Why is Self-Care still so popular?
Looking at the most recent statistics it appears that Self-Care is the 6th most popular survivor perk with a 15% pick rate across all survivors.
Why is this?
It's widely considered a terrible perk that encourages survivors to play worse and waste time when they could be doing gens or just looking for other survivors to help heal them. Alternatively you could run Inner Healing which you can prepare before you're injured to then heal yourself quickly. Also you can STILL run a medkit with two heals on it to heal yourself with.
Sloppy Butcher is the 4th most popular killer perk, with a 15% pick rate and makes Self-Care waste even MORE time, especially if you get interupted and chased off.
With the nerf to medkits, Self-Care + Botany isn't actually that much slower than healing yourself with a medkit, but Botany isn't in the top 10 which seems to imply many people running Self-Care do so without anything to help speed it up.
What do you think? Is Self-Care good? Bad? Why do you think so many people still run it, and do you think people would still run it if it was nerfed even more?
Comments
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Apparently SC is more popular in certain regions which increases its global average usage rate.
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Solo queue. You can't count on anyone for anything. If you want a heal, you tend to have to do it yourself. Self-Care can't get Franklin'd. Some killers you can't stay injured against.
As for why Botany isn't being ran with it, it'd take a spot meant for one of the MFT/WoO/Resilience/Hope/Adrenaline crutch builds.
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I hear people say this but I play quite a lot of solo survivor and most teammates are pretty decent with healing me. I don't even run medkits very often and it's seldom an issue really.
As for Franklin's, that's a decent point but very few killers run Franklin's anymore.
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So, rather than talk about the solo queue argument since it's self explanatory, I'll talk about situations where it's a good idea. SC has saved my ass more times than I can count, and I completely disagree that it makes you "play worse and waste time". In my opinion, it makes you play smarter. I never take gen perks, and almost exclusively run SC, Botany, Kindred, Empathy. I would argue second chance perks of any kind make people play worse. I've seen more players using DS play worse than those using SC, because even with self healing you can't be reckless, as you can with DS.
This is a team game, and in solo queue, information is king. The more you and your team know, the better off you'll be. My perk choices keep me alive and my team mates aware of who is down, injured and if the killer is camping so they can work on gens.
In the case that you have unhelpful team mates, it can save you. And in the case that your team is on gens, it can save you. Time not on gens is time the killer has to win. The killer interrupts your heal? Good, more time for my team to work on gens. So, it depends on your perspective really.
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It's the only self heal perk solo survivors have left, so that's probably why. You can't rely on your teammates to help so you gotta bring something to help yourself.
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If I were to hazard a guess it is because the ability to self heal without needing to bring a med kit that you'll get 1-2 heals out of instead of the 'unlimited' heals that SC gives is very appealing despite the time sink. However, taking up 2 perk slots to self heal is probably much less appealing.
I've seen it a lot in various builds/meme builds on various content creators which might also play into its usage rates. It also prevents you from being reliant on a teammate either because they won't heal you, or can't heal you when you need it.
Another point on its usage might be the prevalence of Sloppy. If you get interrupted while using a medkit, you might end up with no heal and no more medkit/not enough medkit left to get a heal. Or if you're interrupted with a teammate, it might be a while before someone else can heal you. Whereas with SC, you can at least start over again if you get in the clear.
Is self care good?
Eh, I largely don't consider it worth a take on its own and needing a second perk to make it somewhat tolerable to sit through the incredibly long heal. It often leads to people spending huge amounts of time trying to heal themselves while teammates are going down and gens aren't getting done. I won't go so far as to say it's a 'Killer perk', because used decently well I think it can be a boon.
However, I don't think those situations are frequent enough to warrant its use and I think it's more likely to end up being a net negative in any given match. I've seen plenty of survivors who would not allow me to heal them in favor of them self caring. This was especially annoying when I'd pulled them off the hook and was running We'll Make It. lol
Do I think people would still run it if it was nerfed more?
Most likely unless the nerf is something huge and glaring. Ex: You heal yourself but are rooted to the spot for 20 seconds with a neon sign over your head that says "free down here". Then it's usage would drop. The ability to self heal will always be massively appealing, especially to new players. It's also more effective than a lot of other self heals.
Inner Healing is a good alternative, but if you're new then you don't know totem spots well and if all survivors who want self healing bring inner healing, then the totem wars begin. Plus, Inner Healing took a hit with the rise of Pentimento.
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Tbh i still use it but with resilience desperate measures and botany on my yui
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Pretty sure its a very popular perk in Asia. Im still of the belief that its not that bad of a perk, especially in a SWF
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Do you find you get decent speeds with that combo? I've tried it with botany, but personally find the time sink way too painful to bother.
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Me too wondering why people still using self care, They don't even care the time they wasting by using self care, they only think about "oh i injured, i must get back healthy".
