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Spine chill
So I've always ran spine chill due to having some hearing issues every so often. It helps me be aware of the killer more than the visual heartbeat does.
Since this new update Spine Chill has only seemed to light up when the killer is already right next to me pretty much and is no longer notifying me if the killer is nearby until it's too late.
Is this an update or is it bugged at the moment?
EDIT: so basically it is only letting you know once the killer is basically right next to you. Time to swap perks I think.
Comments
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It was nerfed. Going forward, the icon will only light up when the killer has direct line of sight on you, this will also trigger the action speed bonus. The terror radius gauge on the perk’s icon was also removed as you now have the visual heartbeat feature available basekit.
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So, it only works when the killer can see you, and you can see them, pointless perk now
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The perk description hasn't changed to say anything and loads up randomly. It's insanely disorienting now.
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I don’t have access to the PTB section of the forums anymore, but it was clarified in there that this is how the perk is intended to work now.
The red gauge you will see on the icon now represents the 0.5 second linger duration once the killer looks away or goes out of range, rather than the terror radius as it used to be.
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It's incredibly disappointing to see Spine Chill turn from a decent information perk to being the embodiment of Captain Obvious. I shouldn't have to say that a perk that only tells you when the killer can currently see you is useless. It needs to work through walls again, or it will be the new "deja vu", a laughably bad perk
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I realize the heartbeat thing isn't actually a perk, but spine chill is now literally a weaker version of that. Is that the direction we are going with perks? Going to make them do something on a smaller scale than something that already exists.
New perk: Half Alert - see the killers aura every other time they perform a break action. For those that find alert too useful.
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Written using machine translation. Sorry if it does not come across well.
I can't access it now, but the PTB bug report says it's not a bug.
There are currently multiple bug reports regarding Spine Chill.
Perhaps the description of the perks is not clear enough for those who have used it in the past.
I think it would be better to change the description of the perks.
for example
Only get notified when the Killer is within a 36-meter range and is looking at with a clear line of sight.
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It’s an update. But there’s literally a heart beat visualiser in settings (I also used Spine chill before I found out)
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Sadly the heartbeat doesn't help me much in terms of figuring out how close the killer is sometimes when I can't hear very well because I'm usually trying to focus on hitting skillchecks. :(
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Yeah in my opinion the current description sadly doesn't make it clear enough. The example you gave would be perfect!!
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I believe the way the visual terror radius works is that the closer the killer, the bigger the heart & faster the heart beat. It may not be as intuitive to perceive as Spine Chill, but perhaps with time you’ll find it a suitable alternative. To note the visual terror radius doesn’t have the ‘wallhack’ feature of old Spine Chill and doesn’t work against killers with hidden terror radii.
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Just hoping I'll get used to it in time tysm!
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what people are saying that line of sight is needed is inaccurate. The perk does not light up even when the killer is standing right next to you looking at you. I actually do believe that the perk is bugged.
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This perk got murdered without any compensation. There's no reason to use it anymore.
On one hand I am happy it's out cause I hated having teammates running it and hiding all match and doing gens at a snail's pace cause they wouldn't take one tiny risk (it incentivized a very selfish type of play), at least for the one's who had no hearing issues etc.
But The perk was killed and left on the road to rot, when it should have been reworked, it shows no care on the side of BHVR for this perk at all, as it was intended for a while as a bandaid.
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Spine chill did way more than the visual terror radius, as it pinpointed how far away a killer was, down to the smallest centimeter. The audio terror radius and the visual terror radius, are nowhere near as accurate, as there are only 3 separate warning levels for a terror radius.
The temporary Spine chill was a terrible recreation of the audio terror radius, and it should have only been sectioned into 3 parts.
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Yes, unless its corn map, which also easier to see than the old corn.
I would make the perk gives you 5sec of no scratch mark if the perk activated. And have a cooldown.
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It doesn't work at all any more.
Just add it to the pile of worthless trash perks BHVR has nerfed into oblivion.
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Still, It didnt need a nerf at all. Current Spine Chill is using a perk slot for the info you can see with your own eyes.
The only people that used spine chill (at least in my games) were very new players that didnt have many perks and were mostly using the general survivor perks.
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Old spine chill also gave a bonus to vault speed, that’s why a lot of people were using it, combined with resilience.
