Why are all the top killer builds now 4 slowdown perks?
Recently, I've seen a spike in builds that are entirely built of gen regression and gen blocking perks. It seems like this kind of just happened over the last few months. Am I wrong about that, or has something really changed? It feels like even around Alien's release we had killers running builds with more variety (info, chase effects, etc.). A lot more "best build" videos now are just 4 slowdowns.
I still try to run builds that include info and chase perks. Am I just behind the times?
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What do you mean now? 4 slowdown perks have been the best build for a while now.
The only thing survivors need to do is gens therefore extending how long it takes for those gens to finish have always been the best build.
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Have they? It felt like when Xeno came out, people were still running lots of other perks in their builds as well. Typically, when I've looked at builds in the past, they've been one or two slowdown perks, with some other chase or info perks mixed in. I said in my post I might be behind everyone else, though.
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Probably due to a lot of people feeling insecure about their abilities and also the overall pace of the game (both of which go hand in hand). Matches are faster than ever and some people think they can only compete with full slowdown. 4 slowdown perks isn't the best thing you can use though. Especially since the good ones only work when you get a down / hook.
That's always the problem when people rely too much on one thing only. They are all the more vulnerable to everything else, which leads to them losing and as a result doubling down on that.
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Info perks are nice but since the best tactic is to force a kill as early as possible you don't really need info if you are patrolling around a hook.
Chase perks don't really matter on killers with strong anti loop powers.
So you get left with slowdown and slowing gens has always been better than slowing healing.
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If it wasn't slowdown then it be information.
If it wasn't information it be junk.
If it wasn't junk it be killer bot.
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Because vs SWF's you need it on most killers to have a chance to win. It's also the strongest build on pretty much any killer with the exception of Blight, Nurse and really good Huntress players where aura reading is better due to how quickly you can get downs with those killers and/or their map pressure.
Then you have the fact pretty much all aura reading gets countered by a single perk whereas gen regression can't just be hard countered without progression which most survivors are running anyway.
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Killers need more time because time is always againts them. Slowdowns simply always buy more time and are the most consistent thing you can run on every single killer.
Info perks? Good, but also sometimes countered and they just save you bit time but you need to impact on them, on their own they don't do anything.
Chase perks? Makes chases bit faster but not fast enough to replace slowdown. There arent that many super great chase perks mind you. Nerfing STBFL didn't help either.
End game perks? Okay these can be pretty solid to be fair but slowdown is still more consistent option.
The problem is, for more diverse builds you need to make other cathegory of niche perks much better to compete.
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This has always been the case, but in the past the slowdowns weren't quite so boring to play against.
At least with Ruin & Undying, you could look around for the totems and maybe interact with the killer in doing so.
Now it's just endure a ton of extra M1 every game. Survivor has become a tedious slog.
For the first time in 7 years, I'm taking toolboxes into games.
This really sucks.
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They’ve always been the meta.
I don’t like running 4 slowdown because I think it’s boring but I can understand why everyone else does, especially since there isn’t really any other alternative.
Chase perks aren’t that great and with the STBFL nerf the only one really worth running is now gone.
Aura perks are hard countered by Distortion. Why bother running a perk that has the potential to be useless when slowdown perks always give value?
End game perks are fine, but why plan for the end game when you can prevent it entirely?
There isn’t really any chance for variety. Slowdown is so consistent and useful and every other type of perk is often not worth running or completely outshined by slowdown so I can see why it’s so popular.
And unfortunately this is probably going to be the meta for a while. They need to nerf all slowdown across the board and then buff the other perks so that slowdown isn’t the best anymore. Maybe give a base kit slowdown buff as well.
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Everything else is low impact, situational, or redundant depending on the killer. Stronger killers don't need chase perks, and information perks are often less impactful than slowdown.
Information perks get especially less impactful as the level of play rises. They tell you what you can already guess if survivors are positioning correctly. Yeah, they can help me find a survivor in a weird spot, but my loadout probably doesn't matter in that case if that's what I'm playing against.
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It's the best option for consistency, rest are less reliable over time
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I'd argue its because of broken map RNG, some games you win/lose by default. As survivor, if you get the minimum amount of pallets and a combination of weak tilesets, you lose. If you get the opposite as killer, you lose.
Slowdowns make games more consistent, if BHVR would just kill map RNG, and instead curate maps and give each map multiple iterations of itself, the game would feel much better overall.
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By how the game works, killers only need more time to kill, nothing else.
I have played a few match that I didnt get a single hook, and survivors didnt finish a gen after 5min. Thing is, survivors lost alot of pallets, I finished chases alot faster than survivors could finish Gens.
The longer the match, survivors have less pallet, less item, less teammates, less perk. In short, newbie killers could 4K the best survivors team simply by giving long time.
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I still run one chase-, two info- and one regression - perk(s).
I dont think 4 slowdown / regression perks are the best way to go, but that's debatable.
