400 Matches with Hexes - Feedback and Suggestions

It is my hope to explain what I've observed in using Hexes in the interest of making Hex perks more popular or, at the very least, more viable. They're currently too fragile or map-dependent based on the general consensus of the community.

I'll be outlining my findings and concluding takeaways in the next few sections, but the brief overview: I believe the simplest way to make Hex perks more consistent is with more "trap"-designed Hexes.

The link below can be viewed to get a detailed breakdown of my 400 matches using a variety of Hex builds across a select group of Killers:

Hexes Durations Are Sufficient

Largely the community seems to think hexes are cleansed within seconds at the start of the match, or at the least, before they can receive meaningful effects from their triggered activations. But I want to underscore here that on most maps Hexes have respectable durations.

Although the sample sizes are not equal, and my data is small, there is a general trend that appears. Hexes will typically persist longer on maps that are: large, cluttered with debris/environmental objects, reduced horizontal visibility, or the tone of the map blends the flames of a lit Hex totem. Maps with a larger pool of these positive traits are the best:

• Grim Pantry
• Badham and its variants
• Coldwind maps
• Gideon
• Garden of Joy
• Temple of Purgation
• Father Campbell's Chapel
• Disturbed Ward

In contrast, the maps that are small, cleared of debris/environmental objects, clear horizontal visibility, or the tone of the map contrasts the flames of a lit Hex totem are worse for Hexes. Maps with a larger pool of these negative traits are the worst:

• Mother's Dwelling (surprising)
• Autohaven Maps (these are particularly bad for Hexes)
• Nostromo
• Shelter Woods
• Lery's Memorial Institute (surprising)
• Greenville Square
• Hawkin's Laboratory
• Suffocation Pit

I think Autohaven maps and Mother's Dwelling are particularly egregious for Hexes because they're often spawned next to Survivor objectives with clear visibility. Compare to Father Campbell's or Coal Tower which can spawn totems near Survivor objectives but they can be hidden in pockets with no clear visibility.

Player Negativity Bias

Despite Hexes having mostly respectable durations across most maps, I did have matches in which I lost my main Hex within seconds of starting a match. As one can imagine, having this happen even once can leave someone soured with this experience and deter them from using Hex perks.

There is no opportunity for the Killer to have agency in expressing their skill in using a Hex perk when it is lost at the start of the match. However, I understand that the intent of Hexes are to have a particularly stronger perk at the risk of losing that perk. Their superior effect is balanced by Survivors being able to deactivate them. That is an awesome perk design, but the problem is that all the risk is weighed against the Killer and before they can act upon it. I'm not against Hexes being risky to use; I'm against the risk being determined by the map.

Increase the Window of Risk By Including Opportunity for Post-Cleanse Value

Hexes are designed to be cleansed at some point in the match, and they should be cleansable to keep them balanced. The interesting thing I observed, is that Hexes can be made more consistent when a build is designed around generating value pre-cleanse and post-cleanse. In other words, optimal Hex builds need to generate value for the Killer while they're active, and they should generate an opportunity for value for the Killer because they're cleansed. This allows a greater expression of skill for both Killer and Survivors, and shifts the risk from loading into the right map, into making correct decisions post-cleanse.

Example Build 1: The Pig (with Video Tape & Rule Set No. 2 add-ons)

• Hex: Ruin
• Hex: Face the Darkness
• Hex: Blood Favor
• Save the Best for Last

This build is designed to generate value from Hexes being active, and from Hexes being cleansed. Here's how it works:

All Survivors begin the trial with head traps. They can choose to complete a generator so they can see the auras of Jigsaw Boxes, or cleanse Hexes, or maneuver around trying to remove traps. No matter their decision, I can play around what they do:

If they try to repair generators, I can stealth and then uncrouch near them for Basic Attack injuries. This will block nearby windows and give me a chance at a quick down. I can let the first injured Survivor escape chase, so that anyone removing head traps at Jigsaw Boxes are interrupted, and I know the location of all other Survivors. Since I can harass people with this great information, Ruin will deplete their generator progress and I keep my momentum in the early game. Eventually they will complete a generator, they will get head traps off, but by this point I will have depleted the map of several pallets, and I will have gathered STBFL tokens to give me lethality as the match progresses. It's a very strong plan.

