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The self care nerf is actually perfect, and the most underrated change, and I'll explain why:
Before anyone says anything: yeah, Circle of healing is still busted, it should be nerfed because it simply makes killers like Hag and Trapper and Wraith almost unplayable, and all killers that can be bodyblocked almost forced to use Forced penance, or pray it's not a coordinated team that abuses the perk to its full potential.
Also green and purple medkits are still busted, even tho after the botany and self care nerf they're not as busted, even if still very strong. Also they're supposed to be the equivalent of the killer's power and add-ons, so of course the MUST be stronger than perks.
So, I'm gonna try to explain why self care NEEDED to get nerfed, using math and an example of a real game situation I had before the nerf.
First: all resources on the map at some point fun out:
- Medkits, especially after the Botany and Self care nerf, run out of charges.
- Totems for Inner healing are 5 max on the map.
- Even Circle of Healing, with Shattered Hope, can run out ( and backfire if the killer also has Pentimento)
Self care never runs out, it's infinite and doesn't have any diminishing returns.
In terms of math, it was as efficient as another person healing you, even with Mangled.
Even if the time efficiency seemed the same, actually it was not, because other than having other advantages I'll describe later, it allowed and allows the other survivors doing the gens while you were self caring to get the progress EARLY, and stay separated.
But what were all the advantages of self care? Recapped, Self care gave the advantage of:
- Staying separated and always have the same efficiency on gens.
- Letting teammates concentrate on gens instead of healing
- Staying separated also means that it's not as bad as if the killer interrupts both of you.
- You can heal immediately, and compared to inner healing have no travel time between searching a totem that could be super far away, cleansing it, going in and out of a locker, and then going to a gen.
- It cannot be snuffed or countered by Shattered Hope
- It never runs out, compared to medkits.
- It gave items efficiency.
Now, the question that you might wonder is:
Why did it need to get nerfed?
I'll explain why the nerf is right, independently by how strong Circle of Healing now is, giving a real in game example:
I used to also think that self care, especially if the killer is running Sloppy Butcher, was not really that good, because I thought "40 seconds to heal is a long time, it's a trash perk!". (Then I started using self care much more as survivor, and started to notice how it was much more consistent than inner healing, and a consistent perk overall.)
Now the example is: I was playing Wraith before the patch with Coxcombed Clapper, Blind Warrior -White (mangled add-on), Shattered Hope, Pentimento, Call of Brine, Franklin's.
I was doing hit and run, burning all the resources on the map, and keeping all survivors injured, with a build specifically designed to counter circle of healing, Inner Healing, Medkits, and basically BURN all the possible survivors options to heal.
I did always the same thing: approach stealthily, do stealth attack with Coxcombed Clapper, and apply the Mangled+Hemorrhage add-on, and kick the gen with Call of Brine. Repeat until everyone is injured, midwhile break pallets, until the team falls apart.
They didn't have Medkits, only one brown that I slapped off with Franklin's.
After I hit the third survivor, and kicked the gen, the first survivor I hit had already healed, even if the map was very big (Eyrie of Crows), and there was no teammate close.
The other 2 injured were healing together, and I knew because I saw them after they healed at shack. I didn't chase them at shack because I needed to injure everyone first, and wasting pallets at that moment was not smart.
After the first survivor, Kate, was healthy again, the gen main building popped already by Mikaela.
In that moment I was shocked, I wondered how it was possible that the healed so fast and they got a gen already! I was genuinely convinced that Kate found Mikaela and healed her.
That was not the case: what happened, and Kate told me at the end of the match, is that Kate self cared in a map corner for 40 seconds 3 times, and I was surprised even if I knew it had to be self care.
In the end I lost that match because you simply cannot chase in Eyrie of Crows with Wraith, and you HAVE to hit and run, but that Kate basically destroyed all my pressure every time.
So, from the point of the killer, 40 (- the great skillckecks saved time) seconds felt VERY fast, and I was genuinely sweating because I was not understanding what I did wrong, and how it could be that fast!
