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Is Self Care + Botany Knowledge worth it?

Pretty much the title. I never run SC so I was wondering if this combo actually makes it worth running? The only other self healing perks I would consider running are things like Inner Strength or Second Wind, so would these be better?

Comments

  • TragicSolitude
    TragicSolitude Member, Alpha Surveyor Posts: 7,347

    I run it because in solo queue I can't count on my teammates to heal me. SC has often been the difference between me living and me dying. Plus, Botany Knowledge on its own is pretty great, the faster healing sure does feel good and it counters Sloppy Butcher. In Lights Out, healing felt unbearably slow since I couldn't have Botany.

  • sizzlingmario4
    sizzlingmario4 Member Posts: 6,905
    edited October 14

    It takes about 30 seconds to heal with that. It's a little slower than a medkit but it is infinite. Given that and you also get 50% bonus healing speed when healing others, it's actually pretty good, but you do have to use 2 perks to get that so depending on your playstyle and the rest of your build, other options could be better. The main advantage of SC is it has no prerequisite, it just works.

  • jajay119
    jajay119 Member Posts: 1,061

    with the way the game is, and before the buff to Jill’s perk that heals you up part way when unhooked, I’ve found Botany+SC to be a much more dependable mechanic than trying to get a team mate to heal. Yes it’s slower than someone else healing but when many killers just come back to the hook it’s more worthwhile them hopping on a gen and you going to a safer spot to heal. I don’t use the combo currently but I have before - pairing it with bite the bullet is also a nice little combo as it bamboozles killers quite a bit. Initially they can hear your cries of pain but if you drop line of sight and start to heal you essentially disappear and, often, they wonder off thinking you’ve ran away. It’s much more effective than iron will as killers will realise instantly if you’re using it or not.

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,349
    edited October 14

    I like Strength is Shadows from Sable for this build, cause it actually works out to be 105% heal speed, so barring the time to run to basement, it's faster than being healed by a teammate, and you get an aura read on the killer too.

    It's usually better than using Self Care since you usually have to run to somewhere safe with Self Care as well, and then take the 30s heal. However the 15s you save on SiS, not only does it often net better time efficiency, it lets you know where to go afterwards, regardless of if you want to do gens or support a teammate.

    Unless the killer figures out you have it, they will usually not check basement due to the time investment required. Or at least, not check it in time.

  • edgarpoop
    edgarpoop Member Posts: 8,368
    edited October 14

    Overzealous+Inner Healing and a map w/ totem tracking add on. Do totem. Do gens faster. Heal in locker when you need to.

    SC/Botany can be ok, but it's 2 perks to spend the longest possible time healing in a trial. You could bring a medkit or other healing combos.

  • Aceislife
    Aceislife Member Posts: 429

    Sables self-healing perk is better, use that instead.

  • KatsuhxP
    KatsuhxP Member Posts: 889

    How do you get 30 seconds as result with that? You heal with 85% so 0,85 charges per second, that results to around 19 seconds? xD

    Nothing against you, I'm just trying to find out if the math is different on heals than on gens, because with the gen one it would be around 19.

  • KatsuhxP
    KatsuhxP Member Posts: 889

    Why can't they just be consistent for once, that's so complicated and makes it so much worse xD

    Well thank you for explaining it to me, have a nice day! :D

  • poinepp
    poinepp Member Posts: 211
    edited October 14

    Its bearable with desparete measures actually

  • tjt85
    tjt85 Member Posts: 954
    edited October 14

    I'm a big fan of this combo. So many times it's come in clutch for me. It's great for those games when your teammates don't heal you and if they do then happy days, Botany is still a great perk to bring along to help the team.You can use it to finish off your heals if the Killer interrupts your teammate healing you. You can use it to heal up in end game and make a run for the gate. Plus, the Killer can't bring Franklin's to counter it like that big red medkit you brought that they can spot a mile away when you're busy hiding in a bush.

    I thought maybe Sable's perk might replace it but in the end I got fed up spending time looking for the basement. If I could buff Strength In Shadows, it would be to show the aura of the basement whenever you're injured.

  • SipSipSip
    SipSipSip Member Posts: 21

    I run it with new WGLF and MFT for faster pickups on slugs and another endurance hit

  • DragonMasterDarren
    DragonMasterDarren Member Posts: 2,845

    I'd recommend Reactive Healing instead

    Getting 75% healing from one teammate plus about 225 survival points for free is pretty nice

  • jesterkind
    jesterkind Member Posts: 7,809

    As others have said, Strength in Shadows is considerably better for this build, since travel time is always a factor and SiS works out significantly faster once you actually start the heal.

