Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on these and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
We encourage you to be as honest as possible in letting us know how you feel about the game. The information and answers provided are anonymous, not shared with any third-party, and will not be used for purposes other than survey analysis.
Access the survey HERE!
Why I think Dead Hard needs a nerf again.
I'll preface the whole thing by saying I have about 6.5k hours in the game. Most of those hours have been on killer, most of those hours have been on the Hillbilly. I play on NA West servers at nighttime, which is referred to as the "demon hours" or "juicer-hours".
For those unfamiliar, it's when all the sweaty SWFs, God-tier solo-queue survivors and literal comp teams get on to destroy late-night killers. I have a few problems with Dead Hard. Firstly, I will address: yes, Dead Hard was nerfed for bad/average players. The people who used E for distance promptly dropped this perk and picked up something that was easier to get value out of. But for those who always used DH for the ability to dodge attacks, this perk HASN'T changed.
Some of the issues I have with the perk are: the passive deterrence it grants, the fact it's now the obvious choice for an exhaustion perk again, the immense value one-usage of Dead Hard can grant, and the fact it is ping-reliant. When I know a player has Dead Hard, I now have to play around it when it comes to pallets/windows. This means this survivor now gets even more time before I can lunge at them when they are looping structures. The standard lunge-distance is effectively shortened against anyone who is using DH. This is a passive deterrence that the existence of DH has on the game.
Having Dead Hard will indefinitely grant you maybe an extra half second or so around EVERY pallet or window. This effect is exaggerated if the survivor is using resilience or doesn't have an item (watching an item disappear when a survivor commits to a vault is how you can be certain to swing at a survivor and avoid their DH.)
If a survivor is looping a pallet, they are able to, rather easily, time their DH effectively enough to where you either hit their DH, and they get to run off to the next tile. Or if you don't swing, they get to pallet stun you. In these situations, survivors can be exceptionally greedy with little repercussions. They can choose to pretend to drop the pallet, and you respect it, now they get even more distance for perhaps another loop. Or they do a spin, run right at you, but you wait it out, and then they do it once more, but this time they actually use their DH. Either way, this enables the survivor to get an extra couple loops out of a strong pallet.
It is also now the obvious choice perk all over again. DbD has tons of perks where the option is "I can bring this off meta, kind of niche perk that could be super handy, or I could bring the safe perk that always gets value." Because Dead Hard is the best exhaustion in the game, the other exhaustion perks don't matter. Kind of like how Deadlock is a fine slowdown all on its own, but doesn't compare to eruption/brine combo.
When I go up against the God-squad Seal Team SWF who I know is here to ruin my night, do gens in 5 minutes and leave, you bet your ass 3 out of 4 -- if not all 4 -- of those survivors going to be bringing Dead Hard. I don't mean guys with 1.5k hours, I mean literal 3-6k hour survivor-mains who are deadly with Dead Hard. Those guys will very likely get value at least once -- if not multiple times -- every game.
As a killer, there are few things more miserable than when EVERY survivor in a match is running DH. I will pull off some crazy-bump logic on Blight that took my hundreds of hours to master. I'll line up everything beautifully and the survivor presses E and it doesn't matter that I landed a frame-perfect hit on them. Or if I managed to land a sick chainsaw curve on a survivor, they'll just tank it and keep running while I sit there fatigued.
Another issue is that some killers Dead Hard will work nearly all the time on, because their attacks are predictable. Plague's red vomit, Trickster's knives, Huntresses' hatchets, Blight's rushes, Nurses blinks, Oni's kanabo, etc. This is honestly one of the biggest issues with the game I can think of right now. As a killer, the meta of the game encourages you to whiff attacks on survivors. As Blight, I have to rush past them the first time, to bait out their DH. As Oni, I have to glide off of them, stop, turn around and slam, as plague I have to fake a puke. The list goes on. Dead Hard encourages killers to not use their power. If you're thinking about Legion/Slinger, okay. There are two killers in this game -- 3 if you include Pinhead with Original Pain -- who can completely ignore Dead Hard. That's 3 killers out of 30.
