Why are killer perk’s significantly worse than survivors?

Both sides have about 10 Great perks, 20 Good but usually inferior versions of the previous category, 30 extremely niche or inferior versions of the previous category, and the remainder being meme/garbage perks.

Don't pretend Survivors are eating fat and happy with Poised, just as no one should pretend Killers are eating fat and happy with Bloodhound.

To date this is my best response to Ultimate Weapon:

Used to be quite vocal on this perk, kinda chilled out about it now, but the primary issue I see with it is purely its availability:

It is a Swiss army knife that allows the killer to find a particular target when they need them... it's not so much that the perk itself is the problem, it's more the nasty play styles it helps support that I think is where it takes the flack, especially on the strongest killers.

• Tunneling is easy because you can always find your target you want to tunnel, and can combine UW with Sloppy Butcher to really make it hard for that person to hide from you and heal. It also bypasses OTR and other methods of blocking aura reading.
• Camping is easier because it reveals anyone coming in to save from afar to help you stall the stage, and blocks survivor aura reading near, so it makes it really hard to coordinate saves without voice comms.
• 3 genning (the normal kind of 3 genning) becomes really strong, because you patrol with significantly less effort, and can make it really rough with perks like Dead Man's Switch.
• Slugging for hatch is basically a guaranteed kill that the survivors cannot prevent in any reasonable fashion (and its already nearly impossible to escape if the killer slugs, UW makes it no point of even trying).
• Other nasty strategies like Head Pop Pig and Devour Hope Demogorgon.

I have over time come to think, the issue isn't so much UW is overpowered... It's more the fact it is especially irritating to play against, as a result of:

• It is more effective vs. Solo players compared to SWF.
• It helps facilitate some particularly nasty methods of play (see above)
• It's disproportionately strong on mobile chase killers compared to less mobile killers, which exacerbates all the above issues even further.

It being very unfun and annoying may not be enough to nerf it... but I don't think its unreasonable to rework it.

Well I suppose my point really is that trying to compare these perks is a fruitless endeavour.

• You compare Deja Vu to Pain Res in terms of time saved, Deja Vu looks incredibly weak.
• You compare Lithe to Pain Res in terms of time saved, Pain Res looks pretty damned weak.

We know that isn't true, but mathematically we have to drastically simplify the equation to try and establish any objective truth, to the point that it almost becomes pointless to argue.

I would argue that the top 10 perks for survivor are just as good as the top 10 perks for killer. Every 10 seconds you buy as survivor multiplies in value to anywhere between 1 and 3 times, depending on what your team is doing, because that time you saved doesn't just affect your time, it affects your whole team.

E.g. that 25s that Pain Res gets back for the killer on 1 gen is dwarfed by the combined progress made on the 2 other gens by however long that chase smd hook took.

This is extremely depressing, but not actually surprising

This definitely isn't an "us vs them" thing. Both sides have horrible perks. There is a reason that both sides generally select from a pool of 10-15 different perks, and that's because the vast majority of them are either useless, or situational. Those 10-15 that are used on both sides you can get value from in every single match you play.

Deja Vu also has an additional value that can’t be quantified as it shows the closest three gens every time a gen is completed. That's very valuable info. So, to just bolster your argument, it makes it even harder to compare Pain Res to Deja Vu as having a spread out final 3 gens makes escaping that much more likely. That can’t be measured in time saved.

Yeah since they cannot figure a way to take care of the boogey-man 4 man swf with comms and more importantly, survivors who don't dc/suicide on first hook - they've come to nerf everything survivor for this one scenario.

Course if you cater to 5% of top tier players, well you just made a game only 5% of players will want to play.

Oh yeah...there are terrible perks on both sides, the really bad survivor ones make four people suffer for it though.

99% 6 gens, killer gets confused what gens to defend, then seal the deal with the person in the basement, finishing all gens in one fell swoop.

That's kind of you to say, I genuinely appreciate that. 🙃

I suppose my point is short really, though if I were to say "if I don't take a slowdown perk, things start to get noticably tougher", it wouldn't be useful, so I guess the best thing I can do is give insight into my playstyle, as a player who has only really known modern DBD and it's recent states of balance.

