Eruption: a Monkey's paw.

I wanted to make a post like this for a while, and given the perk is going to get a nerf now seems like the time to do it. The Monkey's paw is a magical wishing item that gets you exactly what you want, but you'll regret it. Have the nicest meal ever, now everything else tastes bland in comparison, most attractive person ever, now everyone is harassing you all the time, want a large sum of cash, now the tax men are investing your magically made money. You get exactly what you want.

I mention this because a couple of times in the games life span I feel like they're builds that are monkey paws and eruption is one of them. A player starts playing nemesis for the first time and wishes to their monkey's paw "oh I wish to do well with this new killer", the paw guides them to a build. Overcharge, Call of Brine and Eruption. They equip it and look up a guide, they've heard of this before but now they're playing a killer they have access to this build on. Seems easy, defend a 3 gen, look for the ones that are closest and don't leave.

They do this, and it works amazingly. They refine the strategy defending 4 gens, tunnelling to make it harder to break later and camping in the middle of them. They are unbeatable. They decide to expand their strategies "pain res and dms is a good combo with nemesis' zombies right? I'll try that", gets demolished. Corrupt and deadlock eviscerated. NOED and No way out not even a chance. They conclude "I'm good at nemesis oh look at my results nay, it's the builds that are the problem. Survivors are too strong and only the best of the best can compete, obviously these other options are too inferior I must go back and hope one day the devs will listen to my prayers and nerf swf".

Fundamentally however, they weren't good at nemesis. They never wished to be good at nemesis they asked to do well as him, and the paw provided. They never learnt to not rely on pallet 50/50s for tentacle hits, how to efficiently manage gaining infection in the early game or how to hit those riskier tentacles. They learnt to 3 gen instead and that's all they learnt because at the end of the day it doesn't matter the killer you play, 3 genning wins either way.

I say this mostly out of anecdotal experience. As this meta developed I saw more and more killers, namely nemesis players because eruption is his perk, who clearly didn't understand the killer. I would personally consider my self an old good nemesis players from playing him religiously for about 3 months before the shakeup, I retain the knowledge and experience although I will admit my mechanicals skills are a bit rusty, and a lot of these players clearly don't understand how you play nemesis well and are quite frankly bad with the killer. They still win however because they understand 3 gens and with this build, on a killer who can just be a M1 killer, that's all you really need. I've also seen this on other killers, weirdly Weskers but he is quite popular so that could be why, and ultimately I feel like this bad for people to learn. People like to say perks like NOED are crutches that bad killers learn to rely on but so is the eruption gen kick build. You saw the same with old undying where people had no idea what chases to commit to or how to win them, but if they didn't commit to any while ruin was up and distracted survivors they'd still have enough pressure to win eventually which allowed them to win often enough that they were never forced to learn anything else. This is what lead to what I found to be a stereotype of ruin, undying, tinkerer blights who couldn't use their power in case but won by running to the gens with ruin all the time occasionally getting a hit with the undetectable.

I do wonder if these people are the same people who think you need eruption builds to beat good survivors, that it's impossible otherwise or if they're unrelated groups. I also don't want it to feel like I'm saying anyone who uses eruption is bad, I've seen many people who are good with their killers use these builds and what I described is more of the exception than the rule but one that stands out like a sore thumb. I find these builds happen more on killer as with survivor, although they're rare either way, as it's a lot harder to do well without the fundamentals of your survivor, which is the fundamentals of survivor, while what I'm saying are people who don't understand the fundamentals of their specific killer, which is unique. The main ones that stand out are old ruin + undying, pre-nerf NOED (although this part still exists a bit) and current gen kicking as these "crutch" builds that halt peoples learning of their killers.

To end this I would like to talk about a common factor between these. With the exception of eruption, one perk of the 3 commonly used on the build, none of these perks ever ask for downs or hooks or even an injure. You could buy yourself time with no requirement essentially and ultimately this is what leads to the problems. Why learn to get downs and manage your pressure when you can get all the pressure you need at no cost, with the time it buys you'll eventually get a down even if you can't use your power. Even with eruption you can apply it as many gens at once without needing a down or any time so when you do get a down you get insane amounts of time from it regardless of how much it cost you. I do hope BHVR strays away from making perks like these too strong, easier said than done. Although I do have issues with some more snowbally perks like pain res ultimately I wouldn't say it leads to unhealthy meta games or bad tendencies in players like these other options did and is a fine perk to have at the forefront of the meta going forwards.