And now let's get into the biggest issue: dead hard is now even stronger than before when activated. Old Dead Hard got consistent value. New Dead Hard gets less consistent value, but when activated is FAR more useful than any other exhaustion perk in the game. One usage of Dead Hard easily outweighs whatever 3 Lithes, Sprint Bursts or Balanced landings might buy you. The killer is now forced to sit through a weapon-hit animation, slowed down movement, while the survivor gets an maneuverable boost of speed in ANY direction they'd like, not just one straight line like old DH.
If I could pick any one perk on the survivor-side I'd like to see get re-worked, I would pick Dead Hard again. I hate Hyperfocus /stakeout as much as the next killer-main. And those do need to be addressed, but DH is still the best exhaustion perk in the game. I'd definitely take an eruption nerf in trade for a DH nerf.
Ping is also an issue with Dead Hard. If you have high ping, or the killer has high ping, your perk is now useless. That's not a good design and it rewards those who have low ping -- something the game already does naturally with vaults. The argument that "Well, I suck with it anyway. I can never get it to activate." is not useful to the conversation. I'm bad at Nurse, she still got nerfed.
What's my solution? No more third health stage. DbD has come a long way in the last 6 years and the community has gotten good enough where having a third health-stage on command is too much. It's not viable, it doesn't need to be in the game. People have had 6 years to master this game, they have THOUSANDS of hours invested in it. If you set a new level of mastery for them, they will reach it eventually. Ex. Nurse.
I have some ideas on possible rework ideas, but I know they'd not be a compelling alternative to how strong Dead Hard already is, and it would just anger those reading, so I'll leave them out of this post. I've heard a common complaint that feels necessary with new STBFL in the game, and if it would make the transition easier, I'd be all for a nerf on STBFL. Dead Hard is a problem for the meta of the game, and it has been a problem since its release. If you'd like to post your ideas for a rework, I'd gladly read them. If you want to share your opinions, I'd gladly read those , too.
Comments
-
Dead Hard only has a 0.5 sec duration. If you keep swinging into dead hard, that’s on you. Also dead hard is needed against op killers like nurse, blight and spirit.
7 -
And what about weak killers? Like Trapper, Pig, Sadako, Freddy and Michael Myers?
21 -
Those killers imo need both power adjustments and quality of life improvements that outweigh their interactions with DH.
3 -
Literally half the post is about what happens when you don't swing into DH. Or use Killer powers which don't leave room for 'bait it out'.
12 -
I think the devs came up with the current DH while looking at what you called bad and average players, what I call the normal/casual part of the playerbase. And this makes sense given those players, including me, make up by far the largest portion. Those groups are where they tend to keep upmost in mind when changing things.
Despite me having maybe almost 2k hours in, I'm an ok surv and a lowsy killer, and I have never ran DH. Yes I have been hit with DH while playing my beloved Piggy but it is uncommon.
Those who get the most from it are highly skilled vet survs who learned again how to master DH effectively. And thankfully they (like the top veteran killer players) are such a small part of the playerbase that how things are used at that level don't really represent usage across the broad scale at all. Kinda like sweats vs. sweats first world problems.
They've shown time and again they focus on the middle-ish and newer ground first when proposing changes, not top level play nor bottom. Now throw in it took what 6 years to change DH? Plus DBD is back around the top sellers again hence even more new players? What conclusion would you draw?
0 -
Survivors are the huge majority of the playerbase. You are wasting your time here. It’s obvious this perk is broken but they buy skins and $€ is everything for BHVR.
8 -
I definitely haven't played that much, and I run into at least one DH every game. Comes or goes with the time of day, which Killer I'm playing, and by appearances the phase of the moon, sometimes there'll be three or four.
Like, it's really not that uncommon or rare for someone to use in my experience. The skill floor is way lower than reported.
7 -
Using Dead Hard when looping pallets is pretty easy and by far the most consistent form of value. You either strike their DH or they get to pallet stun you.
8 -
Just remove this perk entirely.
Alternate: Like DS, it can only be triggered once per trial.
7 -
Killer main dislikes dead hard. Pretty standard. If you're in the highest mmr then like you do. The survs you're against will utilise the best builds to their full effectiveness. Doesn't mean the rest of the player base has to lose the perk. That's the curse of high mmr. I could understand if you were constantly getting dunked on all the time but if that was the case your mmr would drop and you'd get easier games. With your skills you'll be pushing the survs extremely hard and making them fight for their lives.
