Hex: The Third Seal discussion

Continuing a series of threads on the least used perks in the aggregate data from Nightlight, let’s move on to Hag’s perk Hex: The Third Seal (0.56% usage)

I’ll start off by saying I think Blindness is an underrated effect. I actually am personally currently using this perk on almost all my killers right now and doing really well with it. That’s because Windows of Opportunity is extremely popular at the moment, and other aura perks like Kindred and Wiretap and such also see a bit of use. Blindness hard counters all of them. With one effect I’m often shutting down perks on multiple survivors per match. And that’s above and beyond the side benefit of Blindness also hiding the auras of dying and hooked survivors which helps occasionally too against solo survivors.

All that said, Hex: The Third Seal does have one big weakness - it’s a hex. Which means even its effect of permanent Blindness is great it can be destroyed very quickly by savvy survivors. Personally I’m pairing it with Hex:Undying so it lasts a lot longer than normal, but without that just on its own it might not last long enough to get more than two or three people Blinded in the match before it is destroyed.

In addition though I think there are a couple of other reasons it’s not more popular

• Blindness’ benefit is subtle from the perspective of the killer. It could easily be making life more difficult for Blinded survivors but as the killer you can’t directly tell the difference between someone making a casual strategic mistake like running to a dead zone versus someone who has Windows of Opportunity who would normally know exactly where to run to get to a pallet being Blind and not knowing that a pallet spot they’re running toward is already used up. Or you can’t tell the difference if someone gains an extra hook stage because of a late rescue attempt by a survivor accidentally just waiting too long to come help versus the rescuer being Blind and taking longer to find the hook spot. So when you run Third Seal it might sometimes appear it isn’t necessarily helping but it could be and you just aren’t aware of it.
• Blindness impacts solo players more than players on comms. That’s not to say swfs are immune to Blindness, even swf players use aura perks like Windows and such, but they are a bit less dependent on them so use them a little less often and are less impacted by losing access to them. They also are less impacted by not seeing dying survivor auras since they can say on comms where they are. All that said, I do think some killers see this about Blindness and think “well it’s useless against swfs so it’s useless all the time” without realizing it still gives some value even against swfs simply by virtue of cancelling any aura perks they happen to run and without understanding that something like 75% of matches are either all solo survivors or at most one two person swf.
• While its effect is strong, it takes a bit of time to actually hit all four survivors to Blind everybody. And as a Hex it can sometimes be that by the time you get everybody Blinded the Hex is found and might not last much longer. That means it’s weakest in the first minute or 90 seconds of play while it ramps up applying Blindness on opponents which might turn off some killer players from it who prefer perks that are more effective immediately out of the gate.

In all I’m not actually sure Third Seal needs a buff, it might just need a better publicist to get past some possible misconceptions about it. 😄 But hypothetically if it does need a buff its weakness is definitely related to its ability to be destroyed as a Hex and its ramp up time in the early game. If it were to be buffed, one possible way to do it would be to, instead of tying it to attacks, have it be an effect that just automatically Blinds all the survivors after, say, 15-20 seconds have elapsed at the start of the match. That would still allow survivor aura perks like Deja Vu to function right at the start but would cut off aura perks by the time the first chase is typically starting. So the perk would read something like “After 30/25/20 seconds have elapsed at the start of the match all survivors suffer permanent Blindness while this Hex is in play.”