The stale perk-Meta
First of all, let me show you the unofficial stats from nightlight:
While the top5-Killer-Perks are pretty close together (5%), the top5-Survivor-Perks are pretty interesting (15% between P1 and P5).
This does NOT mean that I want WoO nerfed or anything, but its kinda interesting to see how stale especially the survivor-meta is. WoO, Made for this and Resilience are in every single lobby when I play survivor and when I play killer, while on killer side, we mostly see a bit more variety. I assume thats because we have more variety on killer-side OR IN MY WORDS more perks closer together to each other.
On Killer-Side, Im pretty sure Ultimate Weapon will rise in stats, also Rapid Brutality is a perk I see here and there.
We need more perks worth using especially for survivors, because currently, its all about Gen-Speedup and Chase-Extension.
How about buffing the team-perks heavily, so that its worth it being together with another one. How about making stealth-gameplay better, because the hide-and-seek-gameplay is currently dead.
I feel myself as a killer-main and I have to say: Im thrilled when I see someone using different stuff, because its ALWAYS Made for this, Adre/Hope, Resilience, Prove Thyself, Windows, Sprint Burst and Deja-Vu.
On killer-side, Hex-Perks are pretty weak on most maps, not because the effect is weak, but the totem-survival-chance is. Current Undying could be Basekit to any Hex for example to make it more worth OR the Face the Darkness-Effect of Hexes are capable of moving.
Comments
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This does NOT mean that I want WoO nerfed or anything, but its kinda interesting to see how stale especially the survivor-meta is.
I'd say this is because the majority of survivor perks are really, really, -really- bad. Ranging from 'does nothing of significance' (Corrective Action, Diversion, Fast Track, Friendly Competition) to 'really niche and unlikely to be impactful' (Boil Over, Breakdown, Kinship, Left Behind) to 'actively detrimental' (Calm Spirit, Autodidact, Potential Energy, most boons).
There's relatively few that are consistent and valuable, which causes them to rocket to the top of the charts.
I think a while back, Otz had asked his community to tally how often they saw certain perks in their matches, and despite each match having four times as many survivors as killers, there were more survivor perks than killer perks that had a 0% pickrate.
There's just a TON of dead weight in the game with perks that just have no real reason to exist. I do think it's solvable, but it would require a colossal balancing patch.
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I think survivor perk diversity is more important than killer perk diversity. Killers can always play a different killer if they want to spice up their gameplay, every killer is a unique experience.
Survivors are all skins of the same base chassis, the only thing they have to make things interesting is perks.
It's a shame that MFT is still so ubiquitous after how exciting and fun Nick Cage's perks were. But then again I do understand it. It's the same reason why Dead Hard was always so popular. No killer can deny it.
Dramaturgy is super fun but not only inconsistent in how much value it gives you, you may not always have it. Load in vs Plague and now it's a dead perk slot. MFT is never a dead perk slot.
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I agree with you. There are so many useless Survivor perks. Premonition, Red Herring, Poised, Solidarity, Calm Spirit, This is not Happening, Power of Two, Collective Stealth, Corrective Action, Rookie Spirit, Better than New, Blood Pact, Cut Loose, Dark Sense, Inner Focus, Low Profile, Pharmacy, Quick Gambit, Up the Ante... just to name a few...
Perk diversity is really important and making useless/niche perks more fun or realistic to bring should be a priority but BHVR is too slow and take the smallest baby steps with meaningless number adjustments every 3 months...
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A huge portion of survivor perks are near useless, but the problem with just buffing them is that the best survivor perks are so good that in order for something to compete with them they have to be borderline overpowered (like MfT and Buckle Up).
There’s a lot of pretty good survivor perks such as Off the Record, Hyperfocus, Fogwise, Bond, or Dramaturgy that you would expect to see some use but because of how good the meta perks are, no one really runs them anymore.
And then every other survivor perk is just so bad or situational.
Buff the weaker perks but you also need to tone down the strongest perks otherwise they still won’t see play unless they become near broken.
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The killer meta looks like gens are still perceived as the biggest threat.
Survivor meta is all about prolonging chases and finishing gens while injured. No anti camp, no anti tunnel, no healing. Almost like those aren't actually an issue.
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That is something I hadn't even considered, but it is true that there are perks that in principle aren't very conditional and that do offer great value, but that get toggled off by the wrong killers. Stake-out is useless against Wraith and Myers, and all healing perks are effectively disabled by Plague.
