How do you deal with Tracking Perks essentially being Useless?
This is just a game I just finished but like holy crap, No Screaming and No Aura reading. Survivors were all good at looping as well, but I got 2 Kills just because I downed the Obsession right after Final Gen pop and No Way Out helping.
Aside from, somehow the game is wanting me to sweat my ass off and run 4 meta slow-downs perks in this bone chill event, (just ranting as I don't want to sweat i.e. run 4 Slowdown just for games to last more than 5 mins this event meant for fun) I noticed that I somehow, every game I am running into these kinds of builds where I can't see Survivors with BBQ and Chili/Friends till the End or Make them Scream (Doctor Shock/Infectious Fright).
Is this because of Ultimate Weapon? Tracking Perks are essentially Dead Weight for me right now as 2 or more Survivors every Game are running these Anti Tracking Perks Distortion and Calm Spirit.
How do you guys deal with your Tracking Perks essentially being Useless? Does BHVR want me to run Pain Resonance, PGTW, Corrupt Intervention and Deadlock/Surge Instead?
Can BHVR hurry up and Nerf Ultimate Weapon and these Anti Tracking Perks? - from a guy who does not like running Gen regression.
Comments
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What is the problem here?
The only perk that is being countered here is Friends to the End but that also eats like 2 stacks of distortion since it has long duration. The other perks are not countered. Aura positions are NOT screaming on these perks.
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I'm personally more than fine with survivors using half of their perk-slots for things that isn't gen, chase or info stuff.
Though I hate how Distortion also hides scratchmarks. It's cool that they counter my info perks, addons or powers, but why do they have to counter basekit tracking along with it?
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This is just an example of a match showing the builds. One of my Killers, Oni where I have Infectious Fright, BBQ and Chili, Monitor and Abuse and Sloppy Butcher. I didnt get a screenshot of the post game of that one but my point was as I rarely run slowdowns, I get like an average of 8 mins matches. Im just ranting that Tracking perks are useless because as I experienced with my Oni, BBQ and Chili & Infectious Fright were Dead weight the whole match.
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Think about it like this though, half the time I bring distortion the killer has 0 tracking perks, and then the perk slot is "wasted". While I understand the annoyance of some perks countering others, the trade off is half the time those perks provide 0 value to the user as you are betting on the other side having a perk to counter.
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While I do think Distortion should be tweaked so that charges actually matter, I don't think Calm Spirit is an issue at all. It was a dead perk that's only been made relavent due to how busted UW is.
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So... You dont want to sweat, but you want every game to be a win?
But aside from that - Killers are not happy when Survivors use gen-focussed Perks. Killers are not happy when Survivors use Chase or Second Chance-Perks. And apparently Killers are not happy when Survivors use Stealth-Perks. Now, there is not much left aside from Self-Care to be honest, lol.
The thing is, the current Killer-Meta involves A LOT of tunneling. More often than not, when you get found and hooked, you will have to deal with being tunneled afterwards. And ALL Anti-Tunnel Perks are not really good. Neither of them. So the logical reaction is that you avoid being found.
Especially with strong Perks like Ultimate Weapon around.
I also dont like it, because I really dislike if people use Stealth-Perks, since I like to run Information-Perks. But as a reaction of the tunneling meta, I completely understand why more Survivors go this direction.
EDIT: More evidence for my point is that the remaining Perks are a Exhaustion-Perk AND an Anti-Tunnel Perk on each Survivor.
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Doesn't it counter Spies of the Shadows too? I see a lot of killers opting for it instead of aura reading.
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Learn to love whispers or play solely around objectives to force survivor interaction
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Survivors excessively hide because it gives results, and is low effort.
But it doesn't need to eat through 2 stacks, because the Distortion user can just hop in a locker if they notice the perk has triggered on them, and then preemptively hop into a locker to avoid future aura reveals from this perk.
I really don't know why people just assume Distortion users are forced into just eating through stacks whenever possible
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Don't use tracking perks. At least, that's how I deal with it. They're all conditional or situational anyway. You can go entire games where survivors never meet the conditions for whatever tracking perk you run, and that's even if they're not running Distortion or Calm Spirit. Game sense is your best tracking tool. Survivors will always be doing gens or in a chase, but you might not always have trouble finding them. So slowdown and chase perks>tracking perks.
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Gotta listen to footsteps and watch them crows flies.
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Is this because of Ultimate Weapon?
My guess? It is actually because stealth is one of the few things from the survivor side that hasn't been hit with unnecessary changes.
Everything else (totems, healing and chases) has suffered in one way or another.
Edit: Nevermind, I had forgotten about Iron Will. Essentially everything survivors had got hit with an unnecessary change.
