http://dbd.game/killswitch
Very simple way to fix DH without reworking it dramatically.
Add like a second of not being able to interact with anything after using it. This fixes the main issue with it currently, in that it basically negates pallet greed because you can DH right when you reach it. That means you either get the speed boost or you drop the pallet in time if the killer waits. As well as being able to deny the killer a hit for playing dropped pallets right, because you were wiggling next to the pallet and pressed E.
Some might say that if you react fast enough you can still get it. Which is somewhat true. If you time it just right for the DH to lose its frames and still get the hit, good for you. But more often that not that won't matter largely because of ping. If you BOTH have good connection it works. Another issue is that it's a stupidly small window to swing into. It requires almost frame perfect timing to get them before the pallet but after the DH.
With the change this interaction has risk again. You can bait the swing with DH and run away, or you can just play the pallet normally. But you can't do both and just get away because of the E perk. You get the speed boost and health state only if you use it right.
Overall I think DH is mostly fine, but this is probably the biggest over sight with it. This one last addition should probably make it a perk you have to use your brain with.
Comments
-
That’d help, but it still has another issue which is it completely negates your ability to lunge. It’s basically old DH if you can’t hit a survivor without lunging before they make a pallet. I feel like the speed boost duration or speed itself should be lowered, at least when you’re hit with a lunge.
3 -
I don't think DH needs a fix. It's already the hardest exhaustion perk to use, with its ridiculously short duration. It's ping gambling as well.
Makes sense that it has good rewards if it won't work consistently otherwise.
8 -
Honestly I saw another popular streamer mention an idea that was pretty good.
Essentially you can use DH as much as you want just like now, except once it blocks a hit it deactivates for the rest of the trial. So you essentially get 1 blocked hit out of it.
Now that may sound extreme, but good players know how actually valuable an entire third health state is. That's essentially a DS for you. Lots of people would still run this, that's how good it still would be.
4 -
This would literally turn it into the single worst exhaustion perk in the game. Every other exhaustion perk can get you guaranteed value, except for arguably Smash Hit. Turning DH, which is already difficult to use with ping shenanigans, into a once-a-game thing would be ridiculous. DH is fine as it is, I wouldn't be opposed to the OP's suggestion, as it turns pallets into a 50/50 instead of a guaranteed escape for a survivor.
4 -
How's current DH different than if you could use DS on every single chase, ie potentially even more than 3 times?
Only argument I can see here is that DH actually takes skill. So if the survivor is skilled enough he should get a DS on every chase? Is that balanced?
I'd actually argue most Exhaustion perks need longer exhaustion debuffs as well if we're gonna compare them. Bar maybe BL or Head On since they're much more situational.
Why would you ever not a run an exhaustion perk if you just wanted to win? The answer is never, and that should tell you they're over tuned. Nothing should ever be a guaranteed auto lock like exhaustion perks currently are.
2 -
"This perk is hard to use" is not a balance argument.
You cannot balance an optional extra around the difficulty of using it 'correctly', because then the people who get good at using it are disproportionately rewarded: the perk they have is now completely broken, whilst it's useless for anyone who's bad with it. †
All you can do is look at how it performs once you get good enough, which in this case is a once a chase third health state, especially when the map favours getting to a pallet or a window. It's even worse if you accept the possibility of a reaction DH.
A perk that adds another health state and 15-30s or more of chase time when used competently, requiring the Killer to develop prescience in many cases, is not balanced if it can be used 9 times a match. At its most conservative, that's over two minutes of extra chase time. Without regression, that's enough for 1/4 of the total required gen time (and ignoring that for much of the match that 15s might by 45s of gen progress).
† This is also kind of the problem with Nurse, except her power is so fundamentally out of step with the rest of the game it's a forever long slog to work out how it COULD be made more balanced without destroying the character's entire feel and gimmick.
7 -
It would still be the strongest exhaustion perk. A single well timed Dead Hard can turn the entire game around.
1 -
I'm fine with dead hard getting change again if they gut all the top perks along with It! The next meta shake up should address
Eruption- to much vaule for it easy activation cost. no counter play either
COB- To good at holding 3 gens
COH- infinite healing will never be balance
DH- extra health state is just a bit to strong even if u only hitting it half the time.
Prove thyself- people spawn in together and finish a gen before the killer can even patrol it once.
Noed- u should have to work for a powerful effect like how devour hope operate . (u shouldn't be rewarded for failing like noed)
2 -
Simple. Counterplay to DH is waiting it out. Counterplay to DS is waiting out the full 60 seconds to not get hit by it. If you fake an M1 and they DH early, they're exhausted. If you swing and whiff on purpose and they DH, they're exhausted. Killer has actual counterplay to DH, whereas there is none to DS beside just wait it out or eat the stun. Keep in mind that the exhaustion that DH causes prevents the player from using any other chase-extending exhaustion perks, like Lithe, 99 SB, or Balanced. In this regard, how is DH different than any other chase-extending exhaustion perk, and why are you making a special exception for DH?
