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How To Nerf Dead Hard (Productively)
The rework that Dead Hard received in the 6.1.0 update was certainly enough to ensure the perk is no longer absurdly overpowered or deeply unhealthy for the game, but that's not to say the perk is in the best spot it possibly could be. There are still some minor issues with it, and it's still clearly a lot more appealing than most other Exhaustion perks, and it's not necessarily hard to see why.
There is precisely one balance problem to fix with Dead Hard, and that's the way it's played around pallets. It doesn't take much skill or timing to force a killer into a partial lose/lose where they either swing into your Dead Hard, or they get pallet stunned- they may still get something out of that exchange either way, but I still consider it a problem, largely because it's just an obnoxious and stale way to use this otherwise well-designed perk. The way I would fix it is as follows:
For a period of [x] seconds after Dead Hard is used, whether it was successful or not, you cannot drop a pallet. Similar to Doctor's Pacified effect, I think that a use of Dead Hard should prevent you from interacting with pallets immediately afterwards, for long enough that the killer has plenty of time to secure the hit on you if you use it too early. This would force survivors to time their Dead Hard properly, and choose between getting a stun or using their Endurance, because they cannot use both at once. This would also encourage players to use Dead Hard out in the open, to bail themselves out of deadzones or just to buy a little more time- a place where the actual interaction with the perk is at its highest for both sides. I don't think this should be too long, just a couple seconds or so- maybe three at most?
In terms of pure balance, that's all Dead Hard really needs. There is a second thing to consider, though, and that's pickrate- Dead Hard is common! Not as common as it was pre-rework, but still the most-picked Exhaustion perk. I would argue the reason is simple: A lot of players prefer playing aggressively, and most of the Exhaustion perks are geared towards breaking a chase instead of staying in one with a potential third health state. This isn't inherently a problem, but DH is also quite good at breaking chase too if you want to use it that way, which in my opinion gives the perk just a little bit too much versatility, especially considering it's competing with perks that have less.
To fix this, I propose a simple change: Reduce the speed boost gained from a successful use of Dead Hard. Not remove it entirely, that'd make the perk worthless, but reduce it a little- similar to, but more impactful than, the Hindered you get from a Nemesis hit that imparts Infection without damaging. This would put Dead Hard more in its niche of being the aggressive, chase-oriented Exhaustion perk, while encouraging players who want the safety of breaking chase towards the other perks that are more geared towards it.
That's it. Minor tweaks, that's all the perk needs!
Comments
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Idk. While I would like to see it be less obnoxious at pallets this doesn't do anything about how potent it is against certain special attacks, especially ranged ones but some other ones too, and it still keeps the waiting game fully intact. I really think it just needs to do something else, the game just isn't designed around survivors being able to "parry" a killer's attack on demand.
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I'd rather it be earned somehow so it doesn't have 100% uptime whenever you're injured. Unhooks. Gen progress. Healing others. Something to make it earned.
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That's because there isn't anything wrong with the 'waiting game'. Some people just don't like it, and others are more put out because they see it every game. If it were nerfed carefully to be less versatile, you'd (hopefully) see it picked less, meaning those who don't like baiting it out wouldn't have to deal with it as often. There's nothing wrong with perks that actually have interactions like this, most of the Exhaustion perks are just "they run away, break chase".
As for how it is against ranged attacks, in most cases I don't know that there's much wrong with that either. If you get less distance for being hit, pretty much all of those killers can just... hit you again, so this change helps there too.
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I Aggreed. The fact that DH has a very beneficial benefit of being ghe only perk on demand, gives Survivors bit more control of the perk then many other exhaustion Perks.
Sprint Burst: You need to be walking or 99% your exhaustion and stop running for a second.
Lithe: You need a window and Pallet and do any type of vaulting.
Balance Landing: You need to find a feet feet of a drop, like a hill, second floor window, or Killer Shack's basement from the side.
Smash Hit: You need pallet slam the killer (most difficult to do, if killer respect pallets all the time)
Head On: Jump in a locker for 3 seconds, wait for killer to be within locker range, and fast exit the locker.
