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Don't nerf or change distortion
From the jump I've used this perk as a solo survivor mainly to gain information that helps me assist my team, and in the past I have said the perk was good with responses from people saying it's too niche or can be burned fast or that the perk is not really all that useful.
Well now that ultimate weapon is a thing and friends till the end and basically all the aura reading perks work well with one another and tracking perks are being stacked on one another people want this perk nerfed? Because the way I see it survivors are just reacting to the obnoxious amount of aura reading in the game, and since solo survivors are lagging behind and the game is balanced around SWF communication now either more needs to come in to close the gap between solo and SWF or just let people have at least something to use as solo players.
Comments
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I think it would be healthy, if you couldn't gain any stacks while being the survivor with the least hook stages. Because at the moment Distortion kind of incentivises tunneling or at least ignoring the existence of all survivors that use it, which isn't ideal.
Other than that, I don't think it needs any changes. It's strong but mostly fine.
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As I've said in other threads, I do think it's needs to be a little slower to regain stacks. As it currently stands you almost never actually run out of stacks, even against a killer using multiple aura reading perks/addons.
It defeats the point in even having stacks when it's basically just a permanent buff in nearly every game.
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Personaly, the most powerful way Distortion works is actually in a SWF. Deliverance and Distortion paired together is obviously a extremly strong combo and the info the Distortion player can give to his other teammates through voice is very helpful.
Other then that, i agree. Its a good perk - finally! Used to be terrible, now it helps players who want to play the game in a more stealthy way.
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You know, for all I care survivors need more options when it comes to blocking aura reading. - With different pros and cons and you pick the one that suits your needs the best.
From a perk that tells you when your aura is being read but doesn't hide your aura unless you're injured (and has no tokens) to a perk that hides your aura only if you're within x meters of a killer - or one that combines not screaming and no aura reading but has tokens that are somewhat challenging to recover (ngl, probably tricky to find a balance where it's neither "only have a perk for the first minute" nor "have stacked counters all match") . There are so many options that would diversify "countering aura reading".
But for as long as Distortion is the only option to counter aura reading that is within your control (which is why I don't count OTR) it needs to be left alone. (Though, it will suffer the "over exposure" effect; if you see certain perks *a lot* you will get tired of them and will want to see less of it - even if the perk is technically very much alright).
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Nobody wants it will be nerfed hard. Only thing many people want is getting stacks become harder, because now it's too free, unless killer has full aura build.
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I think they should make it so you earn tokens in chase instead of the other way around, because ppl stealthing the whole game with distortion are not really making up the most exciting matches for anyone.
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Many people want it nerfed hard. Perks that encourage survivors to excessively hide for the entire game need to be nerfed hard. Stealth perks need a much more limited duration, so they are only good for anti-tunnel (i.e. Off the Record) or helping to escape a chase (i.e. Quick and Quiet).
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I think it is fine.
I also don´t really like all the aura reading stuff we already have in the game. It is a bit much.
It is good that there are counter perks for this.
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If they nerf Distortion, they should also nerf the aura reading perks/add ons for killers.
It's no fun going against a full aura read killer as well.
But I think distortion is completely fine the way it is now. Most of the time it's a dead perk slot for me anyways because the killer isn't running any aura reading perk or add on.
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Or...not using aura perks.
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You can argue the same of stealth killers who nullify all survivor aura reading perks though. Ultimately, it's a gamble to be worthwhile. You have to waste a perk slot and take a chance that the killer is using one or more aura reading perks to get the use out of it. To nerf it would be antithetical to what it actually exists for imo. Just as it would be to nerf killer aura reading perks. It's not like every playerz every game is running it. In fact, I hardly ever see it player load outs.
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Whats the compensation for when the killer has no aura reading powers?
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That's the risk of bringing a perk like that. Same as Calm Spirit.
I would say though that knowing the killer has no aura reading is in itself useful info to have too.
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Stacks are not generous and get burned out FAST especially against killers who only focus on aura reading, and against stealth killers. So hiding in those scenarios makes you easy to find if there's no terror radius you basically have a dead perk. It has so many existing counters and it was deemed useless until people started running plenty of tracking perks that came with the new chapters which are terribly good. Plus it helps counter the pressure set by these perks.
