Most Survivor Perks Are Good, Actually
...Or, if not good, certainly decent and viable.
There's a take I see floating around every now and again, that the only reason the survivor meta is the way it is (whether that's in response to someone talking about it being stale/boring or someone talking about why perks like Windows are run despite only being kinda decent-ish) can be fully summed up as "90% of survivor perks are trash".
I strongly disagree with this, and I think a lot of people would have more enjoyable games where things go their way a bit more if they'd branch out into some of the perks that are very frequently dismissed out of hand as just being overtly garbage. There really aren't that many perks at all I think could be fairly called just bad, and even the list of perks that are too undertuned to be consistently useful is noticeably shorter than the list of perks that are just decent or stronger, in my opinion.
In general, the perception I tend to see is that only chase perks and the occasional gen speed perk are considered worth running, which I think is a mindset that can be a little damaging to your chances of winning if that's a thing you care about; there's a very clear analogue for this on the killer side, with players who only value slowdown and don't realise that stacking four slowdown perks means they're going to be lacking in other tools and won't have any real synergy going on in a lot of cases. It's the same way on the survivor side, and, the tools at your disposal can be really quite potent.
The two categories of perk I see most consistently overlooked are healing perks, and info perks. For the former, it's bad enough that people legitimately say healing was nerfed too hard to be worth doing and so you may as well just run stay-injured perks like Resilience and Made For This, which couldn't be further from the truth unless you're very specifically looking at medkits used only for healing yourself. Healing your teammates is worth it! Some perks in the game make it even more worth it! We'll Make It is one of the strongest perks in the game, Botany Knowledge is an extremely consistent perk that provides a lot of value, even Autodidact is often mischaracterised as a detriment to run when its downside really isn't that severe. A lot of altruistic healing perks are genuinely worth running, and even some forms of self healing aren't that bad. Inner Healing isn't the strongest perk in the game, but it is a pretty consistent source of one or two heals.
For info, things aren't quite as dire - there's even three info perks in BHVR's top ten survivor perk stats, albeit with two actually being chase and gen speed perks in disguise - but info perks are still very consistently overlooked. Made For This is great, yes, but that perk released alongside Troubleshooter, a perk that is easily strong enough to be consistently viable. Alert is fantastic, Empathy and Bond are invaluable especially in solo queue, even something like Detective's Hunch has its place and can enable some pretty consistent builds. Having information on players, not just map resources, can heavily improve your macro game. If you know where your teammates are, you can avoid running the killer into them, to pick one chase-focused example.
There are others, of course - "stealth is dead" is another common sentiment I see when there are a fair number of genuinely strong and viable stealth perks if you actually want to use them, just to pick one example - but my main point is that perk diversity genuinely is not in dire straits. Most survivor perks are actually pretty okay, and even some of the ones that could use a buff aren't completely useless even to players who only care about maximising their chances of winning. A varied build that synergises with itself is going to beat four unconnected chase perks every time, in terms of consistent value and chance of winning.
Mostly, what I'm getting at is that there are a lot more options for your build than following the current meta perks. Depending on your playstyle, there are many builds you could use to better shore up your weaknesses and accentuate your strengths; even if you like being chase-heavy, consider running some info perks to avoid running the killer into your teammates and some altruism perks to help make your teammates less desirable targets for the killer. Consider bringing healing and info perks in general, because some of them are crazy strong, and in addition to that consider what would help you most with the most frequent pain points in your average match.
Above all else, don't discard anything out of hand completely without giving it a fair shake. There are a fair number of genuinely weak perks, yes, but try not to be too quick to brand something dead weight that it'd be a detriment to run. You might be surprised by some perks.
Comments
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We can not agree strongly enough
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A lot of survivor perks are really underrated. There's a difference between 'not viable' and 'suboptimal for my preferred playstyle'. I like basing perk builds around one of the perks a survivor starts with and I've gotten some surprisingly fun and effective builds from that.
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A match progression of a survivor may never touch a gen, may never heal others, may never touch a totem. But they will always be chased.
There are many good perks, only its so depended on how killer play. I can use healing build, only to get tunneled out with nothing to defend myself. I can use 4 aura build, only to get tunneled out with nothing to defend myself. I can use totem focus build, only to get tunneled out with nothing to defend myself.
