MedKits Need a Buff – Let's Fix the Over-Nerf!
Let’s talk about MedKits. In Patch 6.7.0, we saw a massive nerf to MedKits’ self-healing efficiency, reducing personal healing speed by -33% while increasing altruistic healing speed to +40%. While it’s great that MedKits are now better suited for healing others, the nerf to personal healing is too harsh and needs to be reconsidered.
Here’s why we need to buff MedKits:
- Survivor Independence Has Been Gutted: MedKits were a reliable way for survivors to heal themselves when teammates were unavailable or unsafe to approach. With the nerf, survivors are now forced to rely on others far too much, which is especially punishing in solo queue. Survivors who can’t heal themselves are sitting ducks, completely at the mercy of the killer’s pressure.
- The Self-Healing Nerf is Overkill: The -33% reduction in personal healing speed, paired with the faster consumption of MedKits, makes self-healing feel almost pointless. You burn through your MedKit in no time, and you're still left vulnerable if you run botany knowledge. Before the nerf, survivors had a chance to recover from injuries independently, which is vital to maintain a balanced and dynamic gameplay loop.
- MedKits Shouldn't Just Be About Altruism: Sure, the altruistic healing buff is nice, but MedKits were never just about healing others—they were a key survival tool for self-preservation. The new changes turn MedKits into glorified team-support items, robbing survivors of their ability to patch themselves up when needed. It completely strips away part of what made MedKits versatile in the first place.
- MedKits Already Had Counters: Killers had tools to mitigate MedKit healing even before the nerf. From anti-healing perks like Sloppy Butcher to fast-downing killers like Blight or Nurse, MedKits weren’t some overpowered crutch. Survivors using them to heal themselves wasn’t breaking the game—it was part of their strategy to survive the killer’s onslaught.
- We Need Balance, Not Overcorrection: Let’s not forget that balance doesn’t mean stripping away survivors' ability to heal themselves. The current nerf makes personal healing so ineffective that it’s hardly worth the time or resources. Instead of this heavy-handed nerf, MedKits should be balanced to allow survivors to heal themselves reasonably without feeling punished for wanting to stay in the game.
In conclusion, BHVR needs to reconsider this extreme MedKit nerf. Buffing personal healing back to a reasonable level—maybe not as strong as before, but certainly better than the current -33%—is crucial for game balance. Survivors need the ability to rely on themselves, especially in high-pressure situations. Let’s make MedKits useful again!
Comments
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Medkits were nerfed for a few reasons
- Reusablility, with medkits, perks, and charge addons, you could easily get 2 basekit + 1 from charge addon + 1 syringe for 4 heals off just items alone on each survivor, throw in something like built to last that 1 medkit is now good for 3 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 for a total of 10 heals. Thats just silly and thats with just the item and 1 perk
- Time efficiency, survivors objective takes ~450 seconds of repairing gens, healing yourself took 16s, being healed by someone else takes a cumulative 32s, being able to half the time wasted in a match by being self sufficient for every time you need to be healed adds up quickly, throw 4 survivors into it and the discrepency in time spent is better than the time most toolboxes buy. Brown medkit 16s saved, brown toolbox 5.33s saved, even a commodius only saves 10.66s, and thats off one heal from a brown medkit
- Speed, you could heal off injuries at a silly rate pre update you could bring a green medkit, botany knowledge, resilience, and deperate measures for a minimum 123% healing speed, a 7 second self heal just shouldn't happen, and after it does you shouldn't be able to do it a second time or use a syringe with the same effect. And when they were nerfed circle of healing was still around so just assume its another 50% on top of that.
Medkits are now in a more balanced spot, they give a bit of independence buy a bit of time by freeing up a teammate, provide healing at moments in a match where it can make a difference.
You shouldn't be able to heal yourself 10 times per game
You shouldn't be able to save 16s minimum every time the killer hits you with their weapon recovering
And you shouldn't be able to heal in 7s from a multi use item
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We need the medkits from before the nerf back. It sucks that all medkits are the same. Items are meant to be survivor powers and not just something you took out of trash bin. They have no charges and they don‘t increase healing speed in a meaningful way.