This is why self care HAD to be nerfed: because even if you constantly hit people, in terms of math it would be a super convenient perk, that would make you lose all your pressure slowly but surely.
Now, after the nerf, self caring mangled takes 56 seconds instead of 40, so 16 more seconds, and so even a bigger chance of getting interrupted.
Now self care isn't a no brainer anymore, you need to think if it's actually worth investing the time or if it's better to find a teammate to avoid the efficiency penalty.
They could have nerfed it in another way, like give it limited heals, but I think maybe this is even more interesting, IF Circle of Healing gets nerfed.
Edit: also, consider that hitting healing great skillckecks gives you a 5%, and not a 1% as on gens. 5% of 45 is 2,25 seconds.
This means that, since usually 3/4, or sometimes even 5 skillckecks appear, you can reduce the timer to 36/38 seconds if you hit all the greats. Pretty neat :D !
Comments
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You make some solid arguments and I do agree an infinite source of self healing is super strong in the right hands and with healing speed perks you could make regular self-care only slightly slower than a teammate healing you. I never bought that the perk was F tier garbage.
But the elephant in the room is obviously COH - in your example, you were prepared for it but shattered hope is a niche perk that needs a place in a build/playstyle. Shattered hope isn't a catch-all solution for dealing with it.
The reason why the self-care nerf seems so odd is the reasoning BHVR gave while not acknowledging the fact that COH is the same, but better in every way. If you run COH and Botany in this patch, you heal at the same speed a teammate does which is ridiculously time efficient.
Coordinated teams will also call out franklins and drop their medkits in safe spots until they are urgently needed and even then Built to Last is still a thing to contend with.
Personally I believe self care's best application was during the endgame where everyone's split up, a survivor might be dead and you need to get to a gate while the killer's patrolling. It was a really nice safety net to have.
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problems with your argument:
- you dont need to heal 20 times in a game so limited healing sources are literally the same or better than self-care
- medkits were always way better than self-care, since they were way faster
- CoH is better than self-care because literally nobody runs shattered hope + self-care for the entire team but only takes 1/16 survivor perk slots + it gives a healing speed bonus
- if you waste this much time healing, the killer has to be bad or else you just lose the game
- just because in one scenario you're right, doesnt mean you're right in general
- if you had 40 seconds to heal yourself, you had 40 seconds to do a gen
- you can just heal faster and afterwards split up in certain scnearios (getting unhooked, doing a gen together while injured)
"That was not the case: what happened, and Kate told me at the end of the match, is that Kate self cared in a map corner for 40 seconds 3 times, and I was surprised even if I knew it had to be self care.
In the end I lost that match because you simply cannot chase in Eyrie of Crows with Wraith, and you HAVE to hit and run, but that Kate basically destroyed all my pressure every time."... so you are admitting that it is a map issue, with the perk synergizing with it
no this argument does not make sense to me at all. Self-care before the nerf was a good perk if you did not overuse it. Healing yourself very slowly is only ever useful in certain scenarios such as being dead on hook or you desperately need to be healthy to open a gate or take a hit. The perk wasnt bad, but it was certainly not as good as you make it out to be. Also medkits and CoH do its job 5 billion times better because you dont need to heal yourself more than twice usually.
- The only nerf this perk needed was to remove the item efficiency because medkits are really good and they dont need to be better than they are. The nerf to the healing speed makes this perk into a killer perk as it just add slowdown.
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Yeah, Shattered Hope is bad, for example, on Hag, because you cannot go across the map to snuff the totem, it is almost impossible, you just lose all your traps and pressure.
Circle of Healing and Botany is just ridiculous, literally what's the point of Sloppy if it does nothing XD.
It's so insane, literally just one person brings it, all the others only go with botany, and then everyone can keep bodyblocking each other like a madlat that it's super ridiculous XD.