    That being said, I do consider Self Care to be viable with Botany, but only barely. 30 seconds is slightly longer than a medkit, but it's infinite- that's not a terrible combo, especially since you heal others faster and it's pretty flexible on where you get to use it. It's pretty fragile as a combo, though, it's extremely susceptible to any form of anti-heal the killer might have, since any slowdown on top of the already tenuous 30 second heal can make the overall time investment just flat out too long.

    If you're looking for self-heal combos, I'm going to echo something one other person said here: Overzealous and Inner Strength with a Map. Repair speed and heals, on top of being primed to stop any hexes you see in their tracks. This build is great, I run it all the time myself.

  • Akumakaji
    Akumakaji Member Posts: 5,453

    I Havw been running Botany and Strength in Shadows for a while for pretty consistent and fast basement heals, sometimes for fun coupled with bite the bullet, but that's a lot of perks for one good trick, and sometimes the basement is so far out there...

    Still, I like this combo more then self-care, because self-care has this stigma attached to itself. At least Strength in Shadows can be really fast and consistently good, if the basement is in main.

  • Akumakaji
    Akumakaji Member Posts: 5,453

    Or the old, but gold Houdini build:

    Overcome, Lucky Break, Inner Strength, Quick and Quiet.

    It can be really fun, you just need to find a dull totem and cleanse it, then when the killer injures you, zoooooooom off to another continent, jump into a locker and heal up in no time.

  • zarr
    zarr Member Posts: 996

    SC + Botany is great. It's the most reliable means of healing yourself, as you can do so anywhere at any time and however many times you need to. It is also time-efficient, given that another survivor healing you takes 16 seconds of 2 survivors' time, so roughly the same amount of raw survivor time spent on the heal - and then there's also the additional time consideration of finding another survivor, the other survivor having to run to you or you to them, potentially finding a safe reset spot together, and getting back to where you want to be. Not to mention of course that it often just isn't possible to find another survivor or to get to them, for a multitude of reasons. Or to get them to notice or heal you, for that matter.

    Having SC also allows you to 99% your heal, which can come in handy in countless scenarios. Make use of Resilience without many of the risks of being injured. Play around Bloody Coil or Gift Of Pain. Bait an M1 from a killer, be it to try and trick them into not using their ability on you that might instantly down you otherwise, or to bait a hit around a hook the killer would otherwise not have gone for, allowing for an unhook. Trick Legion into chasing you with M1 instead of M2, essentially handing you a free hit. Bait killers into chasing you, or otherwise make them think a situation is more precarious for you than it is, potentially leading to them making suboptimal decisions (e. g. everyone is injured so the killer is led to think camping is beneficial because nobody can unhook with them around, but you can quickly finish your heal and trade last second; or yet you being injured creating a sense of security for the killer that you can't contest the hook, making them more confident to venture out a bit further, then quickly healing and getting the unhook potentially without having to trade for it). Stay injured during Blood Fury to have access to Dead Hard, finishing the heal once Fury is over so as to not bleed orbs. And many more scenarios. Botany allowing you to heal others faster is of course also neat.

    Comparing it to other means of healing yourself, I don't think any of them can compete with just how reliable SC is:

    Strength In Shadows only works if the killer is nowhere around basement or anywhere that they could intercept you on your way there. It also takes additional time to get to and back away from basement, regularly such that it's not even faster than SC alone. And then there's the risk of being found healing in basement, due to aura perks or because the killer hears you or whatever. It's just a lot more situational and risky, while SC allows you to heal in places the killer would rarely find you or that are safe even if they do, as well as potentially finish your heal mid-chase should you get interrupted.

    Inner Healing requires you to find totems and cleanse them, which can take a lot of time (and doesn't have any inherent value if they're not Hexes). Sure you can bring a map or perk to at least find totems more easily, but then you're spending additional things on this, whereas not having to bring a med-kit so as to be able to use a flashlight or whatever is often the precise reason someone might opt for perk-based means of healing to begin with. On top of the time-to-heal often again potentially ending up being more than even SC alone, there is also the issue of not always being able to get to a totem safely or at all. As well as issues with other survivors blessing or cleansing totems, or the killer having Pentimento. I do think Inner Healing has a place in special tactical builds such as alongside Lucky Break, Quick & Quiet or Head On, and the Overzealous synergy is neat. There's also something to be said about the fact that it allows you to "buffer" your heal, preparing the perk in downtime so as to be able to heal quickly in more precarious situations (such as after getting unhooked). But SC + Botany is much better when just looking at a macro means of resetting yourself.