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A game should not be about watching a stupid bar fill up
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Survivors really shouldn't have reliable ways to self-healing since it's a team of 4.
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Ill pass on that
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Let’s break down each point of your argument while advocating for a substantive buff to MedKits, because the current state is overly punishing survivors without truly addressing the supposed “balance” you’re defending.
1. Reusability with Add-ons and Perks
You argue that survivors could potentially achieve 10 heals through perks like Built to Last and MedKit add-ons. Sure, in theory this could happen, but let’s be honest: how often does it actually play out like this in real games? Survivors still have to survive long enough to use all those heals, which isn’t guaranteed. High-skill killers can easily interrupt heals, down survivors quickly, and pressure the map. Also, if a survivor is wasting time stacking 10 heals instead of working on gens, they're hurting the team’s objective. Healing 10 times might sound overpowered on paper, but in reality, survivors who heal that much are usually buying time for the killer, not breaking the game.
A balanced buff would rein in this overuse without completely crippling personal healing. The nerf shouldn't be a blanket penalty; it should target excessive reusability specifically through diminishing returns on certain add-ons or perks, rather than punishing base MedKits.
2. Time Efficiency in Objectives
You mention that healing yourself takes 16 seconds compared to 32 seconds when healed by others, and argue that halving this time makes MedKits more efficient than toolboxes. But that’s the point of MedKits! They were designed to allow survivors to heal themselves efficiently when needed. Taking away that efficiency disrupts the balance between survivors and killers. Survivors already face time pressure to complete gens, unhook teammates, and avoid getting downed by killers who can apply constant map pressure.
Yes, efficient healing saved time, but that time bought was essential for keeping survivors in the game. It was a strategic choice. The current nerf, which increases self-healing times dramatically, makes MedKits feel weak and punishing. A substantive buff should restore self-healing to reasonable levels—maybe around 18-20 seconds instead of the extreme nerf we have now. It’s about balance, not removing an entire survival strategy.
3. Speed of Healing Pre-Nerf
You argue that pre-update, survivors could achieve 7-second heals with certain combinations of perks, which you claim is excessive. Sure, some extreme builds existed that allowed for faster-than-usual heals, but those were niche builds—not the baseline for most survivors. If your concern is about overly fast healing, the solution should be to tweak the perks or add-ons causing those situations, not to gut the entire MedKit system.
Furthermore, Circle of Healing provided an additional healing buff that stacked with MedKits, but Circle has already been nerfed. We’re not asking for those same pre-nerf values—we’re asking for a moderate buff to MedKits to make them viable again. A 7-second heal might be too fast, but pushing personal healing times closer to 18-20 seconds for one or two uses should be seen as a fair compromise.
4. MedKits Are Now in a Balanced Spot
You claim MedKits are now “balanced” because they provide some independence while also freeing up teammates to focus on objectives. In reality, MedKits now feel too weak and inconsistent. The nerf to personal healing has been so severe that most survivors don’t bother bringing MedKits anymore unless they’re running an altruistic build or just need one quick heal after unhook. And the faster consumption rate means even the most prepared survivors can’t rely on MedKits to save themselves when they need it most.
MedKits should strike a balance between self-sufficiency and teamwork. A substantial buff that reduces personal healing penalties and moderates consumption rates would restore their viability without tipping the scales too far in favor of survivors. After all, survivors need tools to stay in the match, and right now, MedKits don’t offer enough.
5. You Shouldn’t Be Able to Heal Yourself 10 Times
As mentioned earlier, while the theory of healing 10 times in a game sounds ridiculous, this isn’t something that happens in the majority of matches. Survivors who heal excessively usually do so at the cost of completing gens and helping their teammates, which is an inefficient way to play.
