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Distortion? Really?
Comments
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You can relatively reliable blind the killer with champion of light or at pallets and windows.
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Against some killers, and the effect isn't that much impactful either
Well, at least you can use it I guess
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Yes I can use it at least, that‘s the whole point. With distortion you can at least use gear head or multiple perks to burn tokens, but lightborn makes your build useless.
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But then hiding will be useless by auras or certain killer powers, healing will also be useless by certain killer power, the list goes on
I think it's just that killers and survivors have different standard in this game
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Everything is a tunnelling perk if you're forum killer enough!
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As a survivor main, I get hooked all the time with distortion is on my main build. You still have to unhook people which usually activates chase. I wonder what the tunneling side effects will be if distortion is nerfed. I mean at this point it's easy to see that killer mains wont be happy until survivors don't have any perks. It sucks too because I get 3 and 4 Ks all the time as killer without using perks. I usually just double hook everyone and then let them all go.
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Balancing is not a zero sum game. Someone with 9k (!) posts should know that.
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1 perk shouldn't have the power to counter so many perks and addons. I personally hope that the token gaining gets changed. Right now distortion hurts the teammates. Most of the times people use this perk to hide alongside with other "stealth" perks like urban evasion, calm spirit and now iron will since its back to 100%. These people will not take chase or even save from hooks quite often. Other teammates gets " tunneled " out since the killer can't find these hiders. and im saying tunneled with very loosely. As a killer if i can't find the corner hopping hiders ill go to where i know the survivors are and i will hook the same survivor again if i have to.
So make it that the tokens can only be gained by eather being in chase for certain amount of time or do a gen x % amount or help teammates by unhooking and healing. Anything that will force the full on hiders to actually participate in gameplay.
Also i'd go as far as remove the hiding the scratchmarks part of the perk.
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Fair point, but on the other hand, having 10 super easy to trigger aura perks. Even if you fix Distortion, people are just going to run Sole Survivor instead. Even old Distortion with 3 tokens and no regen is currently S tier because of how many aura reading is going on.
There needs to be an aura reading nerf. Make some perks distance based instead of basically infinite range. Make other perks have slightly higher requirements than kick a gen for a HUGE benefit, or in that specific case, REDUCE the aura reading per hook that you gain. Start out with the 24 meters, sure, but each hook should reduce that range by at least 2 meters so that once you have 8 hooks and are still able to kick gens that often, you'd only have 8 meters of radius (which is still a large range btw, Darkness Revealed is 8 meters per locker, and that one has a cooldown of 30 seconds).1 -
”1 perk shouldn’t have the power to counter so many perks and add ons.” See lightborn, see Franklin’s, see sloppy butcher, see… etc.
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Where does it say the perk is getting screwed? Is there a description of the change somewhere. Or if you're just assuming it's getting nerfed, that means you think it's strong and maybe deserves one. But Equally it could just be getting tweaked? Lets just wait before having a meltdown
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Sole Survivor is an anti-teamwork perk, and should be nerfed too. In fact, all of the perks that help enable the "excessive hide, and wait for your survivors to die" strategy, should be nerfed.
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Lightborn counters how many things? don't compare lightborn to distortion… Franklins counters items and nothing else, slobby got nerfed you don't see it as much anymore. Yes im not saying killers don't have counters to survivor stuff but they don't have 1 perk that counters completely 1 aspect of the game.
Distortion is mostly unhealthy towards other teammates and it needs to be toned down.
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I think it’s also funny how suddenly killer mains claim to care about how distortion affects other survivors in the match and that’s why it needs nerfed. “It’s hurting your teammates!” Now you care about the teammates and not your own kill count? Be for real.
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I’m actually not wrong but go off. I’ve been in these forums a long time and no one started talking about distortion to this degree that we are now until recently, especially once weave franklins dropped. A few content creator videos do not equal a majority.
Youre welcome to your opinion but im also welcome to mine. Please remember opinions do not equal facts.
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Lol, Sole Survivor isnt an anti-teamwork perk. The benefits do NOT outweigh the downsides. It's balanced to make the 1v1 or 1v2 easier.
Besides, in theory, 90% of the perks could be claimed "excessive hide and wait for your survivors to die". In which case, all "find survivors for free" perks should be nerfed too. And thats basically 95% of killer perks.2 -
It‘s obvious what the devs will do after seeing how they handled other complained perks. Of course this perk will get a heavy nerf, instead of a small fair one. It‘s always been that way in this game. It would be very surprising if they don‘t gut this perk.
