So...how do we counter strong items now?

They have to tunnel more because they don't have Franklin's? You can't be serious. People will tunnel because they want to. A nerf to a little used perk won't make any difference to tunneling.

RIP Weave Attunement (except maybe Twins and Legion)

I think Franklin's is now just useless, because it doesn't do what killers wanted it to do. You can't use it to deny use of the item, not even bait survivors on the item. Survivors don't need to return for it quickly anymore.

Majority of players didn't use it, so it doesn't change that much overall. More impactful is basically the knowledge there is nothing killer can do it stop survivors from using their items.

We have seen it several times in past, where perk nerf should have not affect majority of players, who did not use the perk, but the kowledge the perk got nerfed changed how players played overall.

So killers will be more frustrated now, when facing 4 items and survivors don't have to worry about bringing whatever items they want.

Frankling was not used that much, but it was an option you don't have anymore.

I does make sense, but I don't tunnel when I play killer. But Franklins buy you time where survivors have to spend more time healing, doing gens or whatever item you took away. Now without that tunneling will be the way to buy back time for many so I'm sure tunneling will get worse. Bad for me also since I only play survivor right now 😐️

It wasn't bad perk on specific killers. It's fine, if you didn't like to use it, but it just wasn't bad perk.

It was quite good on Wraith and Hag, because those killers regularly drop their chase. They simply can't commit to all of their chases, that's good way to lose…
I often played Franklins when I have seen 4 items as Wraith, didn't even play Weave for it. It was better than Sloppy imo.

Then Franklins for decent with Weave on any M1 killer. Weave is so much worse now, because of this nerf.

Feels like this will just be a case of a storm in a teacup. In spite of multiple times when people came decked out in the survivor lobby, most killers I've faced have not used Franklin's. Whilst a nerf to that perk is a downgrade to facing survivor items, I highly doubt tunneling is going to increase heavily. People who tunnel will tunnel regardless. They could have a perk which disintegrates items immediately and those people would still tunnel regardless.

I don't feel this will be a big thing. Survivors may forget where the items were dropped, and it can stop some plays, such as a survivor hanging around with a flashlight. It still has a use. Weaker now? Absolutely! But it really isn't that big a deal, and I say this as somebody who feels quite chuffed when it comes up in my randomised builds.

I've give it a try with this perk many matches the last time you mentioned it, paired with that perk that changes hooks to scourged. And no, it doesn't work. I had better success with meme perks like agitation/oppression.

Smart survivors will directly rush gens injured when they see this perk is in play, and only heal when it expires. With how vigil becomes extremely popular, it's gone away way too quick to be any useful.

And after they healed up, they'll just take aggro and occupy the killer again. So your perk does absolutely nothing.

It didn't have that low pickrate tho, higher than Unforeseen or Infectious Fright, which are very good perks in my opinion.

The only thing is it wasn't good for ANY killer, but there definetly were killers, where it was solid option. Just by that it can't have high pickrate, but that doesn't mean it's a bad perk.

There are strong perks, which can be used only by few killers. I don't think Rapid brutality is weak perk, but it can be used by like 3 killers…

There are better perks, if all survivors have same item, but Franklins was only perk to deal with any item. That's quite a big difference in my opinion.

A strong medkit with multiple heals removes the pressure that injury states typically apply. If even two survivors can heal twice by themselves in a game, and the other two once, yes, that does incentivize tunneling because dropping chase or spreading damage is meaningless.

Decent pressure is one surv in chase, one on a gen, and two healing (optimally each other). The two healing may be out of position and have travel time as well, both before and after hook/unhooking.

Add in Decent Medkits and you can throw this out the window; we aren't even talking about the stronger side of things.

Sloppy is likewise not a meaningful solution given mangled was also nerfed to a temp condition, and Vigil generally is more common than ever for it. The optimal strat is just don't heal through sloppy, work a gen and then heal. If you wana talk leverage or something you're asking me to dedicate half my perks to a "soft counter" medkits.

Whats easier, losing half or more of my perks to bad slowdown effects that won't solve the problem (mangled affects time not total medkit use anyway) or just tunneling the weak link till their dead / cycling hooks relentlessly?

Franklins has always been healthy, even back when it destroyed items. The perk has likely been nerfed to forgo anymore spaghetti code problems (like the last time with Cenobites Box / Nemi's Syringes / Weskers CANS).