And annoying as it might be, if you are maintaining your mmr and getting iri 1 each month? You're not losing many games because of it.
I split roughly equally between killer/surv and I don't really have an issue with DH. Sure it irritates me when I'm playing killer and get a swf who all can hit it consistently. Then I just counter play it and usually still do well in the game. It takes skill to use and if you have any latency? Then you need luck as well.
Based on what you said would I be right in thinking you're a blight main? Because if so this argument flips on it's head a little bit. You've spent hours perfecting blights slam plays. As a surv it is insanely frustrating playing against a good blight who nails good lethal rush plays because they're so hard to avoid and distance means nothing to a good blight. DH is a good way to counter it. Because it's a predictable hit. It's literally the only exhaustion perk that can counter a blight.
1 -
There is no way to play badly enough to avoid Dead Hard unless you commit to never killing anyone and stomping people who just bought the game.
7 -
As long as there are antiloop killers that can fake their attack (Pyramid head and Nemesis) or zone you (Artist and Knight), deadhard is balanced. Without it you either throw the pallet and go down against them or don’t throw it and still go down which is bs too
2 -
Wasn't saying you can avoid it. It's used at almost all levels. OP just dislikes it because high mmr players are good with it. And he is at high mmr. Because he is good with killer. Just as good at killer with the powers and perks as the survivors are.
If you play good, you play good opponents. Players who play to win are always going to use the most effective tools. And DH is probably the best survivor perk, but it's more necessary than OP. survs need an exhaustion perk to do well in chases and DH is often the choice. It has drawbacks, can be countered and isn't a guarenteed thing. Goodnplayers land it a lot but not every time unless they are cheating.
0 -
DH and Eruption are the two perks right now that have such a strong meta, that they singlehandedly decide how games are played and they have the greater game in their stranglehold. DH did so for quite some time now and after some grace period right after 6.1 were killers could just be killers and swing when they cornered a survivor or caught them in the open we are basically back to were we startrd. Now, with a lot of survivor adapting and learned how to use the new DH, it's once again necessary that you have to second guess every single swing until you know that a survivor is running something else or are in the deep wound state.
It's true that the new DH is much fairer then the old one and that you can now effectively bait it out most of the time, but it's still wasting time every single chase and it feels just obnoxious to be forced to do so. And there are still lots of lose/lose situations for the killer, that just feel awful. By now I can predict pretty well when a survivor will DH in front of a palette, but the window to hit them afterwards is soooo fricking small that it's actually more to your detriment to try to go for it then to just eating the DH and applying mending. FR, I have pulled this off successfully a scant 3 times by now, but have many times predicted the DH correctly and still gotten hit by the palette ... this time without deep wounding the survivor and them just using a palette. This is really awful and quite comparable to the way survivors feel about the uncounterable status of an Eruption primed gen. Do they waste time off that gen and be waiting for a down that might never come or stay at the gen and risk looking at it for 25s? Fun for everyone.
I have a few ideas of how to nerf DH even further, without it being too strong. For one, we could not make it an exhaustion perk, but give it tokens. DH could have a much more generous activation period of 1s or even 1.5s, but once used up its token is gone, a bit like Unbreakable. It gives you this one or two strong plays per game, but you have to make them count and can't use it in every chase or to greed EVERY. SINGLE. WEAK. PALETTE. TO. ITS. ABSOLUTE. MAX. .... sorry, I needed to get that "skill issue of mine" out of the system. I would argue for two tokens, one would be too weak, 3 still oppressive enough that you could use it very much like now. 2 seems to be the sweet spot.
Heck, I would even be fine with a token-based DH to stack with SB or Lithe, if I knew that it was gone afterwards and can't hurt me further, DH has such a strong grip on this game, again .
Just some ideas to get a conversation starting on how to get the other exhaustion perks up on par if DH gets nerfed.
Lithe: press E. This uses up the perks charge, gives you the effect on the next fast vault you do within 10s and starts the exhaustion timer once you vaulted.
Sprint Burst: press E while walking in order to conserve power for 45s. In this time frame SB won't activate, if you want to or not.
Balanced Landing: as is. You also have 3 tokens that recharge while inside the killers TR. When exhausted you use up 1 token when you jump down a great hight to reduce the stun by 35%.