Meanwhile, Dead Hard is simply: Get Injured/Broken; better not be mending; and tap the action button just as the killer attacks by any means. This can be done specially in the almost every scenario in a chase. You looping a pallet, and you are not going to make it. Tap the action button. You are looping L/T wall and cannot make the window or you got mind game. Tap the action button. You are in the middle of a deadzone and you want to rick roll and 360 the killer and hope he miss or confident that the killer will down you. Just TAP THE ACTION button. It is on demand Exhaustion for every scenario while always being injured.
It rubs me the wrong as killer that any decent Survivors can still vault the window or drop the pallet, when I wait it out and manage to hit them early or late; and they can still used it and tank a hit. Which is why it would be sort of nice if you get like 1 seconds of Incapacitated or anything that has to do with preventing any form of interaction with pallets/windows
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I don't think having to wait for DH on any survivor who hasn't already used a different exhaustion perk is healthy. Even if it can be effective at getting survivors to fail their DH, it wastes a lot of time even when DH isn't actually there at all. Killers would still wait it out (where possible) unless DH were made so weak that it was brought as often as MoM, at which point it's probably near useless and might as well just be reworked.
Gaining less distance would help against special attacks, sure, but it doesn't prevent DH's uncounterable nature against some of them. It's still an extra health state and gaining less distance doesn't do much if, for example, Huntress throws a mid-range or long-range hatchet at a survivor and hits them right before they're about to get around a corner, but they use DH and are now making it around the corner no matter how much (or how little) distance the perk provides. If the Huntress anticipates the DH and doesn't throw the hatchet, well now they're making it around the corner anyway and just have to hold W. The other easy example is Knight and his guards. Even if I get less distance from DH, it doesn't change that I can just DH into his guard to essentially just kill the guard on command.
Point being, it can still be a guaranteed chase-extender regardless of how much distance it gives you.
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I think it's not good that Al is getting down for knight so dh agains't that is only good thing. He is anyway only killer without counterplay. Unless you count holding W as long as you can counterplay...
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The guards aren't getting reliable hits or downs unless the survivor is making massive misplays. Dead hard severely neuters his power by giving survivors an on-demand speed boost that the knight cannot wait out. It's unfair and feels much like how it feels when your hatchet gets ignored.
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EXCUSE ME! DO YOU KNOW WHAT BLOOD FAVOR IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT BLOOD ECHO IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Well, hi.
Yes, I do. I'm not sure the relevance, mind explaining?
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Knight does have counterplay, it's just boring counterplay. He still needs more changes, but I'm not really sure how to fix him properly without a complete ground-up rework.
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Maybe bit unfair agains't huntress as you have to aim the hatchet but you can at least wait bit before throwing them most survivors can't react if you're enough close and usually they try to predict. Knight just places quard and Al does the job for him so I think the guards should not be able to down survivors only injure and cause deep wound or it should require more hits like nemesis tentacle.
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You're absolutely correct. Knight should simply not have a power versus injured survivors. For hand wavey "AI" reasons. Brilliant suggestion.
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knight can counter the dh into guard by double hitting the survivor if he is in range.
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I would argue the current speedboost is okay so I have an alternative solution to fix DH: The perk shouldn't work against insta down powers like Billy's chainsaw. It's ridiculous that you can tank through that (BT should be the exception).
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These perks turn dead hard off anyways also I would argue that dead hard needs to be set to 1 full second instead of half a sec because killer latency is usually bad. They gave flashlights a .4 sec difference because of latency the same needs to happen for dead hard since there are a lot of people who attempt to play this game without good internet and who cannot afford it, which is fine but they need to compensate for the difference like they have for flashlight saves.
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Dead Hard should be completely nerfed, so it's dead and buried. Dead hard should be nerfed with the same energy and intensity as eruption. We were promised a meta shakeup, and dead hard is by far the most complained about survivor perk.
The dead hard change clearly wasn't harsh enough, because it's still the number 1 exhaustion perk. It's time to mega nerf the perk, so we can finally get the meta shakeup we were promised.
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I don't think I really need to grace the idea that any perk, including Eruption, should be intentionally left dead and buried with an answer. This isn't 6.1.0, there's no reason for that.