    Moment Of Glory is actually pretty interesting because its recent buff makes it so that you will always get healed as long as you can keep from going down for 60 seconds at some point. That said, the investment for it is way too steep, having to either find and loot two chests (taking ages and sometimes not being possible altogether due to various reasons), or needing to invest more perk slots into finding chests (Plunderer's Instinct) and/or being able to rummage (Appraisal) so as to only have to find one chest. The total time-to-heal will always be much more than SC however, and you won't regularly benefit much from the items you find, not least because you can only carry one at a time of course. And since you ideally want to bring an item to begin with the looting part is even less attractive. MOG is interesting because it can heal you passively mid-chase, or after being unhooked, but as a simple means of resetting it is also much worse than SC.

    Second Wind isn't comparable at all. Not only does the activation condition render it far from reliable, but it's also just not a consistent means of healing, as you only get it after being unhooked. There are tons of situations where you want to heal in a match, Second Wind is more of an anti-tunnelling perk than it is a healing perk, especially when considering that if the killer isn't tunnelling, the unhooking survivor could simply heal you instead.

    Plot Twist can actually be mentioned here. It has a lot of interesting use cases, and makes for a fairly good anti-tunnelling tool. But in a pinch, it can simply be used to reset yourself once per match, and a second time in endgame. But that's of course not comparable to SC either, much less consistent and reliable (since you can't always afford to just flop down, either because it's too risky or even just because it obviously communicates to the killer that you will be out for the count for the next 30+ seconds, and that you will be healthy thereafter, something they can therefore much better include in their decision-making).

    The only thing that can compete with SC + Botany is med-kit + Built To Last. Med-kits obviously enable you to do anything SC does but do so much more quickly, as well as heal others faster, and with BTL, you can get 6 heals out of a 2-heal med-kit. Of course, there is the additional time taken to recharge the med-kit, and you do have to bring one to begin with. But unless you really want to bring a different item, this combo makes for the best basic means of healing. Even if you get a hit-and-run killer 6 heals should regularly be enough, not least because at times you will of course be able to reset with other survivors instead. And your heals being much faster can obviously also contribute to the round being over earlier, thus needing fewer resets.

    Honorable mention for Circle Of Healing, which, while unfortunately a shadow of its former self and not a reliable and obviously not a self-sufficient means of healing, can significantly increase the overall "reset power" of a group, and encourage resetting in general. It also serves as a mechanical counter to Pentimento.

    In conclusion: If you want to consistently be able to reset bring a med-kit with Built To Last. If you want to use a different item, use SC + Botany. To note: If you're in a decent SWF group, you will rarely even need that many resets, and can also coordinate with your team to do so, so in those cases even just a 2-heal med-kit alone should be sufficient means of resetting yourself in most matches.

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,424

    You should probably just use the basement healing perk instead. I know you have to be at least at the basement stairs to use it, which could be a trek depending on where in the map you are, but the time spent going there is simply breaking even with the HUGE slowdown that Self-Care would give you. Even better if you pair it with Botany.

  • CountOfTheFog
    CountOfTheFog Member Posts: 2,388

    Desperate Measures is stronger per injured Survivor. So, in this calculation, how many are injured?

  • 100PercentBPMain
    100PercentBPMain Member Posts: 1,065

    There's probably going to a new otz video showcasing Leverage+Gift of Pain so it might honestly not be a terrible meta call in your upcoming solo matches

    I prefer Strength in Shadows but still, it's not terrible

  • Choaron
    Choaron Member Posts: 363

    No. Just use SiS.

  • Tipsy
    Tipsy Member Posts: 46

    Botany self care takes 35.5s to heal yourself. Another survivor healing you takes 16s plus the potential time to meet up meaning a minimum of 32s of potential time on gens. With simple math, you can see gen efficiency is roughly the same but with the added benefit of you healing others faster and not needing others to heal you. While strength in shadows (24s) is nice, a smart killer will call that out, killing you in basement and in terms of gen efficiency it's not great if you have to run across the map just to heal.

    Best perk for healing yourself is resurgence. With a medkit with suture addons, you can heal yourself in 1s if get a great skill check. So great even if the killer tries to tunnel since you can heal mid chase. Suture addons make you get skill checks btw. And downside is you have to be hooked and countered by hemorrhage.