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Decisive Strike
Now that ds has had time to settle since its buff last year and the immediate nerf after the buff, I just have a question. Was it really necessary to nerf the stun duration from 5 seconds to 4? I understand that 4 seconds is the base stun time of a survivor wiggles out or if the survivor gets flashlight/pallet saved but ds is supposed to be an anti tunnel perk that punishes the killer hard for going after you recently after being unhooked, the stun SHOULD be longer and more impactful than a regular wiggle out stun and also because you only get ONE use of it unlike otr,dh or blood rush. Not to mention nurse, blight,spirit,Billy, Dracula and many other killers can still catch right back up after the 4 second stun. I know they will probably never bring back the 5 second stun because of all the complaints it had but im just wondering if they never nerfed it to 4 seconds, would 5 second ds still be complained about to this day or would it have gone back to normal. Curious on what your thoughts are and if it was a necessary nerf to bring it from 5 to 4 seconds.
Comments
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The perk was strong at 3 seconds. The strength of the perk comes mostly from the killer losing all momentum when he gets hit by it. It's you getting a hook or kill vs you having to chase a survivor a 4th time, or wasting a chase. Same with flashlight/pallet saves. The killer getting stunned longer than 3 seconds is just overkill, because at 3 you actually had to go down somewhat near a loop to be safe after your free getaway. At 5 seconds, you could get across the whole map off that stun. At 4, not much better for the killer. Y'all are way underrating the ability to just deny the killer a hook after pickup. That perk, no matter the conditions, is always gonna be strong.
And so what if certain killers catch back up to you, because their ability lets them traverse distance faster? That's their whole point, and it's how they got you in the first place. You have to counterplay them. Do you want to prevent them from using their power, just because you used a perk? Or make the stun even longer, which mostly punishes the weaker killers? It's still forced from lockers and medium/slow vaults, you can flashlight/pallet save or do a killer objective and still keep it, and it's active after the killer has hooked somebody else. It's active, theoretically, after the killer's hooked other people like 3 times. How's that anti-tunnel? The perk is anti-momentum, like Deliverance where nobody has to get off gens to save the survivor, and this kind of perk design is why killers don't want to hook anymore. If you're gonna make these perks, at least don't make them strong, because it creates more problems than it solves.
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It was obviously not needed to nerf the Perk to 4 seconds. It could have been at 5 seconds and would have been way worse than pre-0.6.1 anyway. 5 seconds nowadays are not the same as 5 seconds when Maps were much stronger for Survivors and Killers were weaker overall.
Especially if we consider that the Perk is a joke for most Killers. Back in the day it was only a Joke to the strongest Killers, nowadays a Killer should not care about DS and just tunnel through it.
(But to be fair, it was never planned to bring the Perk back to 5 seconds. It was 5 seconds for a short time, but with a much longer animation…)
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If you only look at the perk when it's at optimum function, you're going to miss a lot of context. DS wasn't strong at all at 3 seconds, and it wouldn't be a strong perk at 5 seconds, simply for the fact that it requires the killer's co-operation to fire.
If some survivor perk required the killer to move to the corner of the map and then stare into a blank wall for five seconds on end to fire, but it gave you three completed gens in exchange, would that be a strong perk?
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the perk was already strong at 3s, 5s was literally only because awful players complained because perk has a skill floor in terms of knowing where to force a down and aren't aware how to deal with tunneling Nurses, Billys and Blights. This perk needed something like disabling killer's power for additional 5+ seconds, which would actually be a counter to tunneling S-tiers.
Many players suggested it, but "casual" players won and now you have perk that doesn't really counter tunneling S-tiers, but does overwhelmingly good job against all other killers.
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Until the survivors starts the trial in wheel chairs and crutches at 2 hooks next to the hook, everything to them will be a problem, have you seen how insane it become that even joke perks like Dramaturgy is being whine about?
Anyways to answer the question no it was not because I doubt 5 seconds is any different from 4. They can at least make it either disable the killer power when hit or give them a 50% hinder ability.
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Personally we don't care from 4-5 seconds. It's basically negligible in 80+ percent of cases on the killers who it affects the most. Probably wasn't necessary, but doesn't matter to an extreme extent.
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5 seconds are the same thing, then and now. The only way survivors get less distance, compared to in the past, is their base sprint burst off hit is slightly less, and the killer's weapon wipe is slightly faster. That's it.
