Mettle of Man is Terrible for BOTH Sides
Before you skim this and assume 'salty killer main,' I really do believe this perk is bad for both sides.
Why is it bad for killer?
Pretty obvious right? It's what everyone's complained about with the perk.
1. There is no counterplay.
A fundamental part of the game, many perks have some built in way to play around them. The stronger a perk, the more blatantly they can be avoided. Stronger perks in recent times have gone through a lot of this, with more perks and mechanics being added that protect against perks: Ruin and NOED are both hexes, able to be removed permanently. Barbecue and Chilli can be avoided using Distortion, being within 40m of the hook, hiding behind generators, and importantly lockers now block aura reading. On the survivor side Dead Hard (putting aside issues with lag) is largely skill-based, and can be countered by trying to get the survivor to use it prematurely. Decisive Strike has been reworked to not be a get out of jail free card, and only triggers when being tunnelled.
Then along comes Mettle of Man. The only requirement is that you hit survivors. For many killers, this is a complete given in EVERY match. This isn't a condition that can be played around, it doesn't punish an undesirable killer behaviour. It just punishes killers.
Yes, there is the downside of the aura reveal after the perk has gone off, but again M1 killers see the least benefit from that, as strong players (and often those who come packing multiple second-chance perks) are often not concerned with being found again and are most likely to use the "downside" to get into more looping chases which is the goal of their game most of the time anyway.
2. Time Economy.
One of the most crucial parts of Dead by Daylight is time management. The major issue with old decisive strike, and new mettle of man, is that they provide extra hits in the game in a way which cannot be avoided. While it can somewhat be detected by the presence of an obsession, there is no foolproof guarantee that it can be predicted and planned around. Moreso, non-obsessions fully benefit from the perk, and like old decisive, there's no warning that they have it, allowing for up to 3 extra blindside uses of the perk.
"It's just one extra hit" seems to be a defense coming up from a lot of supporters of the perk, and if it were, it may be alright, but already it's becoming INCREDIBLY popular and is showing up on multiple survivors per match. And I'm not talking about multi-Ash parties here, it's on everyone. 4 extra hits per match is devastating to a killer's time management, and while obviously perks should enhance a survivor, they should not be THIS impactful every single trial.
This all comes with the issue that MoM is not the only "extra hit perk" in the game. More issues arise because it is so commonly stacked with Dead Hard, Adrenaline, Insta-heals, Decisive, Borrowed Time, etc. Some of those can be avoided, but the amount of hits that stack up with all those different perks being on multiple survivors ravage a killer's ability to get any kills in a reasonable time.
Why is it bad for survivor?
First off, this is assuming (and I personally haven't seen confirmation) that power-based M1s are intended to trigger the perk. (Including Nurse "precise blinks," Hag "phantasm attack" etc)
Mettle of Man targets, and punishes all the WRONG killers. As it requires basic attacks, the perk first and foremost punishes killers who MUST use their basic attack to get hits. The biggest impact applies to Trapper, Wraith, Nurse, Hag, Doctor, Freddy, Pig, Clown, and Spirit. (I do not list Michael as he has a built in way to choose to down survivors without injuring them, while Trapper is much more reliant on survivor mistakes to have a similar option)
Notice the trend? Outside of Nurse (who, let's be honest, isn't going to be the killer most affected by extra hits in a chase when played anywhere near her potential) and Spirit, most of the killers listed are those that are regarded as the low to mid tiers.
If there is to be a perk which significantly increases survivability that selectively affects killers, surely it should aim for the killers who are currently the strongest, rather than increase the divide between stronger and weaker killers.
Playing survivor, bringing Mettle of Man feels completely hollow. On the one hand it goes off in matches against M1 killers, those that you're already most likely to win against, those that are most easily looped, and those that are most likely to continue getting looped even once the perk reveals your aura to them. It may help you win, but chances are you probably didn't need it, it's just an extra middle finger to the killer. On the other hand you have matches where the killer is stronger, and rather than extra survivability you have a dead perk slot that will NEVER trigger, or, you're against Nurse or Spirit, the stronger players of which will still get quick downs regardless of 2 or 3 hits, and that will benefit most from the aura reading downside.
What is the solution?
I do not believe the perk needs to be nerfed, nor buffed. The issue is that it is fundamentally broken in its design and it does NOT fit the balance of the game at the moment. I believe a full rework is necessary.