Post edited by GeneralV on3 -
I typically adapt. If my info perks mean nothing and I can't find half their team for the life of me, then guess what's going to happen at 5 hooks. Someone will die. That's the logical consequence.
It's annoying for sure. I mean, nobody likes having their perks countered. But I can deal with it for the most part.
Spam heals were getting out of hand, so I disagree that these changes were unnecessary.
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Yeah, ppl tend to forget that these 2 perks counter both tracking via crows and scratch marks...
no crows are flying, lol
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D I S C O R D A N C E
Idk why we stopped running this perk it's so good and doesn't care about much of anything.
There might be value to CoB as well if you treat it as an info perk rather than a regression perk. There's ways to get around stealth perks people just haven't caught up to them yet cuz they're trying to force what they're used to playing.
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Play as Legion, Skull Merchant, or Demo. All killers who get info that isn't dependent on auras or screams.
Use perks like Whispers, Surveillance, Discordance, Thrilling Tremors, etc.
If you want additional info, you still have options that rely on neither auras nor screams.
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Nemesis is also countered here. It's actually acting as an anti-perk since every time it procs and activates Distortion, the survivors stop leaving scratch marks. He would've been better off leaving those slots blank.
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This is a joke right, survivors weren't "hit with unnecessary changes" all those things were rightfully broken and changed, medkits, circle of healing, "totems" idk even know what this refers to, and they didn't get any big chase nerfs besides 0.2s of their speed burst and dh not being as op as it used to because it made chases a joke
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Spam heals were getting out of hand, so I disagree that these changes were unnecessary.
That was only because of COH, a perk I strongly believe shouldn't exist.
Healing had been fine for years before that.
EDIT:
Yes, they were. It is the reason why few people do anything but gens these days, because there is nothing else.
Totems? Well, this one is the ideal secondary objective. But Ruin got a rework and a nerf, and Thrill of the Hunt got a nerf. Very few killers use hexes, and the ones who do have no means to protect them.
Healing? Unnecessarily nerfed. I blame CoH for that, a perk that I believe shouldn't exist, and the reluctance to bring Self-Care back to the meta.
Chase? Map reworks messed them up pretty badly. There are deadzones aplenty and those new tiles are awful to run.
Hide? This one is still viable.
The current state of the game is a consequence of unnecessary changes.
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Not using them.
I don't use any aura perks except Lethal Pursuer. Discordance can be useful too.
Or just use slowdown, chase perks or NOED.
Tracking perks in current DbD isn't always reliable and overrated imo.
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Gen control is absolutely vital. If you aren't willing to run any Gen control expect to lose. You must use a few and there are plenty of locator perks that survivors can't dodge. Discodance and and whispers and tinkerer. I like using my aura reads and ultimate weapons fun(nerf is coming for that) But the survivor meta will always be a mirror of the killer meta. If killers like BBQ then survivors like distortion. It will always be a case of killer meta=survivor meta
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Even better is Surveillance. It's so slept on and counters basically any Survivor anti tracking Perk. Surveillance will provide info no matter what.
Unless they let gens regress to 0 %, which would be damaging.
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As others have said, there are info and tracking perks that aren't countered by Distortion and Calm Spirit. Whispers isn't countered by anything, it always works.
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I think majority of players on both sides like chase the most, so I can see why people would dislike distortion.
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Abandon perks that can be countered by distortion and calm spirit. Considering the perks already have a lot of restrictions the existence of these two perks just makes the risk of not getting any value out of them too high.
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You just find them the old fashion way. I went against a Huntress the other day with a complete aura build plus Glowing Concoction add-on. The Claudette with Distortion didn't make it lol
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As others have said, Calm spirit and Distortion is a direct result of killers getting what they wanted from BHVR. Discordance, Spies and surveillance are the new winners of info perks.
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If someone had told me last year that Calm Spirit would be as popular as it is right now, I'd have called them nuts lol I feel like it's a bad reflection on the current state of survivor that most folks who didn't care about stealth now feel they need it to stand a chance.
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Again, I feel this is a direct reflection of the tunnel meta. If you're not hooked in the first place, you cant be tunneled. And since on average, my soloQ games result in about a 50% tunnel/not tunnel killers, Id say stealth is viable.
Especially if you just want to play the game. Tunneling really destroys a players ability to 'play' dbd. No wonder BHVR want to do something about it. I just wonder if they have that ability.
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It's hard to say because tunnelling has been the biggest and most common complaint I've seen in the whole 3 years I've been playing. Stealth has always been a viable option, and I'd see it at times with team mates, but very few of them would use CS or Distortion. So I'd say the sudden popularity of these perks is more likely a direct response to UW and FttE than anything.