Smash Hit: on top of the effects also blind the killer and play the hook of The Tricksters greatest hit. If you have Alternatively, if you have Any Means Necessary the palette bounces back to standing the first time you successfully smack the killer.
Head On: hide scratch marks and foot steps for 3s on a successful hit.
Overcome: tbh this is good for what it is. Bonus: even when running away in a straight line the character model constantly t-bags the killer
1 -
There are many instances where Dead Hard is either unavoidable, or the choice of hitting it is just as damaging to the outcome of the game as not hitting it and being unable to down a survivor at a pivotal moment.
5 -
"I have some ideas on possible rework ideas, but I know they'd not be a compelling alternative to how strong Dead Hard already is, and it would just anger those reading, so I'll leave them out of this post."
Good because i doubt you'll have a good one. Dead hard was intended to be a high risk high reward in your face perk. And the survivor should be rewarded if they managed to pull it off successfully or be punished when it fails. Its has a counterplay.
1 -
Exactly. And this is why eruption is getting the treatment of being nerfed most likely. Both high level, mid, and even new players suffer from this perk.
1 -
Have yet to find out what you’re actually risking tho. If it fails, you didn’t lose anything—you just go down as normal.
A perk slot? Surely that’s not “high risk”.
10 -
Uh, yeah. We want to avoid that whole 'going down like normal'. At least that's why I use it. It gets counterplayed more than its successful. It also requires good timing, etc. blah blah. Eruption requires none of this. It simply wins. Literally the difference between the two perks, and everyone wants to compare them as if they were equal. They are both highly used meta perks. One prolongs a chase, which for a lot of people is the most fun part of the game. The other stops players from playing the game.
There is no comparing. DH is good at low and mid tiers. Highly skilled killers will easily bait it or do something I probably cant even think of. The higher you climb the MMR or whatever it is now, the worse DH becomes.
Eruption is good at all tiers, with a SWF on comms being the 'counterplay'. Eh, if this doesn't help you understand, then lets keep going!
4 -
Blatant whataboutism, but okay.
I haven’t actually heard what you risk losing when you use DH. There’s no question about there being a high reward. An actual high risk would be if you got slowed down if you DH’d too early.
The fact that the chase is the most fun for some players is a very, very bad argument for why DH, or any exhaustion perk for that matter, should extend chases.
”High skill killers” more like high tier killers. What is a Sadako gonna do against a DH at a pallet? Or Clown, who can’t even see that they used it because of the gas?
6 -
Funny, I left out my nerf ideas to cut down on the angry responses and you still found a way to be angry about it. I guess that means you didn't have any complaints about my argument.
2 -
Not whataboutism. If you really wish to push that comment, please tell me how that term even remotely applies.
DH's high risk/reward is you either get to run a lil longer, or you are going down. Get slowed down? That wouldn't matter because we simply go down. DH is a hit or miss perk, if we hit it, we get to run some more, if we miss it, we're hooked. Survive or die is literally the survivor options.
Extending chases isn't a good argument, I agree. So alright!! But all the exhaustion perks do exactly that if they perform correctly. So yeah, guess that was redundant. Apologies!
Sadako? She would be one to suffer from DH in this pallet example, sure. This isn't a terrible thing, just part of the game. Clowns example is moot: its his own power. It's DH's fault he can't see going into his cloud? That's not on the surv or perk really.
Regardless, DH isn't this terrible beast you're making it out to be, imo anyway. There's plenty of counter play, and this 'AT THE PALLET OMG' is such a specific event that isn't always relevant. If we're talking about only this interaction, then I actually want to step out of the conversation.
1 -
You bring up Eruption in a Dead Hard thread, and immediately state how it is worse than DH. That is literally how Merrian Webster defines it.
Regardless, you misunderstand my point about the whole "high risk/high reward" thing. That's probably on me, though. I'm just being pedantic about how you put nothing on the line that you wouldn't have risked by simply not bringing DH. There is no downside to running it. I'm not saying there should be, but it's not a good argument for DH either.
4 -
OP brought eruption into this shin dig, so I fell I am perfectly just in saying what I said. I looked up whataboutism specifically to make sure I was/wasn't doing it, lol. But all good, I don't feel it matters at this point.
I now understand a bit better your perspective on why DH feels so bad as killer. The 'nothing on the line' bit... ok, I can acknowledge it exists for some. Hell, maybe even most.
