The Dead Hard Change is Bad for the Game
Dead Hard will activate after safely unhooking a Survivor. When activated, press the active ability button while injured and running to gain the Endurance Status Effect for 0.5 seconds, then become Exhausted. Dead Hard will deactivate when it successfully protects the user from damage.
I'm sure tons of players are thrilled to hear that Dead Hard is receiving a big nerf. The thing is, current Dead Hard has lots of counterplay. Furthermore, Sprint Burst was already arguably better than Dead Hard anyway.
Even running under the assumption that Dead Hard needed a nerf, this is a very poor way to do it. Bad players will just switch to Sprint Burst. Good players are still going to be able to use the perk very effectively at pallets and in loops to cause major headaches for the killer.
That is, unless the killer uses the very niche strategy of TUNNELING. Instead of going after the player who did the unhook who could have Dead Hard, why not go after the hooked player instead? The hooked player can't have Dead Hard anymore, so what's stopping you?
Regardless of whether Dead Hard needed a nerf or not, this wasn't the way to go about it.
Comments
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devs just play killer they don't care
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If counterplay means baiting it out until you either have to swing or the survivor makes the pallet, then dead hards anyway...
Dead hard is fine in the open, but that's not when it is most used.
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Killer couldn't do anything against Dead Hard when Survivor had at least 1 brain cell... It was the most annoying perk in the game and very unhealthy. Killers couldn't swing... But I agree Sprint Burst is overall better than Dead Hard.
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Dead Hard allowed to make some risky plays along with other survivors and the Killer but since it seemed not to work 50% of the time, this were high risk high reward situations.
The change now makes the Perk not worth playing it since it - if not changed would seem to not work right - becomes like Deliverance which has a very small amount of use cases specially in a SWF.
If Dead Hard is now like the changes are proposed, this will instantly drop the perks value. There is now no trustworthy other second chance perk which allows a player to take a hit exept for `Metal of Man` which tbo no one really uses since you need to heal to take 3 protection Hits or you go down. In combination with the buff of Boon: Circle of Healing is now obsolete as well.
I would propose to change Dead Hard in a way that Killers can counter it better than "just bait and wait it out".
My Idea would be if you run back at the killer that this now wont work. since this would make it significantly harder to evade the killer.
or
In exchange for the Endurance status effect we reintroduce the Dead Hard Dash. This will give you a specific amount of distance and then make you exhausted much like overcome. It would counter the ability to get away with taking a Hit and vault a Window or "camp" a Pallet. It would just give you the right amout of distance to evade the killers swing.
In adition what isnt clear in the Developer Post is, if you used Dead Hard once, then unhook another Survivor will it bring back the ability to Dead Hard or dose this reduce the ability to evade one potential Hit.
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They can if you're either not playing M1s and trying to bait DHs.
Also, enjoy 99 SB meta and how that affects M1 Killers, and then making complaints on how "you shouldn't have to switch to Mindbreaker to counter it (easily)".
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Dont be mad that bHVR finally took a look at DH and saw it for the monster it is.
Yes. bHVR is killing it and killing it hard. They went even harder than my own suggestions as a Dead Hard hater.
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One point of clarification: Am I correct to assume that, since it says Dead Hard deactivates if it protects you from damage, you don't lose the chance to use it if you flub it (exhaustion aside)?
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As far as I'm reading it - yes.
If you use it but the killer misses/or did it by accident but get your exhaustion back, you can use it again. If it protects you from a hit, you need to unhook someone to re-activate it.
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Could the changes benefit from fitting it to the same requirements as WGLF by making it a safe unhook OR taking a protection hit? I'm fine with an additional qualifier to the perk but it would be nice to have other options to work for, and it would be in line with David's other perk.
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Thank you.
I wonder, given We're Gonna Live Forever is also a David perk, if adding "Protection Hit" to ways to activate it would be worthwhile
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Safe unhooks are the best option, because they place a hard cap on the number of times dead hard can be used per match. If protection hits could activate dead hard, then there wouldn't be a hard cap anymore.
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Its funny I didn't even think of this. They really encourage tunnelling with this change at the peak of tunneling being an issue lol
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Great change, looking forward to playing without the "1v1" me teammates.
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The Dead Hard change is great for the game. Now it has to be earned, can't be used at the start of the game, and it has a hard cap on how many times it can be used in a match by the whole team. I also like the flimsy excuse of "It will encourage tunneling!" like Dead Hard somehow stopped that from happening before. No, it didn't. Hitting the unhooked survivor is exactly the same as it was before.
