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Regression meta think tank!

So the idea 'Regression is the only viable way to play' is baffling to me. Is this really what most players think? Is it what they want?

If anyone has ideas or stories of builds that work at a high level and isn't regression based, please share!

What I -don't- want is a build being posted, and others picking it apart and shaming it. Most things in the game have counters through perks or mechanics. Regression and anti-slug builds are pretty common, so what else is there?

I like running ninja builds, as even with comms, it can really spice up a match and catch survivors off guard. Can't call out killer location when you dont know he's right behind you lol.

Hex: Plaything, Trail of Torment, Coup De Grace and filler, usually Spies from the Shadows or Oppression, with the latter being less useful.

Its my staple Trapper build, and it works like a charm most of the time.

Thanks and lets see what works!

Comments

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,700

    So the idea 'Regression is the only viable way to play' is baffling to me. Is this really what most players think? Is it what they want?

    I don't think anyone wants it, to be honest. I doubt anyone would choose it over what I consider to be peak killer meta: BBQ in every game.

    Most players just accepted the fact that gen regression works better than other perks in recent years of DBD. And I could be wrong, but I think the root of the problem is bad killer design. We got many killers that were extremely oppressive in chases in quick succession, and paired together with perks and other changes (most of which unnecessary), survivors were left with very few options except do the generators as fast as possible.

    To stop that from happening, killers, who also got hit with changes to their perks, stack gen regression. This is simply the direction the game has been going even before the infamous 6.1.0 patch, which when take your time to read through those patch notes you realize it was a terrible update. By the time the Portrait of a Murder chapter released, this killer design was already causing problems, namely the hold W playtsyle.

    This can be fixed, of course, but I doubt it will be fixed anytime soon.

  • WaveyTrey
    WaveyTrey Member Posts: 652
    edited October 17

    I played with a neat new Aura read combo with Knight and Onyro.

    Human Greed. Hoarder. Lethal. Free Slot.

    Undying. Human Greed. Hoarder. Hex.

    Essentially the chests act as proxies that give away the survivors position at all times. If they open any chest you get alerted. If survivors figure it out you can just close the chests again every 30 seconds. With Hoarder you get 5 chests. If survivors use a coin that round that’s even more aura reading.

    Sometimes a chest spawns right next to generators. Especially above basement. It’s lowkey good for Onyro.

    Someone thought I was hacking until they saw the perks at the end. They thought “I did see more chests”.

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    it's nearly impossible to have a build for high skill levels without any gen regression, but since MMR is so terrible that you will rarely bump up to some really high skill level squads, i would probably use 1-2 info perks combined with some utility and chase.

    Quite possibly a kind of build:

    Bamboozle-BBQ-Agi-Lethal

  • Spare_Them_Mori_Me
    Spare_Them_Mori_Me Member Posts: 1,756
    edited October 17

    Im not saying you are incorrect, but I can look over meta's across the globe, and there are plenty of other options. Why does the 'regression or bust' seem to be only NA? Clearly… there are other options. I dont understand this mindset at all.

    Regression can be a thing, but to say absolutely nothing else will work seems like a boxed-in mind.

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    as i already mentioned, in pubs everything will work because MMR system is so bad that you will be guaranteed a team with at least one terrible player.

    Additionally, if we talk about higher skill levels, i think NA survivors are much more convergent regarding ideas about usage of their perks, while EU ones are much more divergent.

  • Spare_Them_Mori_Me
    Spare_Them_Mori_Me Member Posts: 1,756
    edited October 17

    So the regression meta here is due to how Survivors play vs how survivors play in other parts of the world? Just making sure I understand. I really want to. Im thinking about trying a regression build, but it sounds so boring…

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    yep, tho problem is, if you actually tried to play against EU survivors, the jump in ping would make it unbearable.