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i think it is because a lot of perk require team synergy to use and soloq lacks cohesion. the fact that window of opportunity is 32% and kindred+bond is 8.82+8.22 is 17% usage rate. it means big portion of survivors playing survivor are using 50% of their perks on aura-type perks. The only other perks you see above this are Adrenaline, MFT+Resilience and Lithe.
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Almost like the anti-camp is non-existent and the anti-tunnel got gutted out of the game.
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These perks have been reduced to the marginally or situationally useful category at best. Some are just outright killer perks.
The anti camp perks (Reassurance, borrowed time) are highly situational. You won't get reassurance value unless you can communicate with your team. BT is mostly useless just because you'll get hit immediately off hook regardless, so an extra 10 seconds is meaningless.
Anti tunnel (DS, OTR) also situational. DS is literally just used to reset deep wound and exhaustion (which requires another perk slot) . OTR is still decent for aura blocking and silence even when you get hit off hook, but even that aspect is being reduced as killer info perks are bypassing auras entirely or making survivors scream.
Anti slug (Unbreakable, No Mither, Soul Guard). Unbreakable is good if you know when to use your only charge and actually get a chance to use it. No Mither is literally a killer perk, and Soul Guard is technically only anti slug if the killer brings a hex, so good luck getting that to work. I've been able to use that feature exactly once.
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You mean anti camp became so basekit. That no one feels the need to equip BT.
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To be fair, before the big meta change last June Dead Hard had a pick rate of 75%, and other perks like BT and DS had incredibly high pick rates as well. I think the devs deserve a round of applause for all the sweeping meta changes they've done over the past year. Besides some missteps like MFT they've been working hard to balance out the perks. I think that at this point it's on us as a community to start using more non-meta perks (many of which have been buffed significantly).
As a side note, WoO has been my favorite survivor perk ever since it's released, so I'm now in the uncomfortable position of wanting it to be nerfed a bit. I think they should bring back the cool down so that survivors can't just autopilot from one yellow aura to the next.
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Considering there are plenty killers that make it impossible to unhook/prevent tunneling, extending chase is still the best anti-camp and anti-tunnel. It's a bit cynical but the "if you don't want to get camped/tunneled just don't get downed, ez" is actually true.
And while do see people staying injured a lot more I also see quite a bit if healing perks. Looking at my experience survs stay injured because killers returning to hook prevent a reset after unhooking and running around to find someone to reset you a) takes too long b) is more likely to bring you right back in the killer's fov than sitting on a safe gen.
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Not surprised that the killer meta is still stacking 3-4 slowdownd as baseline gen speeds are still way too fast when you get to decent mmr. A 30 second corrupt intervention should be basekit.
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Being able to down someone immediately after they've been unhooked if the unhooker didn't have a certain perk was bad game design. If survivors are required to bring a certain perk every single match or else they're a detriment to their whole team, that's bonkers. No other player base for any other game would've waited and dealt with this type of game design if it wasn't for how loyal DbD's playerbase is. Basekit BT wasn't even a "balance change" it was a necessity.
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BT is considered useless, because it's basekit. That immediate hit just triggers the basekit version and prevents the survivor from getting instantly downed. BT would prevent killers from waiting out the 10 seconds for the down. But no one deems that necessary.
DS is DS. Whatever the devs do to it, half the community will hate it. It was predominant before its nerf and was used in ways the devs didn't anticipate. Now the devs might be cautious to buff it even the slightest.
OtR is still extremely strong for runner builds.
I don't agree on no mither. People are already ignoring heals and just spam gens while injured. Equipping no mither just sounds like the next logical step in combination with resilience and mft. I'd also add soul guard, even when no one uses hex perks anymore. Simply because it gives the endurance effect on picking yourself up from the slugged state.
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Survivors are selfish. Almost every selfish has been nerfed to smithereens. So I've just been using Windows of opportunity and Made for this. Like man there's so many altruistic perks just blegh and make your blood trails disappers.
My treasure hunter build got nerfed to oblivion too since items aren't as good nowadays.
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I had matches where my teammates refused to heal me until the gen was completed.
We moved from "everyone heals under CoH" to "no one heals until gens are completed".
One way or another, matches seem to be shorter now. No one bothers searching for hex totems, because no one used hexes anymore. People just spend most of their time at gens.
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I've played a build with bond and we'll make it. It was fun and useful but....it doesn't really change the survival rate. When killers proxy camp, we'll make it isn't fast enough to get the heal. I still use bond, because I like the information it gives me.