It isn't nessisary to win but thats the point; Survivor Mains will bear the brunt of that when they begin to use the glut of medkits they aquired in the event to trivialize pressure, which will bring tunneling back to the highs not since seen since the Release of CoH BOONERS.

If you're concerned about healing, then Gift of Pain and Leverage are good choices. Though it is probably a bad idea to use both together, as that will most likely make people give up on healing and go back to gens immediately.

As for the others, you can just play like you normally play. None of them ever required Franklin's in the first place.

Toolboxes were used right from the start most of the time, so it didn't really matter. Lightborn is a better option for dealing with flashlights, because it also counters flashbangs, and there is no way to know if survivors even have flashbangs before the match starts.

Maps and keys were awful, and the Fog Vials have just been added, we still have to wait and see how strong they truly are.

Pressure from injuries only becomes meaningless if the self heals are very fast, which is why the CoH peak was such a problem. That perk combined with the much stronger medkits at the time meant that realistically speaking, survivors would have multiple sub-10 second self-heals in a match, which is crazy powerful.

Now don't get me wrong, medkits are still very powerful, but you can't have insanely fast AND insanely numerous heals. You have to pick one or the other, and you have to dedicate far more of your build to get either.

Regular, unmodified medkits aren't an issue. You don't need to be scared of a single 24 second heal, and you don't need to be scared of two either if they only bring charge addons. That survivor's still investing time to heal.
They get scarier with a few tools added in, Botany being a very powerful supporting perk, but to get anything close to old CoH meta a survivor would have to dedicate a huge chunk of their build… which means they'll lack chase, info, gen speed, anti-tunnel, whatever. How much of the loadout it takes to get a crazy effect is relevant to the balance discussion, because it makes a survivor's build very fragile and inflexible.

If you're worried about it, there are also good anti-perks to pick from. Mangled being on a timer is fairly annoying and Vigil is popular right now, so let's say that's off the table- you still have something like Leverage to convince them to stay injured or Gift of Pain to outright punish them for healing, you still have Coulrophobia if you're playing a killer with a decent terror radius, you have stuff like Deathbound and Forced Penance as sort of sideways anti-heal perks… and you do still have Franklin's.
The time it takes them to get the medkit again adds to the overall heal time. It's not as good, but it still exists- in my opinion it isn't worth running because it was only barely worth running if you really, really wanted survivors not to be allowed to use their builds with the secondary effect, but if all you want is to make sure healing takes a time investment, it does still do that.

For the record, I mostly play killers like the ones you're talking about. Sadako has been my main killer recently, I've played a fair chunk of Wraith and Clown over the years, I used to be a Trapper main…

Trust me when I tell you that this is not a misguided take born of only looking at a small section of the game. If you're worried about pressure from injuries, medkits without very specific supporting tools aren't actually the issue right now. If you see a lobby full of medkits, sure, that's reason to pause and rethink your perk selections, but you've never needed SPECIFICALLY Franklin's to do it.
There are other individual perks you can run, you don't need to dedicate a whole build. JUST Gift of Pain sufficiently punishes survivors for healing, JUST Sloppy Butcher can push survivors to stay injured longer, JUST Forced Penance makes sure that survivors taking aggro can't heal up quickly, and so on.

Sure, you can run combos if you want, but you don't need to. Identify what you're struggling with and there'll certainly be tools to help you— and I'm willing to bet it's rarely actually the existence of medkits, honestly.
Plus, don't forget that stopping survivors from healing/making it slower isn't the only option. You can also lessen the benefit of healing with some specific chase perks as well.

Put simply, there isn't a problem that is only solved by Franklin's and other tools can't address. There's nothing related specifically to medkits that requires that one specific perk to counter which you don't have other answers for. At worst you just have to get a bit creative, which is certainly a mild annoyance but not a balance problem.

There are definitely things weaker killers are struggling with now and will in the future, and some forms of healing are definitely among them.

Medkits, though, aren't, unless a survivor is dedicating a lot to make them that way. A middle of the pack double-heal, no-speed-increase medkit is very reasonable, as is a single-heal speedy medkit.

it can't be denied it was miserable to face

I never really cared. I don't really need my item to play…

I'm glad they removed the depletion effect.

Sure, but it simply needs some valid secondary effect. Bigger aura reading change was just useless.

or just completely rework it and give the effect to Weave