Someone break down for me why UW is OverPowered

The only argument I've ever heard for this perk is "You're stupid if you don't know why" or "Because everyones running it" not a single soul has given me an actual explanation as to what makes it too strong.

Completely ignoring the blindness it applies since it's such a useless affliction in most cases (you could remove it and not a single killer would care) all it does is allow you to track people and in most cases you'll either go for the first person who screams or the last one (if you plan to get value on everyone) which is something other perks do.

My personal take on why the perk is so popular is because it's a tracking perk that isn't gated by stupid restrictions/limitations. Most perks that show auras have limitations such as only working near lockers or only on far away targets etc. UW is a perk you choose when you activate and what area it works in making it reliable which is something a lot of tracking perks are missing and need desperately.

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Comments

  • Reinami
    Reinami Member Posts: 5,482

    The tracking it provides is worse than every other tracking perk, especially nowhere to hide, which is much much better.

  • akaTheBARON
    akaTheBARON Member Posts: 346

    I mean honestly, and I play both sides, I don't think over powered is accurate for this perk. It's strong. And I wouldn't hate a longer cooldown, but cool with not having one either. I see this perk talked about like it's an all-you-can-eat aura reading buffet for killers. It's not even an aura reading perk. If you scream, just leave. It only gives snapshot information. It's a perk that may require you to take a chase. It's that simple. Someone has to take chase, what's the difference if a perk makes you that person? Gens are the most boring part of the game anyway XD.

  • sizzlingmario4
    sizzlingmario4 Member Posts: 6,875

    It's not that a scream is too powerful. Making a survivor scream is fine. It's how often it can be triggered (given its easy activation condition) and how long the perk stays active for that are the main problems, especially given its general lack of reliable counterplay (other than Calm Spirit).

    Apologies if that was unclear.

    If you mean it's worse than other tracking because it's only a scream while other perks generally show auras, then, yes, that is true. I just don't think that outweighs the other mechanics of the perk that make it good considering how the perk works as a whole.

  • Dustin
    Dustin Member Posts: 2,306
    edited November 2023

    It's a little overtuned and the cooldown after the effect is fully used or expires should be longer. Too much uptime for how easy and effective it is to use. Personally the way I'd change it is shifting the duration from 30 seconds to 20 and the cooldown from 30 seconds to 40. It technically has the same cooldown but the main thing is if you use it and enter a chase you won't have that duration just passively reveal everyone even while finding / chasing people. You either commit to the chase or you look until you find everyone you want to.

    So 30 / 30 to 20 / 40

    Personally I like how easy it is to use but I just feel the perk has too much going for it compared to literally every other information perk in the game. But again - Not overpowered but could probably use adjustments.

  • BlueRose
    BlueRose Member Posts: 658

    As others said it's free information that is on a low cooldown. That said one major reason killers are running it is because aura reading is in a weak place. You don't know how many times I run into distortions in my lobbies. Ppl talk about how easy UW is active well let's talk about distortion and how easy it is to get your stacks back. For one thing you start the match off with max stacks of it and it kinda easy to get them back before you run completely out of them. I run it alot myself and I don't think I ever ran out of stacks of it. In my opinion if UW needs a nerf because of how free it is then distortion needs one also. Nothing huge maybe make it where you don't start with 3 stacks of it at the beginning. You get one free stack and you recharge it up to 3 stacks by being in the killers TR. Overall I'm fine with them nerfing UW as long they make aura reading lil better. That just my opinion tho. I probably get a lot of heat for this but I honestly don't care. Just how I feel about the subject.

  • Massquwatt
    Massquwatt Member Posts: 438

    I'll say it again, assuming the killer is on the mark using it every time as soon as it goes off cooldown it's like what, revealling your position once every minute at most? Most likely less than that since they'll be too preoccupied doing something else like chasing. It honestly isn't that bad and for something that's so busted I almost never see it. I can only account for myself but I've been playing survivor pretty regularly this week and the amount of killers using UW can only be counted on one hand. In a way I hope it gets more popular because holy hell I am so sick of all my teammates running distortion because it just makes me the bigger target since I don't run it. Share the pain I say.

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,250
    edited November 2023

    You're right, but a killer using UW as soon as its off cooldown isn't using UW correctly.

    UW is most effective when the killer knows when they will profit most from finding a particular survivor or protecting a vital objective. Using it at the right time can put soloQ survivors in so many lose-lose situations because you just don't know what each other are doing, and anyone making the right decision, the Killer can stop.

    A smart Killer with UW and no chill is a truly horrifying foe.