Only chase perk and 2nd chances are always be used, being tunneled or not.
Oh and, do you know how survivors get rewarded by use off meta perks?
"Its smart to tunnel the weak link"
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For solo q it's a bit rough to run suboptimal perks, my solo build I run 1 anti tunnel perk, it happens fairly often tunneling is meta, that's 1 slot for OTR/DS. Then most people including me will run 1 exhaustion perk or MFT
WoO is nice for 3rd slots it prevents you from running in deadzones(again kinda needed if you're solo)/ can extend chases significantly, then you see resilience or adrenaline most of the time, I don't run these perks I keep 1 free slot
Sure botany, we'll make it, kindred and few others are viable and okay perks but you're more vulnerable especially if you're not very good in chases. I tell you what happens for average player, he tries healer build> tunneled out of the match in the first 5 min > go back to meta chase build immediately
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I think the problem is how people loosely categorize perks, and how there is a general dominant strictly superior perk or two perks and 8 or 9 others. To support this I'll try to generalize some categories.
First lets look at 'healing' perks. There are multiple areas that this can apply to, from Audodidact, to Self-Care, to We'll Make It, to Botany, to Desperate Measures, to Solidarity, to Resurgence and so on. I'd argue We'll Make It and Botany are the most consistently solid perks, whereas you need 3 injuries for Desperate Measures to bypass Botany, Solidarity carries too much risk for the reward, Autodidact doesn't work with med-kits and is gamble heavy, and Resurgence is a personal We'll Make It. The problem is even with Resurgence, We'll Make It can be the dedicated rescuer, so they don't waste the perk and can essentially give 3 Resurgences to the team with 1 perk.
Another one is Survivor on Survivor intel. While you have some interesting ones like Aftercare, Empathy, Bond, Empathic Connection, Lucky Star, Situation Awareness, and more. Bond tends to be far and above all others, and many times you only need an aura to coordinate a heal, which makes most of these useless without the added help Bond gives in preventing a chase from accidentally interrupting a gen.
Then on to Exhaustion perks. Overall, I'd say these are among some of the best balanced compared to one another. Removing the Endurance from MfT, and a few minor tweaks on Balanced and DH would tip them into just right territory (buffs on both, but I understand the pseudo PTSD DH has left some Killers with). As such I would say they are largely fine.
Then as a loose category you could say 'item perks'. The problem here, is many item perks are gambling perks, or some are almost strictly worse than a similar version (I'm looking at you Pharmacy compared to Self-Care). Sadly, since the best item is more often the item you brought with you, that makes Built To Last arguably the best item perk. It basically can give up to 2 extra uses of the base item amount. That seems especially silly when you compare that with the intended med-kit nerf to not allow more than 1 extra heal. Now you can simply bring a 2 (personal) heal med-kit, and reload it enough times that you had essentially 6 (personal) heals in it. The problem is that BTL can apply to ANY item, so it often makes the other perks seem redundant in comparison. Heck, the other perks are usually only good when you combine them for ultra-efficiency, like Streetwise on top of BTL.
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After looking at all the survivor perks myself i would say 32 perks are objectively ether downgrades from other perks, so niche that you just that you're basically playing with only 3 perk slots running it 95% of the time, and perks that effects just don't matter. I was rather generous with it too with what i counted as niche too.
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I agree that a lot of perks are underrated and are surprisingly useful.
The issue is though that even though they are good they still aren't as good as the meta perks. Alert is good, but it's nowhere near as strong as MFT or Adrenaline. There's a lot of good perks, but the meta perks are SO good that you are at a huge disadvantage for not using them. And rather than just nerf those perks, BHVR instead prefers to make perks compete with them, which often end up having to be really good that they borderline on broken (MFT and Buckle Up for example).
And this isn't exclusive to survivors either. Killers have a lot of good but underused perks as well like Enduring and Discordance... but again why bother using them when meta perks like Pain Res or Ultimate Weapon still outclass them heavily? Eruption is still a good perk but no one runs it anymore because Pop and Pain Res do its job better.
