Circle of Healing: Problem? Or Not?
I think everyone was freaking out about this perk in the PTB, and after like what, a couple of days of waiting for the update we finally get to use the final version of it!
Yeah no not really.
I haven't actually seen much of the final version, so I can't have an opinion on it, but that's not what these posts are fore.
Opinions on the perk?
This never gets old (maybe), GoobyNugget.
Comments
Well, it's hard to say- since it's disabled right now we can't get a feel for how it functions in a live environment.
I do think it's the stronger Boon perk by a wide margin, but I think all of the contextless maths about how fast a heal is versus how fast a heal would be without it are sensationalising a little bit. I don't anticipate that it'll be a problem, but if it is... worst case scenario is just that Exposed and Broken become a lot more prevalent until CoH is tuned down.
I don't think it'll be a problem.
Hard to say when it's killswitched (and for some reason clairvoyance isn't)
As usual, when a perk or add on comes out that seems strong, the other side freaks the F out. CoH IS really strong, but it comes with a few huge trade offs.
-Boons are easily destroyed by killers. Literally a 2 second animation if that.
-If the killer ignores it, you have to stop what you are doing and maybe even spend time running from the other side of the map to gain its benefit (it's radius was already nerfed)
-If the killer snuffs it out, you THEN have to spend precious time re applying the boon...possibly multiple times, equating to a massive chunk of time lost that could have been used on gens
-It isn't ideal obviously, but if a killer wanted, they would bring 4 hexes, leaving only 1 open totem to bless, and 4 hex totems that all take a really long time to over ride.
I am just saying, there are plenty of drawbacks to these boon totems. They are not all powerful.
Four hexes that include haunted grounds and thrill of the hunt will occupy every totem and make survivors take eons to convert them.
Not meta in the slightest but if someone really despises boons the option is there.
oh yeah true..see? Lol like you said, it isn't meta, but it takes care of boons...or at least makes them REALLY hard/even dumb to bother with.
Boon perk are really strong you can use them an infinity amount of time and it only take 14 sec to bless one so in teory they are steonger then hex perk the issue is right now CoH is bug so the dev kill swich the perk
Hard to say if COH is a problem because we only got to use it the first day and then it got disabled.
I’d say no personally. Killers have plenty of counter perks they can use such as Forced penance and coulophobia as well as the number of mangled add ons. It’s strong but not game changing
Perk itself is fine I think.
Just hate to go upstair in Ironworks of Misery or go to bed in Badham Preschool or think where Boon could be in the Game when I have 0 pressure applying to survivors.
Free infinite med kits for the entire team? Sure, why not. Sounds like a good idea.
Boons are not destroyed by killers...they are "snuffed out" which can be re lit at any time....Hexes are destroyed by survivors.
Hexes and Boons aren't the same mechanic- they aren't (and can't be) balanced the same way.
Hexes are powerful totems...seems to me Boons are also pretty powerful....and also totems.
I only got to play like 2 matches with it before they killswitched it due to framerate issues it was causing or something, so I can't really say. From the 2 matches I played and the description, it feels pretty powerful.
One thing that I hate about boon totems in general is that they make me feel dirty when I run Inner Strength/Inner Healing, I feel guilty for destroying a totem that my teammates can turn into a boon totem. I kind of hate that they introduced boon totems because of that, because Inner Healing is generally better than self-care because it is faster, but now I feel like I can't use it.
There are plenty of powerful things in the game, my friend, they're not balanced the same way.
Hexes: Map-wide, spawn at the start of the match, have (supposedly) powerful effects that target the core gameplay (generators, chases)
Boons: Limited radius, have to be set by the survivor at a time cost, have powerful effects that boost side benefits (healing, stealth)
You can't balance those the same way because they function differently AND perform different functions. They don't do the same thing and they don't do it the same way.
Circle of Healing,is problematic in my opinion because its very similar to a second chance perk.
EX:The killer 3 gened you(which means you & your team made a mistake),so you try to lead the killer away from the Gens,they hit you & go back to the 3 Gen.You are now injured which means you should not go back or else you put yourself in a bad position.Now it means until you are healed you will wait around until x amount of time,which means it would be 3 v 1.Now if you are in a SWF 2 people are wasting at least 16 seconds of time.Now with Circle of Healing it takes the best of the previously mentioned scenarios & more,you & your teammates can heal yourself which means,you at the very least could take 16 seconds of wasted time & it would be a 3 v1 during it.Now ask what can the Killer can/should do,its a war of attrition in which the killer will lose if they don't do anything else.So the killer will have to go away from the 3 gen(a mistake a killer capitalized on)to try & create a different pressure.This is a problem because its a lose lose scenario even though the killer is playing smart..
The worse is that it deletes the pressure a killer can create by nullifying pressure done by keeping survivors injured.
But they need to be balanced the same way high risk high reward, set it so survivors can only bless a totem twice same as if the killer was running ruin and undying. the fact that you can bless over a hex is bullshit if you find a hex totem then it gets destroyed not blessed .