Besides, Dead Hard has "lots of counterplay" so chasing the unhooking survivor and downing them should be so easy that killers won't choose to tunnel instead, right?
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Have yall two read a single word the OP said or did you just come here to blindly defend the nerf? Like Caiman you completely missed the point of the tunnelling statement. The tunnelling issue is the same issue PTB Background Player had
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As a killer main seeing a dead hard nerf makes me happy, but I need to put my bias aside and look at this from another angle. One of my least favorite ways to change a perk is taking a perk that's activation is already pretty conditional and then making it even more conditional, which is essentially what they've done here.
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I read the OP, I just think it's hilariously wrong. They say Sprint Burst is better than Dead Hard but only bad players will switch to it. They say Sprint Burst is better than Dead Hard and Dead Hard has lots of counterplay but say good players will still use it effectively to punish killers. They constantly flip-flop on how good/bad Dead Hard is to claim this nerf is objectively bad, it's so contradictory that it doesn't mean anything at all. And like a lot of nerfs, they throw in "this encourages tunneling/camping/toxicity/blahblahblah because reasons".
I wish people could defend Dead Hard without lying about how "bad" it is.
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An extra health state that could be used more than once in a game with no other restriction to it was always going to be strong. At least now, it's an extra health state with a condition. So while you can use it multiple times in a trial, it requires more effort to pull. Which is fair for what the perk does.
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If a survivor can get value from DH several times in a match you're just a bad killer. All the killer crybabies in this forum killing the game. DH was popular because it was fun, had more interaction/skill than sprint burst, lithe etc.
So since it's fun it must be nerfed AGAIN. They just nerfed many other meta survivor perks and buffed all of killer basekit. Killers have just became lazy crybabies since the meta shakeup. And healing now no thanks, time to switch games RIP DBD.
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Please don't listen to this, BHVR. The Dead Hard change is fantastic, as is the change to Pain Res. It will keep Dead Hard a strong perk when it is active, but it will not feel unfair or frustrating. Plus, you don't have to expect it every single chase.
I think the people complaining about killers complaining should try different Exhaustion perks or god forbid, no Exhaustion perk, and see how it feels.
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Calling other people crybabies isn't a good look for you right now.
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There's nothing a killer can do to stop a survivor from having access to Dead Hard at least twice in a match. Since in the absolute best case scenario where you are an instant down killer you put them into dying state first time, hook them, they get unhook, they are injured so they can dead hard, they get hooked again and unhooked, then they can dead hard again as the hook resets exhaustion and they are still injured. And if the killer doesn't have the ability to instant down a survivor, then the survivor has access to dead hard 3 times.
Multiple by this by 4 times for each survivor in the trial. So a killer can easily face 8-12 dead hards in a match if every survivor brings the perk.
So no, killers aren't bad because dead hard gets used multiple times against them in a match. As dead hard currently works that's just inevitable.
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Dead Hard has indeed been very strong and arguably problematic, but this nerf is awful imo. Good luck getting that unhook. When I do tome unhooking challenges, other people swat over to hooks and I don't get to unhook. Again, good luck getting Dead Hard activated.... And then again it can fail due to latency.
This is an overkill imo.
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Dead Hard doesn't deactivate until it actually blocks a hit. So messing up a dead hard doesn't prevent you from using dead hard later.
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Does it matter tho? If it doesn't block a hit then you'll get downed 3 second later and then hooked.
Regardless, it still doesn't change the fact that this perk encourages tunnelling because if you tunnelled the first player out of the game, then nobody will ever get Dead Hard
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I think tunneling killers will continue tunneling for the reasons they always have, a Dead Hard nerf isn't going to make that noticeably worse.
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Then how are people suppose to unlock Dead Hard if tunneling killers keep tunneling? How is it healthy for the have tunneling a survivor be an affecting counter to perks?
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They said that you're competing with other survivors now for getting unhooks to activate the perk, so there's a good chance you'll never get it activated in the first place.
And I agree that this will encourage tunneling, especially for the first person hooked in a match. That person cannot use DH in their first chase. If the killer comes back to hook, their options are between the injured person with no DH or a healthy unhooker that potentially now has an active DH. It's a no-brainer choice. And as someone who has experienced A LOT of tunneling off-hook at 5 gens the past few weeks, I have less than zero faith that killers will not take advantage of knowing that an injured person can't have DH.