    Don't go full regression tho, that's just bottlenecking your build, I myself tend to usually go Corrupt + 1 or 2 utility perk and 1-2 gen regression perks. For weaker killers, i would definitely suggest throwing one chase perk (preferably Bamboozle) in your build just because it will be your only way to reliably shorten chases against good survivors (you still need to use it very wisely to get it's value)

  • Spare_Them_Mori_Me
    Spare_Them_Mori_Me Member Posts: 1,756

    Man, I don't use any of those… But I will try it! This is so strange but I want to understand this. I dont have issues with killer, but if this makes it even -easier-, then I'd finally find some common ground lol.

    Thanks for the talk. :)

  • TerraEsram
    TerraEsram Member Posts: 671

    Technically, I know that people don't like when we talk about a streamer or whatever… But you can be interested by Lilith Omen, a Blight Main, he never kick a gen in all his match (and seem's to not use any regression perk in general, maybe some times ruin)

    For myself… I love trying some "special" build, like Formula Haag
    Give her the waterlogged shoes, and the scarred hand, with: batteries included, play with your food, remember me (a perk that I love) and some other perk (you can combine that with Noed, but I don't like this perk, game afoot or machine learning if you want to kick some gen)

    And you got a Haag, who run at:

    Batterie, Play with your food: max 137,5%
    Batterie, Play with your food, Noed: max 142.5% at end game
    Batterie, Play with your food, Game afoot: max 142.5%
    Batterie, Play with your food, Machine learning: max 147.5% each time a corrupted gen is completed
    Batterie, Play with your food, Machine learning and furtive chase: max at 152.5%

    Imagine a tiny haag who burst into you without any terror radius
    It's not really a powerfull build, but a funny build

  • edgarpoop
    edgarpoop Member Posts: 8,442

    It really depends on the killer for me. Ghostface is my main these days and I don't run a ton of regression on him. There are lots of ways to build pressure. Especially with Ghostface if you know his best stalk lineups/angles on each map. Survivors aren't going to see you unless someone is following you. The ambush playstyle is very viable on him at all levels.

    Granted, I may fail this assignment because I do run some regression. But my typical build is Corrupt/Pain Res/Discordance/PWYF w/ Drop Leg Knife Sheath and a flex add on.

    Build PWYF stacks when you can and stalk as many survivors as you can. Expose them but don't feel like you have to hard commit to each exposed player. You have a ton of pressure if you have 2 or 3 survivors exposed and you don't have a TR.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,700
    edited October 17

    CI, Pain Res, Bamboozle and BBQ, but I have been playing more Knight than Freddy these days.

    I am tired of playing a killer with no power.

  • Grigerbest
    Grigerbest Member Posts: 1,836

    I don't know what MMR you are on - but in my games I can't even think of playing without gen regression.

    I don't like short matches.

  • Spare_Them_Mori_Me
    Spare_Them_Mori_Me Member Posts: 1,756

    None of us know what anyones MMR is. You're not alone. And that sucks, mate. Wish you could think about playing without regression. I mean you can… but.

    Who do you play usually? I suppose this matters if Im going to learn about this regression stuff and why its needed. Maybe its the killer picks.

  • AssortedSorting
    AssortedSorting Member Posts: 1,348

    When I played Pig a lot I used to do Spirit Fury, Plaything, Bamboozle, Thrilling. (though I haven't updated a build for her yet with new perks).

    Still had slowdown from the RBTs, possibly Plaything (though if they ignored the totems I'd start moving without using crouch, getting surprise hits in faster), also increasing my chase potential, getting information while also possibly delaying survivors with Thrilling, and of course able to kick generators for that base-kit regression.

    But again, pig is a Killer with slowdown and stealth as part of her kit (though not gen regression in a direct sense).

  • GhostsCore
    GhostsCore Member Posts: 30

    I've been alternating between an anti heal chucky build using leverage, plaything, penti, pain res with straight razor add on.