If those offbeat perks actually started to affect game outcomes, survivors would pick them.
It is sort of stunning to me that windows of opportunity has reason to the top. It's been out for how long? But every perk that was better than it has gotten nerfed I guess so now, even though it hasn't changed it is now top dog. I think that says more about the broader selection of perks than WoO
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BT being considered anti-camp has always been questionable, since it doesn't really disempower camping. The one making the rescue is going to go down, and certain killers will have no trouble catching up and killing the unhooked survivor even with the basekit BT. That's why the devs are now working on a new anti-camp that's meant to disempower it further: The perks aren't working.
DS is DS. Whatever the devs do to it, half the community will hate it. It was predominant before its nerf and was used in ways the devs didn't anticipate. Now the devs might be cautious to buff it even the slightest.
No, most people were fine with DS before 6.1, with one exception: The EGC. It was not being used offensively anymore, since the conspic action nerf made that impossible, it just created a lose-lose scenario for the killer in the end-game, which 6.1 rightfully fixed.
The EGC nerf was perfectly fine, but the 5 to 3 second nerf was garbage and there's no reason -not- to undo it.
OtR is still extremely strong for runner builds.
But not for anti-tunnel.
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Hide'n'seek isn't gonna get any better, unless the maps become dark like back in the day, which'd however result in over half of the playerbase leaving the game because the consoles can't keep up with the graphics and how difficult handling the dark environment was for them, so BHVR had to remove it in order to introduce us the crossplay option.
Perks for hide'n'seek don't count, as hide'n'seek in itself doesn't rely on perks, but on the maps and their design.. Which as you do know, does currently lack bushes, grass, and most importantly fog and the dark light setting. Some maps like The Game or Léry's Memorial Institute being one of the few exceptions where it wasn't possible to blend within even back then.
As for the team perks.. We don't really want them that strong, because that'd encourage more players to queue up into SWF, kind of turning every single match into a sweat-fest for the killers, unless they feel satisfied with their first hook happening after seeing three generators popped. VOIP is too powerful for this game as there aren't being any balance adjustments whenever SWF is present, and so buffing the team perks, including Leader, Prove Thyself, (...), would've made gen rushing even worse and made the game much less fun for both sides.. As the players want chases, not sitting on the generators, right? And nobody likes three or four minute matches afterall.
Hex perks are weak because there's no fog and the light is too bright for totems to blend within, making them easily seen even from across the entire map in some cases.. And there's also another matter, that being their spawn points being the same and having veteran players like me know about all of the possbile and usual spots for them, always checking if they're there in case of noticing the cursed status effect.
Unfortunately, no change is ever gonna be made about what you're suggesting because the community votes.. Not people like us, who're the minority. They all want chases, they all want clips running away from the killer for five generators, they all wanna upload the clips of four sacrifices within two minutes..
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If they were downed immediately after unhook, why is that the killers fault? Player agency is a thing, as well as responsibility. It's on the survivors to know when and how to unhook.
Personally, it feels like BHVR is doing more and more handholding on the survivors part. The tools killers are given are becoming increasingly hampered. Not entirely the survivor playerbase's fault, I rest a good chunk at the devs feet. SoloQ can only go so far, and they simply refuse to make any progress on bridging the gap with SWF.
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Windows/Resilience/MFT
As if I don't see that every other game 🥱
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What anti tunnel is gutted?
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DS lost half its effective stun duration.
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every time someone mentions "killer hitting a survivor fresh off hook is bad" I feel like yall grossly overlook how that is more often than not a rescuer mistake.
If you decide to take the chase towards the hooked player and then *unhook infront of the killer* then it makes sense for the killer to be allowed to punish such a horrible play.
Knowing where to take a chase to and WHEN to unhook was a skill, nowadays that skill is effectively gone because survivors are freely allowed to unhook in the killers face with the only repercusion being a hook trade.
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Huh? They literally made BT base kit. There is also Reassurance, Kinship, DS, Off the Record. And soon there will be the new anti-camp mechanic.
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The thing is, as killer you can change between several ways of playing and trade in between several perks doing nearly the same (esp. slowdowns and tracking). While as survivor 99% of the roster is useless and there are no viable playstyles to choose from.
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It’s interesting that I still hear the same old argument that playing survivor is so bad nowadays, killer is so easy, I’m getting tunneled out every game, etc. and Adrenaline is very much the new meta. I see it in almost every match. You would think if games were always that bad, people wouldn’t bother bringing that perk because they usually wouldn’t get to use it? It would basically be a wasted perk slot, right?
