a pretty tragic perk. It wasn’t even that good before, but now it’s in an even worse spot due to changes in audio interactions. I’m talking about Stridor. *sigh* Stridor has an admittedly unique effect, but one that is easily overshadowed by other perks of its kind. This perk makes the grunting noises of injured survivors 50% louder. It also makes the normal breathing of survivors 25% louder, for what it’s worth. And that effect is only available at tier three, by the way.

So why is this perk bad? To understand just how sad this perk has become, we must talk about a survivor perk: Iron Will. Geez, the amount of times I’ve mentioned this perk must be nauseating at this point. Iron Will reduces your injured noises by 100%, making you completely silent when injured. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you that at this point. What’s worth noting however is that Stridor used to have an interesting interaction with this perk. Breathing volumes were additive before, basically meaning that it had a range of 0 to 100, with 0 being completely silent and 100 being the normal volume. Stridor could bring that volume past 100, up to 150. Iron Will could bring the volume down to 0. So when both Iron Will and Stridor were in play, the total volume of the injured survivor would amount to “50”, meaning that Stridor could soft counter Iron Will. This made it a viable option against this particular perk, as niche as that was. If you were really sick of getting played by Iron Will, it made sense to use Stridor. Unfortunately, this is no longer how it works. Now, the values are multiplicative, meaning Iron Will silences injured noises and Stridor does nothing to affect that. And with that single change, there went any reason to use this perk. Oh but what about that increased normal breathing volume? Yeah, it really doesn’t change much. If you’re a really experienced killer, you might catch out a survivor you would have otherwise missed, even if they were crouching (crouching makes you quieter by the way). But 25% louder is so minuscule that you’d probably be better off turning up your volume or running a different tracking perk. Spies from the Shadows gives more value than this perk.

So how do we make the most out of this perk? This is another of those situations where the perk needs a few other perks to supplement what the perk is supposed to be good at in order to compete. In the case of Remember Me, it was perks like No Way Out or Blood Warden. For Stridor, it’s going to be other tracking perks, but perhaps not the ones you’re expecting. Let me go through the list of what perks not to run and what not to do with Stridor. For killers, don’t use this perk on Plague. In case you didn’t realize it, Stridor is redundant because survivors are already loud when they’re infected. Even if that wasn’t the case, the loud whispers you hear when holding Corrupt Purge make using Stridor in any capacity impossible. As far as perks, don’t use Whispers. As good as a perk Whispers is, the noise it makes will make it hard to hear the breathing of survivors unless they’re also injured. But you know what, Whispers is just kind of better than Stridor, so you’d probably just use that and never think about Stridor.

Spies from the Shadows has surprising synergy with Stridor if you understand what to do with it. Crow notifications let you know when a survivor disturbs a crow, and then Stridor will help you hear them better when you get close. I wouldn’t use Spies from the Shadows on many killers though, and this perk in particular is subject to a Bad Perk University post of its own in the future. I’d say use Spies from the Shadows on a killer that wants the longer range information, but doesn’t necessarily need to act on it right away, like Trapper. When he’s setting up traps, the perk will notify him, letting him know where to go afterwards. That’s one example that works for me personally, if you can think of other ways, go for it.

But this post is mostly about how to make Stridor work out, and no matter what you do, you’re not going to get away from the fact that Iron Will still completely shuts down Stridor. Don’t worry though, as much information as Iron Will denies, there are other ways of tracking survivors besides sound. Injured survivors typically leave blood and scratch marks as they run, and while they’re not always reliable, they’re at least something. But what if they’re using Lucky Break and Shadow Step? Well first of all, if they’re using those perks, they’re not using other meta perks, so if anything that should be consolation. Second, Lucky Break has a very short duration that, unless the survivor is forming a build around it (like the one I showed in my Lucky Break post), they won’t get much mileage out of it. Third, if Shadow Step is hiding scratch marks, it’s close enough to you that you can hear the boon totem, so it might be a good idea to temporarily stop chasing to snuff out the totem, forcing the survivor to leave the loop and allowing you to resume chasing without Shadow Step hindering you. I mentioned in my post analyzing meta perks and boon perks that I believe Shadow Step to be a mostly fine perk, and I still stand by that. The only reason I don’t use Shadow Step more often is because boon perks in general just leave me feeling bad for killers that are clearly trying their hardest but just can’t keep up.

I’m All Ears works great against Iron Will users that decide to vault a window during chase, as it lets you see exactly where a survivor is and whether or not they left the loop for a decent amount of time. I’d say this is probably the only real counter to Iron Will these days, and even then, it’s a soft counter, since it doesn’t help with hearing them better, and you might be unfortunate enough to run into a survivor who’s also using Quick and Quiet.

If there is one killer that can make use of Stridor the best while nullifying the effect of Iron Will, it’s Oni. When Oni injures a survivor, he absorbs their blood and fills up his Blood Fury power, and the survivor also continues to leave blood orbs while they’re injured. Short of healing up in the middle of the chase, there’s no way to stop the blood orbs from appearing, meaning Oni has a much easier time keeping track of an injured survivor even if they’re using Iron Will. If the survivor tries to leave the loop, Oni will catch on much quicker due to the blood orbs leading away from the loop. So...I guess use Stridor on Oni and only Oni?

Closing thoughts, how do we make this perk better? I don’t think Stridor needs a rework. I wouldn’t know where to begin on reworking Stridor, honestly. Stridor fulfills a niche that has some applications, but is overshadowed by other, better tracking perks. I personally think that the update that made injured noises multiplicative was the final nail in the coffin for Stridor, and I think an exception should be made for Stridor that makes it override Iron Will again. That’s all anyone ever used it for, and most players still won’t bring it, since it does nothing against other meta perks. I would also like to buff Stridor slightly to make it better at its niche, so here’s an idea. I’d make it so Stridor makes normal breathing 50% louder, same as it does for injured breathing, and make that effect available no matter what tier the perk is at (please remove perk tiers btw). That’s pretty much it. With simple changes like that, you’d make Stridor usable again. This perk will never be meta, and it’s not like it needs to be or anything, I just kind of wish there was a reason to use it beyond, “breathing sounds are too quiet for me, but I don’t want to turn up the volume and make everything else louder”. Until then, we’ll just have to accept that Iron Will has no hard counters. It’s OK, there are worse perks to go against in the game. Thank you for coming to my lesson, hopefully I’ll see you again very soon in the next class!