    And furtive, machine learning, pain rez and rapid. But imo that works better on Vecna (still really scary to face if you get it to work though)

  • Grigerbest
    Grigerbest Member Posts: 1,836

    I only play 3 killers - Hag, Nurse and Xeno. Well, sometimes (based on my mood) I can pick Artist, Spirit.

    Oh man, I would LOVE to play on different perks - but I'm afraid I will not be able to even kill 1 guy, because the gens are SO fast in my matches - it's usually 4-6m before all gens are done (well it's also depends on the pressure that I'm making), and survivor players I'm going against are using the most oppressive perks against killers to prolong the chase.

    The thing with me - I'm not using ANY "poor" tactics (tactics that survivor players hate, such as tunneling, proxy-camping) and I'm playing the game as "fair" for survivor players as I can.

    Very long ago - I was using the perks and addons which are THE MOST suited for the particular killer theme, it was so fun bro.

    But I was "losing" a lot - and survivors were calling me… "Bad player" (basically). So I abandoned this idea - I'm still playing without tunneling, etc - but I started to use "Meta" perks and got addicted… -_- And probably got my MMR much higher because of that…

  • Hannacia
    Hannacia Member Posts: 1,323

    I normally play my half endgame half don't you dare healing build on Chucky. Noed, No way out, Leverage and scourge pain ress. I use the razor blade addon to get the sloppy butcher effect to make healing even more painful.

  • Spare_Them_Mori_Me
    Spare_Them_Mori_Me Member Posts: 1,756

    I was using the perks and addons which are THE MOST suited for the particular killer theme, it was so fun bro.

    Doing this now and then won't tank your MMR, so you can still sprinkle in those fun games! If I were locked into the same build as it sounds, I'd go nuts. Variety is what keeps dbd from getting too stale. On Survivor anyway. But even on my Trapper I have a slew of perks I like swapping in and around constantly.

    But I am starting to understand. Regression builds out perform any other build currently at sweat levels of MMR. This accurate? And 'sweat' isn't used in a demeaning way here, for clarification!

  • ratcoffee
    ratcoffee Member Posts: 1,578

    Hex: Devour Hope, Hex: Undying, No Way Out, and one of [Coup, Bamboozle, Mindbreaker, or Cruel Limits] on Wraith. Cloaked Move Speed and either Cloaked Break Speed or Uncloak Speed addons. I find even the extra few seconds survivors spend breaking the totems can buy enough time to get winning momentum.

  • 100PercentBPMain
    100PercentBPMain Member Posts: 1,138

    Regression is a tad overrated; you should balance your builds by having at least 1 and play around that, whether it's Jolt cola or Pain Res.

    Id rather take Lethal Pursuer and have both sides speed run their objectives than take Corrupt and allow survivors to just wait it out by chilling in shack so I only have 3 perks

    At some point killers have to take the initiative, and good survivors know that; they have 1hour and you have 8 regression limit on gens. If you're playing a killer like Nemesis against 4 Lithes+Finesse and your location is being called out on a clock system not even a 1000% Ruin will save you

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,677

    STBFL/Rapid Brutality. Superior Anatomy/Unbound. Spirit Fury/Enduring. Coup De Grace. Batteries Included. Dissolution. You name it. They're not all great options, but they're something.

  • NAVIks
    NAVIks Member Posts: 35

    regression is better than tunneling and slugging at 5 gens, the current meta sucks because that's all killers do now. the 8 gen kicks only thing + no good regression perks made this meta come about, and it definitely needs to change.

  • CrossTheSholf
    CrossTheSholf Member Posts: 316

    Bu

    Correct. Regression needs to be buffed due to the 8 kick limit

  • Tipsy
    Tipsy Member Posts: 46

    At the true high level, which extremely few ppl are, slowdown perks are a must, but going all out in slowdown perks if huge flaw as well. Most slow down perks have similar requirements. To down or hook someone, which takes time and good survivors won't let that come easy. Other are area control, like a 3 or 4 gen but that is a war attrition when it comes to gen kicks with survivors usually in favor of winning. So you need perks to compliment your favored slowdowns, killer, and playstyle.