In my experience, if I miss my E, i go down. I've also screwed myself down to three perks at that point. DH was useless, so it just didn't exist in that instance. Once the killer knows I have DH, I usually can't use it again, weak pallet or not. So unless I wait til like end game or an amazing play presents itself, DH feels like a lot on the line one way or another to me. Perhaps it's just me.
I think i may be a little bias however, realizing that since I play Trapper, I don't really give a ######### about DH. So I don't really run into it as an issue. But as my survivor, DH fo life. Nerf it to 0.1 second window. I'm down.
0 -
I didn’t read everything, I’m sure everything is on the case, put vote up
Dead Hurd really should have been drowned at birth.
2 -
Cool story. Back to the actual contributors.
0 -
Totally agree with you, OP. Seeing four DHs in most games again and losing downs every other chase.
At any rate, the main reason I run STBFL is because it soft counters Dead Hard. Wasn't aware survivors were complaining about it, but they'd see a lot less of it if killers saw a lot less of DH.
The problem is that really good survivors will force lose-lose situations near windows, pallets, or other injured survivors. I have games where I'll get 5-6 stacks on STBFL before I'll get a down.
Some of those hits might have just been me not remembering or bothering to bait it out, but in a lot of cases, it's people forcing hits at loops and then their buddies with 0 hooks coming in to take a protection hit halfway through the chase, and then they're back to take another protection hit 40 seconds later.
And, sure, if "baiting it out" should be the counterplay, make it so that it doesn't activate within 3m of windows, pallets, or injured survivors. Or just make it so that you can't drop pallets or vault windows for 5 seconds afterward.
Or make it a one-use perk. Or increase the exhausted timer to 180 seconds. I shouldn't be seeing it on four survivors and multiple times every single chase.
1 -
I mean.. if you're able to master killer and their perks then why aren't survivors able to master dead hard? I mess up dead hard often but it's still on the killer if he swings too early. It seems from your description that you are swinging almost instantly. When I come up against survivors with DH it's a 50/50. The perk doesn't last long at all and you can easily mind game for it.
When killers tunnel Dead Hard really is the last line of defence since killers complaining has killed every other perk.
1 -
On the contrary, tunneling is the last line of defense against DH. If someone truly excels at using it, your best bet is to smack them right off the hook before they can heal so you aren't dealing with three health states again.
An analogous killer perk would be one where I hit M2 near a pallet, and if the survivor guesses wrong, they're instadowned as soon as they drop it, and then it recharges again in 40 seconds.
Almost all of the decent killer perks were nerfed into the ground, and now Eruption has been comfirmed for a nerf. Which is fine, but DH needs one, too.
2 -
If thats the case then DH needs reworking again, boil over needs re working (even with the buff its useless), DS needs reworking too because every anti tunnelling perk feels useless in their current state.
0 -
DH just has to be changed to prevent lose lose situations at pallets for the Killer.
I would go one step further to say that using it “offensively” to get hook saves or bodyblock might need some balancing too.
2 -
Scott plays both sides about the same amount. Watch it. It is super relevant to everything in this thread.
0 -
Using it offensively for hooksaves and body blocks is SUPER high risk, if you call it then you have a hooked guy and a downed guy at his feet. This can single-handedly win you the game if you choose to camp both (which you should, since they handed you the opportunity on a platter.)
Tbh my consideration in wanting dead hard gone isn't even balance. It's just that I don't think it's a fun thing to have. Similar as to how gen kick perks are more about being anti-fun rather than being imbalanced. If it really was about balance to me I'd only play deathslinger because that just deletes dead hard from the game lol.
2 -
Scott, does not play for absolute victory, he doesn't care about wins or losses, I'm not saying that he is not objective, he just plays for fun, he can find interest in a weak perk, he also claimed that Circle of Healing is too strong a perk , Hyperfocus needs a nerf, for him a strong perk is one that does not need to be used and everything works automatically. He doesn't play on generators or tunneling, he loses most of his matches due to "well balanced" DH, lack of tunneling or camping in certain situations, like I said, he plays for fun, for content, I am his subscriber, I'm happy for him, but we are not discussing his point of view here, since his point of view can hardly be called the point of view of a normal player.