I don't know why I keep seeing this narrative that maps just have nothing in them for survivors to use. If that were the case, completely new killers would be beating experienced survivors all the time. That's not happening, so there's clearly decent loops. It may not be jungle gym into filler pallet into jungle gym like it used to be, but there's a lot of good stuff there. You don't have to play on Badham or Eyrie to do well as survivor.
And how is the perk a joke for most killers? You think the perk's not gonna destroy the momentum of anyone who isn't Nurse or Blight? If we exclude them, and the weakest killers, and just look at everyone in-between, those killers are still getting destroyed by 1 use of this perk. It's almost as if y'all are basing killers' performance against DS solely on matches where it was never used.
How is DS a weak "nothing" perk? This is so crazy.
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I mean, your experience is a strange one, since you are just not good at the game. You keep posting that you are struggling so much with the game as Killer, so I dont really think that your opinion is really valid. At least not in a way you think it is, we are not talking about some high MMR-gameplay when we think about your posts. (Which is fine, but at least dont act as if you are one of the best players and only go against the best players)
IF DS would be as strong as you claim, the pickrate would be higher. I dont really want to take a deep look at it, but currently DS is the 10th most used Survivor-Perk, with around 10% usage. This is less than half of the 23% it had before 0.6.1… It is quite clear that the Perk is not as popular anymore, because it is significantly weaker. Why even bother using DS when it is a mild inconvenience for basically every Killer nowadays?
I did not dive deep into it, but I THINK that DS was the most used Survivor-Perk pre 0.6.1… But at the very least it was Top 3, far more used than it is nowadays.
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It was needed, and here's why.
The 5 second stun was fine as an anti-tunnel deterrent and would have been completely okay that way if DS was only useful for anti-tunneling and nothing else. The problem was that 5 seconds made DS far too safe to essentially use as a weapon against the killer and not for its intended purpose. It was far too easy to bodyblock or otherwise interfere with the killer when they were trying to chase someone else, take a down, and let that survivor get away. If the killer picked you up, they ate a massive 5 second stun and lost a ton of pressure since you gained a ton of distance and the other survivor would completely get away. If they slugged you, the other survivor still got distance, and UB was a common combination with it so a lot of the time you'd just get back up anyway without any real risk.
When the perk only lasted 3 seconds, it was the exact opposite issue: That nerf made it more fair when used aggressively since the stun was much shorter, but made it too weak for actual anti-tunnel purposes and against stronger killers (or anyone with a ranged attack, or a slowdown mechanic like Clown's bottle) you'd often be downed again within seconds, making the perk ineffective in a lot of cases, and that really sucked for survivors since it often failed to be a real deterrent to tunneling. Keep in mind: Since the stun time includes the drop animation, survivors really only were able to make about 2 seconds of actual running distance, not 3 seconds, which severely limited the perk's usefulness with a 3 second stun. (And when the stun time was increased to 5 seconds, that 2 seconds of running distance essentially doubled to 4 seconds since the drop time was the same at around 1 second, which was why the perk was so much stronger then, and it became a lot safer to use.)
Basically, with DS lasting 4 seconds now, we get the best of both sides without making the perk too frustrating for either role. It serves its intended purpose for anti-tunnel, but no longer has the potential to be as obnoxious as it once was.
TLDR: 3 second DS was often ineffective for anti-tunnel, 5 second DS was a bit too effective for aggressive/offensive usage, so now it's 4 seconds instead.
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Pre 6.1.0 DS and the most recent 5 second DS were pretty much equal. They 100% did plan on making it 5 seconds since the animation was scrapped from the PTB, and it was left like that for a whole major patch. They just decided it was too strong after a little bit for whatever reason.
I think Decisive is in a good spot, the jump from 3 seconds to 4 seconds is far more significant than 4 to 5. I'm not sure if the nerf was 100% necessary but it's still amazing despite the fact.
DS is a mainstay in my builds and I get great value out of it. It wastes more time than OTR because they need to go through the whole pickup animation and stun. I wouldn't call it a joke against most killers at all, and the killers that can potentially shrug it off are going to do that regardless of if it's at 4 or 5 seconds.
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It's funny, something like Brutal Strength gets suggested as perks that killers can run, because those small amounts time saved really add up, the suggestion usually gets mocked.