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The biggest thing about anti camp is that it's all useless. It's all so ineffective that the devs are having to add an entire anti camping mechanic because camping is not just alive and well, but out of control.
That includes BT the perk, base kit BT, and even reassurance. None of it is enough to even deter camping.
The only perk I've ever seen be effective against tunneling was 5s DS. Killers would consciously play around that perk, which seems like an actually effective deterrent. Keep the conspicuous actions and disabling in end game nerfs, those were fine. But the stun duration nerf killed the perk. Now it's only good for resetting deep wound and exhaustion, not anti tunneling.
No Mither is completely worthless, you're better off bringing unbreakable. You're broken, have a target on your back from the game start, and the killer would have to be pretty stupid to leave a no Mither player slugged. It's blindingly obvious they have it since it has the biggest telegraph on everyone's HUD, immediately at game start, that the perk is in play.
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the problem is that theres tons of perks which are just sooooo useless
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And that's gutting?
Against most of the lower end killers it's still powerfull. It also enables the otr into ds into dh combo.
It's more situational and less of a "just slap on" kind of perk.
Still good though.
Gutted is something like ruin if you ask me. I tried to make it work on a variety of killers in a variety of situations. Didn't work out.
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It got halved. It got a 50% nerf. It got reduced by a proportion of 1:2.
How is that NOT 'Gutting'?
Gutted is something like ruin if you ask me.
Which, ironically, got the exact same nerf.
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Thing is that people really hatte the thought that you have to let go of one of the meta perks in order to run some anti-tunneling.
MFT/Resiliance/WoO is already basically set in stone for many, because that combo is so grossly effective when it works, that when it fails it must be the games fault, not that players deciding to play wounded all match or bodyblocking and tanking a hit when unhooked and then crying murder when the killer actually chases after them.
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Ruin got more
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That's what happens when core problems get fixed by adding perks to the basekit.
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Yes. Every time a perk gets made basekit, it takes away from perk variety and more calcifies the meta. May main hot take always was "if you deem a perk good and desirable enough that you want it basekit, why not just equip it?". It worked for me. In the days following the medkit nerf the game was basically flooded with Adrenalin; its still a very common perk, but for a while there were three Adrenalins in every single game. During that time I just equipped Terminus and it worked; thats how a living meta works: something becomes strong due to a buff or some player calls out a strong interaction and now everybody uses it. In response the other side expects you using that perk, so they already arange a counter pick in their loadout. Eventually the effectiveness of the first option wanes, because people expect to have to counter it and peeps again vary their builds, until the next new meta perk arises, etc. etc.
But for most of DBDs lifetime, the survivor meta is moving at a glacial pace, and all this basekit additions aren't helping one bit.
There is only ONE thing that I would add to basekit: mini BBQ. After hooking a survivor show the killer the aura of a singel survivor x meter away. Killers of the past had BBQ equipped for the BP bonus, but the perk showed them opportunities that were worthwile and peeled them away from hook. Another good addition might be to bring back the old +25% more BP part as basekit, but only increase the counter if all 4 survivors are still in the game; ie if the killer tunnels the first survivor out their bonus will stop at 25%, but if they hook each seperate survivor before going in for a kill, this nets them +100% bonus BP. Its simple and elegant and would help a lot to incentivice killers to spread hooks and leave hooks to go hunting.
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Both got 50% and an excess trim. They're really not that different.
And both should have the 50% reverted.
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Ruin at any strength would be completely meaningless to most current killers in the game.
You could make the regression 400% and they would still hard tunnel one survivor and then be completely baffled as to why the others aren't just letting go of the gens voluntarily.
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Agree.
The mini BBQ would also be a good idea.
I personally would create a early game mechanic for weaker killers. Maybe killers like Myers, Freddy, Pig, Trapper, Demo, Ghostface and Wraith could have a little indicator in form of an arrow or something in the beginning of the match, indicating, where most survivors 2 or more spawned. No aura, no screaming. Just a 2 second arrow or something. That would actually help a lot. Lethal would still he a solid choice for info on all survivors and no Nurse or Blight would benefit.
