My 39 Perk Predictions

Howdy folks!

With BHVR teasing the perks that are about to get adjusted in an upcoming patch, I figured I'd throw out a mix of predictiony guesses as to what I think might change! I've listed whether I think the perk will be buffed, nerfed, or 'reworked' as well as bullet points with ideas for what might be adjusted, ranging from exact mechanics to just vague suggestions.

Tinkerer: Nerf

As the linchpin for the BBQ/Tinkerer/Pop/Ruin combo, Tinkerer probably needs to give the killer less opportunity for getting repeat value out of the perk for protecting the same generator.

* Only triggers once per generator (like Merciless Storm)

* Alternatively, raise the threshold for triggering up to 80%

Barbecue and Chili: Nerf-ish

I assume the perk changes are being made with the bloodweb grind changes in mind, so the famous BP bonus will probably be going away. People will now only pick this for info, which may not fit into as many builds as before.

* No longer offers bonus BP for stacks

* Stacks now cause the range that auras are revealed after hooking to shrink from base 40m to 48m/44m/40m/36m

Borrowed Time: Rework

I assume the base game changes will make this perk effect redundant. The new effect will be thematic but otherwise unrecognizable from the current perk.

Botany Knowledge: Rework

This perk has become kind of plain and uninteresting even in competition with other heal perks. It could use some personality.

* Cleansing a dull totem grants a stacking 11% bonus to healing speeds and an additional 120 second buff that increases healing speeds by an additional 22%.

Calm Spirit: Rework

I have no idea what they'd change here, but it's clear that evading crows is not useful enough to merit a perk slot.

* Whatever the change will be, the survivor will probably scream when hooked even while using this perk since it provides valuable audio info to the entire map.

Corrupt Intervention: Rework

I assume the base game changes will make this perk effect redundant. The new effect will be thematic but otherwise unrecognizable from the current perk.

Coulrophobia: Buff

This perk is meant to oppress healing speeds, but it doesn't offer much feedback.

* In addition to its normal effects, survivors now scream if they interrupt a heal while within the killer's terror radius.

Dark Devotion: Rework

I think BHVR has seen the trend of eliminating perks that only interact with the obsession as a good thing.

* No longer requires striking the obsession to activate. Can activate when hitting any survivor with m1.

* Now comes with a debilitating 120s cooldown

* Survivors probably will also see a dark devotion status icon when they have the terror radius, like Dissolution.

Dark Sense: Buff / Rework

I have no clue. It's a relatively low-value info perk, so it'll probably get some personality to make it have more of a specialist role, still involving info + generators.

Dead Hard: Rework

I have no clue, but mainly because BHVR has said a lot of speculative things about what they don't like about this perk right now. Ultimately I believe it comes down to its availability as a brief invulnerability + a perk that can be used for distance at critical moments, to functionally reset a chase at a palette or vault.

* Whatever changes, it'll probably be dramatic to the point that what it currently enables in game is removed entirely from chases.

Decisive Strike: Nerf

Probably going to be seen as very unwelcome, buuuuut

* Now deactivates when interacting with killer objects and the exit gate.

* Good luck!

Deja Vu: Buff / Rework

I have no clue. It's a really niche info perk that could legitimately be made basekit and still nobody would really think much about it. It'll probably be turned into something a bit more stylish.

Distortion: Buff

This perk has a good foundation, but is dependent on the killer's build and isn't allowed to shine in the cases when it can actually generate good value. It'll probably receive more freedoms in that regard.

* Now start the trial with 8 tokens

* Alternatively, gain an additional token each time a generator is completed.

Eruption: Buff

While few people seem to notice, Eruption is the killer equivalent of flash bang & blast mine. It's issue despite being a gen regression perk is that its peers do a much better job at gen control without requiring the killer to do a counter-intuitive amount of gen-kicking. Giving it some extra personality (that doesn't push it into replacing the outgoing gen control meta) might be the spark it needs to make blowing up survivors a lot more fun.

* You now see the auras of survivors incapacitated by eruption for the full 12/14/16 seconds.

* Alternatively, survivors are also blinded when eruption goes off - but only for the standard blindness duration (as though they looked at a flash bang, not the full 16 second incapacitation duration)

Scourge Hook: Gift of Pain: Buff

Despite being the debut scourge hook, gift of pain seems to fall behind its companions. On paper, it's supposed to cost the survivors more time to recover from being unhooked and provide the killer with extra value in the form of slowdown while they are chasing other survivors, but survivors who are content to remain injured sidestep this effect entirely.

* The heal/repair speed penalty applies from the moment the survivor is unhooked, rather than from when they are healed.

Hope: Buff

Good luck, speed freaks!

* Removed duration.

Iron Will: Nerf

The turf war between Iron Will and Stridor continues.

* Grunts of pain now reduced by 25%/50%/75%

Jolt/Surge: Rework

In the ongoing purge of gen control perks, Jolt is the premier gen-control perk of m1 killers thanks to its ease of use. It reaches its most oppressive when the killer is in a situation where they do not need to leave the area and can score multiple activations of the perk on the same generators despite the cooldown. The perk is also heavily lopsided in favor of smaller, multi-floor maps like The Game and Midwich.

* No longer affects all generators in a 32m radius, instead affects the top 1/2/3 generators on the map.

* Cooldown increased to 100 seconds.

Knockout: Buff

Knockout, in theory, is great at disrupting coordinated survivors from rushing to their fallen teammate's aid, as well as keeping the downed survivor from sneaking over to a palette. In practice, SWF comms make this perk pretty easy to work around and skilled survivors typically make it to the palette before going down anyway. In it's current state, it's a pubstomp perk.

* Somehow becomes a problem for SWF in a manner that is equitable for solo queue.