Now let's say that the Survivors instead cleanse my Hexes early in the match. That can still generates meaningful value for me. The slow down from having to cleanse Hexes means -42 seconds of generator repair time, plus any additional time it took for the Survivors to find their locations. That is a big loss of generator efficiency when the team still has to complete a generator to see boxes, and they still need to remove their traps. This still buys me time to deplete the map of pallets and to add STBFL tokens. Even if I lose all my Hexes early in the match, the entire build's plan still hasn't been lost, and thus I have an increased window of time to generate meaningful value. As Killer, this is extremely fun and satisfying; I love making several macro-decisions based on what the Survivors are doing.

Example Build 2: Wraith/Sadako

• Hex: Devour Hope
• Hex: Haunted Grounds
• Hex: Retribution
• Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance

This build works on these Killers because it leverages their strengths to offset their weaknesses.

At the start of the match, the plan is to keep 1 or 2 Survivors injured before we commit to a Down. If Survivors cleanse Haunted Grounds first, then Retribution reveals everyone's auras and I chase down the healthy Survivors to generate value. If Survivors cleanse Retribution or Devour Hope first, then I chase down the injured Survivors to generate value. Either outcome I get fast downs. If these cleanses come early in the match, I get 1-2 Pain Resonances when there are still 4-5 Generators remaining which is significant slowdown. If Devour Hope is still active, then these faster Tokens means I can get to full Devour Hope much sooner.

In some matches, the Survivors were brutally set back from this sequence of events. Getting downed quickly at the start of the match, then having a generator regress -50%, and if my hooks came in fast, by the time Haunted Grounds Expose effect has depleted, Devour Hope's Expose came online and I continued immense pressure on the team. I even had one player compliment the build; they were surprised at how oppressive it was.

Worst case scenario, I didn't get direct value from my hexes (which didn't happen often). That's still 42 seconds of generator slow-down, and that afforded me time to depleting pallets while I play hit-and-run. Meaning I could often snowball by slugging several people who were caught in dead zones.

Even though I was playing as Sadako, considered much weaker by most players, my win rate was ~86% with a near-full Hex build. This was because the full build was planned around generating value from the post-cleanse, and the pre-cleanse.

Pentimento - The De Facto Post-Cleanse Value

Hopefully in the last section it will be clear that generating value post- and pre-cleanse is important for Hexes to feel consistent. This also allows more time for player agency in generating value, and for skill expression on both sides. Not every Killer can use Haunted Grounds or Retribution. Not every Killer can front-load generator slowdown at the start of the match like Pig can. However, all Killers benefit from generator slowdown. That is why Hex: Pentimento has become a staple in most Hex builds.

If you ask any experienced DBD player whether they should cleanse Hex: Plaything, most of them will suggest not to cleanse it. That's because Plaything + Pentimento is a popular combo when a Killer uses Hexes, and the value the Killer gets from Survivors being Oblivious is much less than the value from the total generator slow-down from Pentimento. This is the clearest example of the community regulating itself into being strategic when cleansing a Hex, or at the very least, to refrain from cleansing a Hex. To reiterate, the post-cleanse value is much greater that the pre-cleanse value.

"Trap" Hexes Will Buff All Hexes Overall

Using Pentimento as the best example, and with the example builds mentioned earlier, hopefully it'll make sense why "trap" Hexes are the best way of making Hexes overall more consistent. Haunted Grounds and Retribution are healthier examples of "trap" Hexes, and there should be more like these perks.

Community Self-Regulates Itself

If trap Hexes are made good enough to become staples to the main Hexes that light at the start of the match, the community will eventually adapt to be more strategic in choosing when to cleanse. This means Killers can feel they have a bigger window of risk in which they can express their skill better.