How is Dead Hard, which will only situationally give value by extending a chase, less balanced than, say, Sprint Burst, which gives constant value throughout the match in the form of speed boosts, as well as extending a chase if used mid-chase, or any other exhaustion perk that also extend a chase (without the requirement to have a pallet at the ready at the perfect distance with perfect timing to guarantee the DH use)?
Give me a single example.
1 -
Because DH can still be used to skip powers, doesn't have a limiting factor that requires you to avoid just running straight to the nearest loop/pallet/window at full speed, and when you DO need it, good timing is always a third health state. Good Sprint Burst usage can lengthen a chase... but if you don't use it right away, that's limiting yourself. Balanced Landing needs a drop. Head On is locker shenanigans. Overcome is a really nice speed boost, but if you can't make use of it after getting whacked by knowing the map, it does nothing.
DH is basically a perfect escape if you can time it, and if you CAN triggers all sorts of cooldowns on the Killer end. That also makes it nastily counter things that might deal with SB or other ways of making up ground.
6 -
Almost any killer I can think of with powers has counterplay to DH. Blight and Nurse can both blink/rush past and wait it out. Huntress can keep hatchet at the ready, Trickster can toss a knife at the air, etc.
Again, my feeling is that the universality of DH is counterbalanced by its difficulty of use. The only situation where killer has no agency is the one outlined in the OP (DH into pallet) which can be turned into a 50/50 with OP suggestion.
0 -
... and with sufficient timing, DH lets you negate the hit of most Killer powers. About the only thing it doesn't any more is Trapper's traps.
"Maybe you can bait it out" only goes so far when some people get really good at using it with perfect timing. Which, again, is bad balance. Things should not be balanced around how hard they are to use. This goes for Dead Hard, this goes for Hyperfocus, it goes for Nurse if anyone can ever actually work out how to go about dealing with her.
3 -
I don't mind this idea, it was something I suggested way back when for reworking old Dead Hard too. Overall I think the perk's in a good spot, it's a decent-value but tricky to use and somewhat risky tool for tanking a hit and saving yourself from a deadzone in most scenarios, while being mostly decent in other areas too-- if you couldn't greed pallets with it, it'd still be very good, but always a gamble on whose timing is better.
I'd be down, certainly worth testing.
1 -
I will accept that
But only if DH doesn't have an animation anymore so killers will not know when its activated
and increase the Endurance time to 1 second
0 -
"sufficient timing" is an unrealistic standard. If a killer is at kissing range from you, you cannot react in time to their M1. Again, the only guaranteed situation where DH gives guaranteed value is around a pallet.
0 -
How many Killers have a power that can down and comes out with no warning at point blank range? "Huntress and Trickster can throw things at that range" doesn't really count.
Overselling DH as balanced by 'difficulty' and 'skill' just leads back to the stupid balance point where you have a perk that is utterly broken and OP for more players as time goes on, and should therefore be balanced assuming its skill ceiling, not with the idea that 'well maybe, there's all the people who will DH and still into a wall'.
4 -
I mean, are we now specifically discussing killers using their power to down? Let's see. The killers that can down with their power are Billy, Nurse, Huntress, Bubba, Spirit, Plague, Oni, Pyramid Head, Blight, Twins, Trickster, Nemesis, Artist, Wesker, and Knight. Let's look at each individually.
Billy and Bubba should never use their chainsaw against an injured person, so they're out.
Huntress and Trickster can respectively hold projectile and toss a stray knife to bait out DH.
Nurse can blink once to bait DH and a second time to actually down.
Blight can bump through you to bait DH and back again to down.
Oni can cancel a Demon Rush on top of you and M1 normally to bait out a DH.
Spirit's power is unreactable if she uncloaks on top of you.
Twins can bait out DH by holding Victor braced before pouncing.
Nemesis can ready up tentacle and delay the use.
Artist can set up a bird to shut a loop and not shoot it immediately when they're within line of sight to avoid the DH.
The only ones that have a power that is relatively predictable to DH are Plague, Pyramid Head, Wesker, and Knight. Should we now do a breakdown of why other perks are equally as good, if not better than DH, against these killers?
1 -
There are definitely situations where Billy and Bubba should chainsaw an injured person.
Hatchets are only useful to bait Dead Hard if she's right behind you, otherwise just wait until it leaves her hand then Dead Hard. Huntress is one of the easiest to Dead Hard.
Blight, Nemesis, Artist, and Twins can do that, but often there is only a split second window where you can land their attacks so even if you bait it they still gain more time simply because you missed the opportunity.
Also should add Demo and Pig to the list of easily predictable Dead Hards.
