Legion and Deep Wound History and more!

Legion is a killer that is as popular as they are hated. Most of this hatred from the survivors' side is from the status effect they inflict, Deep Wound. Deep Wound is a mechanic intrinsically tied to Legion since their inception and has been reviled for as long, albeit for different reasons.

I'm going to walk you through some of the histories of Legion, Deep Wound, why Legion needs Deep Wound as a mechanic, and more. Why? It's late a night, I'm bored, and with the countless requests for Legion's Deep Wound to be removed/changed, I thought it apt to explain why it exists.

Before Legion

Before the release of the Legion in 2.4.0, there was no "Deep Wound." However, we possessed the perk "Borrowed Time" that had its unique Bleed Out Timer.

This was during the older days of DBD, so things weren't as polished (which is saying a lot). A killer could keep going for you, you'd bleed out, and they'd hook you again. You still wasted the killer's time, you probably had wiggle-based DS back then, and it was a mess for both sides generally. (How this game managed to survive these periods is a miracle)

Original Legion and Deep Wound

Deep Wound

The release of Legion had them replace the Bleed Out timer from BT. Instead, these would instead inflict a status effect known as "Deep Wound" that would bleed the survivor out, but only if they were not being chased. If they were, this timer would be paused, as you prevent the earlier scenarios of dying mid-chase. Mending also did not pause the timer (though you would not die as long as you were still doing/finishing the animation), a timer that was also visible to the killer. Remember these details, because it's important.

The timers were not uniform, however. Legion's timer would be 30 seconds, BT would be 20, and so on. This would continue for some years.

Legion

Legion was a completely different killer back then, second only to Freddy as probably being the killer that has changed the most since their release.

Legion was a 110% or 4.4m/s movement speed killer with a 24m Terror Radius. This meant they could not chase normally, as their lower movement speed made them very weak at loops if played as a basic killer, so they had to rely on their power.

Feral Frenzy would allow them to move faster at 5.28m/s, vault windows faster, and vault pallets, and their attacks in Frenzy would inflict Deep Wound. If you had Deep Wound applied, they would partially deplete the timer by -10 seconds per strike basekit (this could be increased to -15 seconds with Frank's Mixtape).

After hitting a survivor, any survivor that does not have Deep Wound applied would be revealed with Killer Instinct (another mechanic Legion brought into the game) if they were within the Legion's Terror Radius, something that was also increased by 8m while in Frenzy. This makes up for the fact that Legion could not see scratch marks, although he could see blood.

Playstyle in theory

Legion was a unique beast. He couldn't chase normally, his power required you to hit a survivor several times to get a down, and survivors had few options to actually stop a Legion in Frenzy. What was the idea here?

Tunnelling the save survivor was meant to be a terrible idea. You'd chase them, their timer would pause, and it would take forever. Instead, you were meant to hit them and let them go, potentially chaining more hits.

You let them go, but don't forget about them. Instead, once you're done, you would attempt to track one of the survivors you hit down. With your smaller Terror Radius, you could ambush one of the survivors you injured with their partially depleted timer, hit them again, and either kill them or have them almost dead.

This was Legion, capable of injuring multiple survivors and then trying to ambush them to finish them off. Survivors (in theory) could counter this by keeping an eye out, covering their tracks, getting VERY far away, and doing their best to make dying take as long as possible.

Reality is often disappointing

Legion was terrible. There's no way to sugarcoat this. He was abysmal.

His Frenzy lasted 6 seconds, so brief that it couldn't chain effectively. Without the ability to chain and his lower speed, his only option was to tunnel out survivors.

To this end, Legions would exploit the chase mechanics. They chase the survivor by walking backwards, tricking the game into not considering them in chase, thus depleting the Deep Wound timer. But even with this, especially without add-ons, it still took some time.

So you had a killer that could always get a down unfairly, these downs took too long, an inability to chain hits, and lack of map pressure, and their most effective playstyle involved exploiting the game's mechanics.

The First Rework

Legion was reviled and they were quickly given a rework. Rather than separating Legion from Deep Wound, balancing the two mechanics separately, the devs decided to keep the relationship and change them both.