    Post edited by UndeddJester on
  • appleas
    appleas Member Posts: 1,126
    edited November 2023

    It’s called Residual Manifest. You don’t even need to get hooked to activate it, you just have to blind the Killer. There’s even a guaranteed flashlight from the chest!

  • MikeStev
    MikeStev Member Posts: 384
    edited November 2023

    Of course Ultimate Weapon not OP. You need to open a locker to activate it, it only active for 30s within killer terror radius and you only get a bubble notification.


    You think finding a locker is easy?

    You know not all killer has 32m terror radius, right? Its useless for Freddy

    Survivor can hide before killer approach them, how hard is for survivor hiding?

    Just like @Reinami say its weaker than Lethal Pursuer, Nowhere To Hide, Barbeque & Chilli & Flood of Rage

    Post edited by Rizzo on
  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,820

    That's true but UW is more convenient. It's not overpowered but definitely more convenient to trigger. You don't need to be around a survivor to activate it, after all.

    UW is a good perk because it's easy information (essential part of the game), useful on most killers, has no significant downsides (other than seeing the position rather than the aura of survivors), is easy to trigger (unlike Floods of Rage) and it is a counter to the most popular survivor perk. A perk that is used as a crutch rather than a learning tool.

    I have tested a few blindess builds over the past couple months and they always worked best in chase. Because many survivors really rely on that one perk and basically run around like headless chicken when it doesn't work. Funnily enough, the unhooking part of blindness wasn't that big of an issue (with small exceptions).

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,367

    Blindness is underated, particularly in a Windows of Opportunity meta.

    But frankly, I wouldn't say UW is overpowered. It's a strong perk though. It could maybe do with a slight cooldown increase. 45s would still make it a very good perk.

  • C3Tooth
    C3Tooth Member Posts: 8,266
    edited November 2023

    It is not the same. You dont need Gen/Hook, your Hex, other survivors' aura in chase. You vision is only on the chased survivor.

    Why is Boil over hook aura annoying? Because you need it when you hook a survivor. Image the perk if they remove the wiggle buff effect but totally removing hook aura. Does it sound fine on killers? Struggle to find hook everytime they want to?


    I would like a perk on survivor that if killer hooks them, killers will get Blind status for 30sec. 

    Thats why I think of this perk, after a hook, most killers needed aura is Gens, being denied

  • appleas
    appleas Member Posts: 1,126
    edited November 2023

    I have played against Residual and it is annoying. If it were to activate on a hook, even with a long cooldown implemented, a 4 man squad running the same perk would shut down a Killer running an Aura reading build. Do you actually think that’s a good thing?

    So what would the Killer do in response? Bring more Aura reading perks? No, they would bring gen defense or “unfair” perks that assist in tunneling. Because if the Killer can’t even see the gens because of Blindness, they won’t even know where to patrol let alone find other Survivors. That means more proxy camping and tunneling. Then survivors would cry and scratch their head wondering Killers aren’t bringing information perks and leaving the hook.

    That’s why Residual Manifest is tagged to blinds. The Killer can bring lightborn to avoid it, look at walls, bring franklins to disable flashlights etc.

    Your perk suggestion would give even the Killers who dont tunnel and leave the hook less incentive to leave because they don’t know where to go.

    As for Boil Over, it can be worked around by looking around for hooks before picking or dropping the Survivor and leaving them slugged if no hooks are nearby. Once again, if the aura blocking effect of Boil Over was much more easily applied/common, what would Killer players do? Walk till the Survivor wriggles free? They would leave them slugged, and we’ll get more cries of slugging and for BHVR to implement basekit Unbreakable.

  • radiantHero23
    radiantHero23 Member Posts: 4,150

    It's a perk that becomes problematic on stronger killers like Nurse or Blight.

    What a surprise.

    On lower tiers like Trapper or Doctor it's fine and on Freddy it's downright unusable.

  • Venusa
    Venusa Member Posts: 1,489
    edited November 2023

    The thing is they have to take into account the type of Killers available in the game before designing a perk and make sure there's a fair amount of value they can get from them without huge gaps like Trapper with UW vs. Nurse with UW. Which they obviously failed to do with this perk.

    Balancing perks with this in mind is more doable and realistic than rewriting Nurse or Blight from scratch. So these specific Killers being busted doesn't invalidate anything related to perk design and it's a part of it.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    Well Nurse and Blight are not going anywhere. So it's better to nerf perks, when we have killers like them we can't have that strong perks.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,511

    The perk only triggers once per a survivor while active and the cooldown doesn't start till the active period is over.