As for it being the number 1 Exhaustion perk, I touched on that in my post. I don't think it's number 1 because it's the strongest - in fact, personally, I don't think it is the strongest at all - but because it's something you use aggressively. The only problem with that, outside of its use at pallets, is that it's also pretty good at letting you break chase too, so forcing it further into its niche should lead to fewer people taking it.
Side note, it's clearly silly to hinge the success of the meta shakeup on one perk. If that's the case, we already achieved our meta shakeup, survivors don 't run Iron Will anymore.
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But eruption was nerfed so badly that it is dead and buried, so dead hard should get the same treatment. The most complained about killer perk got buried, so let's do the same with the most complained about survivor perk.
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Do you think, sincerely, that the nerf Eruption is slated to get is good for the game? Is that an attitude you want carried through towards more perks, killer and survivor both?
This isn't rhetorical, for the record, I'm actually curious. In your view, is the Eruption nerf healthy?
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Nah, a better solution to Dead Hard is...Separate Endurance Qualities into two effects
Flight = Speed boost after a damaging hit, after unhook or from regular Exhaustion Perks.
Endurance or Braced = the Ability to take a hit without going down, Dead Hard and after unhook.
Dead Hard keeps Endurance, but you dont get to have a speedboost AND a hit negation.
This should easily bring Dead Hard down to level with other Exhaustion Perks.
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I honestly think the double standard of the way killers and survivors are treated, is much more damaging to the game, than how one side is treated by itself. And since I want dead hard dead and buried, it's fair for me to be ok with eruption being dead and buried.
And when I first heard of the meta shakeup, dead hard was the only perk I was looking forward to getting "shaken up", but that never happened. I'm still dealing with it every game. And I'm still being told that certain killers I play should just stop using their powers, and walk into point blank range instead, and that is unfun, especially when a killer has a slower movement speed because they are expected to use their power in chase.
And the official reason for the eruption nerf was that it was way more oppressive against some survivors than other survivors. And dead hard is the exact same situation for killers. Dead hard is absolutely miserable for killers like Trickster and Huntress, but the perk is an absolutely joke for Legion since they can just feral frenzy any survivor that isn't in deep wounds, and then use there frenzy movement speed to counter the speed boost the survivor gets.
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Well, I commend you for having a consistent position, then, sincerely.
However, I disagree. Dead Hard shouldn't be butchered, and neither should Eruption, they should both be given tweaks that amend their problematic areas. Eruption just needed the Incapacitated removed, there was no reason to mess with its regression numbers, and Dead Hard just needs to not work at pallets the way it does + maybe give less of a speed boost so survivors can't use it to break chase.
That, or they should both get 100% different but still viable effects. There's very rarely a good excuse for butchering perks.
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Nurse just got triple nerfed, and now she's so miserable to play that I stopped playing her even though she was one of my main characters for a long time. But I don't see survivors complaining that she didn't deserve the new chase music, that's so loud and full of thud noises, that survivors instantly go silent when they break line of sight.
And that is BHVR's new attitude. When survivors complained about eruption and Nurse, new BHVR slammed them full of nerfs instead of taking one step at a time. BHVR could have easily just have changed Nurse's M1 to a special attack, without slamming the addons and slamming the chase music. But they didn't. They decided to just triple nerf her instead.
So now it's fair to demand equal treatment of the survivor role, and for their most obnoxious perk to get an extreme nerf.
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I feel like you're missing the point. Nothing should be slammed with enough nerfs to make it unplayable, and Nurse's chase music should be adjusted if it's that big of a problem. Though, obviously, just losing the OP stuff didn't even knock her out of the S tier, so there's no reason to complain about the blink attacks or addons.
You aren't at war with survivor players. There aren't actually sides. The game just gets changes, and they can be good changes or bad changes. One bad change doesn't mean we should start demanding more bad changes.
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You’re missing the point that BHVR absolutely did overnerf eruption and Nurse. We are no longer discussion if BHVR should be doing these things. These things are already happening and set in stone, and now it’s survivors turn for overnerfs.