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What about cases where the killer straight up ignores you because they have STBFL
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Perks can be unhealthy for the game, even if they aren't useful in 100% of the games. If someone isn't playing a stealth killer, and they aren't only focused on aura reading, then Distortion can last the entire game because the killer's aura reading perks aren't strong enough to burn through all the Distortion stacks if the survivor is trying to conserve their stacks.
Again, the problem is the maximum value the perk can give. And even against stealth killers, a survivor can still usually conserve stacks long enough to last a large portion of the game. As I mentioned before, once a Distortion user loses a stack because of an aura perk, they know the perk is in the game, and they can try to dodge it in the future so they don't lose stacks from it again.
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Calm Spirit still doesn't disturb crows
And thats why Distortion doesnt need a nerf, because it has that risk
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I don't see why distortion needs a nerf. Killers who rely on a full aura perk build is not a good choice anyways. A good killer knows to balance their build. The same goes for survivor as well. Focus on one aspect, you are weak in another.
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I don't see what these have to do with each other. You can force yourself on a killer, if they don't go after you and there are multiple perks to change the obsession. That is what you call counterplay and if survivors don't that, too bad.
Distortion on the other hand is a very selfish perk. You bring it into the match and your team mates are the ones that have to pay for it. Unless you go out of your way to defy your own perk's use. Which is quite counter intuitive. It's even worse when there are multiple Distortions because then someone else will die even sooner.
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The only killers who can burn through stacks are those with a small TR (Myers, Huntress, Hag) or with inbuild stealth. All others have problems, especially on small maps.
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Why would you nerf distortion?
Oh right, goal posts move.
Soon Bond is on the chopping block.
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I have another idea to create a true alternative to Distortion.
A perk which gives you the same information, but does not hide you, instead it shows you the killer giving you an opportunity to react accordingly: Object of Obsession.
The perk is actually quite good, if you know how to use it. But almost nobody uses it because it gives you a disadvantage: it reveals your aura every 30s, which can kill you if you don't want to be seen (f.e. if you are waiting for a FL save or if you are the last survivor). If that would be changed to a cooldown so that you can control when you are revealed, it would be a nice alternative.
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Then why does it even have charges? I run Distortion on many of my survivors and I have almost never actually run out of charges, you just regain them too quickly for even multiple aura-reading perks to burn through.
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I hope it gets changed because it's just boring. I've abandoned all aura reading perks and add-ons because of it. When i notice a survivor has distortion there's nothing i can about it but accept that my aura reading won't work on them and every time i try to read their aura they get 10 seconds of no scratch marks.
If Distortion is causing killers to abandon aura reading perks completely then it's doing it's job too effectively. It should help you against aura reading perks but the perk at the moment nullifies them and turns aura reading perks into a disadvantage for the killer.
If nerfing distortion means nerfing killer aura too then i'll be fine with that
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It doesn't need 3 tokens for free. Stsrt with 1 and have a recharge or start with 3 and no recharge.
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It used to start with 3 and had no recharge. Nobody used it because you ran out of charges in the first few minutes of the match and then you spent the rest of the trial with 3 perks. It was trash. Then they added the recharge mechanic.
If I had to nerf Distortion, I'd make it like Stake Out: start with 0 charges to a max of 4, charge tokens for hiding within the killer's TR, doesn't recharge in chase.
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Instead of trying to find reasons why Distortion should not get a nerf, you could start a thread/or focusing more why SoloQ needs some QoL changes to make the developers aware that they are wrong what they said in their latest AmA. This would help SoloQ more than the begging for no Distortion nerf.
However, Distortion needs a nerf because it is unhealthy for the metagame: 1) Distortion players are often really bad at chases which hurts the team a lot. Hiding is not always bad but knowing how to loop a killer is more important and Distortion players avoid this lesson. 2) killers do run less auraperks but more slowdown perks which is not a very good result. 3) auraperks are healthy in that way that they do not encourage to tutuel. Friends till the end and BBQ encourage the killer to chase different survivors while slowdown encourage the killer to chase the same one. if you still worry about tunnling due to auraperks, run Off the record which is overall a much better perk. 4) It is not very balanced that one survivor perk can counter so many Killer perks and addons. 5) personally, it is straight up boring to play against Distortion users because they hide forever and do never give good chases.
It should take more time to regain stacks and stacks cannot regain during chase.