Deep Wound

This is mostly simple stuff: It paused within the killer's terror radius and killers could no longer see the timer deplete, just a full bar to know the status effect is applied.

Legion

To make Legion less oppressive, they were given many, many nerfs.

• Frenzy was slower at 5m/s
• vaulting pallets/ windows were slowed (1.35 seconds for pallets and 1.1 seconds for windows)
• Legion could no longer see blood in frenzy,
• Missing an attack ended frenzy immediately (and depleted the entire bar)
• Legion's recovery went from 15 seconds to 20 seconds, alongside a nerf that they needed a full gauge to Frenzy instead of only 25%.
• Fatigue was increased from 3 seconds to 4, and the add-ons to reduce fatigue were nerfed heavily (stacked, they could only lower it back to 3 seconds)
• Their Terror radius was increased to 32m
• Legion could no longer deplete the Deep Wound timer

Yeah, Legion got the nerf hammer hard, despite being a rather weak killer. That's not to say they didn't get any buffs though.

• Movement speed went from 4.4m/s to 4.6m/s
• The 32m Terror Radius also meant their Terror Radius in Frenzy was now 40m. Rather than being a nerf, this made Legion's Terror Radius a very effective detection tool, provided you hit a single survivor first, of course.
• Frenzy's duration was increased from 6 seconds to 10 seconds. Despite the slower speed, this technically meant Legion had an increased range that he could chain hits.

What now?

The rework was a bit half-baked. In hindsight, it screams more of a panic rework cobbled together quickly without being given much thought. Legion had broken the game and the rework was meant to address this, which it did succeed in, even if it left Legion in a very poor state.

Without the ability to get a down, Legion players had to change their playstyle completely. A gameplay loop was developed: use Frenzy to get a free first hit, and then chase normally. If survivors were close together, you'd chain hits.

Chaining was nice, but because Legion was so slow, he was still very bad at it. This isn't even to mention some of the nonsensical add-ons, such as Frank's Mixtape restoring the ability to Deplete the Deep Wound timer but it was so slow that a single down could literally take the entire game.

For a long time, Legion would be left to rot in this miserable state.

Years go by

Deep Wound

Time went on and more changes to Deep Wound followed. The mending time would eventually get reduced to 12 seconds, down from around 15 seconds. Thanks to a certain killer (Freddy) not having a Terror Radius half the game, Deep Wound's timer was changed to always pause while the survivor is running or actively mending.

Eventually, the timer would also be standardized: 20 seconds across the board. Legion's add-ons were adjusted accordingly, so it still took the same amount of time as to not return OG Legion's playstyle.

Buffs and new playstyle

At some point, someone at BHVR threw a bone to Legion, because he was given small but significant buffs that help immensely.

Yeah, survivor mended faster. However, his speed was buffed from 5m/s to 5.2m/s, combined with both his vault speeds being sped up and standardized to 0.9m/s. Especially with duration add-ons giving up to 14 seconds of Frenzy, Legion became very effective at chaining hits.

Legion became the king of hit-and-run. You Frenzy, hit the survivor, and attempt to spread Deep Wound/injuries. To afford you the time to chain hits, Deep Wound would slow the survivor, forcing them to mend. Deep Wound was no longer a lethal tool; it was a threat they would be forced to address, slowing them down.

They still had crippling issues such as their fatigue, add-ons, and lack of lethality, but there was a gameplay loop that could be countered by spreading out, wasn't overly oppressive, and was still fun to play.

To play against, however, was another story. Deep Wound, quite frankly, sucks to go against. Legions could and would go on a mission to chain as many hits as possible. If this was done on a small map with duration add-ons, they would continuously go on a mass chain, hitting a survivor immediately after they finish mending. Survivors could beat this still, so it wasn't technically a hostage situation, but it slowed the game to an absolute crawl. Furthermore, mending consists of doing nothing but watching a bar fill for several seconds, devoid even of skillchecks. It's not like you could do much either, as Legion bypassed conventional survivor defenses, so your only hope was to burn through his duration or make him miss to end the nightmare... which would resume once his Frenzy recovered.