Yeah, Franklin's has always that damn problem, that you can just hide your items and even drop them mid chase. At least it makes it so they have to get to the same place, and once you know they always go there, maybe get them while outpositioned.
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In Eyrie of Crows in general you can not chase with Wraith at all, but even in other maps it's always bad to chase with Wraith unless you absolutely need to, for example if you need to tunnel someone out because they played greedy and did a gen in front of you while dead on hook.
Medkits don't count because they're items and not perks.
Yeah, Circle of healing clearly was always the best option, and now it's ALWAYS the best option sadly. Let's suppose that Circle of healing is already nerfed XD.
Self care wasn't and still is not a killer perk, the strongest aspect of it is that you can always heal wherever you want, and don't waste time looking for totems, for example compared to Inner Healing. Totems that, as someone who knows all the spots by memory, can take 10/15 seconds of travel time just to get to the totem and 5 to get to the locker.
If you hit all the 3/4 great skillckecks of self care, the time gets reduced from 45 to 36/38 seconds. It's not bad! With mangled, if you get 4/5 great skillckecks, from 56 to 42/44 seconds, almost as before.
Also, last secret: who runs self care is a gigachad.
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"Self care wasn't and still is not a killer perk, the strongest aspect of it is that you can always heal wherever you want, and don't waste time looking for totems, for example compared to Inner Healing. Totems that, as someone who knows all the spots by memory, can take 10/15 seconds of travel time just to get to the totem and 5 to get to the locker."
the killer needs to use perks to make you work slower on gens, self-care does the job for him as you just added 56 seconds onto the next gen you do. Also inner healing has its own issues, i m not comparing it to inner healing because inner healing is extremely inconsistent and usually wastes more time than it saves.
If you need to heal more than twice in a game solo, you are already losing.
Using self-care more than once a game wasted 2 minutes; 2 minutes being 1 gen with thanatophobia and some other stuff on top of it.
It is still useful like before but if you use this perk to regularly heal yourself, you are literally the reason a game is being lost. Also not once did i have a wraith game where self-care did anything because if you take 5 hours to heal and i just instantly injure you because first hits are free then you wasted 40+ seconds of your time just to be injured again.
people that run self-care often overuse it and actively help the killer by doing nothing to heal themselves, they are not gigachads. Just use a medkit and use the perk slot for CoH
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Before it was never overused, the efficiency was always mathematically equal to a teammate healing you in every case with or without mangled, if not even faster if hitting great skillckecks.
Now it's always better to have a teammate heal you when close together, even if with the risk of the killer interrupting both.
It's beautiful imo that now all perks have their strengths and risks kinda, Circle of Healing apart.
It's not as rare as you think for killers to hit and run: Trapper with Bloody Coil, Wraith, Sadako with Iridescent Videotape/Rickety Pinwheel, Legion, Dredge, Demogorgon with Red Moss, Twins, Pinhead with Engineer's Fang and even Ghostface (if they don't want to go for a "canon" strat) can do hit and run or have situations where you have to heal a lot.
With those killers you cannot just stay on a gen and chill, you have to heal otherwise Wraith will get you with a stealth attack, for example.
Also, another important thing I didn't mention: the fact that you can heal wherever you want is super important for those cases where you're dead on hook. I don't know what it is, but I swear every time I do a totem 30/40% of the times the killer always comes closer and finds me.
With Self Care you don't risk the killer searching for the boon to then find and kill you, you don't risk them seeing you with Pentimento/Thrill of the hunt/Undying, or close to the map centre so they see you with Nurse's calling, you can stay very far away always. Less efficient, but much safer.
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Self care wasn't even a fantastic perk. It was alright at best. Even if it was unchanged in the patch, it wouldn't be meta. 32 seconds healing is just too long, too easy to interrupt when you can bring a yellow medkit with a yellow addon and heal yourself twice in a match.
You can bring a green addon and heal yourself 3 times, which is more than you need in most matches. You can even get up to 4 heals with a purple medkit with a pink and green addon. There is just no scenario where self care is better than bringing a strong medkit.