And let’s be honest that when survivors say “I didn’t want eruption nerfed :that bad:” most of them are really saying “I don’t want dead hard nerfed, so I’m pretending to care about killer perks”. Survivors really aren’t making an effort to petition BHVR to overturn the eruption nerf, because deep down they wanted eruption to be buried. Did you see what some of the survivor suggestions for eruption were? Some of the suggestions were completely destroying the perk. This is what survivors wanted as a whole, and it’s what they got.
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Again, there aren't sides here. There are individual commenters with bias, but the changes BHVR implement ultimately still just boil down to being changes to the same game.
BHVR are set to overnerf Eruption, yes. That would be a bad thing. If it goes through, and they do overnerf Eruption (reminding me to make a post about it, actually, it's kinda buried under the new chapter stuff understandably), that would mean they made a bad decision. It's not exactly helpful, productive, or reasonable to start clamouring for them to make a second bad decision in the name of balancing it out- because that won't balance it out, it'll just add more bad decisions to the pile.
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Burying dead hard would be good for the game though. When perk counterplay involves telling certain killers to completely stop using their powers, then you have a miserable perk that needs to be buried. When perk counterplay involves telling all killers to completely stop using their lunge, then you have a miserable perk that needs to be buried.
Honestly, the only nerf suggestion people made so far that would be good enough, is having the perk deactivated for the rest of the trial if it's successfully used. The other suggestions still don't fix the fact that new dead hard is way more miserable than old dead hard, for killers like Trickster and Huntress. And there was a time on the PTB, where survivors couldn't throw a pallet until 0.5 seconds after a missed dead hard, and there was so much complaining that BHVR removed the 0.5 second missed recovery time.
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Well, first of all, it should be acknowledged that this is a totally new argument and not the one you were making a second ago, but to address it--
The most you could say with that reasoning is that Dead Hard should be reworked, and that's assuming everything you're saying is 100% accurate and beyond contradiction. What it doesn't do is justify saying the perk should be intentionally made worthless, because that's a very hard sell; outside of last-resort big overhauls for very specific purposes, like 6.1.0 was, there's basically no good reason to ever do that.
Total rework for a new, viable, useful effect is something I wouldn't exactly personally call for, but wouldn't object to either. That's a fair and reasonable angle to take. Calling for it to be buried out of self-admitted spite over changes made to ""your side"" of the game isn't.
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So when a bunch of survivors demanded massive nerfs for eruption and Nurse, that wasn't a hard sell... but when killers demand massive nerfs for dead hard, that is a hard sell?
Dead hard needs to be reworked so it's not a third health state, on demand, that can be used multiple times per match. And the perk itself is a total mess, because it's so overly reliant on game latency and extremely fast survivor reflexes, that its value can range from absolutely useless, to completely oppressive. The perk shouldn't be unreliable garbage if the killer has bad ping, and it also shouldn't be completely oppressive against certain killers when the game latency and survivor reflexes are both great.
So yes, a rework of dead hard would be fine, but a rework really should focus on making the perk more useful when the game latency isn't perfect, and the rework really should focus on making the perk less useful when the game latency and survivor reflexes are both great.
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Man you just can't stop yourself from continually trying to make out like there's sides in some kind of conflict here...
So, when a bunch of players demanded massive nerfs for Nurse, that wasn't a hard sell. She needed them, and she's in a healthier spot now, sans her chase music. When a bunch of players demanded massive nerfs for Eruption, that in general isn't a hard sell because it was blatantly overpowered, but the specific changes it's slated to get are because they're too much. We already went over this, I'm not sure why it's being brought up again.
Seems like we've come to an agreement about a rework being reasonable where "burying" isn't, at least!
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There is one very simple way to make DH reward good play and not allow three health states.
If you activate DH then you are broken for the rest of the game.
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What would be the point of bringing Dead Hard in that scenario, though?
Like, you get to avoid one down, and then it does nothing. How is that meaningfully different from just making it single-use? What's the benefit of bringing Dead Hard, in this scenario? At least No Mither gives you free Iron Will and infinite Unbreakable.
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BHVR turned this into an us vs them situation, when they refused to comment at all about killer quality of life improvements and accessibility changes for over a year. BHVR could easily just say "hey, we're focusing on survivor quality of life improvements and accessibility changes, but we'll eventually do the same for killers". But we don't even get that! We get absolutely zero communication on whether or not they ever plan on helping killers with their quality of life and accessibility issues. For all we know, the plan is to look at the kill rate after a few months, and give killers generic buffs like "2% longer attack lunge", that moves the kill rate back where it should be, but doesn't help the killer experience at all.