But the idea that the killer might be stunned for 1 additional second in a match is unbearable.
Decisive Strike is a decent perk that is situationally powerful with a lot of drawbacks. At 5 seconds it would be slightly better.
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I dont think they are equal. And I wont change my mind on this, sorry. 5 seconds back then were far more valuable for the Survivor than they are now. I mean, just look at a Map like Rancid Abattoir. You cannot tell me that 5 seconds pre 6.1.0 is the same like 5 seconds nowadays on that Map. Back then you could most likely reach something to defend yourself, nowadays this is not possible anymore. (Sure, you can get to a Pallet, but a) it is harder to reach a Pallet and b) the Pallet you reach is far weaker)
What I meant with "not planning to make it 5 seconds" - the 5 seconds on said PTB were with a new animation, which was also a second longer. Currently we have 4 seconds with 1,3 seconds spent in the animation. On PTB it was 5 seconds with around 2,3 seconds spent in the animation, so the distance the Survivor gains is the same.
That DS is better than OTR is something I would agree on, but OTR is probably the most overrated Perk in the game, so convincing me that a Perk is better than OTR is not really hard to do. But IMO DS is simply not worth picking anymore. It would have needed some Buffs anyway back then already - like removing scratchmarks, grunts of pain and Pools of Blood for a few seconds to make it harder for the Killer to tunnel through DS. Or disabling the Killers power for a few seconds, which would have less impact on weaker Killers and more impact on stronger Killers (a Trapper not being able to place a Trap for a few seconds is irrelevant, a Blight not being able to rush is huge).
And even back then most people only wanted DS to deactivate in Endgame, not a reduction of the Stun Time.
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You can make the stun as long as you want but the matter of fact is you increase the stun timer, the more you see killers that can immediately make up the distance after being DS'd. Three seconds was already strong because it's a literal extra health state. You bring one perk to extend a chase by 15-30 seconds against a majority of the killer roster. Now imagine if it was 5 seconds against an M1 killer. An extra MINUTE at least because that just allows you to W across the map. Four seconds is fine where it is and increasing it by one seconds will do nothing against nurse, blight, billy etc.
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They 100% did plan on making it 5 seconds since the animation was scrapped from the PTB, and it was left like that for a whole major patch. They just decided it was too strong after a little bit for whatever reason.
I personally disagree. They increased the stun to 5 seconds, sure, but with the newer animation being longer at about 2.2 seconds, the survivor was still only getting about 2.8 seconds of distance. Compare that to the 3s stun, but a roughly 1.5 second animation it was before that patch (about 1.5 seconds of distance).
I'm almost certain the entire balance change revolved around making sure the survivor got less than 3 seconds of distance. When they scrapped the animation change, but kept the 5s stun, it pushed the distance to about 3.5 seconds, which was more than they wanted, so they lowered the stun back to 4s and got their target of about 2.5 seconds again.
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Yes, but they pushed the 5 Second DS to Live without the animation. It did not get immediately nerfed from the PTB to Live. That took ~2 months to do.
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A bit over 1 month (26th of April and 3rd of June where the Patches). I thought it was even less, but probably because they announced it earlier than 3rd of June.
But I still dont think that they ever planned to let DS have the same value it previously had. (But honestly, I am also done with this Perk. It is an Anti-Tunnel Perk which is really bad at Anti-Tunnel and I did not even use it with the 5 seconds and without the new animation, because for me it is just not worth equipping since it is neither fun to use nor strong enough to warrant a Perk Slot).
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yea man the top survivors are using a joke perk for the memz every match smh
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My issue has been the lack of nuance around the conspicuous action condition. It forces you to be pretty inefficient to prevent deactivating it. Am I suddenly not being tunneled because I did 0.5% of a gen?
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Was about to write literally the same, completely agree with every word.
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For the sake of M1 Killers, and because Killers all have different stun times? Yes. It was necessary. In fact the prevaling theory nbefore the buff was to just buff it to 4 seconds, It took them a while but BHVR did exactly what the community asked for.
If your issue is Nurse or Blight? DS was never designed to work well against them, they counter it. All perks, items, and Killer powers should have a counter. Having the ability to recover faster is DS's counter and that's OK. The issue you have is not with DS anyway… it's with some Killers being able to tunnel way way way better than others. That needs a mechanic or perk solution, not a Killer nerf or DS Buff solution.