Mettle of Man SHOULD be a survivability perk, however survivability should not punish M1 killers MORE than others. That's why I believe the aim of the perk should be around one-hit downs. One-hit downs would include: The exposed status, both inflicted by powers, and by perks including NOED and Evil Within. Powers which down healthy survivors, ie. Chainsaws. Add ons which create one hit down effects, ie. Iridescent heads, Iridescent Stone.
At the moment one-hit downs have no real counterplay besides waiting them out, and some don't even have that. Many of the strongest killers, and killer perks utilise one hit downs, (such as Nurse and Make Your Choice) and many of the most complained about effects revolve around it. A one hit down protection perk would inherently affect many of the stronger killers more, and while it CAN affect M1 killers, largely only does so as a counter to them bringing strong perks. This is FAR MORE in line with the direction of recent perks, a strong counterplay to strong effects, or unfun mechanics. Therefore my concept is as follows:
Mettle of Man:
Evil has a way of always finding you.
Upon being hooked, gain a token.
When Mettle of Man has at least 1 token, any hit that would take you from the healthy state to the dying state will be resisted and instead leave you injured.
The next time you return to the healthy stateafter spending a token, your aura is revealed to the killer for 25/20/15 seconds.
TLDR: Mettle of Man punishes all the wrong killers, and targets the wrong mechanism, basic M1 hits. It is useless against the strongest killers and devastating to those considered lower tier. A much better alternative would resist one-hit down effects, as it targets unfun, hard to counter mechanics and affects far more high tier killers than low.
Comments
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I genuinely like this.
i dunno about the aura being revealed for 25 seconds tho....thats insane. maybe 10 maximum and even then thats a lot. and i think it should be like DS where you can only use it one time a game, though gaining a token for each hook isnt so bad, thats only realistically 2 saves from instadowns which doesnt seem that insane. you shouldnt be able to stack 2 tokens tho.
if you get hooked twice but you never got instadowned between your first and second hooks, i think you should still only have one token. am i even making sense WHY AM I AWAKE
also would this work if you got unhooked and were in the injured state and a hillbilly chainsawed you? maybe it should be for instadown abilities, not only instadowns.
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It'd be more in the line of countering one hits, rather than just tunnelling in general. Being unhooked and still injured wouldn't matter if you're hit with a chainsaw, any more than an M1 except that it's more mobile. I don't think it should additionally counter out tunnelling, there's already BT and DS for that.
I would agree on the idea of consuming ALL tokens, rather than just one, but if you have 2 tokens it means you're dead on hook. In order to use both of them, the killer has to hit you with a 1 hit down, give up on the chase, let you heal to healthy again, use a 1 hit down again, and then down you. It's far more likely to draw out the chase and still have you downed than it is to use both charges on your last life.
Aura duration could be lowered, I agree. I was just trying to give it a significant downside/scaling where the current version is infinite duration anyway.
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So for it to work I'd have to fully heal after being unhooked and then get chainsawed? I kinda like just targeting the instadown ability more. I mean how often do you get chainsawed when you're injured anyway. Would work against tier3 Myers tho, idk maybe that isn't so good, maybe you're right.
Yea ALL tokens seems more suitable and realistic. I don't think you should even be able to stack 2 tokens even if you were hooked twice. That's too many hits.
WAIT, the aura right now is basically permanent OoO once you've healed after using MoM? What the.....are you sure? Am i dumb?
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It would work against any one hit down effect: chainsaws, evil within, noed, exposed status from perks and add ons.
It wouldn't entirely ignore the hit, it would leave you injured, the intent to be a 2 hit chase instead of 1. Again I think 1 token or all tokens is much of a muchness as the killer has to give up on you and let you heal to full after you're injured and dead on hook.
Yeah, current MoM is permanent outside a small range until you're downed again, which 9 times out of 10 is downed to go on your last hook.
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So if you were injured you'd still go down, which makes sense.
Yea the 2 token thing would be so rare anyway there's almost no point to include it is what I'm thinkin.
I did not know current MoM did that, I thought it just showed an aura notification like when someone cleanses a hex totem or throws a pebble. Damn that's pretty insane.
I still like this fix. Might need some extra insight from others and a little polishing but it seems good to me. The current MoM is pretty insane, I didn't know the downside was that huge, given I have played a lot of killer games recently and havent encountered MoM a single time yet /: I wanted to be on the receiving end just once!
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good points, i agree
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So essentially it ONLY works on something that would send you from healthy right to the floor?
If you get M1 twice or get hit whilst injured you still go down?
Am i getting that right?
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Yep. It's conditional, like most survivability perks, rather than just "free hits every game."
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This is a good idea.
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