Is this really a unreasonable request? Is it really unreasonable to request for BHVR to make a simple comment that they will eventually get to killer quality of life improvements and accessibility changes? They don't even need to commit on a timeframe. Just a simple "we care about you too" post. Because we can't even get that.
Meanwhile, survivors get an improved HUD, an additional buff to the HUD, promises of a visual terror radius, overnerfed nurse, and overnerfed eruption.... and just silence for killers. Did the eruption nerf really need to happen before the next major perk change patch, so it could happen at the same time as survivor perk changes? Is anyone concerned that I'm getting 10 second killer queues in the middle of the day, which used to be completely unheard of?
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"-What would be the point of bringing Dead Hard in that scenario, though?"
You could play hurt and still have two health states for every chase with a skillful DH. Also you will have three health states in the first chase. This would allow you to blast generators while hurt and potentially not be punished for it.
-"At least No Mither gives you free Iron Will and infinite Unbreakable."
But look how popular that perk is - some survivors will quit immediately on seeing a team member using it. No Mither is sitting on 0.41% usage.
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Right, but... how is that meaningfully different from repairing generators while healthy and having two health states? That just brings you back up to default again, it doesn't actually provide any value. The only application I could maybe see is Resilience plays, but if you want that action speed, there are better ways of getting it.
As for how popular No Mither is... yeah. Proving my point. No Mither actually provides value for this tradeoff, and people don't use it. There would be literally no reason to bring a perk that just makes you Broken but you have a second health state some of the time if you're super on point with timing and the killer makes no effort to stop it.
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I'm not seeing anything relevant to the discussion here, so I think we'll have to go our separate ways from this point.
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-"how is that meaningfully different from repairing generators while healthy and having two health states? That just brings you back up to default again, it doesn't actually provide any value."
I am guessing you kind of missed the part where you can play hurt and not bother about healing. That's a lot of time saved. Also as you say it very clearly makes Resilience extremely easy to use.
If dead hard allows you to gain three health states when using it for any situation other than its first use then it is in a broken state. The legitimate problem with DH is that it can easily add +20 seconds in a chase because you have to hit someone three times. But sometimes it will allow you to loop for an extra 40 seconds.
That isn't fair in terms of what you get with any other exhaustion perk.
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Hmm, maybe... but in order for that to be value and not still worse off than without the perk, you'd need to give it some form of stealth so you aren't super loud. Because otherwise, playing injured with occasional Endurance to maybe give you a second health state some of the time depending on what killer and killer build you're facing is... a net negative, regardless of how much time you're saving on healing- which isn't even that much, considering how quick and reliable healing is right now.
And at that point, a perk that makes you Broken in exchange for some stealth buffs + a secondary effect is treading on No Mither's toes, and I don't know that that's a good thing.
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With the changes to iron will you either run IW or an exhaustion perk. People said I was dumb for running IW for 5 years and caught on to how good it was in year 6 when everyone was doing it.
So while I appreciate good stealth play - that era is removed from DBD. Without the mist to block sight past 20m stealth is just dead.
DH without a nerf to remove the "third health state" is never going to fix the problem.
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Perk will probably never be touched again ,it's already good enough
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...What?
Stealth isn't dead, one of the strongest builds in the game is a stealth build and there are a ton of serviceable stealth perks in the roster. That's a weird take, and it's one that doesn't even connect to the post you're responding to.
The point of bringing up stealth is that "playing hurt" is a net negative for you here. You're louder, easier to track, and only have what would be an inconsistent potential second health state to make up for it- which wouldn't even be a net positive if it were 100% reliable and uncounterable, that'd just be worse off than having two regular health states. Nobody would run that perk, and so it's not meaningfully different to just burying it for the sake of never wanting to see it again. Even with the built-in Iron Will and blood stifling effects of No Mither added on to your idea, I struggle to think of any reason someone would want to run this version of Dead Hard outside of doing Adept David challenges- it's just a net negative for them.