It's a Simpler Change for Hexes

I can understand development time may not afford for going into all maps to change totem spawn locations. It's a difficult task, and it may not be a permanent improvement as players learn the new spawn locations. Really I think just Nostromo, Mother's Dwelling and Autohaven maps really need the totem locations looked at.

Hexes Being Lit Later Is Not Necessarily Better or Simple

I have seen the community suggest changing some of the current main Hexes into lighting up later. "Blood Favor should light up after an injury" or "Ruin should light up after a generator repair is interrupted" but these are not good changes in my opinion. It makes it overly complicated for how some Hexes work - Undying, Devour Hope, etc.- and it makes current trap Hexes worse because they'll be the only ones that light up at the start of the match.

Even if these changes were done, the community would adapt and make Hexes feel less consistent. The optimal strategy when Ruin regressed generators at 200% speed, was to "tap" the generator at the start of the match to check for it. These kinds of acts would just return, and Hexes could be lost just as fast anyway.

There is room to have both Hexes that are lit later in the match and lit at the start of the match. I don't think retroactively changing hexes is the way forward though.

Hexes Being Lit Later =/= Value Generated

From my experience, Hexes that spawned later - Face the Darkness or Two Can Play - were still vulnerable to being cleansed fast. I disliked this on builds that didn't have post-cleanse value. The conversation from the community may just shift from "they're lost at the start of the match" to just "they're lost as soon as they're lit" and then suggestions on changing totem locations would pop up again.

Suggested Changes

Add more trap Hex Perks

This is my main suggestion for improving Hexes. As explained, if they're designed really well, trap Hexes will have the benefit of punishing Survivors for cleansing too early, and the benefit of allowing both sides to express their skills once an effect has been triggered. I believe this is also the simplest way of improving their overall consistency.

Buff Haunted Grounds

This is my bias here. 60 seconds felt pretty short when some of that time is taken to hook downed Survivors. Slugging wasn't optimal for me in every case because their teammates would pick while I was chasing someone else. I would like Haunted Ground's Expose effect buffed to a 90-second duration.

Nerf Pentimento

Pentimento is too oppressive for just the time waste it asks from Survivors. When paired with Devour Hope + Plaything, Survivors would have to cleanse so many Hexes just to find Devour Hope, and then they'd have to cleanse even more Hexes from Pentimento. While you can visually distinguish between normal Hexes from Pentimento, it was concerning how often the Survivors I played against couldn't discern between the two.

The main effect Killers want and the main effect Survivors want to remove from Pentimento is the generator slowdown. Pentimento is almost never used for its other effects. Since it requires 1 Pentimento lit for the generator slowdown, Survivors could potentially have to cleanse 5 hexes just to get rid of this one effect. Wasn't the original Hex: Undying nerfed because cleansing multiple Hexes was unfun and too strong? It also disproportionately hurts Solo-Queue more than SWFs.

I think Pentimento should instead be changed so that each Pentimento effect appears just once, and that effect is tied with the singular Pentimento Hex that was lit to activate it. As an example:

• 1st Pentimento Lit = 30% Reduced Generator Repair Speed (when this is cleansed, it doesn't come back)
• 2nd Pentimento Lit = 30% Reduced Healing Speed (when this is cleansed, it doesn't come back; there is no need to have 2 Pentimentos lit to get the reduced healing speed. Instead, it is when the 2nd Pentimento of the match is lit that this effect comes online)
• This sequence of activations continues until the 5th Pentimento of the match is lit, and then all remaining active Hexes are blocked.

This is a healthier version of Pentimento. This gives Survivors the choice of which Pentimento effects they want to keep and which they want to remove. It also makes it less punishing and unfair to cleanse other Hexes. And if Killers really want to, they can still play a fun match of trying to get 5 Tokens of Pentimento lit at the same time.

It also makes it more viable to play for the other Pentimento effects. It's very difficult to get the 3rd and 4th effects (slowed Recovery speed and Exit Gate Opening speeds). But with this change, going for these effects is more accessible. Allows for different strategies too.