On the Subject of: Circle of Healing

Hello class, I’m going to be posting a couple more “On the Subject of” posts. I wanted to talk about the current state of DBD in preparation for the upcoming changes that’ll shake up the game and hopefully change things for the better. For now, I wanted to talk about Boon Perks again, primarily Circle of Healing, because I have concerns that any and all future discourse about Circle of Healing and any overpowered Boon Perk that may come in the future will be deflected with “just use Shattered Hope”. I will talk about how this isn’t the end-all solution people think it is, but I just want to talk about the problems with Circle of Healing that I felt needed a post separate from my next one, which talks about DBD as a whole. Without further delay, let’s get into it.

Circle of Healing is still problematic

“But Time, they nerfed Circle of Healing to 50% speed. Surely, it’s not overpowered anymore!” The problem with the recent nerfs is that they don’t target what makes Circle of Healing obnoxious and game breaking, which is a combination of two things.

1. Circle of Healing is a fast, endless source of self-healing that you can also grant to your teammates.

Medkits, even with Built to Last, run out. Self-Care is slow. Circle of Healing requires you to spend 14 seconds to light a totem that the killer doesn’t have a way to break without the upcoming perk Shattered Hope, and it can otherwise be done repeatedly until the killer gives up. Not only that, but another survivor can run other strong meta perks of their choosing and still pull off fast self-heals if they bring a medkit, all because their teammate brought Circle of Healing. DBD wasn’t balanced with the power to grant faster healing speed to other survivors in mind. But there’s also the second problem with Circle of Healing, the one that’s far more detrimental and has lost me matches as killer because it put me in impossible lose-lose situations:

2. Circle of Healing gains the most benefit from being lit AWAY from the objectives.

Pixel Bush already made a video explaining the current issues with Circle of Healing in great detail. But to paraphrase a particular point made in that video, all the other boon perks, Shadow Step, Exponential, Dark Theory, all get the most value by being lit near objectives, specifically generators. Where would you light Shadow Step to hide yourself the best? Near the generators, of course, because then you can work on the generators with hidden auras. Where would you light Exponential? Near the generators, because that’s where the killer is most likely to slug you. And if the killer felt the need to, they can go find the totem and snuff it out, which makes the strength of the boons balanced. They’re powerful, but temporary and easily dealt with if found. Circle of Healing is not like this. It’s far more effective if you light it far away from the generators, because it means you can run away from a killer trying to pressure generators and heal yourself. Does the killer want to get rid of Circle of Healing to stop you from doing that? Tough, because it means they have to walk across the map, away from the generators, and by the time they walk back, more generator progress has been made and the boon has likely been reignited anyway. Yes, Shattered Hope breaks totems and makes Circle of Healing easier to stomach, but let’s think about it for a moment.

Shattered Hope has a flaw

Why does Shattered Hope exist to begin with? Because Boon Perks are overpowered? No other boon perk has been as obnoxious and irritating to deal with as Circle of Healing, so no, not really. I’m not complaining that killers now have a way to break totems and prevent them from being used for Boon perks, I think it’s ultimately healthy for the game. I actually don’t mind the other boon perks because if I snuff them out repeatedly, at some point it’s a waste of the survivor’s time more than the killer’s. But when Circle of Healing is a threat that can’t afford to stay present but also can’t afford to go deal with over and over, it’s all the more reason to want Shattered Hope. But what happens when you bring Shattered Hope and you have the misfortune of the survivors not bringing Boon Perks? On one hand, great! You don’t have to worry about Circle of Healing. On the other, you’ve just wasted a perk slot. On killer. Yes, Lightborn and Franklin’s Demise also don’t do anything if survivors don’t have flashlights or other items, but you can see in the lobby when they have these items, so you know to bring them to counter them. You can’t look at survivors in the lobby and tell they’re bringing Boon Perks (unless it's a Mikaela). So how do we fix that problem? Maybe give Shattered Hope an extra effect that helps even if survivors don’t bring Boon Perks, like being able to see the auras of Dull Totems, I don’t know.

How do we fix Circle of Healing?

Bottom line, Circle of Healing is not in a healthy balance state, and it never will be without a complete rework to its function. Maybe it’s one of the 40 perks being rebalanced, we don’t know. But in case it isn’t, I’d like to suggest some changes. The pain points of Circle of Healing are as follows:

1. Circle of Healing shouldn’t grant the ability to self-heal quickly to the entire survivor team.

2. Circle of Healing needs to function best when it’s placed near objectives, not away from them.

The first point is just to reduce the efficiency of self-healing. Fast self-healing should be a limited ability. That’s why Medkits don’t have infinite uses. The second point is to finally bring Circle of Healing in line with the other Boon Perks, so that the killer doesn’t have to throw the game to snuff out a particularly annoying boon. But there’s a problem. How do you design a healing perk that incentivizes you to heal near the killer? It sounds like a backwards idea, right? Thankfully, we can draw inspiration from the recently reworked Hemorrhage status effect. Currently, Hemorrhage makes it so healing progress drains over time if you stop healing. Maybe Circle of Healing can be redesigned as an “Anti-Hemorrhage” perk. Here’s my proposal.

Make it so when you’re within Circle of Healing, you gain immunity to Hemorrhage and regenerate healing progress, up to a maximum of 50%. You can’t heal yourself with Circle of Healing, another teammate has to come over and finish healing you. Just like that, you make Circle of Healing a perk for faster healing, just like its original design, but it requires you to find another teammate to heal you fully, and it works better when it’s placed near objectives, where the killer can make time to snuff it out. If you want to self-heal, you can still bring Self-Care or a medkit, of course. In theory, you could still place Circle of Healing away from objectives so you can heal in peace, especially if you brought self healing perks, but you’re also not helping your team much by doing that. So yeah, that’s how I’d fix Circle of Healing. It’s not a perk that’s quite as contentious as say, Dead Hard, since it’s a perk that just feels good to use, and it requires some time investment. The way it is now though, it’s just not a fun perk to go against, and you can’t really nerf it any further without making the perk not worth using. Here’s hoping the perk gets reworked to be fun to use and play against, and that the developers don’t shatter OUR hope.