    Setup or proxy killers are going to always excel at area control, so perks like agitation and crowd control will be your best friends. Agitation to bring down survivors in your gen setup and crowd controls to make your setup more dangerous to enter.

    M1 killers that don't use bloodlust, like doc, Larry, slinger, and clown are amazing users of rapid brutality.

    M1 killers with weaker chase power, like trapper and wraith love bamboozle.

    Killers with dash powers with cooldowns like chucky, wesker, and blight all love brutal strength for its powerful zoning abilities.

    Killers that focus on sound or have short burst powers like spirit, and knight love languid touch as the best counter to iron will and exhaustion perks.

    Snowball killers like Myers, oni, and billy, enjoy machine learning.

    Of course info is good but not necessary at the high level because game sense should carry you and most hidden aura perks like bbq and nowhere to hide are easy to call out and counter once noticed. So recommend ones that are to call out like, spies or floods. also ones that are simply not hidden are great. Faces of darkness and ult weapon are info perks that the survivors learn about right away can come at times when they don't expect it, ruining rotations and a lot times making them panic and make mistakes.

  • zarr
    zarr Member Posts: 1,032
    edited October 18

    "High level" does not exist in BHVR's matchmaking. If you aren't playing scrims/tournaments against high-level players (which, if you are, none of this matters anyway), you can play killer perkless and add-onless and still win most if not all of your matches, many of them decisively, simply by being good enough at the game. This has been true and proven to be true time and again, for years. So yes, using regression/slowdown builds is indeed not the only viable way to play - if you get good enough/are a "high-level" player, much of anything is "viable".

    …Now for the actual topic. Here's a handful (mostly) slowdown-free builds of many different ones I like to use at times and that I consider to be highly viable at most levels of play (I'll assume by "regression" you mean anything that slows the game down directly, i. e. including things like Corrupt Intervention and Dead Man's Switch or Pentimento):

    Devour Hope + Undying + Haunted Ground + NOED - Devour Hope is really the star of this and many other builds of mine. It is a criminally underrated or certainly at least underused/undervalued perk that will turn any match in which it survives until it has 3 tokens on its head and regularly wins the game from there on out as survivors scramble trying to cleanse it in a chaotic frenzy, abandon the concept of repairing gens completely and hesitate or even refuse to unhook others. And even if they do manage to eventually get rid of it, the damage already done will often be so vast that there's no real coming back from, any hope they had left in shambles… It's a great perk design that encourages killers to and rewards them for venturing out and refraining from camping and tunnelling much, and can allow a killer to come back and win out even in the worst case of only having gotten 3 hook stages over the course of a match.

    The other perks here are really only there to support Devour, keeping it alive longer, with Haunted acting as both a decoy, deterrent and a way to potentially get some fast and early downs that can escalate into a fast and early stacked-up Devour. Both Haunted and NOED are also hilarious with Devour, creating many comedic scenarios where survivors will, for instance, cleanse Haunted while Devour already has them Exposed, or have fought a hard battle through Devour, having finally managed to cleanse it, only to be hit by NOED. But both or either of these perks could also be replaced with a selection of Ruin, Blood Favor, Crowd Control or Pentimento. It's just that those tend to send the survivors out on totem patrol, whereas without any Hex in play that actually harms survivors (and with Haunted harming them only if cleansed of course), these perks make it more likely that survivors will simply miss, neglect or altogether ignore totems until it is too late. Thrill Of The Hunt and Dominance deserve mention for two more perks that can be used to fortify Devour. There's also a bunch of killers that are downright oppressive at playing around it, such as Singularity that can guard it with pods, Trapper that can lock it down with Bloody Coil and/or Iri Stone, Demo that can get notified if someone is around it and quickly traverse there from anywhere, Knight that can protect it with guards, Twins that can park either of the two there, as well as a whole bunch of ranged and mobility killers that have an easy time forcing survivors off their totem either from afar or by continually and quickly being able to return to it. Mirror Myers is also crazy with this.