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I'd say half of all survivor perks are trash or straight downgrades to better perks. The others can be okay-good but with the way so many killers play you will only get real value from the meta perks(and if you run into a non camping/tunneling killer you still get value.)
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I just thought of another issue that adds on to my previous point here.
Perks don't always stack the most effectively. A Botany heal takes 10.66s, or saves 5.33s. A We'll Make It heal takes 8s, and saves the same 8s. But a Botany+We'll Make It heal takes 6.4s, or saves 9.6s total. That means Botany is only helping WMI save an extra 1.6s, despite saving 5.33s on its own. Because many of these perks can overlap, or inefficiently stack, it helps more to bring the best of each category you think would help you, so that reinforces only using 1 or 2, and calling the rest 'trash'.
(I just now read the replies to the thread after mine and that is largely re-saying what Steak and Nightmare said though, but I typed it before I read what they typed so I'm posting it anyways lol.)
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I don't even understand how survivors have fun running only ever running the same meta perks every match. Most of them aren't even fun or interesting at all, literally just moving faster in chase. I would've got bored of playing survivor within the first 10 hours if I couldn't do healing or info builds.
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Of course, the information sharing park is excellent. However, many survivors do not think they are good enough to properly utilize the information obtained.
This is because there are no survivors who can even use the HUD satisfactorily. Even when information is presented in front of us, what does it mean? Can you guess what happened before and after? I'm skeptical.
So even if it seems like a ``useless perk'' to them, it's actually true.
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you are correct. any perk that is not a chase perk for survivor is a risk perk. that is why despite survivors not running decisive strike or off the record, those two perks if they were buffed would immediately become defining meta if they were effective at stalling chases. Dead hard is also in that boat and Self-care/COH is also in that boat because of extra health-states.
one thing I will say is that the killer almost never chases entire team because spreading hook is too time consuming for the killer. So other class of perks that is consistent is gen-rush perk. gen progression perks. those perks amplify your teammates chases because they make your teammate chases more valuable. It is just that they often are not better then chase perks in a lot of cases because of how low the numbers are for many of those perks. survivors are running these perks more often because the reward for running off the record/decisive strike/self-care/coh/dead hard is now less rewarding then running Deja vu & resilience. so even though survivor want to just run second-chance stacking perks, the global changes to the game is resulting gen progression perks.
@jesterkind in regards to your post, most perk are not worth running because they don't fit second chance/chase extension or gen progression optimal of the game.
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Whatever that means...
Now show us proof of you getting 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, Urban Evasion, Up the Ante value consistently?
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niche healing perks could see some use if hemorrhage completely didn't destroy them like resurgence, reactive healing and solidarity. tbf solidarity isn't affected that much since i comes into play while you reset so hemorrhage isn't taking effect but still.
even though i agree there are a few perks being overlooked; most survivor perks ARE in fact not worth running unfortunately.
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Do you think there being a list of perks that are bad counters this post in any meaningful way? Surely you aren't under the impression this list comprises a majority of survivor perks, right?
To be fair, I'm not talking about niche healing perks like those three. Those three are weak, but other healing perks are not. We'll Make It, Botany Knowledge, Autodidact, Circle of Healing, even something like Desperate Measures can be genuinely very strong, especially in the right loadout.
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Yes. The title is "Most Survivor Perks Are Good, Actually" which isn't true, actually. I only posted a fraction of useless survivor perks, I could in fact keep going but wanted to keep it short. These perks merely existing is enough of a counterargument for your post so I didn't feel the need to go in detail since it's clear LOL.
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"Most" would imply a majority. In order for that list to counter my post at all, it would need to be a majority of survivor perks. If it isn't, and it's in fact a minority, that would mean "most" survivor perks are good, actually.
(Also, not every perk in that list is bad. Cut Loose is a perfectly fine perk, just outclassed by Quick & Quiet, and Urban Evasion can be used well if you know what you're doing.)
As long as we set our bar reasonably, at "consistently provides value (or is potent enough to be viable despite being situational, like Reassurance)", most survivor perks are perfectly viable.
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If we're only talking semantics and don't care about the real-life applications of said perks, then maybe.