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Yeah it's fine. Often times it ends up being a wasted perk slot for me
Also fwiw I take chase and purposely start on center generator to take first chase. I loooove chases :) My friends aren't the best at looping, so I try to take aggro as much as possible. They focus on generators.
When healing someone or on a generator with someone and it goes off, you're gonna get caught anyway with distortion.
People complained about MFT and now it's dogwater. Stop trying to find more things to nerf, what's next, windows, we'll make it, bond, resilience? Oh, calm spirit because they don't scream and reveal info?
I play Chucky without aura perks and find people just fine and 4K regularly. All it takes is just playing survivor, you'll get to know where they hide. The hard part for me is the Techs heh.
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You forgot Onryu, Plague, Oni, Xeno, Wraith, Deathslinger etc. Full aura builds require people to be close and if you've played survivor long enough you honestly never need to rely on them anyway because it's a coin toss if the perk even is useful or a dead perk slot.
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Literally the tone shift is so obvious because I made a discussion months ago about the perk and practically NO ONE thought it was a problem, plus killers with iron will nerfed what is the issue with finding survivors? You know if stacks run out fast anyway people can hide in lockers right? You know if someone is healing another person with nurses BOTH have to be running distortion and that's very situational and even then you still hear the healing or crying, unless you want bite the bullet nerfed too. Aura perks stacked on one another burn distortion so fast I'm not kidding.
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c21 blight is about the only thing that can consistently burn through distortion, don't kid yourself.
It's not op but it's poorly designed. An all encompassing aura reading denier that half the time hurts the teamates of the user. 1 survivor perk should never be countering 2+ killer perks, that's just asinine.
Bringing nurses calling up is dumb because the perk isn't even halfway meta.
I'd rather buff distortion to 10 stacks than ever see IW back to it's old self, no perk has ever given more free value than IW. That perk was peak trash design.
Chase is fun, hide and seek is not. Only the 2016 dbd players disagree with that.
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I think the main issue I have with the perk is my aura builds just do not work. This 1 single perk literally can shut down half of my perks and addons.
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Things that destroy Distortion;
Gearhead (if the Killer can get a hit, Distortion will never be useful if you do gens).
Undying (will take all stacks if the Killer isn't nearby to replenish one stack if attempting to cleanse a Dull totem).
Every perks and add-ons that reveal auras from far away.
Stealth Killers turn the perk into a wasted slot.
If the Killer didn't bring any aura-reading perks then the perk is worthless.
Distortion players aren't rats for using Distortion. Players are rats if never taking chase for teammates or never doing gens/going for rescues. Before Distortion was a thing, rats would just hide in lockers and/or would go edge-map. At least Distortion can make people able to go for saves they wouldn't be able to or help during a 3-gen (Killer kicks the gen with NTH, doesn't see anyone so either they leave and you can go back to repair quickly or stay around out of paranoïa which gives more time to your team to do other gens).
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I was talking about this perk the day they buffed it but nobody listened. I said it would go meta and nobody listened. I said it would be a problem and finally people are listening. It's like Boon Circle of healing...it kills so many playstyles that it is unhealthy for the game.
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It could be retooled altogether.
Instead of recharging in the killers terror radius, it could be fully recharged each time you get hooked.
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I would be fine with that but it would weaken the perk significantly. As it is, you barely burn through the stacks even with a complete info build (which I am more or less fine with) but with this rework, that would no longer be the case.
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No??? PLENTY of builds burn through distortion so fast that if a survivor wanted to keep it up they'd have to spend most of the game in lockers or hugging the killer like if distortion needs to be nerfed then remove the net buff lethal gives to all aura reading then
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The tokens shouldn't recharge in chase
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What are you talking about?
Gearhead alone goes through all tokens if you stay on a gen.
Undying alone goes through all tokens if you stay to cleanse a Dull totem (not to mention randomly losing stacks to an unseen nearby Dull totem).
Several add-ons just vaporize Distortion.
Doctor as a whole invalidates Distortion.
Every stealth Killer turn Distortion into a wasted slot.
Just the other day, a Huntress with BBQ and Darkness Revealed burned every token and got a cross-map on me after one hook on someone else, never even saw her. Never managed to get more than one token back before it got deleted again.