    In general I would recommend just trying Devour sometimes, you don't even have to build around it necessarily either, just throwing it randomly into an otherwise regular build of yours will work out sometimes and it can win games on its own and make a lot of matches much more exciting as you anticipate building up to that 3-token threshold, and enjoy watching the chaos unfold whenever you do.

    Infectious Fright + Knock Out + Barbecue & Chilli + Anything You Want - Slugging is really fun, for both sides. As long as it's not the tired old "slugging for the 4k" in a foregone conclusion of a match or leaving people to bleed out on the ground for no reason other than to annoy them, slugging actually creates very engaging, chase-centric, low-downtime matches that are a constant back-and-forth and that even after 10 minutes of gameplay can still be entirely open for either side to come out victorious of. It feels just as great to recover from a precarious situation where 2-3 people had been slugged and the last person standing made a clutch play as it does to finally manage to get everyone after having gone through multiple cycles of almost having had gotten there. And since survivors don't accumulate hook stages, they will usually feel great if they get healed back up, truly "reset" and back up and running.

    Of course, you can do this without a build dedicated to it altogether and just keep slugging, but for most killers/players this is not feasible if they actually want to also win sometimes. This is where Knock Out comes in, which can make this strategy that much more potent and slow the game down naturally as well as increase the likeliness to snowball slugging into a win. Barbecue is here because rather than simply slug all the time (which is something you can do, but which can be pretty boring for both the survivors and yourself as you are frequently left to randomly patrol gens and search for other survivors after that), we only slug if Infectious Fright procs. So if you down someone and get an Infectious scream, you leave them on the floor and go for the other survivor; if you don't get a scream, you hook the survivor and Barbecue will then lead you to your next targets instead. Not only does this gameplay flow yield a more dynamic match where you should most of the time be engaged in chasing, but it also actually builds more pressure to have survivors both slugged and hooked and to gradually build up hook stages on people. Obviously there are many situations where you can and will optimally want to deviate from this pattern to some degree, but as a basic play paradigm, trust me, it will get you far.

    Knock Out obviously works best or should ideally only really be used on M1 killers, or at the very least killers that will regularly down people with M1s. I really like to use this build on Legion or Plague for instance. On M2 killers, you can either simply use Third Seal instead of KO, or just go with Fright + Barbecue alone. Some of the high-mobility killers really don't even need Knock Out/Seal to benefit from slugging, and can often in fact capitalize on survivors quickly rushing to pick up a slugged survivor rather than not finding them or not even trying to pick them due to not seeing them, as those killers can of course quickly return to the slug at much of any point, then finding multiple targets there to potentially down in quick succession. Try this on Nurse/Billy/Blight and if you're any good at them you'll get a lot of 4ks at 3+ gens remaining.

    The last perk to round the build out can be much of anything, including of course slowdown perks such as Corrupt or Surge or Ruin or the like. But since this topic is about slowdown-free builds, I would recommend Sloppy Butcher or a chase perk such as Bamboozle or Save The Best For Last. Monitor & Abuse can also be really interesting in this build, as it not only increases your Infectious range to 40m (then really covering anything Barbecue wouldn't), but also makes it more likely to catch survivors scrambling to find slugs and reset with their pants down, adding to your potential to snowball. On M2 killers, using both Monitor and Nurse's Calling alongside Barbecue and Fright can be a really potent combo. On Nurse you can even go Monitor, Barbecue, Fright plus a perk of your choosing (Nowhere To Hide or Predator or something) and use Bad Man Keepsake (Nurse's Calling in add-on form) and Fragile Wheeze (Mangled add-on) instead.