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Stealth is a thing vs noob killers. It's not once you get to a certain level of play. You pressure with things like yo-yo movement as Otz calls it where you pre-run when the killer shifts to your generator.
Every now and then you can make a stealth play but the maps are different without the thick fog. I will post a picture from a friend to show you.
Tell me how you want to nerf DH so that it doesn't let you have three health states in a chase.
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id just completely nerf it the way they nerf killer perks:
press e when injured to gain a 2% haste for 3 seconds, become exhausted for 40/50/60 seconds
done, completely useless
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Again, the suggestion for stealth was to offset the downside that your suggestion would push onto a survivor. If that downside isn't offset, the perk is a net negative for you with absolutely zero upsides that couldn't be achieved by just choosing not to heal without the perk equipped. It really just seems like making it single use with extra steps, and if that is what you want, it'd be smoother for everyone to just say so.
I've already said how I'd nerf it, that's what the thread is about.
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"For a period of [x] seconds after Dead Hard is used, whether it was successful or not, you cannot drop a pallet."
You're forgetting one key part of the doctor limitation : you cannot vault either.
Your idea would make it so most people would not use DH. The smart use of this perk is to use it around obstacles where the killer must either choose to swing during a timed event window.
Your change does nothing to address "the third health state". As I said before either give DH a broken effect on use OR give it some kind of negative so that healing with that perk is a huge waste of time.
It would read something like : healing actions on you take +100% longer with DH equipped.
DH once per game would be fine. We suggested this years ago as well.
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Eh, I don't really think Dead Hard near windows is as much of a problem, so I'm kind of ambivalent on that restriction being there too. It wouldn't hurt or anything, but DH at windows is dramatically easier to counter and not quite as useful even if you swing into it since it forces a slow vault, so... not as necessary. If that's how they chose to implement it, though, no complaints from me.
As for people still using it, of course they would, they'd use it to be more aggressive in chase and take extra risks. Dead Hard with my changes would still allow you to bail yourself out of a deadzone if your timing is good, and it'd still work against certain killer powers without being quite as powerful. It would be a perk with a clear niche, but people would hopefully start considering other Exhaustion perks for something other than what Dead Hard is meant to provide.
I'm not aiming to change the "third health state" possibility, because I like the idea of that being your reward for taking risks. If the risk breaks against you, rather than in your favour, you not only get no extra health state, you're downed. That should be a meaningful risk, and that's why I'm taking aim at the things that prevent it from being so.
DH once per match would, again, make nobody ever run it. There'd be no niche for a perk like that. It's just a Styptic Agent but worse, and taking up a whole perk slot. Unless you mean old Dead Hard once per match, and call me crazy but I think an uncounterable and overpowered effect is bad even if you only get to use it once.
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I would be fine with old dead hard that only worked once per match, because I honestly think old dead and and new dead hard are both overpowered, and I honestly don't think new dead hard is "more fair" than old dead hard.
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I agree. The only reason people defend DH is because it’s a crutch perk that they’ve become extremely reliant on and nerfing it would force them to play more cautiously. Nerfing it again would be a healthy change for the game.
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stealth kinda is dead. nowhere to hide and BBQ are perks that weaken stealth. your forced to run distortion in current dbd if you want to stealth from the killer. Otz description of yoyo is what I describe as pre-hold shift-w from generators. Its more rewarding to pre-hold shift w at generator then risk being undetected. A lot of the game's direction regarding stealth has been centralized around SWF-level play because time efficiency and loop strength in the game.
They gave strong information perks because knowing where survivor is weak advantage in the game because of the loop balance in the game and generator efficiency. Their solution to making killer camp less is giving killer more information perks so they can transition from chase to chase more easily but the by product of this is that it kills stealth for survivor. This encourages survivor to hold-w pre-chase near generators instead of hiding around since hiding around is risk while hold-w is not a risk.
the argument is though that survivor do not need stealth to win because swf can communicate where the killer is at near 100% up-time and pallet loops are so time consuming that a killer wasting time searching around is game-losing for the killer. that enforces the killer to camp hooks because they cannot find anyone to chase, so their best point of reference is going back to the hook since unhooking is their only base-kit information tool to finding survivors.
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