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But after the vault speed was removed and the visual terror radius was introduced, it was barely used.
This new nerf was not needed.
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That's an insult to deja vu. I don't understand why it was nerfed to begin with. Spine chill was never an OP perk. There was no reason to nerf it.
Sidenote though... Deja vu is actually a decent perk since its buff. Not GREAT, but definitely not useless.
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If that was the only issue people had with the perk, why not just address THAT instead of gutting the information part as well though?
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Btw guys, two brand new accounts actually managed to open a thread in the bug section and already got a mod answer, unbelievable.
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So it seems Spine Chill has gone the way of Iron Will and DS where it now only exists to take up space on the perk selection screen. Sad, as I had just recently started using it in my solo Q builds the last couple weeks.
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Yep. I wish they would start combining perks so we have less to think about.. Or give us perk categories to narrow down confusion. Like "Healing" "Teamwork" "Generator" "Chase" type categories.
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They did. Spine Chill has been nerfed a couple of times and the first time it lost the vault speed boost. The second time it lost the non-LoS detection. Now it lights up if a killer has LoS on you but the issue people have is that generally if a killer has LoS on you, you can see them as well. Thus no need for Spine Chill.
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The previous version was a hard counter for all stealth killers. It needed to be changed now that the visual heartbeat is base.
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'Hard Counter' is debatable, most stealth killers suffer more on their own powers than what Spine chill can possibly do.
Even then with previous Spine Chill you could gain a couple seconds to let go of a gen or a heal AT BEST, and when you consider that it only works with like 3-4 killers it was hardly worth the perk slot.
Now the value you are getting for this perk is info you can get by opening your eyes and looking at your surroundings.
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Did they give any reason for nerfing it to remove the useful information stuff? I know they said the visible heartbeat was why they removed the TR indicator, but SC USE to be pretty good at telling if you have the killer's attention.
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IIRC their explanation was that Spine Chill working as an AoE-type perk (versus working when the killer has line of sight) was a bandaid till they got the visual terror radius up & running. They intended to nerf it because it was widely used (they claimed). It was overhauled with a bunch of other popular survivor perks.
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I used it to be inmune to stealth killers as it basically gave a sadako lullaby to them, mind you since it didnt showed the radious I couldnt know how close they were but it lighted up and gave me the warning to prerun making ambushes basically only happen if I was really distracted.
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Yup. Devs are clueless to their own game tbh. Spine Chill was fine after the first nerf and barely anyone used it.
But instead of reworking useless perks/mechanics (such as up the ante, furtive chase etc) they focus their efforts in pointless nerfs such as the aforementioned spine chill nerf.
We as a community have been begging for buffs and reworks for the same stuff for ages. And what do they do? Nerf Spine Chill. Add a debuff to Calm Spirit. Like ???
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Nerfing something because it's popular is the dumbest thing...
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To be fair they did ‘buff’ unused survivor perks—like Calm Spirit and Pharmacy—somehow, by adding drawbacks to them. Idk.
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Spine Chill has ended up exactly where it should be. We have an accessibility tool that serves the same purpose for the hearing impaired, which means Spine Chill no longer needs to hard counter stealth killers.
The perk is probably bugged right now, but there really isn't any reason it should notify you when the killer doesn't have LoS on you but is looking in your direction. This just hurts Myers, Ghostface and Pig since you can just sprint burst away.
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Forgive me if I'm wrong here but isn't the point of a balanced game where things can be countered on both sides so there's a balance? If the only counter to stealth killers is one perk then isn't that fine?
Perks are there to counter things and work in your favour and to be honest as a Ghostface main I've never had problems with survs running SC though that might be just my own experience.
Like yeah the nerf happened and I'm getting used to it now but isn't the point of perks to counter something?
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Tbf people view survivor & killer perks differently in this game. Killer perks are meant to enhance a killer’s gaming experience and give them an edge in trials. Survivor perks exist to create goofy effects that shouldn’t really tilt the match. If they do, it should be in a way that handicaps survivors. That’s why you see so many threads where people ask for survivor perks to be weakened but say killer perks should be buffed. Or threads where people try to convince survivors to run poor quality perks (like Boons). It’s also why that person you’re responding to basically said SC should only work when you can see the killer and the killer can see you, even though you’d be better off running an aura-reading perk.