    Wherever you end up going with this, I encourage anyone to slug more (unless it's slugging the second-to-last remaining survivor for the 4k or merely to bleed people out). You will have success and a blast with this, and as will many of the survivors, even if they may not always appreciate it or even understand that they had a pretty fun round all things considered.

    Blood Favour + Save The Best For Last + Dissolution + Enduring - This is a really cool and synergistic chase build that will often be downright oppressive to the survivors' ability to last long enough in chases. So the ideas here are the following: If you hit someone, active pallets get blocked by Favour, and since you have STBFL, they often won't make it far enough to get to unblocked pallets, or long enough for the pallets to become unblocked; pallets that are already dropped cannot be played because of Dissolution; if you hit someone around a dropped pallet with a stacked-up STBFL, they also won't regularly make it far, thus having to play the dropped pallet, which Dissolution again makes unplayable; if you hit someone through a pallet drop, the shortened stun thanks to Enduring also regularly renders survivors without the option to leave the tile, upon which Dissolution again screws them.

    With this build you want to almost never break pallets, as left-up pallets are actually more so traps for survivors than they are beneficial to them. With STBFL being a centerpiece to most of its synergies, this build is obviously best-suited for M1 killers (Wraith, Pinhead and Clown being some of the killers that have a particularly good time making use of it), but you can also use it on some of the M2 killers and replace STBFL with something like Undying. Nemesis for instance is really scary on this build, especially after the recent buffs. Blight will also leave survivors hopeless to not die in seconds. It can be noted that Enduring is not absolutely integral to this build and could be replaced with Bamboozle or Crowd Control as we otherwise lack means of combating windows, but I personally enjoy Enduring way too much, and would rather max. out on synergies that make Dissolution better here.

    Play With Your Food + Friends 'Til The End + Furtive Chase + Make Your Choice - The goal here is obviously to always go for the Obsession, getting PWYF stacks and ideally downing them in one hit thanks to Friends or MYC. If you can't find the Obsession at the start of the match that's not a big deal, as hooking anyone else will show you where the Obsession is. Once you have farmed your PWYF stacks and hooked the Obsession, you will then get additional Haste as well as Undetectable from Furtive, and get a new Obsession to go after, revealed to you by Friends. Once anyone unhooks, they will become the Obsession and Exposed, again making for easy stacks and an easy down. A really neat build that is really rather potent on a few killers (Wraith and Clown (perhaps with Pinkie Finger instead of MYC), Dracula and Vecna, Freddy, Plague (again replacing MYC with something else, such as Flood Of Rage or Nemesis)).

    A sort of related build that can be used on a wider variety of killers rather than only those that are well-suited to abuse PWYF consists of Lethal Pursuer, MYC and Flood Of Rage. Any unhooker will become Exposed and have their aura revealed to you for 9 seconds, making them easy prey, especially because a lot of survivors once they get afflicted with MYC have a tendency to hide immediately, not knowing that Floods is revealing them. You will pull a lot of people out of lockers.

    Dragon's Grip + Nowhere To Hide + Unforeseen + Trail Of Torment - You kick a gen, check whether and where there are survivors around it, position yourself such that they can't see you, and then get the jump on them if they touch it. As they grow wary of Dragon's Grip over the course of the match, you can often leave gens freely and survivors will be too afraid and confused by both Unforeseen and Trail to touch them, often simply hiding around them for long periods, wasting a ton of their time. Plus it's not like you can't come back if you're elsewhere when they touch it either, and with you still or again being Undetectable, you can still get the jump on them. They may have even stopped the regression on the gen, allowing you to potentially find them with NTH.

    Ever since they've reduced the cooldown on Grip, the perk is really not to be underestimated. It can give you free downs, easier downs, and a whole lot of slowdown due to survivors being scared to touch any gens you kick. Things like Oppression and Eruption would obviously also go well with this, were one to not refrain from using slowdown perks.