Iron Will is useless now

I saw a test Otz did of Iron Will at 75% and it actually does work, just obviously not as well as complete sound reduction. It does make it noticeably harder to hear survivors unless you’re right near them, especially if there’s any background noise nearby too.

That said I’m not sure why they tied it to Exhaustion. To me that’s probably the bigger nerf. They probably could have not done that and left the reduction at 75% and it would be fine.

But bHVR has said they are wanting to fix that, So take a seat.

75% might as well be 100% with the chase music blaring so you can totally still lose people during a chase with Iron Will just like you could before.

it's absolutely not useless.

Unless you want iron will to be limited duration like lucky break or conditional like self preservation, it can't be 100%.

Removing all sound is a strong effect and it should never be something survivors can freely access. The 75% is a good spot as if you take advantage of ambient sounds on the map you can still lose the killer.

I wish they'd changed it so that you still got 100% reduction except for when you're running, and then make that 75% or 50% or whatever. It was pretty damn powerful before and could be an issue versus some killers or combined with other perks, where a survivor could completely go ghost with no feedback to the killer. But like you say, 75% isn't good for anything when most killers use headsets, and it's killed a lot of builds I liked to run if I can't be perfectly silent in a locker or while sneaking up for a save.

And the exhaustion part is just entirely unnecessary when 75% already wasn't attracting anyone.

Depending on the killer as well as the player behind the killer - Iron Will can be better than an exhaustion perk. Yesterday I went against an Oni and I was the last player left standing (others were alive still). I completed a generator rather than let him overcharge it so he activated his power an ran to where I had just left.

While Oni is in his power the blood orb mechanic changes so he couldn't use that to track me. He ran within less than 8m of my position and did not hear me healing (I stopped as he got close). In this instance the chase was avoided before it ever started. This was how people used to use Iron Will back in the day before everyone started using it in the last year or two to help be confusing at loops.

Having every player use Iron Will and an exhaustion perk is part of what led to the problem that made the first chase usually take over a minute in high MMR (along with DH being the monster it was). The difference in how IW works now is that it allows for "old school" stealthing to still be a factor. Just think for a minute if you are able to avoid one chase per game - or make one end without you getting hooked. That effectively means you get chased three times in a game and don't die on one of those chases on the third hook. When used correctly it can effectively give you an "extra hook state".

Meanwhile an exhaustion perk of your choice will get you distance. It makes end game escapes easier and you are always guaranteed a minimum safe distance. In the end though an exhaustion perk will almost never get you away from a determined killer without lots of help (either in the form of allies or really good terrain in the form of vaults/pallets).

To finish the example : if I had been using SB or Lithe or Overcome it would have been super helpful against Oni only when he was out of his power. Otherwise I would be in trouble after I made him miss because I can't get exhaustion again (unlike the old days - lol).

Pre patch it was being used by something like half or more of the high tier players. It made chases longer because they were more confusing for the killer and the survivor gave up almost nothing to have IW.

Now you either get an exhaustion perk or you get IW. That's a pretty hard choice to make.

Prepatch I used to run : Spine Chill, Iron Will and Sprint Burst. You could completely ignore the killer at ranges under 10m while they were chasing someone in a nearby loop. This build was neither fun nor fair to play against when you really stop and think about it.