Ultimate Weapon Suggestions

Problem is, the perk by it's very nature is only gonna be good on strong mobility and snowball killers. Even in it's current form it is only really problematic on killers that have the mobility and the chase power to capitalise quickly on the consistent information it brings. At low tiers this pool of killers increases, but it's still only the killers with good map mobility and/or strong anti loop that really benefit.

Changing it to have a longer cooldown and/or removing the blindness still creates the same issue, with either or both of those things changed, it won't give enough value to worth a damn for anything short of the top tier killers.

If we truly want to make it not a top tier killer perk, the bubble following the killer has to go, as that is the part that gives more value to the mobile killers, however then you have the problem of the perk being kinda trash in general... so short of that, at least hitting the up time means that killers regardless of mobility have to use it when they have a specific area they want to check in mind, rather just throwing it up and sweeping the entire map.

It'll be more valuable on mobile killers sure, but not oppressively so, and will at least still retain it's more niche uses for tactical defence of totems, or cleverly timed defences of 3-gens or unhooks.

I don't disagree, but it seems you've hit the nail on the head. If we have a strong info perk, we're damned regardless. Both sets of changes we've put forward hit the same issue, it's better for top tier killers, worse for lower tier killers.

The problem with extending the cooldown is you basically make it a perk that you have to captialise on for the short time you have it available. Low tier killers will struggle to get that value, so it's pointless to run it, they'll benefit more from a more consistent perk rather than a risky perk. High tier killers can capitalise on that window, so they can afford to take the risk for the reward, so they're the ones who will run it.

Removing the blindness is probably the suggestion that makes the perk the most consistently useful across the board. The only thing the perk gives with this change is a scream notification for anyone in range, and nothing more. It's one use would be for making it easier to tunnel a player out of the game if you lose sight of them off hook while doing other things, which is something high mobility killers do more effectively already cause they can get back to hook fast off of applying pressure elsewhere.

Ofc the elephant in the room is by doing this, your slow killers will cause nearer survivors to scream, so the target they are after has a warning UW is up, and so can jump into a locker and hide, whereas your mobile killers will be too fast for them to have a reasonable reaction time... so you still get a divide, and ofc UW has questionable value without the blind as well, making it a big question again whether it is worth running it on low tier killers (probably not).

This is why I lean the uptime nerf route (though personally I'd be aiming for 6-8 seconds). To my mind, UW should be a supporting search tool that doesn't replace your game sense, but allows you to search a locker if you suspect someone is hiding nearby without incurring a heavy search time penalty for doing so.

The blindness is something that benefits intercepting players coming for saves off hooks if you time it smart, however with it being short it's similar value for all killers, something you have to predict and guesstimate, rather that just stick up for 30s and remove all htought of your own.

The shorter uptime of ~7secs to my mind allows for skillful use of the perk, while keeping the obnoxious unga bunga power out of exclusively the high tier hands.

Well I'm not convinced you've done the maths, but I'll come back to that. Let's address your cooldown increase first.

Yes... the complaints go away, by virtue of the fact the perk is literally useless to all characters except the top tiers, and even then its questionable. A coordinated team can crank out gens inside 4 to 5 minutes. Let's assume you buy about 3 minutes of slowdown. With a 90-120s CD you're getting between 5-4 uses throughout the entire game... to say this a scream and a blind, not exactly massively huge value for any Killers that can't close down that scream rapidly, and even for those that can, they'd probably be better with NTH or BBQ and Chilli.

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So your complaint against a shorter up time is that this up time only works for high tier Killers who still get full value out of it.

I suggested 6s, so taking Blight who has the best map traversal in the game at 9.2m/s and a 32m TR, he can cover an area of 6,749.79 m² within 6s at absolute best. Your average map is about 10'000m². This seems pretty busted right? 66% of the map?

However, it is of course assuming he can run right through without obstacles and withour stopping, most smaller maps have a large building in the middle that has no straight path through. At best, I'd guess Blight can only realistically cover about 55% of the map; on average I would guess maybe 40%-50% or so. This means it's entirely plausible he gets nothing from it if he just uses it straight off each hook. It's entirely possible for him to completely miss the last survivor for hatch. This is also assuming that survivors don't hide in lockers... and only having to wait 6s is far more achievable than having to hide for 30 seconds.

So what about your average killer? Your average 32m TR 4.6m/s killer gets an area coverage of 4,983.39m² at best... this isn't that much less that Blight really, and still 50% of the map, maybe 45% given map layouts. On average I'd expect about 25%-35%. So as long as you don't Unga Bunga it off hook at use it when you're getting near to where you think survivors are, you can absolutely use it to a similar degree as Blight and Nurse with this change.

As I said, my goal is to make UW a search assistance perk, one that builds on top of the killers natural game sense, you use it when you think a survivor is nearby, but not sure where. You can also use it strategically when you predict survivors will make a move to unhook, or to try and break your 3-gen, or just to spread blind. This all makes the perk far more interactive instead of just through it up any time it is available.

This will probably be a little undertuned is the concern, but it'll still find use in a competant players hands, and for specific niche scenarios.

I'm not saying my solution is better BTW. I actually have a concern this uptime is too punishing and might kill the perk. I'm just saying that increasing the cooldown doesn't achieve what you want either, and of the 2, I think the shorter uptime is the one that bridges the gap between upper and lower tiers the most.

This is also a nice change, and actually rewards Killers who pop it within a group 😁

Edit: Would need ignore hooked survivors in that detection cut off though... maybe downed survivors too.