    It is a 60 second cooldown per a use.

  • xEa
    xEa Member Posts: 4,105
    edited November 2023

    I totally disagree with what you say but if you really think BBQ is mediocre, thats completly fine then. Since mediocre is what "ballanced" should be.

  • Venusa
    Venusa Member Posts: 1,489

    That's not a cooldown though? That's "how often can you activate it on each survivor". The definition of a cooldown is really clear and it's not that. So it just looks like a play of words to make UW look worse than it actually is LOL.

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,367
    edited November 2023

    This severely limits the perks we can get though, and when you get 6 perks minimum every update, that's a huge impact.

    It wouldn't take nearly as much effort to give Nurse and Blight some more power cooldown nerfs, such as resetting charges upon stuns, a cooldown upon loading into the game lik all the teleporting killers, or a cooldown after a down/hook.

  • Venusa
    Venusa Member Posts: 1,489

    Perk has a cooldown of 30 seconds once the active window ends. There isn't much to interpret there. Cooldown. 30 seconds.

  • xEa
    xEa Member Posts: 4,105

    Just no. There is no way we will agree in this case, apparently also not on what "mediocre" and what "sub par" means.

    Its okay tho. Like i said, i dont hate UW because i like beeing chased but objectily speaking it is overpowered as hell. And i dont think a discussion about UW is interesting, since it will get nerfed sooner or later. Defending it is just pointless and disqualify any further discussions about ballancing. Same with people who think old Noed, Mettle of Men or MFT was completly fine.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    Yes, if Nurse and Blight are not going anywhere we need to nerf perks. Strong perks should never exists when these killers are in game.

    I would like to see nuke Blight and rework Nurse but i am highly doubt this will happen. So we have to target next things which makes them even worse to face.

  • Venusa
    Venusa Member Posts: 1,489

    The thing is you're inserting a value narrative and your own assumption of an imaginary match to the definition of cooldown even though it's so clear what the word cooldown is referring to. If you tell someone that UW has a 60 second cooldown you're misinforming them. It's factually incorrect. Your feelings don't change that, unfortunately.

    Also me correcting your misinformation doesn't make me "butthurt". You don't have to get that hectic and personal over a perk debate. Calm down.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564
    edited November 2023

    LP is free for very limited time and only one time use.

    NTH has free value true but it has limited time and limited range as well. So NTH's limits makes it fair and balanced.

    WoO gives info for free true but it does not make you good looper. If you are bad, you will just out of pallets so fast. Good survivors are not even using it. It's training perk for best.

    There already countless survivor perks nerfed only because of that. SWFs are already reason for a lot survivor perks nerfed.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,820

    Well, then I am sorry to say that this would kill the game for me. I don't like playing as Nurse and I only play a few Blight games at a time (he is enjoyable for a bit, but I rather play other killers). If it's them, survivor or nothing at all, then I would quit. Because there is quite a lot of content in the game they would break by doing that. Stopping with UW wouldn't do much. We'd go back to how it was before. And that wasn't much better, was it?

    Basically, Blight and Nurse would still be overpowered (I mean, look at these streaks, perkless and no map offerings) while every other killer would suffer. You wouldn't actually fix the issue but hope to make it more bearable for one side, while almost deleting the other (31 / 33 killers would feel these nerfs too, when they don't need that). That cannot be a good idea.

    Just a few examples of other perks they'd need to nerf: BBQ, Lethal Pursuer, Pain Res, Deadlock (granted, needs changes anyway), Floods of Rage, Forced Hesitation, Gift of Pain, Pop Goes The Weasel, Dying Light, Eruption, Agitation, Corrupt Intervention, DMS, Undying (the aura effect alone is kind of funny stupid on Nurse), Nurse's Calling, Alien Instinct, Bitter Murmur, Blood Echo, Call of Brine, Dark Devotion, Cruel Limits, Darkness Revealed, Infectious Fright and Discordance.

    Some of these perks aren't even that strong. But because Blight and Nurse can use them to get even a little stronger, it's still too much. The list is much longer but you get the idea. This is a bottomless pit.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    But the problem is UW is problematic perk even without Nurse & Blight. Like it's very free and it has no downside.

    I mean as players we are seeing how problematic killers are Nurse and Blight but BHVR is refusing to nerf these two. Would you surprise if they nerf Wesker in next patch but keep Blight as he is? I would not. For whatever reasons, Nurse and Blight are never getting fair nerfs.

  • Venusa
    Venusa Member Posts: 1,489

    Me: "UW has a 30 second cooldown."🙂

    You: "Wrong!"😠🤬😤