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I kinda credit Sole Survivor for getting me out of absolute rock bottom Survivor MMR. If you've been in enough trials where nobody else does any saving, healing or gens at all, you've got to do something to improve your chances.
So long as they've been a team player up until the point that the trial went south, I don't begrudge any of the other Survivors if they want to make a hatch play when the "team game" is obviously over.
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You are right distortion got counterplay while lightborn got none. Why don’t we nerf lightborn then. By the way it counters all blind builds to 100% while distortion can run out of stacks.
The only thing that would be fair for distortion is a slower recharge.
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well in that case its not overpowered then is it so killers need too stop complaining?
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There is a massive difference between “the survivors are definitely going to lose, and a hatch play is pretty much the only way any of the survivors can escape” and “literally decided before the game has even started, that the strategy is a hatch play”
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I have never used lightborn, so nerf it if it bothers you that much that it counters flashies and few silly perks.
Distortion counters… 23 perks i counted in my head might be wrong.. might even be more, and it counters at least the same if not more addons probably more. You call that a healthy perk while you can easily get tokens back just by hiding in terror radius?
I'm also a survivor main and i see what damage distortion Andies do in soloQ.
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I mean, we could nerf all these perks. Survivors that want to play in this way will sneak around, getting in and out of lockers to hide their auras all game anyway.
We could argue that perks like Alert need a nerf because they let Survivors know where the Killer is (and therefore where not to be if they don't want to be chased). I think there's a limit to the expectations we can put on our fellow Survivors and their chosen play styles, and I think players that load into a trial to do absolutely nothing all game are not all that common.
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Lightborn 2, franklins technically none since the question didn't specify items and flashbangs don't have durability so its a soft counter, sloppy butcher doesn't counter healing perks at all because counter like how distortion does implies that you would be physically unable to heal not reduce healing speed
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people were calling for stbfl to be nerfed after the basekit buff to hit cd and it did eventually get nerfed.
The community constantly asks for compensation nerfs/buffs and that's what we get.
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lightborn counters: residual manifest, blastmine, flashbang, flashlights, firecrackers, champion of light, and any other perk that produces flashlight. Franklin’s counters all survivor items.
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or, you know, the solo survivor we all love and know
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Just think outside of box, what if they were actually not a "killer main" as you believe, and they actually do care about their own survival
Wow suddenly everything makes sense, just a little bit of smart thinking can easily negate that "funny" aspect
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I don't really think Aura reading needs a nerf in general. As it stands I don't think there are any super problematic perks. The only problematic forms of Aura reading are stuff like Blight's Compound 21.
8 meters is not a large range whatsoever, it just applies in a large number of places in the case of Darkness Revealed. An aura perk that revealed Survivors within one singular 8m radius would basically never get any value.
For what it's worth, I don't want to see Distortion gutted, but as it stands you can throw it on and have complete immunity to aura reading against any killer with a Terror Radius. It is rare that Distortion tokens will ever get exhausted, regardless of how many aura reading perks the killer brings, and I don't think that's ok.
All they need to do is make Distortion only recharge in a chase. That way, it remains a potent counter to aura reading as a whole while not being a functionally unconditional counter to all sources of aura reading in the game.
Lightborn doesn't even fully counter Blast Mine. You still get the stun so it's functionally the same amount of time wasted, you just have the killer see your aura.
While the rest of those things are correct, Distortion currently counters:
A Nurse's Calling, Alien Instinct, Awakened Awareness, Barbecue & Chili, Bitter Murmur, Blood Warden (sort of), Darkness Revealed, Eruption (also sort of), Friends 'til the End, Gearhead, Hex: Retribution, I'm All Ears, Lethal Pursuer, Nowhere to Hide, Scourge Hook: Floods of Rage, Scourge Hook: Hangman's Trick, Shattered Hope (sort of), Thwack, Territorial Imperative, Weave Attunement.
That's not to mention the ~55(!) addons there are (I didn't count Scratched Mirror).
Distortion counters LEAGUES more than Franklin's and Lightborn combined.
Like yeah, there's the argument to be made that Distortion needs to exist as a counter the huge selection of aura reading that exists. I agree with that sentiment, and I'd like to see Object buffed too. But to have ONE single perk slot counter 20 perks and 55 addons for practically the entire game is far too much.