This kind of player is majority at SEA region (my server) and Japan region. Go watch twitch japanese streamer and you will see a lot of self care user -_-
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SelfCaring takes SO abysmally long to complete a full heal, Sloppy or not… I’m convinced ppl are ASMRvibing on the SFX n Survivor animations, when seeing them unashamedly SCing multiple times a match while significantly greater priorities are afoot, smh🤪
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Self-care + botany is faster than old self-care, Combining other stuff you can get the self-care down to faster than medkit if you have a whole build for it.
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Different regions have different metas. In asia it is super popular because the meta there is not around looping or pallets but on hide and seek. Killers tend to take perks that help them locate survivors, and survivors tend to take perks that allow them to hide from killers. Self-care is very popular there because of that, you can get hit, hide from the killer, and immediately start healing when they go to look for someone else (which is hard to do because the meta revolves around hiding)
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I'm a big fan of Self-Care for a couple of reasons.
I like no item builds:
If I bring a med kit, I will only get one heal out of it. Ideally, you need to guarantee two heals at least per game, one for each time you're off the hook and maybe an extra heal for the end game.
Since I don't escape often, I always run out of med kits anyway. I'd rather spend my BP on unlocking and leveling up perks & prestige characters that I don't use, than spend it on multiple bloodwebs in the hope for a supply of med kits to appear.
Unreliable team mates:
Since I don't usually like to be healed under the hook (unless the killer is in chase or they've got We'll Make It), many players will abandon you if you decide to run for some cover. Or maybe the killer returns and you both need to run. So it's good for those circumstances.
I'm selfish:
I always combine it with Botany, a great team perk that I wouldn't otherwise be bringing.
Yes, it's a team game. But ultimately, I'm playing for myself and to be the last Survivor standing with the chance for a hatch escape. Self-Care keeps me healthy in those matches where all else is lost. I'm sure we've all had those games where you're the only player to touch a gen. That's not to say I'd never sacrifice myself so that someone else can maybe get out, by the way. But I do like to stay alive for as long as I can. With the security of an extra health state, it also lets me make riskier endgame saves or to run for an open gate.
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It's notoriously popular in the Asian region. Explains why you don't see it on Nightlight stats to the same extent - because people who don't speak English as a first language are unlikely to use that site. Swfs probably aren't as popular there, so more players simply playing for themselves.
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I had a Claudette using self care today with bite the bullet, she kept doing it and instead of unhooking me (killer wasn't anywhere near me and was chasing someone) she let me get to second stage hook.
The killer noticed this and slaughtered them. I couldn't possibly think of their reasoning for using it. Maybe they are not aware of the time they are wasting and running bond instead to find someone to heal you would be faster.
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I wasn't a huge fan of old self care either. Old self care was ~32 secs. New self care + botany is ~30 secs, iirc. Technically, yes, it's faster, but 2 seconds isn't worth two perk slots, imo. Yes, other perks can get that time down further. However, I'm not a big fan of perks that are reliant on other perks to be useful in more than extremely niche situations. It'd be something that I'd run on a lark, but that'd be about it.
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I use Selfcare not to heal, but to mind game killers with Bite the bullet.
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I think many new players fall for the bait that it “provides self healing for free” and they aren’t aware of its penalties and how it’s slow when it comes to healing….and others who have it are using it for the intentions of trolling their teammates on purpose
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Do you happen to know why this is? It’s so strange how a perk is regarded as terrible in one place but somehow meta in another. Is there some way to use it that some of us don’t know about?
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It's more of an issue that there are certain ways people in NA and Europe presume you should play the game that's not necessarily how its played.
I've been curious about the issue as well so I've been trying to watch some Asian twitch streams, my data sample is small, but a few things I noticed.
Soloq is a lot better. I just watched about three hours of a Korean streamer (recorded from a few days ago) and not once did I see someone quit on first hook (I finally saw someone let themselves die on second hook, they were the first hook, got camped by a plague) and everyone was always doing something - and it was pretty rare to see matches without at least one self care and seeing three self cares in a match was common.
The survivors also seem much more focused on getting themselves out. When it gets down to 1 or 2 gens, survivors really focus on finishing off those gens. So if you're injured and on death hook and want a heal, the other survivors might do gens instead
It also seems more common to just pop the doors and leave. So its possible you get to the end game and your teammates just run out, so if you are injured you'll want to heal yourself before you head for the exit.
Sloppy butcher also doesn't seem to be a common perk, no idea why, so the idea of getting half a heal, having to run away, and finish it yourself seems more common.
From what I've heard, there's also no concept of a killer handbook where there are 'right' ways to play. So if you make yourself open to tunneling, you're going to get tunneled. While it might sound weird, this seems to make tunneling less common, because survivors play not to be tunneled, and the killer knows that, so the killer doesn't try it in the first place.
This makes self care more common though because when you are unhooked you want to run to a deadzone to heal. While self care takes more time than a team heal, if you factor in the time wasted of two survivors having to run to a deadzone that bonus disappears.