The focus should be on balancing MedKits so that survivors can heal themselves a couple of times per game effectively—not making them useless after one or two uses. A reasonable buff that reduces the harshness of the nerf would give survivors back some control over their own survival without letting them heal indefinitely.
6. Time-Saving is a Necessary Mechanic
You argue that survivors shouldn’t save 16 seconds every time they heal after a killer hits them. But consider the killer’s time efficiency. Killers can hit survivors, apply pressure, and down survivors in mere seconds. Survivors need a way to recover quickly enough to keep the game dynamic. MedKits played a key role in this time management for survivors, allowing them to heal and return to generators without sacrificing too much time.
The nerf has made this balance impossible. Now, survivors waste too much time healing, which plays into the killer’s hands too easily. A buff that reduces personal healing times, even to something like 20 seconds, would restore some of that much-needed equilibrium.
7. A Balanced Healing Speed
While 7-second heals might have been extreme, the current nerf has swung the pendulum too far in the opposite direction. MedKits should provide a balance of efficiency and limited use. Survivors shouldn’t be able to heal at lightning speed, but they also shouldn’t be penalized to the point of MedKits being useless.
A substantial buff should target the personal healing speed, bringing it back to a reasonable level that gives survivors enough autonomy to stay in the match without becoming overpowered. This would bring MedKits back to being a balanced and essential tool in survivors’ kits, while still allowing killers to maintain pressure.
In conclusion, while the initial intention of the nerf might have been to curb extreme use cases, BHVR has overcompensated by making MedKits almost unusable for personal healing. A reasonable buff is necessary to restore MedKits to a more balanced, functional state that lets survivors maintain a fair chance of survival without breaking the game.
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Yeah no. We had an efficient self heal meta with CoH and that killed M1's. Sure you only have limited heals with medkits but 2-3 is all you really need if everyone is running a medkit. Medkits I would say is still by far the best item to bring BECAUSE of the self heal.
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True, there is no point in running different med kits anymore. You need med kits for self heal since altruistic heal is already faster.
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I don't think MedKits should let you heal faster than you can heal a teammate, or heal efficiently just by wearing it. There are perks and builds for a reason. Increasing the effectiveness of medkits would take away from survivor 'classes'. If you want to be able to heal and self-heal efficiently, use a build that allows you to do so. In that regard, some perks should give a little buff to self-healing speed.
The killer has to work hard to achieve hits and downs, so neglecting them simply by holding M1 for a few seconds just because you're using a medkit sounds neither balanced nor fair.2 -
Just wish there was a point to having brown, yellow, green, and purple rarities of medkits since they are all the same. Clutters up the bloodwebs and just feel pointless. I think removing brown and yellow medkits would be better while revisiting some other items like keys and maps to improve their usefulness/versatility.
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Considering 9/10 teammates don't understand what I want from them, when I give them my medkit, and 9/10 survivors on this forum keep writing "there is no difference between medkits", there is no hope that most survivors will ever begin to understand what they are playing at.
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Exactly! There is no point in running different tear med kits for self healing because they all are the same speed. It is really ridiculous how they were over nerfed.
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They were over nerfed we all know that if we can think outside of bias. They were too strong before but solution should been balancing the med kits. Gray med kit is fine how it is now but other med kits should have more charges and faster healing better the tier is etc. Just 5% speed boost per tier and 8 more charges to yellow and purple would do med kits tiers meaningful. I think even bigger buffs would bd fine.
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Oh god no. If you want to go that route suggest removing purple and green med kits. No-one want's to use 7000 bp for item that is barely useable.
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No way, they're still the strongest item in the game, and they're very powerful when using a syringe. A lot of good players will run syringe + some skillcheck bonus addon like surgical suture to get a very strong and fast self heal, plus another syringe heal.
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I’ll pass on that. Especially with the new quick gambit and corrective action buff coming to play. Gens already fly. So after these changes I better just get good with nurse and call it a day.
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hmm how about a no?
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yep. they're more likely to nerf med-kit further.