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Stbfl is still stable in my builds. Perk can't be replaced.
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slowdowns have been the best perks for a while now, reason being is because it’s consistent on all killers and the killer side doesn’t exactly have many perks that help in chase. The best one being STBFL but that got nerfed (I get why but still says a lot since that was like really the only good consistent one).
Killers get perks that give them 5% haste for 10 seconds (2,7 of those seconds get wasted cause of attack cooldown) in exchange for losing bloodlust (can be a big debuff depending on the map), survivor side gets a 50% haste for 3 seconds by doing very miniscule things (not trying to say these survivor perks are OP just comparing them).
It’s pretty obvious why someone would prefer running grim embrace over something like a teeny tiny haste boost despite how unfun it is with all builds being slowdown.
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Most of the popular slowdown perks at the moment come with built in info. Do I need a perk like BBQ when people are too lazy to avoid Pain Res and scream, telling me which gen is the most progressed?
Personally I'm still fond of chase perks, and it's dated, but nothing is more satisfying that hitting someone at a pallet, being stunned, and immediately downing them because of enduring spirit fury.
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To play both sides and see things from both perspectives, it's because the meta for both sides is an equallibrium. Survivors have no choice but to gen rush as fast as possible to max chances of escaping due to tunnelling being so prevalent, and in turn the meta for killers is to take 4 slowdown perks to slow down survivor progress as much as possible, and the most efficient way to do this is, you guessed it, tunnel 1 person out of the game to pressure the win (in the case of being hooked, leaves 1 on hook, 1 to unhook, 1 to do gens making it insanely difficult for surv post first kill). Its a wierd balance spot for both sides and the devs need to take a real long look at it imo , don't even know what to suggest myself
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Depends on the killer. M1 killers like Ghostface and Sadako it's still pretty good but killers who used to get good value from it like Deathslinger and Demo now are better off without it.
And honestly the perk could be F tier and I would still run it on Freddy just for the satisfying finger wiggles.
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Im a Pig-, Sadako main. I will never drop Stbfl. The effect just isnt replacable by any other perk in the game. I still play Stbfl only Piggy. The perk is still very solid, just lost a lot of synergy. A bad nerf in my opinion.
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I would much rather have the hook based regression we have now (pop, pain, grim) than "walk over to a gen for free regression and pray rng blesses your totem spots".
If anything ive found the matches to be going faster even with more slowdown in play, but also more fun.
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Why should anyone bother trying to run information perks, when so many survivors are running perks like distortion and calm spirit? Killers are better off just running full slowdown, which has guaranteed value every game.
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While I'm sure alot of ppl use 4 slowdowns, I wouldn't say it's most ppl. Lethal pursuer and BBQ are still up there in usage rates.
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I mean with distorsion being strong as it is taking the risk of bringing aura builds is pointless. Gen slowdown is the safest bet .
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That has been the case since slowdowns were added.
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Interesting perspective, my personal, anecdotal experience has been that my matches are definitely on the longer side over the past year and a half. Adding 50 base seconds to overall generator completion time on top of the many regression perks that have been buffed and the nerfs to BNP's make it pretty apparent to me that my games are lasting longer than they used to. And to add even more to that the new kick system is essentially a flat buff in the vast majority of games as 5% per kick and no gen tapping is a direct buff towards killer. I have yet to play in a game on either side where the 8 regression events have been hit on either side.
People used to literally be able to complete gens by themselves in like 30 seconds, you can't really get anywhere close to that anymore.
Again, this is just my personal experience but I would say that on average if my matches used to be around 8-10 minutes in the past, they're on average around 10-14 minutes now.
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Unless you're a god tier Nurse or Blight, you need the slowdowns. Otherwise enjoy 5 minute matches.
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I want your games. 😶
My games are definitely shorter. Simply because survivor efficiency is at an all time high and regression perks aren't quite as good as they used to be. Old Ruin + old Undying was arguably the strongest slowdown meta ever (either that or 6.1.0 slowdown).
Typically I see more survivors with items to increase their efficiency and sometimes perks to help them get through gens even faster. When I think back to "the good old days" before 6.1.0 the survivors focused more on outlasting the killer than pushing through as fast as possible. DH, BT, DS and Unbreakable were the most used perks back then and they prolonged chases quite a bit but didn't speed up the game. Items weren't as prevalent as they are now either (probably because they were also a lot more expensive).
In theory games could be completed a lot faster back then but the meta was slowdown for both sides (gen slowdown and chase / kill slowdown), which meant longer games overall. I think I only ever saw one depip squad.
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Very valid points, and there’s definitely a chance that I’m allowing nostalgia to bias me towards older patches. You’re definitely correct about efficiency becoming way more apparent, and games definitely feel way more streamlined in that sense.
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Just if youre really bad at the game.
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Gend are way too fast when u get to decent mr, plus one of the few good chase perks STBFL got nerfed.
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