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Does Deja Vu only work in the beginning of the trial one time?
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Deja vu gives you aura reading on the closest 3 gens to each other. The aura reading is permanent, and will adjust when one of those gens are done to show you the NEXT group of 3 gens close together. You also get a 6% boost to repair speed on those gens.
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You're not wrong that the point of a balanced game is for things to have counters, but the counterplay to Spine Chill was to awkwardly crab walk to generators so as to avoid alerting the survivors to your approach, and to avoid looking at the survivor you're chasing.
There are counters to stealth killers. One of which is a perk called Premonition. Other counters come down to being observant. With Ghostface, you can hear the sound of his cloak flapping about when he's close enough. Myers, you can hear his breathing. Pig, you can hear the rustling of grass.
Stealth Killers are very much lacking in power if they can't use their stealth. They're basically just an M1 killer with no power at that point. SC was way too strong, and too much of a hard counter against stealth killers, and M1 killers in general.
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I started out as a killer main. I currently main survivor. I remember quite well how it was all but impossible to sneak up on survivors as Ghostface due to Spine Chill. Combine that with Sprint Burst, and the killer finds that the survivor(s) on that gen are long gone.
Throw on Resilience, and now you've got vault speed build. You know what the counterplay was? Don't look at the survivor during chase. Approach gens without looking at the generator. That's not sufficient counterplay for a perk that merely requires the killer be looking in your general direction.
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Spine Chill was busted against stealth Killers. It was a definitive hand holding perk against stealth specifically. It will be better as a whole for everyone to learn to play without it. I was so used to having it on every Survivor, so I know exactly how those people feel. Overall, I still think its better the way it is. People really like playing stealth Killers and having a perk work like that really takes away from what should be a much more immersive experience.
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How can I hear Ghostface’s cloak if I’m deaf? Enlighten me
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I just tried to play a game and I use SC because my right ear can barely hear and the heart is not reliable. Now I find SC doesn’t work at all, not even when the killer is looking at you.
way to kill the game again for some of us
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SC is likely bugged right now if the perk isn't notifying you when the killer is looking directly at you.
It's simply not healthy for a single perk to hard counter an entire category of killers, and SC did exactly that. The visual heartbeat is plenty accurate. Bigger size and intensity means closer, smaller size and intensity means further.
As for the issue of not being able to hear his cloak because you're hearing impaired, see below. In your case, you'd watch for it to go on cooldown.
Premonition
You have the undeniable capability to sense danger.
- Receive an auditory warning upon looking in the Killer's direction within a 45 ° cone within 36 metres.
Premonition has a cool-down of 60/45/30 seconds each time it activates.
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The previous iteration of spine chill alerted you if the killer was within 32m, regardless of whether or not they were looking at you, and was accurate down to the meter. Before that, the killer only had to be looking in your general direction for it to light up regardless of whether or not they could actually see you.
This was a huge counter to stealth killers. We don't need to go back to that, especially not with all the information we have now. Nobody's in chase, but Spine Chill is telling you the killer is within 32m and getting closer? Hide or Sprint Burst away before the killer can reach the gen.
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I remember that. But Spine Chill was the only counter for stealth killers. There’s really no counter now, and saying ‘just listen for his cloak bro’ (or some other faint killer-reliant audio cue) doesn’t work because there are ambient noises that overshadow it. Like a generator being repaired. And tbf the only stealth killer that you can consistently catch by looking around is Myers. By the time you’ve seen the others they’re usually in striking range. Maybe Premonition could help but I’ve had issues with that perk glitching out. In any event ‘stealth’ isn’t exactly the main power. It’s the insta-down ability (Myers, Ghostface), speed boost (Wraith), or slow-down apparatus (Pig).
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It wasn't the only counter. Premonition is a general survivor perk and functions like SC but instead of just sitting on a gen watching the SC icon, you have to pan your camera.
Is it perfect? Hardly. But what's the point of not having a terror radius if survivors just SB away when you're within 32m and getting closer? We have like 3 actual stealth killers, and they have zero chase power. If people want the previous iteration of SC back, then stealth killers need to have chase power instead of being relegated to M1 Killers.
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Two of those three have instant down abilities. That’s probably why they’re weaker in chase. Although to be fair all of the stealth killers are faster than the slowest killers.
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You are sending me to a new perk with an auditory warning…
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