I speak mostly from my own experience as a relatively new 1000 hour player, and as someone with a fairly unhealthy amount of content watching. I have managed to adept every killer/survivor and complete every achievement within that time, and I regularly make attempts to pick a perk and then try to make a build around it. I have also made pretty decent headway on a lot of the tomes/challenges within the game, and I also usually operate with that old school "I might need it later" gamer mentality of rarely using strong add-ons on either side... I'm also cheap 😏

Throughout that time I've always had the same mindset, always play to win for the first 10 hooks... however, try not to tunnel (usually give 1 clear "I will let you run away in the opposite direction if I find you first" chance), try not to camp, usually waiting until hook 6 before I sacrifice anyone. I don't particularly get enjoyment from winning by crushing my opponents, I get far more enjoyment when I feel I've played well and put in a respectable performance, preferably with a close score. Usually I only take a 4k when I feel the 4th player has been egregiously selfish and left their team to die. This is also to say, my favourite killers tend to be the not so strong killers, like Trapper, Myers, Nemesis and of course Pig (I also like how I can be clever and quirky with builds on these characters).

I've of course gone against absolute bambis, both as a bambi, and now as a more experienced player, and I've of course been thrown into the meat grinder and gone against absolute monster survivors who make me look like a total fool at every turn, and been lucky to get out with more than 2 or 3 hooks.

All of this is to say, that in that time of playing the modern game of DBD (I've only been playing less than a year), it is absolutely possible to win while taking absolutely no slowdown perks... however every small mistake, every lost 50/50 against a reasonably good team catches up with you very quickly, and the snowball effect of a single bad chase is very high without some kind of slowdown, to the point you have to switch gear and start viciously defending a 3 gen if you still have one (which ofc is a problem to do now 😅).

When not running any slowdown perks, it is my experience that every game will come down to 1 gen almost every time, almost irrespective of how well you play, unless hou are playing a naturally very strong killer with auras, such as Spirit or Wesker (I suck at Blight and Nurse, but you get the point). Survivors have to be really wasting time in order for this not to be case, and this has also been my perspective as Survivor as well. Many times I've looked at killer builds after they've been smashed, and noted that they've either lacked slowdown, the slowdown doesnt synergise well with their killer, or they didn't actually use their slowdown effectively throughout the game.

We've all seen those games where a killer has had a slightly slow start, goes for their 2nd hook is already down 3 generators with a 4th well underway, and as player who makes a point of not playing nasty, it doesn't take much to get in this situation. As a rule of thumb, to be on good pace for killer you should be aiming for roughly 2 hooks per generator if you don't want to be scrambling at end game.

So I suppose my conclusion is, yes, with enough skill you can play without slowdown perks, but against survivors of equal (or obviously better) skill, you better not make a single mistake or mess around, because it will snowball very quickly out of control, and from my perspective, you should be going into a non slowdown game knowing you're gonna have to step your game up 😁

I know I have nothing to do with this conversation, but just wanted to say I appreciate how well spoken and respectful both of you are. Your replies are always a joy to read :)

Both sides have garbage perks. No one runs Up the Ante or Pharmacy for a reason.

Predator? Also Unnerving Presence on every killer except Doctor.

I'm not going to say that unnerving or predator are good perks, because they aren't. But his point is that some perks come with a negative downside that actively debuffs the user.

Take calm spirit: they 'buffed' it to make opening chests and totem cleansing quiet, but then added a debuff for cleansing totems a lot slower. Why? No one asked for that interaction, it didn't need it, and having the debuff arguably made the perk worse for literally no reason. Sometimes critically worse, during the 'pinhead stands on the box' meta, where this *survivor* perk made it impossible to counter the hexes.

The only perk I can think of that does this for killer is rapid brutality removes bloodlust.

You're misunderstanding a subtle difference here. I'm describing perks where you want (or in some cases feel like you need) the primary effect, but there's a secondary effect that is debuffing you actively.

What you're describing is that you didn't actually want the primary effect of that perk. That makes it a bad perk, and you can just not equip it.

With something like calm spirit, there's no other way in the entire game to avoid random screams. The only way is to take that one perk, so some players will actively want that effect. The perk would be better if it didn't have an unnecessary extra line about totems at all.

What you're saying is you don't want any part of the perk, and it would be better if it was a different perk.

The better killer example I should've thought of is dying light. Killers feel they desperately need slowdown as much as possible, and the primary effect of dying light is essentially free, permanent, unregressable slowdown. That's insanely appealing. The only reason this perk isn't meta, is the *downside* that the obsession is immune to the slowdown and is actively buffed for healing and unhooking. Remove that downside and the perk usage would skyrocket.

Ultimate weapon is more strong in the hands of better killers against better swfs than solo. Best teams utilise stealth at the start of game, to set up for plays and to set up for hook saves. Ultimate weapon completely destroys the main counterplay against good killers.