All buffing DS further would do is disenfranchise 95% of Killers except Nurse and Blight and maybe a few others, and make the diversity of Killers you experience less varied. It isn't the solution and never will be, nor should it be considered. Stop touching DS.
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And from your own posts here you sound like a pretty trashy survivor player who I definitely wouldn't want in my Solo Queue games, so I wouldn't be getting off on judging other people's supposed skills and acting almighty about your biased opinions if I were you.
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The thing is, unlike the person I quoted, I dont act as if I go against the best players in the game all the time. And I sadly have to assume that I am better than the person I quoted, both as Killer (even if I am apparently a trashy Survivor player) and as Survivor. :/
Sorry if I made you upset that I called out your friend.
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3s - Basically non existent vs S tiers, but still strong vs. weaker killers.
5s - Decent against S tiers, and utterly demolishing vs. weaker killers.
4s - Not amazing against S tiers but does give a chance, vwry potent against weaker killers but not so absurd they are left in complete no man's land.
Seems pretty good to me where it is.
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Nah, your opinions just indeed made me believe that about you but I held my tongue cause everyone is entitled to their opinions after all, but now that you started thinking you're a judge of other people's skills at this game cause of said opinions someone has gotta knock you down a peg cause you're def not all that either.
Also frankly I'm sure you're an even worse killer than survivor, but cause you're likely not the type to get out of the MMR where you meet default skins Dwights and Megs you probably can't notice that ;).
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I most likely have more hours on Killer alone than you in total. :) So you can assume all you like. Funny that you are now doing the same I have done before… ^^
And no, sorry. The person I quoted is someone who is saying all the time how hard it is to play. So either they are not as good as they think they are OR they are on a special Server where only very strong Players are playing. You can guess which is more likely. :^)
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If that's true then that makes it even more sad to be stuck at the level where you're having the opinions that you do. But hey, some people play games just for fun and not be good at them. And I'm sure you don't mind that I treat you the way you treat others, otherwise maybe some retrospection would be welcome.
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The extra second makes no difference to killers like Nurse or Blight but is way too punishing for M1 and weak killers. 4 seconds is a good middle ground where it's not as short as 3 seconds, but not as punishing as 5 seconds.
Rather than increase the stun time, make Nurse and Blight not so good at tunnelling because an extra 1 second isn't going to do anything to them.
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Incorrect, you don't need the killer's cooperation for it to work, because you can use the perk aggressively to bodyblock, as many survivors do.
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You still need the killer to pick you up, you can't force that in any way, thus it still requires killer co-operation.
The whole 'aggressive use' thing doesn't work if the killer just leaves them slugged, as it's little more than a survivor willingly incapacitating themselves for free, and possibly even drawing another survivor off a gen in order to pick them up. It's a huge risk, and unless the killer picks up, it's no pay-off.
Don't hit spacebar and DS doesn't help.
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Yes, but obviously you'll use Unbreakable along with the DS in case the Killer slugs you. In any case, it is still an extremely broken perk if used correctly, in all situations the killer loses.The amount of ways you can use the perk to your advantage makes the stun duration an obsolete aspect.
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Bring in Unbreakable, which is single use, and you're looking at a two-perk investment that STILL isn't efficient. It's not like you get off the hook and immediately bodyblock, you have to chase after the killer and find a spot to intercept, and you cannot do -anything- to help the survivors in the meantime or DS goes poof. This means that from the moment of unhooking until the point where the survivor has gotten back up by expending their one use of Unbreakable, that survivor was dead weight.
I do not understand how that's a problem.
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Decisive could be 1 second and forum killer mains would say it's strong
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Unbreakable is not efficient with DS? Okay, bro. Better stop here, I believe you are kind of new to the game and don't understand how it works yet.But I recommend you watch some competitive matches, and you will see why DS is banned in most competitions.
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Link me then, buddy. Educate me.
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“The perk was strong at 3 seconds. The strength of the perk comes mostly from the killer losing all momentum when he gets hit by it. It's you getting a hook or kill vs you having to chase a survivor a 4th time, or wasting a chase. Same with flashlight/pallet saves. The killer getting stunned longer than 3 seconds is just overkill, because at 3 you actually had to go down somewhat near a loop to be safe after your free getaway. ”
No the perk was a joke. Killers didn’t respect it anymore and they just tunneled through the weak da stun. Plus a lot of killer countered this perk anyway.