2 -
I'm gonna let all the wacky stuff you said here slide just to ask what the Christ are you talking about baiting out hatchets? You can DH them on reaction, there's no baiting required. They're big, slow projectiles.
4 -
Spirit's power is unreactable if she uncloaks on top of you.
Uh, given I've seen people do that, I don't think your dismissal is all that credible.
4 -
Yea it really doesnt need much outside of that. This one interaction is just really dumb.
0 -
A few issues with this. Artist and Nurse don't really care about DH because their entire powers are "I don't have to play the game lmao". For the others, you can 100% use dead hard to force a losing scenario for them.
Trickster has to either wait longer to get the last throw, losing precious time for his laceration meter and potentially giving the survivors more time to reach safety. It also completely resets all the knives he's thrown which can be a big deal depending on the situation.
If you DH a nemesis whip at say a pallet, you not only get to speed away but they also have to go through their recovery and then break the pallet, basically doubling the distance you gain. With his limited range there's many times he cannot afford to just wait it out.
Oni has a good second or two to wait until he can do anything after stopping demon rush. So this also just means they're missing out on the down for the chance DH might come into play. Not to mention he's on a timer too.
Even though Blight can catch back up, he still has to recharge his tokens after using them. So waiting that awkward 5 seconds to cancel the rush, fatigue, and then start recharging is still a big time loss and generally bad play. 5 seconds might not sound like a lot, but in that time you can reach something while he's essentially stuck in place. You still give them the time to get away.
As other users said, Huntress is easily done in by DH due to the fact you can literally just wait until they throw it.
Whiffing is not a counter to it. That is basically admitting you just have to not hit them until you know its gone. Which has always been the issue with DH. You're forgetting that most killers still have to go through a lengthy cool-down which is almost worse because if they DONT dead hard, you have to repeat the process and extend the time chasing. The argument is in the same vein to saying the counter to a killer is to just not loop them/hide. The counter is to just not play against it.
1 -
That is demonstrably untrue. A fully charged hatchet at mid range is unreactable.
Trickster can toss a knife in the air to force a DH. He doesn't have to wait it out.
Blight doesn't have to wait for fatigue, just rush past someone, bump past them, and rush back after they inevitably use DH.
Nemmy pre swinging at pallets is the cause for eating a DH. Fake the power at pallet or wait for the animation to swing.
Artist definitely cares about DH. As an artist main, eating a DH loses me a lot of time.
For anyone that says DH is reactable, I volunteer to do this experiment with you. We hop in a custom game, and you react to my hatchet with DH.
0 -
Ah, the 1v1 cowshed challenge. A true classic.
0 -
How do you get 1v1 cowshed from "let's test your ability to react to an attack you claim is reactable"?
0 -
You're completely missing the point though. If the counter to DH is to just not do anything until it's gone, that is a problem. You can do a million fake outs, all you're doing is screwing yourself. Everything in this game has visual and audio ques, so saying it's impossible to reaction DH is just dumb.
I can promise you most of these killers waiting for DH is only going to miss them out on a down. I can tell you that as someone who plays Nemesis, you don't get the luxury of waiting. You don't whip them, they can dodge around. You do too early and they get another loop around. A lot of killers have to make really tight squeezes for their ability to hit. Those plays being completely nullified because of a button is terrible design. It nullifies killer skill.
0 -
Considering the recognition for Endurance is server-sided, and a lot of attacks are LITERALLY unreactable when you consider ping+reaction time, pretending that DH is something that you can use consistently and on reaction is an extremely unrealistic thing to say. I main killer, and I have no issues with DH despite going up against 4x DH 4x Adrenaline BNP commodius swfs every other game on my mains.
0 -
Yea and I addressed this. It's both ways. The entirety of this post is a call to remove those situations where DH lets you go for free around loops. You swing too early and you give them the endurance. Too late they drop the pallet. This is entirely tied to ping, meaning the already small window of error for killers closes more depending on ping. If you don't have nearly perfect connection with each other you just lose.
We did get really off topic I will admit. But my main gripe is that DH basically removes any risk from greed by guaranteeing the pallet anyways. It's bad design.
0 -
Dead Hard is a fundamentally bad design. There's no saving it.
In the best-case scenario with no pallet shenanigans involved, assuming you can reliably bait it out by hugging the survivor's back for a few seconds, the counterplay to DH is to never lunge, and never use a reactable power like Huntress hatchets. In other words, the main function of Dead Hard is taking basic gameplay options away from Killers.
Not only that, but the counterplay of baiting it out means that you will spend 2-3 seconds just staring at the survivor's back in every. Single. Chase, if they haven't shown you another Exhaustion perk. That will never NOT be boring to play against.
1 -
I agree. But we're not going to see it go anywhere soon. Best we can hope for is some more limitations.
0