They just need to tone down the recharge. The perk will still be an extremely effective counter to aura reading, it just won't completely obliterate it at all times.
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They just need to tone down the recharge. The perk will still be an extremely effective counter to aura reading, it just won't completely obliterate it at all times.
I really really hope this is the way. I‘m sad if they go the UW, COH… way of gutting the perk.
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The whole idea is that players can play however they want, if it's within the game rules… but BHVR shouldn't be encouraging problematic playstyles, by having perks available that make these playstyles much easier and effective to do.
Yes, people can always excessively hide for a "last survivor" hatch or gate escape… but it's much harder to do without perks like Distortion or Sole Survivor. BHVR's number 1 priority for survivors, should be to make solo q teams feel more like teams. And since BHVR said the solo q to SWF gap isn't primarily game information, it makes sense that the best way to address the gap is to discourage anti-teamwork.
Because remember that you can't ever 100% force killers to never ever facecamp, or excessively 3-gen, but you can make game changes to make these strategies harder to do, and less effective to do. Likewise, the goal isn't to 100% remove anti-teamwork from the game, so it's still worth it to make changes to discourage people that want to spend the entire game with an anti-teamwork strategy.
Yes, there can be a limit to the expectations placed on survivor, and it's literally somewhere between Distortion and Alert. For reals, alert? You're really going to argue that Alert encourages survivors to excessively hide? The perk that mostly happens when the killer is chasing a survivor, which isn't very exciting because the survivor UI already tells survivors when the killer is chasing someone?
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Distortion countered every aura perk much like Lightborn counters all flashy saves.
No single perk should have such utility across the board.
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Maybe we can find some sort of balanced approach: right now, a killer who diversified their build and had a little bit of aura reading in it got hurt the most. Their little aura reading would never reveal the survivor with Distortion and that survivor would probably regain their token before the killer got another opportunity.
On the other hand, a killer with 4 aura reading perks could blast through that tokens like they weren't even there. I think the reverse should be the case: a killer with just one perk shouldn't be hit that hard, while a killer with full aura reading should feel it more severely. Like increasing the time your aura stays hidden when a token gets taken away for each consequtive aura reading, and if you lose all three tokens kinda back to back, your aura becomes completely hidden for 60s.
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To be fair, if there are 75 things that can cause aura reading, and any single aura reading is enough to turn Nurse from an S tier to an S+ Tier killer, demanding more than 4 perks (yes 4, because all survivors need one) to counter them all is insane.
At the very least, blinding is a basekit mechanic since you can find items in chests, and it can mostly be avoided (except for flashbang, but thats a perk) by looking towards any wall. Aura reading isnt a basekit mechanic, with no genuine basekit counter. You used to be able to hide behind gens, but then they made generator aura's partially transparant.
And just look at 2v8, the billion aura readings is one of the biggest problems with it, since there is genuinely no way to avoid it. Aura readings are very powerful, there is a reason why back in the day there were only 3 viable aura reading perks, and 1 technically not being an aura reading perk (Bitter Murmur). Right now, almost all aura readings are viable on their own, which is fine, but they dont have limitations. The strength of the aura perk relies on ease of use and range more than duration and cooldown (to a point ofc, like, 50 seconds of aura read would be worth kicking 10 generators). And 95% of aura addons and perks require little to no work while giving quite a massive value at almost unlimited range.
The most problematic ones being Lethal Pursuer(you literally do nothing), Nowhere to Hide(you literally just kick a gen that arguably needed kicking anyway), Floods of Rage (you literally do nothing), Weave Attunement (since its unlimited time). But even perks like Gearhead, Darkness Revealed and Bitter Murmur are issues, because they can be combined with something else too.
So either a basekit mechanic gets to be that survivors get a warning that their aura's are being shown, which heavily nerfs a lot of addons and most perks too, or the perks all need higher restrictions and maybe even exclusivity in the sense that you cannot have more than 1 aura perk active on any survivor for X amount of time. Like, lets say 1 aura effect gives a survivor 20 seconds of aura immunity once that read ends. It still makes a lot of aura perks viable together, but it wont be that a Nurse can use Gearhead to find people super easily after a down so she basically has 30 seconds of aura reading, then get close and use Nowhere to Hide, then use Floods of Rage because that person got unhooked on a scourge, and Lethal Pursuer to basically give her 100% aura duration3 -
Not gonna lie, I feel like the proliferation of aura reading abilities has really diminished the whole hide-and-seek aspect of the game, and I honestly think it needs a rework.
