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COB-Overcharge-Eruption, the broken combo
This 3-perk combo is the single most busted setup in the game currently. Let's talk about each perk individually, which ones are problematic, which aspects are problematic, and why the combo itself amplifies the problems with each perk significantly.
Let's start with COB. Possibly the least problematic perk in the stack. For 60 seconds after kicking ANY gen, it will regress a gen at 200% speed (-0.5 charge/second, or -30 charges in 60 seconds, aka 33% of the gen), and will double as an info perk if someone happens to hit non-Great skill checks on a generator, which good players can typically do pretty consistently. Taken at face value, and at the highest level of play, this is a regression perk that will eat, at most, 33% of a generator in one minute before reverting back to regular regression speed, while also requiring a kick. In my honest opinion, there is nothing inherently problematic with this perk.
Now, Overcharge. Overcharge will gradually ramp-up the speed at which a generator regresses from 75% of base speed to 200% of base speed over 30 seconds. Additionally, Overcharge generates a difficult skill check, which will regress the generator by 15% if it's missed. On its own, Overcharge isn't terribly problematic. It gives killers a way to ensure a gen regresses quickly if they're willing to commit the time to camp it, and punishes survivors for leaving generators unmonitored for long periods of time. I do think there are some aspects to this perk that are overly punishing, especially when there is a weaker player on the team. The skill checks can be difficult to hit after match fatigue sets in. Examining a somewhat similar regression perk - Oppression - which triggers a difficult skill check for 3 random generators currently being repaired, or causes them to start regressing if no one is on them. Oppression has a cooldown of EIGHTY (80) SECONDS. The fact that Overcharge can trigger an infinite skill check every time a generator is kicked, which also eats additional progress if failed, with no cooldown, as well as ramp-up the regression speed of a generator so quickly all the way up to 200%, is far too powerful. The perk has far too many things going for it. In my opinion, the ramp-up needs to start lower (say 50%), and increase over a longer period of time (say 60 seconds). The skill checks need to be either more generous with the success zone, or go entirely.
And lastly, for the worst offender, Eruption. Eruption will activate when the killer kicks ANY gen, will STAY active when the gen hits 0%, will eat 10% progress from the gen while it is active when a survivor is downed by any means, and will incapacitate anyone who happened to be working on the generator for a whole 25 seconds. The biggest slap in the face? Eruption has a cooldown of THIRTY (30) SECONDS. This perk is beyond broken, and stands head and shoulders above every other regression perk in the game. I'll examine the issues with the perk. First of all, there is no indication that a generator currently has Eruption active. Even a gen at 0% can be unsafe to work on. Secondly, there is no indication that the perk is about to trigger. Unlike Pain Resonance where you can see when a hook is about to happen, a teammate going down is impossible to predict accurately and consistently. Thirdly, 25 seconds is an absurdly long time in DBD. That's almost a third of a generator, a full heal and some change, a totem cleanse, and so on. During this time, a survivor is entirely useless; you cannot do totems, you cannot do gens, you cannot heal, you cannot use items. You're essentially dead weight. Lastly, the 30 seconds cooldown. Eruption's cooldown is so short that by the time a survivor begins to recover from the previous proc, you can kick another gen, get another down, and make the survivor useless again. It's beyond absurd that this perk continues to exist in this form.
So is Eruption a slowdown or a regression perk? Ironically, it's arguably the most powerful perk in both categories. In terms of regression, it provides a 9-second regression on each generator kicked that currently has at least 10% progress on it. Compared to Pain Resonance, another strong regression perk, which requires you to find one of four hooks, and eats 13.5 seconds of progression from ONE generator. As far as slowdown goes, Eruption will cause every single survivor hit by the perk to be useless for 25 seconds. By contrast, the next most powerful slowdown perk is Deadlock, which locks the generator with the most progress for 30 seconds whenever a generator is completed. In a perfect world, this gives you 2 minutes of guaranteed slowdown across a game. In order to exceed this value, Eruption needs to hit 5 survivors. Not to mention that Eruption becomes significantly more valuable in late game 3-gen situations where survivors are forced to try and knock out the last gen quickly while fighting a battle of attrition against the killer.
