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Spine Chill As Anti-Aura? Discuss!
The topic of aura perks and their answers has been on my mind lately, as it has for a lot of us, and while I broadly think there's no huge overbearing problems with either side as a whole, that doesn't mean things can't be improved from either direction.
Something that I've been thinking about is Object of Obsession as an answer to aura perks without being an aura blocker, and how it + Distortion have a sideways benefit of telling you when the killer's reading your aura to begin with.
It lead me to consider Spine Chill, and how both thematically and mechanically that perk could very easily be given the same benefit as its primary draw. Something like the following:
- When the killer has clear line of sight of you within 36 metres, or when the killer reveals your aura at any distance, Spine Chill activates. While Spine Chill is activated, increase the action speed of Blessing, Cleansing, Gate-Opening, Healing, Repairing, Sabotaging, Unhooking, and Unlocking by 2/4/6 %.
That list of actions is just what Spine Chill does now, for the record. I could easily see removing one or two here and there in exchange for the benefit being more consistently applied, or perhaps adding some kind of cooldown to the aura reading effect to limit its consistency. That kind of thing would need to be tested, that's just basic balance tweaking.
The idea here is to revitalise Spine Chill with a new niche, as it's somewhat lacking at the moment, and to sort of position it in the middle of Distortion and Object of Obsession in terms of design space: Distortion blocks auras but has a chance to not have tokens at any given moment, Object of Obsession turns auras around on the killer at the cost of also showing your aura unprompted… and Spine Chill alerts you to what aura perks the killer has but doesn't actually interact with them outside that, other than with a small action speed bonus. To this end, I'd also suggest giving it an audio tell like Distortion has, just to make sure it works in that niche.
It'd be a nice way of giving the "know what the killer has" effect with more consistency and no downside, while still being weaker overall than the other two perks on account of its extra effect not being the strongest. It'd also be nice as it's a general pool perk, rather than a teachable- Distortion is on a character you can get with shards, at least, but Object is behind an actual paywall.
Plus, it's really thematic to Spine Chill's flavour text and icon, which is a bonus.
What do we think? Would Spine Chill's current list of effects be perfectly fine here, or would it need toning down to not be too strong?
Comments
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I'd rather them just nerf aura reading all together. That being said, interesting ideas except I don't think speed needs to go up, especially gen repair. Gens already go WAY too fast. We don't need them going faster than they already are. Frankly, I'd simply just make spinechill light up any time your aura is read. That's it. You just know that you're in danger. That alone is incredibly powerful, as in it also helps you know what aura reading perks the killer is using. He kick a gen and your spinechill lights up? He's using nowhere to hide. You're healing and get lit up? Nurses calling AND the killer is near. Etc...
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I think most of the speed increases would be pretty benign here, the major potential problem is gen repair. Even then, six percent isn't that much, I think it could at least stay for a PTB testing period.
Aura reading also doesn't need a nerf overall, it'd just be neat to have more choices for answering it.
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I suggested exactly this.
Or rather I think Spine Chill could drop line of sight entirely and only activate with aura reading.
It would make it a useful tool for learning what aura perks are in play, and how they work in general. But that could get confusing if line of sight also activates it.
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I could easily see it losing the line of sight activation too, yeah. I was torn on that because on the one hand, that does make the perk much more cohesive and easily understood, but on the other it also makes it a perk that sometimes won't activate once in an entire game.
It could go either way, I think.
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The problem is how many little gen repair speeds we get that can stack. 6% isn't much, but then you have other perks that also have those little gen repair speed buffs, and put enough on, especially a whole team, and you're having matches over within minutes.
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It's a lot less consistent than other small percentages, to be fair, but like I said - that's part of what'd need to be tested on a hypothetical PTB.
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I mean that's basically the same deal as Object. Object also gives you a 6% speed boost when your aura is revealed. I think it'd be too similar.
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Damn, I flat out didn't know that, my bad.
Frankly, I think it'd make more sense on Spine Chill compared to Object, I think Object is a complete enough perk just with the aura sharing mechanic.
