if slugging is bad

So many mechanics?

You mean like DS, which only activates if you're actively tunneling.

Or I guess you could count flip flop/power struggle, but are we seriously complaining about this combo now?

And...

Wait, that's it. That's literally all that even activates on killer pickup. The horror. Such a massive, exhaustive list that would keep anyone up at night.

"Fun" and "engaging" gameplay for both sides, of course.

Hooking a survivor can be countered by these things:

• Pallet Saves
• Flashlights
• Sparklers/Flashbang items
• Sabotaging hooks

And the following perks:

• Boil Over
• Breakout
• Decisive Strike
• Flashbang
• Flip-Flop
• Power Struggle
• Saboteur

Survivors gain benefits directly related to being hooked, or unhooking others with these perks:

• Aftercare
• Babysitter
• Background Player
• Blood Rush
• Borrowed Time
• Breakdown
• Camaraderie
• Dead Hard
• Deliverance
• Kindred
• Off the Record
• Reassurance
• Resurgence
• Second Wind
• Should the Burden (coming soon)
• Slippery Meat
• We'll Make it

On top of that, survivors have things like:

• Basekit BT
• Anti-Face Camp Mechanic
• 70 second hook stages

Lastly, the time it takes to hook a survivor, that is HOOK a survivor, not chase them, not find them, not down them. I'm saying, you have hit the survivor, and they are now on the ground, it takes:

2.7 second wipe animation + 3 second pickup animation + ~10 seconds to find a nearby hook (based on average hook distances) + 1.5 second hooking animation = 17.2 seconds (during which 3 other survivors are getting 51.6 seconds of gen progress on a required 450 seconds of progress (I.E. 11.4% of their objective done again NOT factoring in chase time, finding the survivor, breaking pallets, etc. That is just literally picking up the downed survivor and hooking them which is 8% of the killer's objective, the survivors are able to complete 11.4% of theirs)

Now, how many things counter slugging?

Well there is nothing basekit that does. What about perks?

• Adrenaline (arguable, but i'll include it)
• Boon: Exponential
• No mither (arguable again, but i'll include it)
• Tenacity
• Unbreakable
• We're Gonna Live Forever

Now lets look at perk usages from nightlight:

Hook perks:

• Boil Over - 3.04%
• Breakout - 1.82%
• Decisive Strike - 9.43%
• Flashbang - 3.38%
• Flip-Flop - 1.70%
• Power Struggle - 1.07%
• Saboteur - 2.16%
• Aftercare - 0.54%
• Babysitter - 1.11%
• Background Player - 4.10%
• Blood Rush - 0.48%
• Borrowed Time - 1.61%
• Breakdown - 0.53%
• Camaraderie - 0.14%
• Dead Hard - 10.80%
• Deliverance - 2.86%
• Kindred - 7.99%
• Off the Record - 7.09%
• Reassurance - 1.54%
• Resurgence - 5.43%
• Second Wind - 0.74%
• Should the Burden (coming soon) - 0% (not out yet)
• Slippery Meat - 0.86%
• We'll Make it - 8.20%

Slug Perks:

• Adrenaline - 13.94%
• Boon: Exponential - 1.59%
• No mither - 0.51%
• Tenacity - 1.54%
• Unbreakable - 9.96%
• We're Gonna Live Forever - 3.13%

Totaling all that up, in a given game with 4 survivors, you will see on average, out of 16 possible perks:

• 3 perks related to hooking
• 1 perk related to slugging

That again, doesn't factor in things like items, flashlights, toolboxes, or the basekit bt, or AFC mechanic or any other things.

On top of that, looking at the strength of the perks. If you hook survivors you might have to deal with perks like:

• Decisive Strike
• Dead Hard
• We'll Make It
• Deliverance
• Off the Record

For context, these perks are used in basically every single comp game ever for a reason.

Whereas on the slugging side, perks like:

• Adrenaline are a one time use and only really come in play under specific circumstances
• Boon Exponential is super easy to counter, because you probably can hear the totem if you down a survivor and they are in the range of it
• No mither is a joke of a perk
• Tenacity isn't really a hard counter and often just gets paired with unbreakable really
• Unbreakable is annoying but they can only use it once in a match, so once it is gone, it is gone and you don't have to worry about it anymore. On top of that, at the very least you STILL forced them to spend time recovering and waste time, whereas something like DS actually costs you more time than it costs the survivor
• The only true constant "Counter" is WGLF which has already been nerfed a bit, and is pretty manageable when you stack slugging perks to deal with it. On top of that, its only seen 3.13% of the time, so you are gonna see it maybe once every, what, 10 games?

And you wonder why killers are just slugging now? Why on earth is that surprising to you? They constantly nerf every single thing about killers, and all the hooking based gen defense perks, and it takes you 20 seconds to hook a survivor you just downed, meanwhile all the gens are getting slammed, and you wonder why killers just don't bother with the hook anymore?