Like I said, limited perspective. There's nothing where I was like 'oh, I've never seen that before', but certain the frequency of things seems to be different.
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Japanese Twitch community has a Semi SWF system where viewers can swf with the streamer based on a rotation system. Said viewers can join a discord voice channel but they are muted and can hear the streamer communicate. This means that it is harder for viewers to rely on communicating their need for heals and it makes more sense to just heal themself if the need arises. This is where Self Care + Botany comes into play. Fewer players also suicide on hook as well because of said system.
The attitude towards camping and tunneling is also much more neutral as compared to the almost hostile attitude that english speaking players tend to have in general against players that employ such tactics. I see more calls from Japanese players on their social media accounts to think of casual Killer players especially when things like AFC/Survivor UI were announced as it leads to more handholding for Survivors.
I may be biased because I spend more time watching/playing/interacting with said community than the English DBD community but I definitely agree with their takes over the people crying in this forum or on twitter about getting camped or tunneled out. At the very least a good portion of the Japanese community will acknowledge that tunneling and camping is a part of the game and if their team lost because of it, it was because they did poorly in chase rather than pointing fingers at the Killer and shouting for nerfs. That outlook is far more positive than complaining about A being too strong and moving on to complain about B after A gets gutted by the devs.
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@crogers271 explained it better than I ever could
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That's very interesting, I'd heard that SC was more popular in asian regions but didn't really know why. Makes sense and it does seem that the community in general has a much healthier view of the game than much of the western community.
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Simply put, it is essential when facing high-tier killers.
In matches against strong killers, the necessary actions of each survivor often change, so instead of trying to do only what you want to do, actively do what is necessary.
To achieve this, the number of people who can act at the same time and their positioning are essential.Even if it is faster to treat between two people, one person can do selfcare botany while the other is repairing the generator.
In Asia, DBD is a generator repair RTA for survivors, and a game for killers who aim to wipe out the survivors in any way they can.
Both anyone are equal and are competing fairly.
Of course there are players who aren't, but basically they are bad players.
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Because with the rise of MFT builds everyone wants to stay injured and have the killer chase them so nobody’s going to heal you
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Inner healing
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What’s that? I know about the perk Inner strength but I’ve never heard of this so called “Inner Healing”
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Wow, sooooo funny
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It takes time to find totems. Pentimento is very common. And if all four survivors ran Inner Strength it still wouldn’t be more efficient than using Selfcare, which allows for unlimited healing at around the same cost investment.
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The answer is simple: because it's not a bad perk
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Pair it with small game, it's just a more efficient SC + BN build, 5 free heals cause let's face it, no one tries to find totems except for me, hence my name, lol
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I think it is a combination of it being free on Claud and reliable. Now that Nancy is gone, Inner Strength is free for everyone too as a general perk, same with Steve's Second Wind, but both of those require you to actually do something to get running. Selfcare just lets you heal yourself and, especially to newer players, that is way more appealing and easy.
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They see me healing, they hatin 😎
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I think the reason is simple: it's free for new players, and impactful in a way that new players who are afraid of staying injured find particularly helpful.
Also the fact that new players don't have enough perspective to understand why it's bad
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Being able to heal yourself no matter where you are is a huge benefit.
It takes some experience to know the bad parts of self-care.
It's no wonder that beginners love it.
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Meanwhile I’m running a speedy healing build and theres the one Claudette running to the corner to Self Care rather then letting me heal her in 8 seconds.
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I run Renewal, most of the time I struggle to activate it because everyone heals each other, and when I do, I get lemons trying to heal me when I'm broken.
Who is struggling to get healed by team mates exactly?
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I usually don't have trouble finding somebody to heal me in solo queue, but the times when I died because teammates outright refused are pretty memorable. I bring self-care so that I don't have to get annoyed.
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It used to be meta, you know? It is impossible to count the amount of times SC was the only reason someone was able to escape.
That doesn't go away just because BHVR decided to ruin that perk.
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Time to nerf to 20%?
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Unless you’re SWF, you can’t guarantee that no other survivor will cleanse totems though..
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This I think is true but generally my teamates are very good at healing. Also if I remeber i correctly it was meta and amazing at one point. Might be wrong though. Some people might just have gotten so used to it they can't play without it.
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Even if your ally is good at healing, there are many times when that ally needs to prioritize other tasks.
It may be better to have everyone repair the generator separately and disperse the killer's targets, rather than having to join together to receive treatment and then repair the generator together.
When facing a high-tier killer, this decision will affect the match, so selfcare botany is almost mandatory as an option.
From a killer's point of view, if treatment is given quickly, it is easy to see where the treatment was given, so even if the treatment is completed, it is easy to interfere with the survivor's subsequent actions.
Selfcare botany is often used not out of a sense of psychological security or a lack of skill, but rather as a rule of thumb. Top players have made this clear.
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Literally, every game I play and I look for totems, I always find them, there is really nothing to worry about
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The finite quantity of totems and capricious autonomy of other gamers beg to differ.
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