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It's not semantics to remind you what the point you're trying to argue against actually is.
We also are considering the real applications of those perks. There are a lot more viable perks than people think there are, and that's not only looking in a vacuum or talking hypothetically. In a real match, preparing for realistic scenarios, you have a lot of options for perks. You don't have to run four meta chase perks, and in fact, doing that is probably going to hurt your chances of winning in the long run.
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I usually agree with your takes but not this one. Most (yes, a majority) of survivor perks are bad/inefficient. If one isn’t getting consistent value from a perk—that means it works more than once in a blue moon under the ‘right’ conditions—it isn’t a good perk. It’s a niche perk. And that is a bad perk. Most survivor perks fall into this.
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I agree with your reasoning, but I disagree with your conclusion. I think most perks do give you consistent value. I think the problem is that "value" is being measured against something like, say, Adrenaline or some other meta perk, which is a bar a lot of perks don't meet.
But, if we ignore what the upper limit is for value in this game, most perks absolutely do something. They'll do something that you'll notice and they'll improve your chances of winning. That's not to say they're all of equal strength, but that's a separate thing.
Another issue, and I think it's a fairly benign issue, is that some perks are viable but do things people don't want. Like, there are a lot of pretty decent totem perks, for example, but a lot of players don't really care about cleansing (or even blessing, now) totems, even if it would be beneficial with these picks. That's fine, of course, players can play however they like, but I do think there should be a little pushback against the idea that the perks are trash because of it.
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The reality is potential value doesn't make a perk "good" or viable. In any video game players would want to choose perks or powers that give them value every time they bring it. It's not a shameful thing to do, it's only natural. This is where the problem is. Your definition of good is "There's a chance most perks can give you some type of value eventually so most of them are good."
This isn't the case when it comes to real gameplay. There are so many situational perks for survivors that it's not worth running for the potential of "x perk value!" in that one random match. So people naturally want to run perks that has high chance of giving consistent value.
For example, my standard build for survivor is Bond, Deja Vu, Off the Record, Adrenaline and everytime I wish to try something different or fun the game makes me regret it because bringing those perks would be more helpful instead of trying some wacky niche build that makes me very vulnerable to certain killer strategies.
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I literally said the opposite, that most perks give consistent value, so I have no idea where this argument came from. Is it just because I acknowledged the handful of perks like Reassurance which are viable despite not being consistent? There aren't that many of those, I just wanted to be honest about them existing.
Your standard build looks great! You've got info, you've got utility, and you've got gen speed. That's exactly what I'm talking about, a varied build that covers a lot of bases is much more useful than stacking meta chase perks. It's worth mentioning there are alternatives to what you're running here for the same or similar value, those aren't the only perks that do those things (save for OTR, that probably is your one for anti-tunnel right now), but in general that's exactly what I'm talking about here.
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oh yeah i love botany, and it is imho better than we'll make it. those are both solid perks. even the ones you call "weak" are nice perks, i slap solidarity when i use botany or autodicdic and resets are instant.
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I'm not saying individual perks can't be bad, I'm saying a majority are viable/worth running.
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That's debatable but I do definitely enjoy healing perks as I'm very altruistic. That being said if I feel like it my build literally has mft and resilience, with adrenaline slapped on.
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i ran it with adrenaline wake up and sole survivor for that one achievement once and never saw or used it ever again except as you said, adept jane.
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The term META while used to mean strongest often translates as easiest to use or most broadly applicable. (Ease of use and broad applicability could be seen as strengths I'm not unaware of this).
Perks that get the most use are the ones that tend to do one thing simply or that can be used in multiple circumstances without much set up/downside.
I don't think the meta exists because survivor perks are generally bad its just that the "meta" is the easiest and most broadly applicable to use, so people use them.
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They're not.
Sadly, BHVR agrees with you for the most part.
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Unbreakable.
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I think the a few of many problems with the survivors perks is how fragmented their power is, and how outdated most of them are:
Here are a few examples:
- Overzealous and small game should be one perk
- Technician and Corrective action should be one perk, and you would still barely see it
A lot of weak perks could be condensed into a single one and they would make some more sense.