Hopefully with the fixes to scratch marks people will start relying on it less, because with all the different ways your aura can be read, it feels near impossible sometimes to know how or when you'll be revealed.
Which is pretty much why people run distortion. Nobody needs it for bbq and chilli or bitter murmur or nurse's calling really, it's just that as people have mentioned, there are so many sources of aura reading that the game is often over before you know how you should be countering.
I mean if there was a perk that simply reduced aura reading to a 2 second duration (from the usual 5), people would run that, wouldn't they? Because it just enables counterplay.
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I'm not advocating for nerfing Alert. I'm saying it can be used to avoid interaction with the Killer. I know, because I've used it in a full aura build to do exactly that. My point is that I think it's not right to single out Distortion or Sole Survivor for promoting "anti-teamwork" because I don't think they actually do. I'd bet most Distortion users are still active players, they just don't want to get chased because getting into a 10 second chase wouldn't be playing to their strengths. And if you are dedicated enough, you will find a way to avoid taking agro from the Killer by sandbagging injured teammates, using lockers or finding creative uses for whatever perks are available to you. These kinds of players won't disappear from the game because Distortion gets nerfed.
The answer isn't to nerf perks, but to actually reward Survivors for playing as a team, something the current MMR system doesn't actually do. Players will continue to prioritise their own survival for as long as the only thing that matters is escaping. It's a team game but it also kind of isn't. I do get most of my escapes through the gate (something like 90%), but you don't actually have to play DBD like a team to be able to escape and I think that's an intentional design choice. Maybe the MMR system could match up survivors with similar play styles in some way, I don't know. But the game has made space for all types of players, even the ones that many other players might find a bit frustrating.
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Just because Nurse is a problem doesnt mean distortion isnt a problem. Because of 1 killer rest of the killers shouldnt suffer no?
How often do you see full aura reading builds anyways? Most common killers i see rocking aura readings are nurse and huntress, and even then they usually have 1-2 gen defense perks or some form of slowdown.
Full 4 aura reading builds means the killer has no gen defense and 4 survivors should be able to do gens pretty damn fast. No where to hide is easy to regonize if the killer has it. If the killer straight lines at you after kicking a gen you learn she or he has that perk and next time don't hide near the gen. Weave attunement is only strong with franklins and even then there is counterplay … but sadly survivors never use this counterplay.
Most times you will only see 1 or 2 aura readings on killers. 4 aura readings on huntress usually means they like to snipe and do long shots and why would anyone hate a huntress whos that good to be able to pull those?
Also again i like to remind my hate towards distortion is purely because people using that perk tend to be selfish. They hide and won't take chase even if they have 0 hooks and death hooked person is getting killed. Multiple times i have been left to die on hook while people hide in corners. I wish i could say this is broken MMR problem but more and more even 4000 hour players are playing as selfishly as possibly not caring about anyone, and using builds to go with that playstyle hurts teammates and killers. I don't care if you want to urban evase all match but i don't think its fair that 1 perks allows you to hide from the killer while rest of us die.
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This is exactly what it needs, you gain some immunity to aura reading, but if you want it back you have to be chased which is a great way to do it rather than gaining the tokens back by hiding in the killers terror radius.
I'd love to see this change happen.
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To pushback, if the killer sees your aura with Blastmine they can obviously pursue you once the stun duration has ended much easier than if they were blinded during the stun.
As for the perks/add-ons Distortion counters (without considering that Lightborn also counters survivor add-ons), is your point that killers have too much aura-reading? One perk shouldn’t counter it; there should be many perks that can work as foibles to aura-reading. I think technically you do have three: Sole Survivor, Shadowstep, and Distortion but the first two have awkward activation that can tank games requirements whereas many killer aura-reading perks and add-ons just require normal gameplay.
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Zero people are saying the goal is to literally forbid people from excessively hiding. ZERO PEOPLE! "They'll still find a way to excessively hide" is literally not an argument, because zero people are saying it would 100% forbid it.
Should the upcoming "longer hook states" change be reverted, because you literally can't stop killers from camping, and "they'll still find a way" to camp, even if hook states are made longer?
It's literally not the point to 100% prevent something. It's to help discourage, or to make less effective. That's it! And nerfing Distortion would make excessive hiding more difficult and less effective, and that is the goal.