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Sure, but then add another 15 seconds to gen times.
You'll still screw over hit and run killers, but that should balance out the time saving.
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Something being an essential tool is not balanced if it's to compete with other equipment selections.
That 16s saved that the other survivor no longer needs to spend healing you is not in a vacuum. That survivor could be occupying the Killer during that time, or repairing a generator, or healing another Survivor, or simply not being in the same spot healing another survivor, which would make being found by the Killer in that scenario more dangerous/wasteful of Survivors time.
It is 16s of freeform time added to another survivor on the team + whatever time spent between the two needed for moving to/collaborating with one another to start the heal.
Current Trial dynamics do not support quick self-heals as a balanced tool.
Which does suck as self-healing gives a feeling of agency.
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Medkits do not need a buff nor were they overnerfed. Having them as they were eliminated an entire Killer playstyle, hit and run. We shouldn't be encouraging lack of playstyle variety.
Leave medkits alone and take a good long look at toolboxes, especially event and commodious boxes. The higher tier ones and the green/event ones in particular need looking at. If anything Sabo was overbuffed on some and isn't needed at all on others.
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Yeah, I think Med-kits were overnerfed a little bit.
If you go through older threads on the Forums, you'll see healing was rarely ever complained about. For a long time Self-Care was a healthy perk and part of the meta: it didn't give you an insane speed but it did allow you to heal yourself. That only changed around Spirit's release, when the healing action going from 12 charges to 16 absolutely murdered the perk. After that you had to have a Med-Kit to heal yourself, which were absolutely fine by themselves.
No one had a problem with healing until it was allowed to reach extreme levels with the original iterations of COH, which seems to have been a perk created with Hexes in mind: a powerful effect which can be removed from the trial. But Boons cannot be permanently destroyed, so that perk was unquestionably overpowered and it had to be changed.
The Med-Kit nerf was too much, I don't think it should have happened.
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Ok, If we can have old Mangled and hemorrhage back or even buff them. then I'll be fine with this
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That’s correct! Nobody was complaining about that until circle of healing come to play and stack everything together. Med Kits were nerf as a consequence of CoH stacking, but they were fine by themselves before specially if you run Franklin’s Demise.
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Healing is still out of control and is super easy to heal by oneself with a medkit.
Or without a medkit with a swf instead,
To be honest healing needs toning down.
And gen speeds is also out of control with swf, Making the games run quick and boring.
Thus leaving the game in a very unhealthy state, Yes I play both sides regularly and survivor got so easy.
And don’t get me started on exploits that survivors use and abuse daily.If the killer had any exploits like survivors do today. It would be patched in less than a week.
Yet these exploits have been in the game for months for survivor side to use freely.
This is meant to be a horror game after all not a walk in the park.
The best balance dbd had for both sides was 2V8 fact.Post edited by TsukiYurei on0 -
going to go no. killers used to get ahead, survivors would scatter to the 4 winds, self heal, be back on the gens in seconds. gens move to quickly now. someone mentioned this would be fine if gens had more time added onto them, i dont see an issue with that, or remove the 8 kick limit, which ive no idea why that was even added in. someone complained that survivor items are like perks you can bring in, that person if you're reading this, you realize that you can also find those in chests on the map right? killers dont get those…
its a team based game, it might be called solo que, but you're still playing with 3 other survivors facing 1 killer. next survivors are going to want a way to get free from the hook 100% each time, with a massive 3 minutes on last stage.
its not hard to crouch several times, which survivors do, to signal for a heal when you find someone. at this point why not take the killer out of the game, and add them to the stands so that they can eat popcorn and watch the survivors fight over who is going to do gens with whips and flails? well, for those who do gens anyway. i want to see that.
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Yea they were so over nerfed that they are still in 90% of my matches and are a permanent staple on my loadout on survivor. They are fine.
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Bruh.
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Idc about medkits, keep them the same, but give me back self-healing CoH so it's actually useful again.
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COH is still very useful. Before it was a little TOO useful.
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