I think it easily could be. Any approach or strategy that relies on injuries sticking around or being difficult to fix is hard countered to an extreme degree by Circle of Healing. Granted, those sorts of game plans aren't super common, but they'll probably be deader than dead once CoH comes back. The way I see it, the people who did used to favor those strategies now have 3 options.
Any sort of Hit and Run stealth killer just won't work if CoH is present and... if the Killer is trying to run that and gets a CoH user... their only real recourse is to start tunneling.
Course I'm also very conflicted by the fact that CoH is exactly the sort of Perk I'd love to run when I'm on the Survivor side.
It was killswitched pretty much on release so I can't say if it's a problem based on experience but based on paper it is. Free heals for everyone with the downsides being not bad seems a bit unfair. Once again this is just on paper.
Sure, high risk high reward does seem to be what they're going for, but they can't be balanced the same way as Hexes because they are fundamentally different mechanics. Survivors aren't exactly going to be returning to one spot if they can't keep blessing that totem, are they?
They're not hexes. They're only barely even similar.
The only change I'd support for the base mechanic of boons is a BRIEF cooldown, only up as far as thirty seconds, after the killer snuffs the totem. Anything else severely undercuts the point of the mechanic.
I'd rather everyone bring Self Care than have two people with CoH. It changes the 16 perk meta in the same way comms do - by allowing the survivor side a free perk slot.
The fact that boon totems have no way to be removed from play without killing the survivor running the boon perk is an issue.
1 survivor runs a perk that gives the entire team buffs in a sizeable area around a totem is strong. A killer snuffing a totem should be meaningful and the best solution imo is to make it so a snuff'd totem can't be reblessed. This way a team of survivors have 5 areas they can buff and have to be smarter about where and when they bless totems.
Right now there's really no downside to dropping boons in the main building or other strong tiles a survivor would want to run the killer by, because if the killer drops chase to snuff the totem, the chased survivor gets a head start to the next tile and a survivor later can come back a rebless that totem.
Survivors complained that undying could cause them cleanse all 5 totems as being unfair and boons are basically the same issue but reversed for killer.
I've said this elsewhere but I'll say it again here- if the killer drops chase to snuff the totem, that is them misplaying quite badly. The right play is to down the survivor and then snuff the totem in the downtime.
This will go triple for CoH, since that does literally nothing in chase, rather than Shadow Step doing a little bit to help the survivor in chase.
Self-Care is bad simply because of the 32 second long time if it was 16 second then it would be problematic
I can tell you right now if they nerf boon perks to where they can only be used once, no one's gonna use them.
Well I'm not suggesting they become 1 use. They become one use per a totem, meaning 5 uses for the entire team.
ohh I see. well that may not be a bad idea. only downside is survivors cleansing totems.
Very similar does not equal being one, just that it is close to being one. Reading comprehension is a good skill to have.
Also, that's the only part you address? The topic isn't about what type of perk it is, but if it might be a problem or not.
On topic, I do think boon totems overall can be a problem. The potential spawns of totems that are really out of the away from generators on many maps can be a problem since killers don't have the same luxury of time as survivors.
The situation described by DarkMagik is very plausible and makes the situation where survivors fails to prevent a 3 gen barely a disadvantage anymore. All they have to do is to setup a Circle of Healing Boon totem far away from it and when the killer approaches them all they need to do is run towards it. If the killer leaves chase the survivor just goes and heals and can then go back and chip away at the generators. If the killer chases to get a down, it leaves the other survivor(s) to complete the generators.
It's a lose lose situation for the killer.
A two second animation to snuff the boon totem is up to eight seconds for the survivors, so the 14 second blessing time is just a six second loss for the survivors.
I won't say that Circle of Healing is game breakingly powerful, but I do think it might need some tweaking.
Against solos no it's not. But on SWFs these boone perks will be problematic.
They need more adjustments in my opinion, internal cooldowns on snuffed totems, something like 30-45 seconds before anyone can interact with that totem again. It's too easy to isolate an area if multiple people are running boons, and especially broken on Twins, who already has essentially an 8 second stun upon downing and switching from Victor, if a survivor or two is downed in a boon area and you switch, they're already fully healed from another survivor by the time you get there with Charlotte in most cases. Same with Legion injuries.
Now take Self-Care and Botany Knowledge
We'll Make it
Do you see why Circle of Healing isn't a big deal. You can ignore it as Killer until you are going past it and it only hurts survivors, time-wise.
Yeah, really you aren't thinking about it the right way at all. Nor are you using it correctly from what you're saying.
You're not supposed to use it for "on-the-spot" healing. It's used for delayed healing, like destroying a Dull totem for Inner Strength despite being full health.
And you're reasoning behind the time saved is wrong too.
However, this isn't accounting for the amount of time it takes to directly utilize these time savers. Which is where both Botany Knowledge and Self-Care shine in their own regards. But Circle of Healing for most is easier to utilize than We'll Make It, as We'll Make It forces you to be the one to perform the Safe Hook, just to utilize it.
If you have ever played Clash Royale, think about it alot like a Elixir Collector. The longer you let it live, the more value you get out of it.