He said that the old deadhard allowed to fully finish the attacks, but why is that bad? The survivor managed to get into the pallet and die in it, you still had a possible bloodlust, you didn’t slow down quickly moved away from the cooldown when you missed, everything is on your side, now you hit and lose everything. He said in the video that it's still about ping, not everyone has a server, you know, and it doesn't always throw you on a good server nearby, so if you don't hit a person in advance, you may lose the chance to hit at all. Sometimes survivors deadhard early and I see the end of the animation and hit and hit the DH like they don't have 0.5 seconds, but 1 second it lasts.
Waiting for dead hurd is not fun, waiting for DH is wasting precious time, which the killers already have so little.
0 -
There are so many options. Just miss on purpose if you can't help it otherwise. That's 1.5s CD and it works also on cheaters. Or 6m if you want to count distance. Much less then any other exhaustion. This does not even count situations where you just pure outplay that thing. Also most of the time I watch him, he wins most of his games. On wraith no less.
0 -
I mean, this perk needs serious changes. Survivors are complaining about Eruption that disables them for 25 seconds but also are running DH which extends chase for 25 seconds.
In my opinion:
Dead Hard: Grants 8% Haste status effect for 1 second and causes exhaustion for 40 seconds. ( no longer will be used to mitigate hit but only for slight amount of distance so you are almost as fast as spirit is )
Eruption: Causes affected gens to explode losing 9% of it's total progress, starts to regress ( instead of 10% ) and blocks the gen for 25 seconds. Survivors who are working on it will additionaly scream, and injured ones will be incapacitated for next 20 seconds. ( making incapacitation affect only injured survivors will be punishment for gens before friends ) Perk has 30 seconds cooldown.
2 -
well this whole post is a joke.
Ok let's nerf DH - it's time duration will be 0.495s instead of 0.5s. Let's nerf eruption. New eruption will cause explosion that regresses the gen by 2,5% and survivors can't repair it during the animation.
1 -
Dead Hard is bad for the game.
5 -
He wins on these killers, all right, but between the lines, he says that on killers against whom you need to press DH use only monkey brain, namely against Huntress he no longer plays for the reason that the perk is too strong against such killers. In essence, he says that you can play as other killers and everything will be fine. But what about the ones who aren't as good at Blight as MomoSeventh or the Nurse not as strong as SupaAlf, the Huntresses who aren't as good at throwing hatchets as Coconut? Just eat DH and smile?
I play for Nemesis, for example, he didn’t stand close to the listed killers, I also play for Bubba and the old Dead Hurd was just sawn, now the surviving wounded can run the pallet and I know for sure that if he doesn’t drop it, he died, so he owes it drop, but uses DH and does not drop the pallet.
0 -
As I said before, you can nerf at least half of the killer perks, I agree, I completely agree if DH is never in the game.
1 -
Take away OC + CoB + eruption completely and you can take DH away. These 3 killer perks carry some killers waaaay more then healthy. Killer couldn't catch that survivor in 40s? No problem. Just abandon chase and go kick gens. You will have another try without risking anything.
2 -
we definitely dont need exhaustion buffs
0 -
CoB is totally fine on its own.
2 -
So it's generally divine, I don't like to kick generators, I'm more focused on chases, I use gift of pain, pain res, POP, jolt more often. Which petition to sign to remove these four perks?
2 -
On it's own I agree. But there's no limitation that prevents you from taking other regression perks
0 -
As a low-skill person who just came back to main knight and play the rift, not only did the rework surprise me, but I also dont like that, even in lower levels, DH can force me to either miss a hit intentionally, or attack into DH, as long as the survivor just reacts semi-well enough to my attack windup.
That on higher levels using it to get pallet stuns etc. is more prominent and, obviously, more pressing, is clear, but even to me it feels weird.
Maybe it'll be easier to play around once the animation isn't just the surv ducking slightly lower, but at the moment, at least from my PoV, it just encourages tunneling whoever has it, so I dont need to play around it, or suffer a 3 healthstate surv every 40 seconds.
1 -
Just delete it at this point
1 -
I wish they'd give it the eruption treatment.
3 -
I don't understand this argument. "We have something OP because the other side has something OP."
Can't they both just be, you know, OP and in need of change?
1 -
Yes but the devs don’t want to change the nurse sadly. They mentioned it in recent patch notes.
0