So what is the most egregious thing about this combo together? Plenty of other perk setups have very strong synergy. This combo in specific incentivizes, and amplifies one of the worst and most boring playstyles currently available in the game: 3-gen camping. How does it do this? Let's look at the numbers. First off, assuming I'm doing my math right, Call of Brine+Overcharge will start a generator's regression at 175%, at which point it will slowly ramp up to 300% over the course of 30 seconds. Over those 30 seconds, a generator loses about 18 seconds' worth of progress, at which point it begins to lose .75 seconds' worth of progress every second for the next 30 seconds, or 3x the normal regression speed. During this time, if any survivor happens to tap the gen, they have to succeed at a great skill check (while possibly being pressured by the killer), or they will lose another 13.5 seconds of progress. If any survivors happens to get downed during this time, the generator loses another 9 seconds of progress. If any survivor happens to be ON the generator during this time, they will be useless for 25 seconds. Is this beginning to paint a picture on why this combo is so busted?
So what's the solution? Imo, Eruption needs to get nerfed into the ground. Incapacitated needs to either go entirely, or be reduced to something tiny like 5 seconds. The regression % can be increased slightly in order to still make it viable. Call of Brine+Overcharge should not stack with each other. The game should prioritize one or the other, but not both at once. They simply provide far too much value and far too much regression in too little time. Lastly, the cooldown on Eruption needs to be cranked up to 40-45 seconds. And as a final note, the other current regression/slowdown perks that are outside the meta (like Oppression and Grim Embrace) need to have a second look taken at their values. If a perk like Eruption which gives constant value throughout the game and provides BOTH slowdown and regression, moreso than two perks combined, there is a real issue with balance somewhere. It's absolutely inexcusable that this combo continues to exist in the game in this form, and I've seen even some of the worst killers I've ever gone up against gets carried to a 2-3k while using this.
Comments
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Your post is interesting to say atleast, however i disagree with most of it.
overcharge "difficult" skillcheck is nowhere near difficult, you can even tap the gen and hit it after you let go of it, also a cooldown? for a perk that does absoluty nothing if survivors are remotely decent? are you insane? unless the killer dedicates an entire build to make skillchecks harder, you should NEVER miss it, its insanely easy, if you miss the skillcheck, its entirely your fault and it doesnt mean that the perk is unbalanced.
Regarding your comment on eruption, i do agree that the incapacitated status effect is very punishing, however it should not be reduced to a pathetic 5 seconds, it should instead, block that generation for that duration, so survivors can still heal or do something else so you dont feel like "dead weight"
Its obvious you're complaining about the typical 3 gen strategy, its not that hard to identify a 3 gen and harass the killer into leaving it, survivors have fast track, potential energy, prove thyself, resilence, stake out, hyperfocus, but the problem is, when you're buying time for your team, do they rush the gen?, nah, they're just hiding in the edges of the map.
The problem is not the perks, they're the current meta and its perfectly fine, the problem is mainly directed to the survivors, buff solo queque, so your teanmates will probably have more than 1 braincell if it happens
Note that if you dedicate your entire build to kicking gens, of course it will be more difficult to repair, but a skilles swf can keep harassing the killer by progressing on multiple generators.
If you keep having problems with these perks, run perks to counter then, problem solved.
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I'm trying to respond to your post as seriously as I can but you've presented very little in terms of counter arguments. I've made a comparison between an existing perk with a high cooldown that triggers a difficult skill check (without an added regression bonus mind you) to another perk that gives it infinitely, on top of also giving a boost to regression. You haven't addressed that. Also, survivors miss skill checks. Good survivors too. Especially when required to hit the same skill check 30 times in a row against a killer camping a 3-gen. Losing 13.5 seconds of progress just like that is a massive slap in the face.
Next up, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the issue with Eruption is. I recommend going back over the numbers I posted and what they mean in terms of regression/slowdown.