There are some unreasonable downsides to some others:
- Reactive healing should be more reliable and not just based on a % of remaining healing bar
- Inner healing should be updated to trigger on blessing a totem too (like every other perk that was released after boons and interacts with totems triggers on both blessing and destroying totems)
- The 16m range restriction of blood pact should be made more forgiving or removed entirely
- Soul guard's secondary power should work while under the effects of a boon or a curse
- Aftercare shouldn't lose its effect when being hooked
- Boil over was nerfed too hard, and has no measurable effect in solo Q without adding like three other perks, and even then you only end up with an highly unreliable meme build (Boil over, Flip Flop, Tenacity, and Power struggle or Unbreakable) which does nothing to help you at all in the majority of the games.
Most survivors perks have good ideas behind them, but the concrete power they bring to the match - for the majority of them - is underwhelming, and does not compare to some of the few others that definitely make a difference. Compare any of the ones Ive mentioned above to even today's DS or DH, let alone MFT, a single Adrenaline, or a single Hope.
And then some of them are just rendered completely useless with a simple choice on the killer's end, like Fogwise is completely useless while the killer is running Fearmonger, and it is not even connected to any action on the killer's part it is just a match-wide effect now, while Fogwise requires some effort. Fearmonger is also padded conveniently to also give a mini-exhaustion just in case it would not block any aura readings, whereas Fogwise has nothing else to offer. And fogwise is otherwise a great soloQ info perk, but sadly fearmonger is popular, so tough luck.
This list could go on for a long time.
Most survivor perks are rarely used, as most of them are simply underwhelming, or you need two-three of them to feel like you have changed something in the game.
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I think most survivor perks have a good idea or theme behind them, but their actual in-game power is fragmented or underwhelming.
By fragmented i mean you need multiple similar themed perks to get something out of them that actually impacts the match in any way, or the individual perks are just too weak and should be condensed with other ones in an update.
Some other perks are old and outdated, and agian some are countered effortlessly.
A few examples:
Too fragmented:
- Counterforce and Small Game should be condensed into a single perk
- Self-Preservation and Parental Guidance should be condensed into a single perk
- Appraisal and Ace in the Hole should be one perk
- Corrective Action and Technician should be one perk (and still no one would run it)
- Left behind and Low profile should be one perk
- Wake up and Vigil should be one perk
- etc
Some has unnecessary downsides or difficulties:
- Aftercare should not lose its effect when hooked
- Blood pact's 16m restriction should be relaxed or removed
- Inner healing should also trigger when blessing a totem with a boon. Every totem related perk released after boons become a thing has this trigger condition in addition to destroying a totem.
- Reactive healing should not be based on missing health, the more effort you put into healing yourself the less it is worth, and it never actually delivers, maybe it should be mixed up wtih Solidarity
- Open Handed does not stack.
- etc
The underwhelming:
- Boil over is pretty underwhelming especially in SoloQ after its nerf. There should be something worthwhile in it to pick this one without going for a troll build (and even that won't do anything in 90% of matches)
- Clairvoyance should add items to a map if you are holding one, and should potentially be condensed with Detective's Hunch
- Desperate Measures should affect more actions
- Premonition is outdated. It just needs a buff of some sort.
- Poised needs some update, like only trigger its 10 second timer when you enter the killer's terror radius the next time or something.
- Soul guard's recovery effect should be available while under the effects of a boon or a hex curse.
- and so on
Some are countered way too easily, like Fogwise vs Fearmonger, which is quite annoying and is totally unfair. Fearmonger is always on by simply adding it to the killer's perk layout. Fogwise requires an effort to work. Fearmonger is conveniently padded with exhaustion just in case there aren't any aura reading effects to counter, fogwise has nothing else going for it once blinded and no other way to trigger it than repairing a gen, imo it should also trigger on all great skill checks at least, not just while repairing.
Similarly Sloppy vs Resurgence. Like wth.
And none of the survivor perks counter killer instinct btw.
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Killers will say this despite only chasing one person for almost the entire game lmao.
They'll see a video of a survivor getting tunnelled from the start of a game and be like "he was tunnelling the weakest survivor" as if they've somehow calculated the skill of all survivors without even looking at them.
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