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I mean yeah the killer can go after you after you Blast Mine them but you have so much distance, why would they even try?
As for your other point, no, the point is Distortion counters too much, and too well. It is very difficult to actually end up exhausting all of the Tokens even if the Killer is running multiple aura reading perks.
There is a lot of aura reading, yes, but having a perk that almost unconditionally counters it all, completely passively, without ever needing to interact with the killer, is not a good thing.
Even if they added a chase requirement, it would allow you to stop Aura reading perks for a big chunk of the trial, you'd just need to actually take your turn in being chased by the killer from time to time.
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Oh I picked Nurse because its the easiest, but Wesker, Blight, Spirit, Huntress, Plague, Nemesis, Billy, even Clown can all do massive damage if they go for aura reads.
Distortion is a problem, but the main reason its not changed is because aura reading is an equally large problem.
As for the counterplay, there really isnt one. If you unhook someone while having an item, you literally gave the killer free camping. How to counter that? You cant. By the time you can pick up the item, the killer can proxy enough to down you before you even unhook0 -
Would it, though?
Someone that wants to perma-hide, with Distortion, is able to work on gens, heal allies, do totems, and more. They can actually contribute.
Without Distortion, if someone wants to perma-hide, they can just sit in a locker for the entire match.
Axing Distortion might just make perma-hiders a bigger problem because now they're not doing gens anymore.
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It would help, because it would make it more difficult for excessively hiding survivor to escape, which means they won't be rewarded as much for their anti-teamwork behavior.
Also, Distortion users that excessively hide from the killer, are a problem for the whole team, even though they are "work on gens… and more". Unless the "and more" involves helping with chases, it's a problem for the team. They are still a burden to their team, because they are forcing their teammates to carry them with extra chases.
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It would help, because it would make it more difficult for excessively hiding survivor to escape, which means they won't be rewarded as much for their anti-teamwork behavior.
But that's operating under the assumption that all the perma-hiders will swap to an active and engaged playstyle, and there's no reason to assume they would.
If they don't swap to that style, their chances of survival probably increase because they'll be taking fewer risks and can just make a hatch-play with greater consistency.
Also, Distortion users that excessively hide from the killer, are a problem for the whole team, even though they are "work on gens… and more". Unless the "and more" involves helping with chases, it's a problem for the team. They are still a burden to their team, because they are forcing their teammates to carry them with extra chases.
But that's compared to a full-active player, instead of a perma-hider without Distortion. That's my point.
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There are a lot of people that are only excessively hiding, because there is a quick and easy perk that enables this playstyle. If this perk is nerfed good enough, some of these people absolutely will go to a more active playstyle. And it doesn't matter if this number isn't 100%, because as long as it's higher than 0%, that is good enough.
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Ah you forgot the distinction between hard counter and soft counter, distortion hard counters aura perks and addons while most of those still have secondary effects that aren't fully hardcountered
Hardcounters, residual manifest active ability, flashlight, champion of light
Softcounters, flashbang, firecracker (still deafen)
"counters" blastmine since it stuns the same duration it doesn't really do anything to counter it
Franklins doesn't hard counter items off the bat you need to hit the survivor and even then any recharge perks can still get value and any items that have already gotten value have well already been used. You can't tell me it counters the toolbox used right at the start of the match.
So ~3 real hard counters and the rest are just neutered, and a perk that actually requires you to activate it, so lets compare that to distortion
Hardcounters, awakened awareness, bittermurmur, bloodwarden, bbq, darkness revealed, friends till the end, gearhead, grim embrace, im all ears, undying, lethal persuer, lightborn, nemesis, nowhere to hide, Alien instinct, floods of rage
Softcounters, deerstalker, eruption, retribution
Ill stop halfway but these are just the perks and usually killers run ~1-2 information perks / addons which then are then usually hard countered by the 1 perk slot that didn't require anything to activate, and doesn't require any effort to get more.
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I am trying to be optimistic xD Hahaha
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No they won't. They'll just run Sole survivor+Wake up and keep hiding more. They'll spend less time on generators and leave you to die.
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I don’t really know about having “so much distance” from a 3 second stun that still highlights your positioning to the killer doing much, really. Maps are much smaller, loops have been made weaker, and killers can have easily activated aura-reading perks/add-ons. This isn’t 2016 DBD anymore.
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