These perks are problematic in a swf setting or outside of it, hence why I didn't make a distinction between either scenario in my breakdown.
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I think Eruption (and Overcharge but it is not as big of a deal) should not affect gens that have regressed to zero.
It would create acceptable counterplay to Eruption where if a gen has almost regress to zero the survivor could wait for it to hit zero and then work on it safely. Even with this counterplay the killer is still getting good value from Eruption but at least there'd be some counterplay.
It also would make it so killers don't just mindlessly kick gens whenever they can and they have to deal with the "Should I kick this gen?" question that killers not running Eruption have to contend with.
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eruption used to be 6%, 16 seconds of incapacitated at 30 seconds and barely anyone used it. it does not need 45 second cooldown, nor does it need less then 16 second of incapacitated. The regression is debatable for being jack of all trade perks but at face value, 10% is not too strong by itself. I think this perk would be fine by itself because it reward killer for kicking generator and acquiring downs as the current rewards for kicking generator (2.5% regression) is pointless in non-3 gens.
Overcharge is not hard-skill check. strong survivors can hit the skill-check consistency every time. If anything the perk fails to punish survivor gen-tapping generators because skill-check part of the perk barely activates to begin with. Nobody was using this perk before it got changed. Its only getting used because of its secondary effect.
3 gen camping is effective because of call of brine and overcharge's over-time regression effects. as you stated, you get ~11.5 seconds of regression from overcharge+6.3 second(7.5%) regression from call of brine which is roughly 18 seconds. for comparison, pop goes weasel used to be 25% regression for 20 second of regression and yet these two perks almost give you pop goes weasel in 30 seconds with no hook requirement. Overcharge has no limit to regression, so in practice, it can regress gens to 0 but call of brine is also problematic because the counter is suppose be gen-tapping but gen-tapping in 3 gen for call of brine is just resetting the timer. I do think these two perks need to be more effective in normal gameplay and less effective in 3 gens. At the same time, I highly doubt they will change killer meta until next 2023.
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I think you missed one of the crucial parts. Meta changed. I would NEVER EVER use dragon's grip before patch 6.1. Right now I am using it on spirit quite often, because meta changed and there are quite a number of strong gen-kicking perks that provide good value - so adding another gen-kick perk does not carry all the punishment of going to the gen on it's own - it gets "dissolved" into all the other gen kicking perk (so to clarify - loosing time by going to the gen only to apply DG makes the perk worthless. But combine it with OC (and make survivors postpone touching OC'd gen) and maybe add some other gen-kicking perk and suddenly it's very much worth the effort).
The existence of CoB with the numbers it currently has have made eruption much better perk (and vice versa). But the perk ALSO got a buff and no counter-nerf (by say increasing CD, limiting eruption to only last kicked gen, etc). This had made it overall too strong perk. There are other examples that could show the same example. I can nerf enduring even if I make it's numbers better. Because even if I reduce stun time by 60% instead of 50%, the perk would become useless if we deleted perks hubris and spirit fury.
As for your OC+CoB numbers - yet another piece is missing. For you to be able to apply pop, you need down (which means you have to commit to chase - and this can possibly take time if survivors are good). For you to be able to apply OC+CoB, all you need is survivor touching the gen and you kicking it (so for pop you could apply it to 1 of 3 gens of your 3gen. OC+CoB allows you to apply it on all 3 of them). You don't need to leave the gen to apply it again. All you need to do is be close to the gen so that survivors can't touch it (without loosing health state). That's also big difference and reason why 3gen camping is now possible and it's also reason why POP did not allow it to such a degree.
Overall this gen-kicking meta is potentially very unhealthy and there needs to be something that can limit gen-camping killers for game health. One simple idea would be to add tokens (say 5) to these perks, that replenish over time (say 45s to replenish 1 token). In normal game this should not matter, because once you commit to chase, all the tokens should replenish. But if you camp your 3gen, you will kick those gens nonstop and so you would run out of tokens rather quickly. This would allow survivors to drain all your tokens and then force the killer to commit to chase, or eventually destroy his 3gen.