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I think it's fine if there's a chance you may compete with other survivors. Deliverance has the same condition and it's a very impactful perk. This tones down Dead Hard in a way that it's strength is still there, but it's more restricted.
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So your just going to ignore the fact that every major perk that killers have been using while you all gen rush has been nerfed with nothing being done on the survivors side to slow down gen rush? We just gonna ignore that? Or am I just being a cry baby...
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Tunneling a survivor is an effective counter to like 90% of the perks in the game. It's not an argument.
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Oh honey that's a complete new sentence, nobody here is talking about that. Make your own forum thread about it. This is about Dead Hard
Unlike most of the others, Dead Hard is a chase perk and tunnelling affects the WHOLE team, not just the victim
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Unlike most of the others, Dead Hard is a chase perk and tunnelling affects the WHOLE team, not just the victim
Okay? So the tunneling killer hits the survivor off hook, which puts them in Deep Wounds due to the unhook Endurance, which... already means they can't Dead Hard. So what's changed?
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I literally explained what's changed like 3 different times, do I need to draw it for you to make it simpler?
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All I'm hearing is "killers will tunnel to deny Dead Hard" which applies to literally everything else a survivor can do so this change doesn't make a difference. They would have been tunneled Dead Hard or not, DH never did anything to discourage tunneling, nobody thought "I'm not going to hit that survivor because they might have Dead Hard!"
Go ahead and draw something if you want to, though.
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Apparently because telling you 3 different times that getting safe unhook doesn't give the savior dead hard, I gotta draw it for you
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If you get downed off hook in less than 10 seconds even after the killer swung through the Endurance, you are either extremely unlucky or you literally stood still.
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Idk how you don't see a link between the 2 subjects. The game has been pushed in the direction of gens. The game isn't about chase anymore. Everything that has to do with chase is punishing for killer, and now that dead hard has been changed to a hook perk it gives killers a chance to finally be able to get people on the hook without having to deal with having to hit someone almost 5 times with perk set ups just to get one down. And you people wonder why we have to run gen slow down. There is no point in committing to a chase with you. If we do we get called tunnelers, if we don't commit and run back to defend gens, we are either unskilled or campers. What do you people want from us? Honestly? Killer mains are trying to win the game too, but every single game I play 3 gens are done within the first few minutes of the game. I get my 1 to 2 hooks, maybe more if I'm doing good, and I defend the areas since everyone wants to meme on the killer to try and i try to catch people out and maybe get some more hooks. If I leave to go kick a gen, I loose the hook, the survivor is ISNTANTLY healed to full, and i loose a bunch of time on MORE gens. What do you want me to do? Just sit there and shake my head up and down so you guys can have a free win?
Dead hard has needed a nerf for the LONGEST time because everyone uses it and it makes some chases impossible, especially for some newer people. Yall still have sprint burst and the stupid combo where you can string like 3 of them together at once. Keep bringing your stupid broken gen rush and loop builds and I'll bring my nerfed gen slow down build to try and stand a chance I guess.
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Also, you have basekit borrowed time. So both people unhooking get to run away with free hits AND the person hooked also gets dead hard. Why would I go after the person who just unhooked? 3 hits to down again versus 2 hits to down is simple math. Survivors AGAIN got more ways to prevent tunneling and keeping killers from actually getting kills and you are still complaining about it IN THE MIDDLE of every major killer perk currently being used in the meta to slow down the gen rush meta WHICH IS STILL A PROBLEM.
This patch is going to be survivors finally being forced to deal with more dangerous chases off of hook and you guys have some protections for getting off hook and getting away so you can stop blaming every single killer for being a camper because of that face camping bubba you ran into one time.
We have a reason to commit to chase now, but it isn't enough to over shadow the need to defend gens from gen rush, and we just lost some of our most important tools to do that.
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I am personally still going to use DH, but the pick-rate of the perk will definitely plummet which is fine. many killer expressed discontent facing 4 dead hard's every game, so now you will see dead hard less. I am personally relieved because SB and Lithe have never really bothered me as killer. their counter-play is much easier then DH and a lot less game-changing as they provide a lot less distance.
