Is Perk Variety Dying?
I've noticed recently that I've begun to run the same five or six perks on all of my killers, most prominently No Way Out, Grim Embrace, and Deadlock. Three objective blocking perks, and then I'll run, say, Sloppy Butcher on M1 killers(not for long), Infectious Fright and Monitor on most others, occasionally Hex:Plaything. I feel an intense sense of dread when I bother looking at any other perks, really, due either to the prevalence of Distortion, the recent changes to how breaking generators works, or just the fact most perks already weren't worth a damn. I feel that any information perks I try to run will be entirely wasted--Surveillance requires gens to be kicked, any aura perk is likely to be smothered by Distortion--and any perk at all relying on the kicking of gens is only going to be wasted when a generator blocks me from interacting with it.
I recognize it's not LIKELY that a generator will be rendered unbreakable--that it's entirely an issue of perception on my end--but I can't shake the feeling that killers have a very dying collection. It feels as though the only perks I can run without them being rendered a waste are ones that act completely passively and don't properly interact with survivors or often myself. This is especially bad on killers who rely on special attacks, who are disincentivized to run perks involving Exposed, or anything activating on basic attacks(ESPECIALLY Save the Best for Last, now). Everything that isn't just blocking a gen or making the terror radius smaller feels wasted.
Am I just being irrational? Is this even a real problem, or is it a skill issue, plain and simple? If it is an issue of perception, is it widespread enough to still count as a relevant problem? I feel like I've seen this sentiment expressed before. (As a sidenote, I am accepting suggestions for fun builds or potentially underrated perks, of course.)
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Part of it is that basekit changes to the game have indirectly nerfed some perks and a lot of perks in the game have never been worth running. The devs are also very slow to buff bad perks and often don't buff them in a way that makes them useable.
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maybe for you. In my lobbies I'm always running different perks, and seeing a variety of perks used by the other players.
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"meta" burden... that's what I'm calling it
But you do have a point... I run Corrupt, Oppression, Surveillance and whispers on most Killers
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I will say, it certainly doesn't help that this game has a downright magical ability to somehow always match you with people who are playing with the intent of being insulting and obnoxious whenever you run something off-meta.
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an aspect that I dislike about perks in dbd is that a lot of perks not being good force good perks to stand out too much.. I wish perk would stand out less.
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I mean what can you run if you want to increase your chance to win a match?
Nerfed STBFL? Nope. Reworked Scourge Hook: Hangman's Trick? Hell no. Batteries Included? Also nope. Blocking a Gen when you down someone or when they repair a gen to prevent two gens pop fast? YES. Gen regression perks? Hell yea!
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They nerfed Hoarder + Franklins interaction with Killers so I can't run a build focused around knocking Pinhead's box/Wesker spray/Nemesis Vaccine off Survivors.
They made STBFL unusable on Pinhead so I can't make a chase build utilizing it and Rapid Brutality.
They nerfed regression instances so I can't run perks that would require me to kick gens without being worried about hitting the 8 instance cap.
Gen blocking with certain gen regression perks haven't been nuked yet so I just stick with that
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The best thing a perk can do for a killer is "stall the game, without requiring additional time commitment to trigger."
Things like Sloppy trigger on M1, and passively slow the survivors' healing. Generator (and gate) blocking doesn't require walking over to the generator and doing a long slow animation to slow them down. As much as I love Pop, if there's a gen worth popping, chances are I'm losing out on time by ignoring the survivor who just ran off the gen while I stop to kick it.
Most newer killers these days have powers that are built to operate in a chase. It makes chase perks less necessary, and being able to slow the OTHER survivors WHILE in a chase or just by hooking people makes them much more efficient.
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Most of the perks not deserve a single perk slot.
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This is serious cherry picking and ignoring all the perks that have been buffed recently or a while ago which aren't gen regression perks.
Plus theres at least 15 - 20 good gen perks alone.
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1) Main Bubba.
2) Pick (UW/NTH)/Game Afoot/Nemesis/Rancor.