Lethal Pursuer: Rework

Personally I think this perk is perfect and I love to run it in my comfort builds, but if BHVR says it needs something then I'm sure to welcome it. ...So long as it's actually a buff and not a nerf or rework. Who's to say? If I were forced to guess, I'd predict BHVR might adjust it so that it stops being the bane of survivors who are afk for the first 15 seconds of a match.

* Lethal Pursuer now activates for 7/8/9 seconds beginning at the moment a survivor interacts with a generator, rather than at the start of the trial. The generator generates a loud noise notification.

Lightweight: Buff

I have no clue what changes here, but it may be just making it more potent.

* Scratch marks now begin to fade 2/3/4 seconds sooner.

Lucky Break: Buff

BHVR probably recognizes that they overshot and then undershot the duration for making this perk valuable but not overpowered. 90 seconds might be the happy medium.

* Maximum duration increased to 60/75/90 seconds.

Monstrous Shrine: Rework

This perk can now go from being overly situational to overly situational, but in a modern way

* Now Scourge Hook: Monstrous Shrine

* Turns basement hooks into scourge hooks in addition to a couple other minor effects

Hex: No One Escapes Death: Nerf

No one escapes nerfs.

* Survivors now get alerted to the existence of this hex when all generators are complete, rather than the first time someone gets hit.

No One Left Behind: Buff

We all know the true endgame starts when the last gen is complete, not when the gates open.

* Now activates once all generators are complete

Overzealous: Buff

Many people crunching the math on this perk decided it was too inefficient at refunding time spent on breaking totems. Maybe it'll be bumped up a tad?

* Additional effect: If the totem is a hex totem, gain an additional 6% repair speed for 40 seconds. This timer only depletes while working on generators, but the bank of time is lost if you are injured.

Off the Record: Buff

This perk shares effects with Distortion and Iron Will, and will probably be modified to reflect the changes that both of these other perks get. I've adjusted it here to reflect my own predictions.

* Increased duration to 100/110/120 seconds

* Grunts of pain reduced by 75%

Overcharge: Buff

Like eruption, gen control perks that require kicking individual generators constantly aren't competitive with their peers. Also, skilled survivors have very little issue with these kinds of skill checks. I have no idea how it might be changed to keep it from being just a pub stomp perk, but here's my change that'd make it even more of a pub stomper:

* The difficult skill check is now a 5 second sequence of skill checks, like Merciless Storm.

* Each time a skill check is failed, the generator explodes, resulting in a progress loss of 1/2/3%

Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance: Nerf

RIP the #1 perk for killers who wanted to ignore gens and defend gens at the same time.

* Now applies to the generator with the least amount of non-zero progress.

* Alternatively, just reduces the regression from 15% to 10%

Pop Goes the Weasel: Rework

Hail to the king.

* Every time you hook a survivor, gain a stack.

* When you kick a generator, spend all stacks to cause the generator to immediately regress 5% per stack.

Pharmacy: Rework

This perk may be transformed into a rummage perk to behave more like Residual Manifest and Appraisal.

Hex: Ruin: Rework

I can't predict what's going to change here, but the key to Ruin's value is it's passive nature. A hex based gen regression perk will probably need to have more interactivity on the killer's part to justify the value it has now.

* The first time the killer hooks a survivor, Hex: Ruin manifests on an available dull totem and then activates for 30 seconds. All generators not being worked on begin to regress at 200% for the duration, but stop regressing once the duration ends or the hex is cleansed.

* Every time the killer hooks a survivor while the hex remains active causes the effect to occur for another 30 seconds.

Saboteur: Buff

Quality of Life update to make the perk more useful and to cause survivors rescuing teammates off hook less likely to accidentally put the perk on cooldown by attempting to heal and beginning a sabotage instead.

* Saboteur now only goes on cooldown after successfully sabotaging a hook.

Self-Care: Nerf-ish

This is probably going to be used to keep survivors from sandbagging themselves.

* Self-care deactivates for the remainder of the trial after the first time you heal yourself.

* Decreases the depletion rate of med-kits by 30%/40%/50%

Sole Survivor: Buff

No clue, maybe something more altruistic? It's another case of an info-denying perk seeing some attention, which is a clear trend.

Spine Chill: Nerf

You know it's coming. I mean, now you don't. But you get what I mean.

* No longer activates when the killer is undetectable.

Tenacity: Buff

This perk is a valuable fixture in specific anti-slugging builds, but is otherwise no very valuable on its own.

* Once you have reached maximum recovery, your crawl speed increases to 60%/80%/100%

Thanatophobia: Rework

The slowdown is too powerful on some killers who score easy injures but difficult downs. Coincidentally, those are the killers who always run this perk.

* While there is an injured, dying, or hooked survivor in the trial, this perk is active and begins counting down.

* Every 40 seconds, all injured or dying survivors scream, revealing their locations.

* If this perk becomes inactive, the timer pauses (as opposed to resets)

We're Gonna Live Forever: Rework

If BBQ goes, so too does WGLF

* No longer offers bonus BP for stacks

* Stacks now increase recovery speed by 25%/50%/75% and if you have the maximum stacks, you can pick yourself up off the ground once per trial (like Unbreakable).

=== Summary ===

* Lots of base perks are getting attention, likely buffs, to make them more modern and also competitive with DLC perks

* None of Huntresses' teachables are getting touched, which is a shame because I love Territorial Imperative and Lullaby and they're both real real bad!

* Lots of gen regression & control perks are probably getting nerfed

* Lots of perks that enable stealth & avoidance are probably getting buffed

* There's a significant mix of attention on raising a floor to replace the falling ceiling here

So, what do you think? I'll be excited to check this list out and compare it against what gets announced!