CoH is only different because it enables your whole team to heal at a slightly slower speed, rather than just yourself. It is the only thing good about the perk, if you wanted selfish healing, you'd just bring a medkit.
Hell if you really want to use a perk for selfish healing, bring pharmacy and a coin. Now there are 5 chests on the map and every one of them is a green medkit. With a lucky map you can even have 6 chests, since some maps have a bonus chest locked behind a gen like the temple of purgation.
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Of course Self Care is weaker than a Medkit, imagine if a perk was actually stronger than an item!
Btw with Pharmacy the most crucial aspect is that sometimes you don't find a chest, and the basement is very far away. If you do, you still have to open it (and the killer might have Hoarder), pick the item and then leave the one you had, and then heal in a safe spot if the killer comes. Smart killers might even guess you're nearby because they saw the chest opened recently.
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So then what would possess anyone to equip self care when med kits and literally any of the other healing perks exist. It's consistent? Consistently bad, maybe.
Self care is a horrible perk now.
There is very few scenarios where spending 45 seconds healing yourself is a good way to spend your time.
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I like using botany + self care still, with bite the bullet and dead hard it allows me to hide if the killer doesn't have nurses.
I also pair it with distortion so I can hide scratch marks at will, against nurses users if I'm lucky.
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Supposing that Circle of Healing was already nerfed (otherwise it's clearly the superior choice), the fact that you can equip a strong toolbox with loads of charges/BNP and still have a perk that lets you heal so consistently compared to Inner Healing or Pharmacy is strong. Better a "nerfed" medkit with still a very strong toolbox/aura reading wallhack key than a medkit but nothing else, in my opinion.
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So long as circle of healing is in the game, the self care nerf will never make sense to tbh.
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Absolutely, at least for most killers, because for those who have to hit and run Shattered Hope counters circle of healing, but you cannot counter self care.
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I think they just over-nerfed it. Self Care at 50% efficiency is fine.
They should have just removed the med-kit efficiency or made it a penalty because it would make sense. Imagine having a wound on your back and trying to treat it yourself with a first aid kit.
The changes to Botany Knowledge are stupid too. A survivor should be able to go pick flowers or something to recharge med-kits with Botany Knowledge.
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I think self care should have no medkits penalty, but still be slower than 50%
I think the speed at 35% is not the good value, it should have been 40% or 42,5% imo.
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Yes, let all killers just keep all survivors injured at all times so it's easier to down them. Lol.
The hit and run strategy never made sense to me, it's just boring and not really good since you should always assume the survivor would be able to heal - either with a help of another survivor, perk or a medkit. Just because it might somewhat more effective on Wraith, doesn't mean it suggests a consideration for any nerfs.
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It works because at some point survivors run out of resources, create deadzones, etc.
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So basically just praying you can catch up in the end game... Yeah, that doesn't really appeal to me.
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With Wraith, for example, survivors are forced to heal, otherwise the first injured survivor I find on a gen gets ambushed and downed very fast, especially if I have Coxcombed/Bone Clapper or Fearmonger. Then I can also get huge Thana value.
With Wraith my build now is always Shattered Hope, Pentimento, Sloppy or instead Blind Warrior-White; and then another perk like Call of Brine, Thana, or even Nurse's, and Franklin's if there are a lot of Medkits.
With this build I've come back from situations where I lost 2 gens and had no down, and completely broke their bones, especially now since medkits are nerfed indirectly with Botany nerfed.
Yes, survivors can heal themselves, but they still have to meet each other, and if I get them with Sloppy/Nurse's the progress is completely lost.
And the more the map is big, the more running to teammates takes time.
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Like the way you describe your wraith build. Seems well thought out! Has it changed since the thana nerf?
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No, I have used the build without Thana many times, still I have to experiment better what happens if I use Shattered Hope alone but without Pentimento.
If they use Circle of Healing and you start getting 2/3 stacks of Pentimento with everyone injured it becomes super duper massive.
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