3) Chase survivors.
4) Shove chainsaw through survivors.
5) Repeat.
You can pick anything you want. However, if you want to "win" every game, you are probably stuck with the meta perks. I still manage to 2k+ most games with this build. Although that may be because survivors enjoy interacting with Bubba. I certainly know he is the only killer I will actively run TOWARD as survivor.
There is nothing I love more than watching my teammates get chased/hooked by a fellow Bubba main while awaiting my turn! 😍
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The problem is that Slowdown currently is insanely overtuned. You can stack 4 Slowdown-Perks and basically win the game. If you prolong it long enough, even better Survivors will go down eventually, since you can burn through ressources.
And those Slowdown-Perks are even better than Perks which would really synergize with a Killer. E.g. a Perk like Enduring or Brutal Strength would be useful on M1-Killers. But why deal with Pallets faster when you can just slow down the game overall, which has the same effect?
A Perk like Lethal Pursuer allows Killers who are weak at the start (e.g. Myers or Nemesis) to get out of this phase quicker. But why do that, when you can just run Slowdown and have the same effect?
Something like BBQ helps high mobility Killers to get into a chase quicker, so you can run it on Billy or Blight. But why do you need to be quicker in a chase when you can just run Slowdown, which benefits more?
If the Devs would finally nerf Slowdown-Perks in a meaningful way (and I dont mean that fake Meta-Shake Up they did some time ago, this just shifted from Slowdown Perks A to Slowdown Perks B), then we would see more variety. But currently just slapping on the same 4 Perks on every Killer is better than looking for Perks which either help a Killer to get more value out of their power or helps to negate downsides of their power.
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I would say yes, for now, since the pain resonance changes 8/10 killers i play against run grim embrace + pain resonance
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I'm using for every character a different build. Only for one killer I'm running 4 regressions perks but I do have more fun with less or no regression perks. Sometimes gens fly but it's fine.
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Only if you let it.
The actual list of viable perks, in my opinion, probably hasn't ever been higher. I can't speak for when the game released, I wasn't playing back then, but I have been playing for about four years-ish, and perk viability has skyrocketed since then.
You can definitely run gen-kick perks, if they aren't regression perks you're probably not even gonna notice the anti 3-gen system. Hell, since that feature went live, I've only even seen the warning spikes once, and that was a match where my only gen perk was Pain Res.
(It was a Trapper match the team was badly losing, and I was trying to give them a break by peeling off to kick generators constantly, lmao)
Plus all the other perks that aren't gen-related that are perfectly good. Stealth is in the best place it's been, perk-wise, to pick just one example. Plenty of good chase perks, plenty of good info perks (it's a bit of a misconception that Distortion hard counters all aura reading; there are a few aura perks that counter Distortion by chewing through its stacks super fast, to say nothing of the perks that aren't aura reading), then whatever perks your specific killer can utilise well.
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Not for me. I like to try different perks and builds. There's *alot* though that I get very little value from and I'm not inclined to pick them again.
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It depends on the level of players you go against as well. When I am in try hard mode to up my grade I run gen slowdown. In order to be competitive at those levels you need to.
On the flip side. When I am taking a breather I feel you can simply enjoy the madness of mixing it up with perks. I have been going through and getting adept on the killers lately which has been enjoyable.
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I mean perk variety has never been very good, because perks are incredibly unbalanced with some being mid, some being terrible and some being really good.
With 4 perk slots and all perks taking up the same amount of slots, why would you -not- run the strongest stuff?
Heck even decent B-tier perks are rarely run because there's A and S-tier perks which you may as well run instead.
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I agree, it’s all come full circle as the original metas which they tried to get rid of back in the big perk overhaul update have just come back around with slightly different varieties. You still consistently see the same 2/3 offending perks in lobbies.