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No. I think 5 seconds is too much. Ruin souls have gotten one of the nerfs. Ds deactivating in end game is absolute fine in my opinion. It was the most unfair part about the Perk. The real problem with ds is that it punishes weaker killers more than stronger ones. Same with Made for this. Nurse and Blight don't really care about ds. Therefore I would keep 3 seconds (maybe 4) but make it that it sets Blights and Nurse's power to 0. Therefore they can't just rush you down again. Same with spirit, maybe Wesker.
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Considering the perk's activation is entirely within the killer's control, 5 seconds is fine. It should be a proper deterrent, otherwise it's not worth picking.
It doesn't matter that its impact varies among different killers because none of those killers should be tunnelling into a DS.
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There is OTR, extremely strong perk. There is Borrowed time. People don't use it anymore since half of it is basekit. There is DS. Sure it got nerfed but i wouldn't say its useless. Sure its useless against nurse and blight but what isn't. Use it smart. Go down near good loop and DS can buy you plenty of extra time. add little sprinkle of DH with it and i'd say you have pretty damn good anti tunnel build. DH alone is now antitunnel perk. Is it hard to use and misses time to time..sure but it's absolutely better than nothing.
People rather use windows and turn their brains off and see the pretty yellows instead of using actually good perks.
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Tunneling is sometimes a necessary evil. There is no better slowdown than getting a player out of the game. Until that changes, tunneling will probably remain a strong choice.
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Agree.
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There is OTR, extremely strong perk.
But not an anti-tunnel perk since it is hardcountered by tunnelling.
There is Borrowed time
Might buy you an extra hit, but you can't use it yourself.
There is DS. Sure it got nerfed but i wouldn't say its useless. Sure its useless against nurse and blight but what isn't. Use it smart. Go down near good loop and DS can buy you plenty of extra time
And if there's no good loop nearby, you're F'd because it got hard-nerfed for no particular reason.
add little sprinkle of DH with it and i'd say you have pretty damn good anti tunnel build. DH alone is now antitunnel perk. Is it hard to use and misses time to time..sure but it's absolutely better than nothing.
So you now need to use two perks for a harder to use, less reliable version of what one perk used to do by itself, consistently.
None of this changes that anti-tunnel got gutted out of the game.
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You mean the old DS that gave survivors free escape in end game? Sure it was stronger and busted. Would i buff DS back to 5 seconds.. Sure but the endgame use needs to stay gone.
SO you rather use useless perks like windows and whatever i see lately a lot (self care) not joking.. than good perks that might buy you more time and even an escape? I've gotten so much value out of OTR and bought my team time to finish the last gen or get gen done.
No ones forcing you to use perks that might help you, but you can't go saying there isn't perks for tunneling when there is plenty. You refuse to use them.
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You mean the old DS that gave survivors free escape in end game?
No, I mean 5 second DS. I was asked to clarify in what way anti-tunnel was gutted and I specifically -only- mentioned the cut stun duration. I never once disparaged the EGC nerf or even mentioned it.
SO you rather use useless perks like windows and whatever i see lately a lot (self care) not joking.. than good perks that might buy you more time and even an escape? I've gotten so much value out of OTR and bought my team time to finish the last gen or get gen done.
I'd rather not sink 2+ perks into something that is ONLY useful if the killer is using a specific strategy, specifically against me. This kind of goes back to my first post about a bunch of survivor perks being really situational.
And now on top of being that situational, DS isn't even good anymore.
I've never used Windows of Opportunity. I've hardly ever used DS either, but at least back when DS was 5 seconds, it was an active, looming threat for killers that wanted to tunnel, and most didn't do it because eating a five second stun was pretty devastating. With DS getting gutted, survivors lost their primary anti-tunnel and OTR didn't replace it because it is countered by tunnelling.
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How can you expect to have anything but a stale meta when most of the new survivors perks are outright bad.
Seriously, i said this before in another thread but if you take a look to the newly released perks you'll see they are:
- Perks with very weak effects (Lucky star, Scene Partner)
- Perks that are highly situational (Cut Loose)
- Perks that are nerfed versions of existing ones (scavenger being a worst build to last, friendly competition being a worst Prove thyself, Cut Loose being a worst Quick & Quiet)
- Perks that have a wall of restrictions to use (Blood Rush)
And the ones that do not fall in these categories are either panic nerfed in PTB like Reassurance, Scavenger or get a hundred post in the forums like MFT.
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And why is a new anti-camp mechanic needed if so many option exists? Yes, because it doesnt work at all, it just changes the approach the killer uses to camp or tunnel, but doesnt disencourage that strategy as a whole.
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People like you is why I don't even play the game anymore.
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