Despite this, Legion's new playstyle became adopted and accepted as the "proper" way to play Legion, even if he continued to be hated by survivors.

Second Rework

Legion was given a second rework, which was more of a continuation of the first one now that both the devs and the community had an idea of where Legion can/should go.

• Legion's ability to chain hits was "capped" at 5 hits. Rather than being a nerf, this was instead a buff as the 5th hit would always down the survivor and end the frenzy. It gave Legion players a reward for chaining, gave survivors a threat to play around (alongside ending forever Frenzy), but was still difficult enough that the hits wouldn't be happening all the time; it required the team to make a major mistake, not a single survivor.
• Legion's recovery now started during their fatigue, akin to Nurse. So their previous effective 24-sec recovery was lowered to just 20.
• Fatigue was reduced back to 3 seconds. Cooldown add-ons were removed entirely, but ask any Legion, it was worth it.
• Legion gained 0.2m/s more speed for every chain hit. This meant that Legion did not require duration to have a chance to chain hits. Add-ons got changed to compensate but it was more than worth it.
• As mentioned, several add-ons were reworked. He no longer had add-ons affecting the deep wound timer. Instead, they were given add-ons that revealed survivors while/after mending, various status effects applied after mending, even one that regresses generators for the duration of their Frenzy.

Legion was now "complete." Their status as a hit-and-run specialist solidified, with Deep Wound buying them the time needed to chain hits while having the side benefit of slowing down any desired heals.

Despite its usage changing, Deep Wound was always essential for Legion to function as a killer. If he did not apply Deep Wound or the timer was changed, this would have drastic ramifications for Legion. He needs Deep Wound to chain hits, or he simply won't work.

With Frenzies being more common, Legions being encouraged to chain more, and being picked more often because they were more enjoyable, survivors continue to nurse a seething hatred for the stabby gang. While they can't do a Forever Frenzy, mending is still extremely boring and can drag a game out, and there's still a major feeling of helplessness when a Legion is chasing you in Frenzy. Unless you get lucky or they make a blunder, you're getting hit. The rest just need to pray they make enough distance.

The idea and hidden relationships

How did any of this happen? What was the insane idea that made anyone to the chain of thought that would lead to the creation of Legion, taking us down this rather rocky road?

From what I could gather from asking current/former devs, at the heart is an idea. "What if a killer had to hit you multiple times to down/injure a survivor." Obviously, a downside that massive needs a major upside, so finding a balance is difficult.

Legion was attempt number one. Deep Wound was their tool and they would deplete it to get the down. This failed spectacularly, they had to salvage what they could until Legion became a completely different killer with Deep Wound serving a different purpose.

Despite this, they never really gave up on the idea. It was put on the shelf but never forgotten. Legion was a cautionary tale of what could happen if done poorly.

Eventually, however, we were given Trickster. He was often compared to Old Legion by players, but this comparison is more apt than they might think. McLean, I believe in a stream, summed up Old Legion as "Melee Trickster." Trickster's attempt at the concept involved rapidly throwing projectiles but needing several to do a health state. On release, he was garbage. He got buffed, and now he's... in a weird place. Regardless, he was a massive improvement over Legion's attempt.

3rd time's the charm, right? Technically, this one is an assumption on my part, but the similarities are so uncanny that I don't believe it's a coincidence. Rather than needing to fill up or deplete some bar, they decided to take a simpler approach: a special health state related to the power. Of course, I'm talking about Nemesis. By design, infection is meant to be a third health state. To balance it out, Neme is given benefits such as chewing through pallets, the short windup, and suffers very little slowdown in holding his power. Granted, you needed to work for this by infecting survivors, but the idea is still there. Regardless of your opinions on Nemesis, he is by far the most "successful" iteration of the concept. From the looks of things, it'll likely remain that way.

Conclusion

I just wasted two hours of my life typing out something I know most of you do not care about. All of this, because I can't sleep. I think I need a better hobby, like reading a book to unwind. Hope you guys learned something though.