“The perk is anti-momentum, like Deliverance where nobody has to get off gens to save the survivor, and this kind of perk design is why killers don't want to hook anymore. If you're gonna make these perks, at least don't make them strong, because it creates more problems than it solves.“You know what you’re right. Survivors shouldn’t have perks anymore. They shouldn’t enjoy the game anymore. Only the role that wins most of their games should enjoy dbd
come on man complaining about deliverence? I get you overrate your skill but complaining about a healthy perk is next level3 -
the perk sucked at 3 seconds
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come on man complaining about deliverence? I get you overrate your skill but complaining about a healthy perk is next levelA bit ironic is that Deliverance can actually be described as unhealthy perk, since it promotes tunneling off the hook
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People keep forgetting though that the perk was only ever originally made 5 seconds because it was affected by enduring, which made it worthless because the killer would stop being stunned so fast it might as well not have done anything. Then at some point it was made 5 seconds with the intent (as stated by the devs) that it would be reverted back when enduring was changed to only work on pallets.
Then the enduring change was made, and it was never made 3 seconds again. Then after multiple reworks, they made it 3 seconds again, and people thought 3 seconds was too little (partially true because it was bugged for half those patches where it didn't actually stun the full 3 seconds). And then they moved it back to 5 seconds, where again, it was just too strong against certain killers.
So moving it back to 4 seconds is solid.
You have to remember that not every killer is nurse or blight. A 5 second DS, gives a survivor about 16 meters of distance, half a terror radius. By the time the killer can catch up, a 5 second stun means that, unless you get stunned on one corner of the map, and want to move to the opposite corner, you can pretty much head to any part of the map you want.
At 4 seconds, it makes it about 12 meters, which means that the killer is still in a threatening range, meaning that you don't always have time to go immediately run to shack.
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special Server where only very strong Players are playing.DbD is such a strange community, the worse you say you do at killer, the better people seem to think you must be.
I'd believe the idea that there is some super powerful MMR I haven't reached yet and/or just isn't my region, but every time I watch a major streamer with giant kill rates, their survivors look pretty much like what I see as killer. Sometimes they are really good, usually not, and the killer players have to put handicaps / challenges on themselves to make the game interesting.
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This is because at some point you reach the Soft Cap and everyone above this Soft Cap is clumped together. There might not be any Matchmaking at all if you reach that point.
You can expect that some Killer Main Streamers like Otz are at very high MMR. But for the matchmaking, their MMR is the same as the MMR of above average players. E.g. I faced Otz a few times, but I am clearly not as good as he is. But I reach the Soft Cap. And if the Soft Cap is, lets say, 1500 and Otz has 3000 MMR, he would still be matched with people from 1500 MMR and above.
So if people struggle a lot it most likely means they are really not that good. But if you create challenges for yourself to make the games interesting, this most likely means that you are way above the Soft Cap. And a stricter Matchmaking would just mean that players who play a lot and play good will wait a long time for a game. (As we have seen with Dowsey back then when he had a big Winstreak on Twins and had to wait for hours to find a match and only found one, when a Comp-Team sniped him)
And this is also why you cannot really give anything about people who claim they face the best Survivors all the time. The matchmaking is so watered down that this is just not possible. (But on the other hand, for a bad player, even mediocre opponents seem to be really good…)
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Personally even when I play weak M1s like Legion I have no issue handling 4 seconds of DS, it is not that punishing and I barely feel it, which is fine. 5 seconds was, as you said, too much, but 3 seconds didn't do enough. So 4 seconds? Just right.
I agree, Nurse and Blight should be made less good at tunnelling, I just don't know how you'd do that without total Killer reworks.
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I think 4 seconds is fair enough... Given that Survivors use DS offensively just to use it and them complain that they got Tunneled out
3 seconds was to weak (for high mobility Killers) and to strong (for Los mobility Killers)
DS should be a defensive Perk and is it ( I haven't played against any Survivor whom was using the perk)???
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DS is still a game-defining strength when it comes down to it, and it's not uncommon to bring more than one in a single game, but perhaps we're talking about different games?
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