I think the issue lies with the overall validity of the wider perk selections. I mean, as a survivor, you have obvious meta perks that you consistently get value from (exhaustion perks, OTR, Distortion, Adrenaline, etc); good but situational perks (FtP, Deliverance, etc); fun/gimmick perks like Head On, Blast Mine, Chemical Trap, Boil Over etc; and finally, outright useless perks (This Is Not Happening, Slippery Meat, etc). There’s just no incentive to run other perks when strong and reliable ones exist.
We need another perk overhaul, big time.
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I've noticed recently that I've begun to run the same five or six perks on all of my killers.
Not really new. If you've been around the forums awhile this is a common complaint.
Now is it all BHVR's fault? No, it's partially the player bases fault too. Players as a whole will optimize the fun out of any game.
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To be fair, 3 of those perks are off meta so I would call that a variety build.
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Honestly I run ######### like fire up and blood favour on my killers then again I’m low mmr on them
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the same meta perks have always and unfortunately will always be what you see 95% of the time but you should just play what you like and make it work
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For what it may be worth, one thing I like to do in this game is look at a perk and consider which killers, if any, get any special or unique use from it that other killers don't. For example:
Doctor's Static Blast hits Oblivious Survivors, so he gets use out of things like Plaything, Hysteria, etc, that no other killer can.
Spirit can actually see the crow alerts from Spies From the Shadows while phasing.
Nemesis's zombies hear noise alerts from perks like Discordance.
Back when Lightburn was still a thing, I'd pop Hubris on Wraith. Wanna burn me with that flashlight? Go right ahead.
Maybe they'll work in practice, maybe they won't, but I have tons of fun with my Oblivious Doctor build (Hysteria with Plaything, Pentimento, and Retribution)
I find perk variety by thinking about what perks can do for a given Killer, rather than just what's good in general.
Post edited by Zeidoktor on1 -
But Low mmr is best mmr. I think I'm in a lower mmr than almost everyone else on these forums because I don't really run into all the unfun things people are constantly complaining about all that much
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Actually, not really.
The top ones are usually gen regression with Pain Res and Pop. Seeing more DMS+GE is kind of nice, even if it's a new obstacle to work around.
Heck, I'm even seeing more experimenting without any of the perks above, or just one of them with some other oddball perks.
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There are a lot of things at play here. Part of it is comfort/laziness not wanting to switch perks around. Part of it is buying into what is considered "good" by the community. Part of it is lack of willingness to experiment. Part of it is fear of failure. Part of it is a lack of time. Part of it is some perks are just legitimately bad and not worth experimenting with (this number is far smaller than many think though).
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Not when I run them on all of my Killers
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Fair enough lol. Still good on you for running non meta perks I myself always run meta so I can just practice my killers for longer.
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Sadly thr Problem whit the Game is u can Run some fun Perk Builds but when u Play whitout Gen Defense against a Group whit Meta Builds and many 2nd Chance perks u most likely going to lose when u Play a M1 Killer
Nurse and Blight are the only Killer who dont need Gen Defense Build to have a Chance against a strong SwF
i Main Dredge and Singularity
on Dredge i Play Lethal, A Aura reading Perk, Gen Defense Perk and then maybe lightborn or something that helps me in Chases
On Singularity its the same whitout the Aura Reading Perk
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Its turning into old dbd grade rank system, but instead the higher the grades, the more meta perks you see is now replaced with mmr.
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I feel like you need at least one reasonably strong slowdown perk/combo even at low levels to function. You dont have to take full slowdown... but you do need at least one perk for it. Something like: -
- Pop Goes the Weasel
- Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance
- Deadlock
- Grim Embrace
- Surge
- Dead Man's Switch
- Thanataphovia (Plague/Legion)
- Hex: Ruin (with support of some description)
I've tried taking full aura/anti healing perks, and the issue is you only need 1 chase to go bad, and you can fall irreparably behind...
I've taken a liking to Lethal Pursuer, Barbecue & Chill/Gearhead, PGTW and then another aura perk of choice recently... as after a hook I can bee-line it for a gen and stand a decent chance of getting a solid Pop proc... but ofc Distortion can ruin that day... so it's still a pain.
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