Distortion's biggest strength is making some saves easier and making 3-genning situations a tad less impossible alongside giving a sliver of a chance to survive against a half-decent Nurse by doing the only thing possible: hide since you can't loop a Nurse and you can't even lightburn her anymore.
Why are people complaining about Distortion when Buckle Up and FTP, which has no counter except having everyone injured, exists?! Nobody gave a damn about Distortion until MFT got nerfed!
Post edited by Skillfulstone on2 -
It doesn't matter if Distortion is sometimes not useful. The problem is the maximum value the perk can give. In some games, the killer can't force the survivor to just burn through all their stacks, and as I mentioned before, survivors can dodge many of the aura reading perks with stuff like lockers, after Distortion announces them to the survivor. For example, it only takes 1 distortion stack to know that BBQ is in the game, and the survivor can just dodge the other BBQ stacks.
And the biggest problem with Distortion is that it encourages and rewards survivors for excessively hiding the entire game, which is frustrating for both sides of the game. Distortion should just get removed from the game, and if people want aura reading blocking, they should just use Off The Record instead, which is much healthier for the game because it has a forced limited duration. I've tested Distortion, and in most games I don't even burn through my initial 3 stacks. Most killers just aren't running builds that can force all the Distortion tokens to burn. Usually it's Lethal or BBQ, which can't force 3 tokens to burn. And even if it's Nowhere to Hide, I can usually just dodge it by hiding in a locker or pre-leaving the generator when the visual terror radius happens. And those are by far the top 3 killer aura reading perks. I can't even remember the last time I played against a killer with Darkness Revealed. And Undying only reveals near dull totems, so it won't burn any tokens if I'm cleansing a lit totem.
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I can say that Lethal Pursuer, Nowhere To Hide, BBQ and Floods of Rage (even when they exchanged on scourge hooks) weren't enough. That's 4 aura reading perks, that in combination should easily burn through. But they didn't. And believe me, I got to activate them plenty in a very short time frame.
I am not saying Distortion is overpowered (although it does become an issue when people abuse it to hold you hostage) but when you get your stacks back so quick that all of this isn't enough, then it's fair to say that you will not have your aura revealed once in a normal match.
You cannot change your killer or build once you load into a match. But you can keep an eye out for Buckle Up + FTP. That doesn't mean that this combination is fine but it does mean that you can do more about that.
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Why does it not matter that distortion is great in certain situations? Because by that logic we can apply that to any perk in any certain situation because distortion is VERY situational and just because you happen to have the right build for the right instance once in a while doesn't mean that the perk is broken.
Off the record gives endurance which is way stronger than plain distortion which does not give the player themselves any form of gameplay advantage other than not being detected through aura reading for a short time. And again LOCKERS exist, you say it rewards hiding but lockers do that way better than distortion and are accessible easily, and it doesn't matter if you're running scream perks and killers with killer instinct and pretty much any stealth killer because that perk doesn't bother them.
It hasn't changed in almost a year, survivors are just adapting to killer perks and these are the most situational perks because non aura reading builds are not affected at all, and every killer can run non aura builds.
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Calm spirit shuts down doctors entire power and clowns screams from bottles and every single scream perk in the game yet it's situational because those perks are not dominating rn not as much as aura reading. If scream perks were common people would run calm spirit as often.
People were fine before more aura reading perks entered the game, if distortion gets nerfed then aura reading across the board needs a rework.
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Distortion isn't "VERY situational". In most games the killer can't reliably burn through all the stacks, and even if they did, that was still 3 times the aura was blocked. A perk doesn't need to be active for literally the entire game in order for it to be considered useful.
And Off the record is an example of how stealth perks should work. Notice how it has a clearly defined limited duration, so it's anti-tunnel.
Stealth perks should either be "helps to escape chase" or "anti-tunnel". Stealth perks should not be "encourages survivor to excessively hide the entire game".
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I think on average reading an aura is far more powerful than a single scream since you can live see where a survivor is going etc. Hence why distortion is a far stronger perk than calm spirit, but also as you said that scream perks are not nearly as common.
It just sucks that a huge mechanic of the game is shutdown by one single perk. I liked it a lot better where tokens were limited and it was used as a perk to call out to your team mates what aura reading you the killer had. I liked that much better since it created a situation where survivors can know what you had but equally your perks and addons actually still worked.
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