Just to be clear on CoB/Overcharge

Healing/injuries are a basekit mechanic, killer perk's equivalent is survivor's perks. CoH and DH are butchered (rightfully so), as CoB and OC are heavily nerfed. I wouldn't even say the killer perks are butchered, because the unique facets of them still stand (Intel for CoB, Skillcheck for OC, albeit at 14% instead of 15%), unlike CoH which lost self-healing, and DH which has a hard cap of 2 uses per match (unless I misunderstood the proposed change).

CoB is still a viable information perk, better than something like Surveillance for most builds and it still has some regression value, meanwhile Overcome isn’t a great perk to begin with, being the only Exhaustion perk restricted to when survivors are healthy IIRC.

And I’m sure when this latest nerf to Dead Hard goes live and things like Sprint Burst and Lithe raise in popularity that they’ll see a nerf also, just be patient.

And what would that be?

Also does it proc tons of LLNs to make my zombies camp gens?

Which perk do you mean? I can think of two that give similar info to CoB, Surveillance and Gearhead, and I wouldn't say either of them are strictly better than the other two.

It seems a lot more like personal preference, there.

I disagree, I think there are benefits to running Call of Brine over Surveillance. It gives you more up-to-date information than Surveillance does, at the cost of being on a timer, which I think is a fair trade that puts the two in basically the same position.

I know I for one am going to be using Call of Brine on stealth killers who can approach the generator without being seen. Personally, the loud noise notifications are an upside to me as well, since it means I'm less likely to miss the information the way I might if I'm not actively looking at the generator in question for Surveillance.

Gearhead is similar, which honestly looks like it's going to be pretty nice with this change, I don't think that's stupid at all. Get a hit, get up to date information on which generators are being worked on for thirty seconds, that's pretty nice.

Sure, that's a possibility. But if they do hit a good skillcheck, that's more impactful and up to date information than seeing the generator's aura change with Surveillance, and since skillchecks aren't that uncommon and even really strong survivors still hit goods about as frequently as greats, that makes the perk pretty solid.

This isn't a new effect we have to theorycraft about, CoB has done this since release and it's been pretty useful information the whole time. People just didn't notice or care because the regression was why they were running it, so they wanted people not to touch the generator to begin with.

As for Gearhead, I have no idea what you're basing that on or why it'd be relevant. Efficient killer play does in fact involve being aware of where survivors are and using information to track them down, and efficient killer play for a lot of killers on the roster absolutely involves getting basic attacks, so there's no reason you couldn't run Gearhead at higher than "mid range MMR", however you'd calculate or define that.

On Blight? No, I'm pretty sure Blight's Rushes count as Special Attacks, right?

Something doesn't have to compete with the absolute best of the best options to be considered good, worthwhile, or viable, anyway. Most people aren't playing comp-level Blight with the best possible loadout, they're just playing the killers they enjoy at a more standard pace of play, and for that Gearhead is going to be a nice option. Will they pick it? No, probably not, people get comfortable with what they know and even players who aren't trying their absolute hardest tend to gravitate towards whatever's obviously strongest and requires the least thought/effort to use, but that doesn't mean it isn't good.

To your last point - obviously you don't need most information tools, that doesn't mean they aren't useful, or otherwise nice to have.

I assure you I'm not being disingenuous or intentionally oblivious here, but I genuinely have no idea what you mean by "efficient" play. The only definitions I can think of have very little to do with perks at all, so you're gonna have to define that one for me, unfortunately.

As for your example, I don't need to be the world's best Doctor main that competes with Blight mains, I just have to be good enough at my killers to maintain an average winrate. That's literally the only bar that exists for whether something is viable without any other contexts in mind.

Side note, Buckle Up doesn't do that anymore, Buckle Up gives Haste + Endurance on pickup.

Information warfare...?

And no, I didn't know what efficient play meant. But, if you mean tryhards, then sure- 90% of perks in the roster aren't going to be deemed viable for being a tryhard, but that's obviously not the line for viable in general. Tryhards aren't every single player and nor should they be, that isn't required for winning or playing well or enjoying the game, it's just the way some people prefer to play. More power to them, but the game shouldn't be balanced around them exclusively, and balance changes therefore shouldn't be viewed through that lens either.

There probably is a world's best Doctor? At the very least there are dedicated Doctor mains, and their experience of the game isn't 'washed out' or secondary to the experience of a Blight main. If a perk is changed to help them, and the mains of players who don't play the top tier or play like a tryhard every match, that's a good perk change. It doesn't have to appeal only to tryhard players to be considered good, viable, or worthwhile.

correct

DH now fits in the role of 'blue shell', to reward you for losing. This is the same design as NOED, Deadlock, Desperate Measures, and Blood Rush. It already was super unreliable (and often weaker) compared to SB, which SB also had greater skill expression anyways. (You can record matches on the current patch and check how many times people didn't use/failed to use DH right now. Heck even try to use it yourself as Survivor, I've been exhausted on the ground/"I pressed E" so often I don't even bother with such unreliability.) Personally I think the best version of DH is endurance against Special Attacks only. That way it is an equalizer perk that helps against some of the most busted killers, without hurting Legion/Clown/Myers/etc.. To be fair there will still be exceptions to the rule in terms of strength (Spirit is only M1, Artist zoned M1 instead of bird), but in general it would probably be the most fair version that way.

To an extent that is a fair argument, exhaustion perks being second chance perks the same as regression/slowdown perks being second chance perks. The problem being you would have to nerf the unique facet of those perks, and not the tertiary benefits. I would say a fair assessment there would be the inability to recover exhaustion while working on a gen. That way if the killer procs their endurance, they can't immediately hop back on gens with little to no punishment. They have to willingly not touch gens to get their endurance back, which could also help encourage chests/totems/altruism.

Moving to chase perks - How is that a bad thing? Even on live I frequently only run 1 slowdown (2 tops), intel and lethality are undervalued and underutilized. When people start to use them they will appreciate how truly valuable they are. It also ensures both sides spend more time advancing their win condition, instead of delaying their opponent's.

Also Buckle Up was never good, and they (BHVR) have no idea how to even make it usable. I would prefer garbo perks like this be buffed to the point more people are willing to drop their Adrenaline or other perk in the hopes of getting value out of the buffed garbo perks.

Also very fair point, I think we should shift toolboxes more towards sabo gameplay, since that has risks and rewards for both sides with direct interaction. I wouldn't remove the repair bonuses altogether, but certainly tone them down a bit. To be fair though, we did get the most powerful survivor item (medkits) gutted, so I wouldn't be looking gift horses in the mouth. I wouldn't doubt a similar timeframe down the line as 6.1.0 -> 6.7.0 that we get a toolbox nerf as well. I mean heck, we even got a bizarre flashlight nerf/buff combo in between, so it isn't like they are unwilling to make changes to items. I just hope they make keys viable again outside of Blood Amber abuse.