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Yeah it is, the irony is not lost on me so I came here to cry to try and balance the crying, this forum is very killer biased. I play soloq so killers crying is a joke any decent killer can get a 2k+ vs soloq (the majority of dbd matches). What happens is bad killers cant beat soloq then cry, decent killers get 4ks constantly vs soloq, mmr rises they get swfs all the time, lose, cry.
They already nerfed COH several times as well. With basekit healing being 24 seconds you're going to get a lot of DCs especially with sloppy butcher, only the tryhard survivors will remain eventually and guess what killer cry lol.
PS If you still don't believe me that this forum is killer biased count the number of negative or contrarian responses I get to people agreeing or even somewhat receptive to me. Your reply and others from my OP was all killer biased replies.
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DH itself isn't healthy for the game, no killer should be like, they might have that perk.
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"If you disagree with me you are killer biased and a cry baby!" Way to burry the lead lmao. You are dripping with entitlement. Your fun is the only one that matters. Whatever dude, a lot of people all over this forum including killer mains have made arguments as to why all of the changes are rough for everyone, including myself. You are the face of this community and the stereotypical entitled gamer that has come to be known from it.
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>> Why would I go after the person who just unhooked? 3 hits to down again versus 2 hits to down is simple math.
Yes, that is the point. This will incentivize tunneling.
Basekit BT only provides endurance for 7 seconds or so, so the killer can simply wait that out and then immediately re-down the survivor. DH used to be an option to protect the unhooked survivor if the killer waits out BT, but now it's dependent on whether that survivor had a prior unhook to activate the perk.
Given that DH now can't be reliably used off-hook and gen regression perks are getting gutted, a lot of killers are going to tunnel even more because A) no active DH makes it even easier than before, B) its going to take longer to get an unhooked survivor healed, leaving them vulnerable for longer, and C) making the game a 3v1 will be an efficient way to offset the loss of gen regression perks.
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"The forum is killer biased" they said while I'm in the middle of explaining why The Game isn't an overall killer sided map.
Over several days.
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this forum is very killer biased
With this alone, there's no need to keep reading any of your posts.
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Basekit BT also provides 10 seconds of Haste, meaning that unless you are there to hit the unhooked survivor the moment he touch ground most of the time it's not convenient to tunnel because the chase would be longer than necessary as that survivor have enough time not only to gain distance, but get to any loop they want. Also, in all the games I played as survivor I didn't see the sheer amount of tunneling everybody is claiming in this forum. There are some games, but most of the time the killer don't tunnel.
So, stop unhooking in front of the killer, using that BT boost to do a block or healing under the hook and you would see how tunneling is not such a problem. In fact, if anything the change to DH would incentivize people to not just unhook for the sake of it, but try to do a safe unhook and not literally kill your partner because the killer is in front of them and don't give a damn about the Survivor's Morals Rulebook.
Also, funny how DH never was an anti-tunneling perk, no one never defended it because its anti-tunneling utilities, but know everybody says that the problem with DH changes is that tunneling would be now a bigger problem as DH was detrimental to fight against it. Nobody could come up with a better argument to argue against the change, I guess.
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For the past several weeks, I have had killers tunnel directly off-hook in at least 40% of my survivor matches. I play mostly on the survivor side, so maybe I just play more survivor matches which would naturally lead to me seeing more instances of it. Either way, the BT and Haste do not stop it.
Not unhooking in the killer's face is also not always up to the survivors. If a killer is camping the hook - which also happens very often in my experience - then survivors may have no choice but to do an unsafe unhook. And especially in solo queue, where survivors often lack the coordination needed for a safe unhook against a camping killer.
I would definitely consider DH an anti-tunnel perk given that it gives a survivor something to defend themselves if the killer waits out the incredibly short BT. Clearly from my low number of posts, I'm new to this forum so I don't know what people have said in the past about whether DH is an anti-tunnel perk. But I'd appreciate not having my posts condescended as "I guess nobody could come up with a better argument against the changes" simply because you haven't heard it described that way before.
Anywho, DH change bad.
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I would call pre-nerf DH a pro-tunnel perk, not anti-tunnel. If I go after the unhooker, I potentially have to get through three health states to down them, thanks to DH. If I go for the unhooked, I only need to get through two at the most.
If you really want to discourage tunneling, Off the Record and Decisive Strike can do what DH does, but better.
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Indeed, as proven by the buffs given to Pain Res, CoB, Overcharge, Engravings and Pinky Finger amirite.
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