Though, looking at the wiki, it seems Object affects fewer actions, so there'd still be some differences in niche either way. Still, if I were to pick an adjustment based on this information, I'd take it off Object and put it on Spine Chill, as well as making the aura sharing consistent instead of Obsession based.
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they had this notifcation in 2v8 for aura reveals and I think it should be added to the base game in orfer to help the new player experience, that way the killer still gets their information but survivors can learn what procs it and to be careful but unsure where the killer is still.
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I'm not sure if I like the idea of having basically two identical Perks with slight differences tbh. (the other one being OoO)
Don't get me wrong, this would make Spine Chill at least usable and it would have a nice stacking effect with OoO itself!
I had an idea a while back to rework Spine Chill, it went something like this:
- Sense the Killer's Terror Radius 8 metres further.
- While in the Killer's Terror Radius, you unhook, heal, sabotage, cleanse, bless, open chests and open the hatch 10/15/20% quicker.
Something like reverse Oblivious effect, where instead of being unaware of the Terror Radius, you can sense if from further away that others, I've also added a decent action speed bonus because there aren't that many Perks that would benefit you from hearing the Killer from further distances.
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I think the fact that Object of Obsession reveals the killers aura, and Spine Chill would only activate gives it enough of a difference.... but that said...
An alternative might be that Spine Chill activates while you are affected by Killer Instinct... that would be very thematically on brand and the only tool in the Survibors arsenal that is affected by Killer Instint
If you buff its effect to 10%, that would be something that might actually be worth considering.
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The issue I have here is that Killer Instinct is specific to Killer powers. It's not only going to be very niche, but there's never going to be a case where you won't already know it's in play.
If Legion has his a survivor and they’re in deepwound, then you know you're revealed by killer instinct. If you're next to a demo portal or Victor, if you've hit maximum infection against Wesker, if you hit 7 tapes, if you reveal Ghostface.
Aura at least is mainly perk related which means any killer can use any of them.
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That's fair, I was thinking about things like Artist close calls, Vecna Sphere, Dredge in Nightfall, where the boost/info might be useful…
But I suppose it's always the point that perks shouldn't counter killer powers.
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gen-rushing certainly isn't it. one of main issues with killer at the moment is how difficult it is to hide your build as killer. aura perks are the only perks in the game that tend to be hidden enough to mask your build as a killer. i wish killer builds had more of surprise factor. a gotcha moment in their perk selection.
this version of spine chill would make weave attunement a gen-speed perk for survivor. If you use Mettle of man+OoO, you would have old OoO and old Spine chill because anytime the killer is near you, the spine would alert you but if killer doesn't target you, you gain repair speed bonuses. the build would not be good because Mettle of man is difficult perk to trigger but if Mettle of man's 2nd effect becomes accessible in any shape or form, these perks will become consistent info perks.
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Oh, what a coincidence!
I made a rework idea some time ago that would fit this perfectly. Initially I thought of giving it to Premonition, but decided to use Spine Chill for it instead.
• This perk activates when your aura is shown to the killer. While your aura is revealed, the perk's icon lights up and an auditory warning starts playing.
• For every 12/10/8 seconds of your aura being revealed, gain a token, up to 2/3/4. Each token delays the revealed aura by 1 second.
(Explanation: If you have 4 tokens and the killer uses an aura reading perk, he is still able to see your aura, but not where you are currently, but where you were 4 seconds ago. The aura reading also starts and ends later, so the duration of the aura read stays the same.)What do you think?
Edit: Your idea is fine too, but as others mentioned, it would become a sidegrade to Object of Obsession.
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I really like this. When you think Spine Chill you think of that feeling you get that your being watched. Having it activate on aura read makes complete sense and doesn't break the perk to the point that its overpowered. I hope that some devs see this and consider a change like this because i think it would bring spine chill to a point that its used a fair bit more
This is an interesting idea and one that I feel could be a great change to the way aura's seen. However in this idea of yours are you saying then that all auras are stationary.
The way lets say BBQ chilli works is i see your aura for x amount of seconds and i can see which direction your running if your moving. Now with your idea i would get that information 4 seconds delayed but would the aura still be running so I can track your direction because if not then you are turning an aura reading perk into a survivor screaming revealing their position type perk.1