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ah yes, opression, a perk the nobody uses, i still think these perks are not overtuned in the slightest and i know i can't change your opinion, and if they were nerfed to the ground like you are suggesting, killer would have much more trouble actually securing kills, the only other viable option i can think of is pain res with dms.
i've read your post again, and as far as i can tell these perks only seen to really affect people when they're constantly used to secure 3 gens, because if the killer actually takes the time to kick all 7 gens without the survivors repairing a single one it's not their fault. you could not leave a 3 gen, as i said, however i know killers tend to force it, there should be a certain solution to this situation, istead of making these perks entirely useless something should be done about FORCING 3 gens specifically, like we saw with knight, those are core gameplay issues. I do still think that if the killer forces a 3 gen they should not be punished for playing a strategy, after all its as valid as other killer strategies survivors have seen problems with.
I would absoluty love the idea of the changes that you suggested if killers actually did get something in return, buffing pain res for a tiny extra % doesnt feel like its enough to me.
as you've stated at the very end of the paragraph, killers do get 2-3 kills with while securing the 3 gen, however i do not really consider this as "winning", let's say 2 survivors manage to escape.... i don't really see the problem with that, even if the killer was really unskilled , not all the matches need to be tilted to the extreme in the favor of one side in order to get kills, after all bad survivors get carried by their perks too and most survivors in solo queque are not particulary of high skill.
If survivor meta actually changed, and people did not run a build of 4 second chance perks, killers would have a considerable easier time chasing survivors, if that did happen killers would not feel the need to run 4 slowdown perks, as survivors would not have 3 health states because of endurance.
in other words, i deeply respect you for stating your opinion, altho i disagree with most of it and think the only solution for this would be a meta change, after all killers changed their meta plenty of times, survivors only changed ds for off the record.
I always feel the necessity to run builds like these because survivors either all have DH and play around the lose/lose scenario of the pallet loop (using dh literally at the range of dropping a pallet or simply dropping it, in which case the killer cannot do anything because the survivor pressed e, either hit then so they have to mend, or eat the stun), most of the time they're not mindful about what gens they're doing and leave a 3gen anyway.
All of these perks only aggravate the issue with solo queque, most of the times i actually have won using the exact perks you've talked about is either because:
-survivors dc
-survivors kill thenselves on hook
-survivors refuse to repair a single gen
-survivors hide 24/7
in a nutshell, the changes you're suggesting are not THAT terrible for killers, IF they were to get SOMETHING in return, some sort of base slowdown or actual not "opressive" slowdown perks.
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I do think that A. Overcharge doesn't need as much regression as it has, and B. Eruption needs something either tuned down or reworked so that solos aren't completely screwed. These two things alone would make a big difference.
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Or just make eruption need a skillcheck to proc like overcharge
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That would make Eruption too similar to Overcharge and how would you tell the difference?
We already have Overcharge and Oppression as that type of skill check perk, we don't need more.
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Perk icon when you get the skillcheck just like any other? Plus it doesn't proc immediately when you touch the gen so
And tbh I feel that's the best way to go about it while keeping the effects the same
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IMO CoB shouldn't have info as a part of it, Overcharge shouldn't stack with CoB, and Eruption should block the affected gen for 15 seconds instead of applying 25 seconds of incapacitated to the affected survivor.
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I'd just like eruption nerfed to not completely invalidate my character for 25 seconds.
Like at least let me open a chest, or shorten the time, make it expire if the gen is fully regressed or something.
There's not really a counter for it unless you SEE someone about to go down:
"Heal? No. Chest? No. Do another gen? No. You can rescue and that's about it. No one needs rescuing? Then sit in a locker and be worthless."
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Call Of Brine could stand to lose it's information part and be given to Surveillance... just saying
Eruption could stand to lose 15 seconds of Incapacitation no Gen blocking needed (it would be to much like DMS, or Thrilling Tremors)... plus blocked Gens don't regress
Overcharge could lose the skillcheck but nothing else...
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