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Ofc. I agree. I didnt feel the need to mention UW as Calm is the literal direct result of UW. But you are correct. And with UW, tunneling became even easier. But tbh, I was kind of hoping it would cut down on tunneling a bit. Hearing screams from survivors just from opening a locker is one of the better ease of use perks BHVR handed to killers, and yet they still tunnel relentlessly. So calm spirit became meta and with distortion/Sole, you've a two perk stealth build. Which, I would argue that in soloQ, its required.
So until something is done directly to tunneling, players will continue to be unable to even just 'play' the game. I dont think BHVR understands that.
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While situations like this suck, there is at least the silver lining that you're both using perks to cancel one another out, and the killer wins that since they have more basekit power than the survivors do.
Playing against squads like this is tough, but there are other things to use to track survivors. Scratch marks (when Distortion isn't eating them), blood pools, injured sounds, footstep sounds, even just the visual sight of them. If you know a generator's been worked on, too, because it stopped regressing, chances are they're hiding nearby.
So, there's stuff you can do to react, and if all you care about is having info in general (which I assume isn't the case since you're doing a gimmick build here, but still), there are plenty of good perks that aren't fooled by either of those survivor options. Discordance, Surveillance, even Whispers is pretty good-- or bring some aura reading that chews through stacks fast, like Gearhead.
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- There are still perks that function and give you information on where survivors are. Discordance being one of them.
- Most of the time you can track survivors with logic since they most likely are near the objective, probably leave scratch marks, have breathing sounds
- Some perks are designed to counter others. I run f.e. Bond, Open Handed, WoO and Kindred. Some killers give me the blindness effect and thats just how it is. Its a public match, I chose that build so if it fails due to me not taking other perks that function through said blindness, then I already misplayed before the match has started.
- I am sorry that you dislike these perks, but man - I would take Survivors with those two perks any day. Two less perks for Chasing or survivability. Plus lets be real here, I have nearly every game killers with 4 anti-gen perks. These stealth perks are imo not problematic and its just insane how killers were always saying to survivors "Just be stealthy" and crying about survivors looping - and as soon as they do it, it's still not fine. 💀
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Even IF they go in a locker to keep their stacks - any survivor could go into the locker to hide their aura. Like what is your point here? Plus calling hiding low effort is crazy imo. Killers need to find survivors, hunt them and hook them. Survivors need to hide, get generators done and get probably chased. Can we just stop reducing any role by how they achieve their objectives? 💀
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This, so much. Anything is low effort if if goes against the (choose side) rulebook. /s
I hope @Coffeecrashing expands on this.
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Blindness is a weak effect until Jeffs teached killers it isnt.
How stupid it is for Ultimate weapon deny survivors' basekit abilities to see slugged and hooked teammates. Because the info and denying over 20 survivor's aura perks arent enough.
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That's true. I don't get this design philosophy of taking a strong perk, and adding something not half-bad on top of it.
I was among the few killers who didn't complain about the speed during the MFT meta. I was complaining about it being a not half-bad Endurance perk on top of being a good speed perk.
UW is the same thing. A fine, maybe more than fine tracking perk, but why does it have built-in Third Seal?
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People that defend Distortion will sometimes mention just how quickly a survivor can burn through Distortion, as if survivors won't ever ever try to protect their stacks. This isn't what people are doing. One of the biggest values of Distortion is identifying which aura reading perks a killer has, so they can pinpoint which perks need to be dodged. This can help minimize the amount of excessive hiding the survivor needs to do.
For example, if a Distortion user is far away from the killer when someone else gets hooked, and Distortion doesn't trigger, then the Distortion user knows BBQ isn't in the game, so they don't need to hide in lockers when survivors get hooked. For another example, if a survivor is hiding near a generator when it is being kicked, and Distortion doesn't trigger, then the Distortion user knows Nowhere To Hide isn't in the game, so they don't need to try to dodge that effect either.
And that is the main difference between having Distortion and not having Distortion. Because without Distortion, excessively hiding survivors might just hide in lockers (or hide far away), way more often than they need to, because they don't know for sure which perks they actually need to dodge.
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Bloodhound counters distortion and calm spirit when you managed to get them injured. Oh wait.....nobody runs that perk because they are scared to be different.
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I play survivor a lot and know the spots to check.
I don't need to run any information perks as killer.
Hiding as a survivor and hunting as a killer is what makes the game interesting for me. I always laugh when I find someone in the same spots I hide in regularly. As survivor I can just avoid staying out of their FoV. It's hilarious to watch a killer run right by me and not see me. Playing both sides taught me a lot.
I've had Huntresses who eat my distortion stacks up mad fast and it's hard to get them back. Take chase and have fun, no?
Anyway, distortion often times ends up as a useless perk slot, and in games where it does, those killers are awesome and give me the most fun chases I've ever had.
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