Why did the devs make so sure Boon Totems were released without any counters?
The devs wanted add a new mechanic to the game. I get it. But the way it was introduced was terrible, and what bothers me the most is that the way it is designed and the changes made to the game for its release seem to make sure they had no counters whatsoever. Honestly, this almost feels like making the new perks unhealthy on purpose.
The killer may snuff it early? Make so it has unlimited uses with no cooldown.
The killer may use many hex perks and leave few dull totems on the map? Make it so they can bless hex totems too. That would make them have to choose between cleansing or blessing a hex? No problem, just make it so it removes the hex without removing the totem.
The killer would see where the boon totem is though the notification that appears when the hex totem is cleansed? Make it so it doesn't show up when it's blessed (this one can be worked around by memorizing where the totem was, but this feature is something that still makes boons a little stronger).
The killer can use Thrill of the Hunt, which is a really underpowered, outdated and barely used perk that could finally become more useful and used more often (which would be a good thing, by the way) now that boon totems are being added, because it would show were boon totems are being blessed and help the killer to prevent it and to find the totems until his hex totem was cleansed (which is still a very easy and simple way to counter a killer perk)? JUST NERF THE ALREADY WEAK PERK by removing its most important feature and make it useless! Now no one will use this perk at all! What a great idea to balance the game (this one was the worst. Thrill of the Hunt could have finally gained more value, but instead was made completely useless and one of the worst killer perks in the game by now)!
What will be next? Nerfing Forced Penance so its broken effect can no longer prevent survivors from benefitting from Boon: Circle of Healing? Or, since nerfing bad and underused perks is a thing now, maybe we should nerf Beast of Prey, Monstrous Shrine and Furtive Chase? Who thought this was a good idea?
My main issue with this is that having counters and limitations makes a mechanic healthier for the game. Making sure something will have no counters is just making sure it is as unhealthy as possible. Beside the nerf Boon Totems need, I hope Thrill of the Hunt's nerf gets reversed. Seriously, this was by far the most unnecessary nerf in the history of DbD.
Comments
The only real counters i can think of are plague and legion.
Looks like boons aren't as bad as i thought. They're a big "timewaste" for survs, even more in solo queue.
I came to the point that boons actually help against the "rush gens injured" and DS, DH, BT, UB meta.
Except when they're really coordinated with matching builds, medkits and SWFs on comms.
BTW, does the blessing action (not the healing) negates DS?
If you didn't know, Inner Healing doesn't as long you cleansed the totem earlier.
As of right now, no, it doesn't disable DS. It really should. But it doesn't.
The chances that somehow there's 4 boons up by the time you get a single hook is pretty low. Plaything is alright as a indirect anti-boon perk because it forces everyone to either destroy bones, or waste even more time blessing a hex totem. The people with boons may choose to just bless the hex (which will keep them off gens even longer) and the ones without boons have no choice but to destroy the hex totem, which in turn means less spots on the map to place boons strategically. It's not going to single handedly defeat boons but it's quite a nice perk against them. I've been using it a lot on Pig, who I think already benefits a lot from plaything.
Because the devs care more for the survivor experience and would prefer the game in their favour. More survivors than killers. Maths.
Why should Boons have counterplay?
The overall mechanic is fine and even the relighting of the Boon is not that big of a deal. The problem comes that the first two Boons have both a problematic aspect to them: Cycle of Healing allows uncaped self-healing, Shadow Step can be played with Iron Will.
Not the base Boon mechanic is a problem, these aspects are the problem. One denies the Killer an entire playstyle and the other denies all informations. Wasn`t there a Killer when survivors said that having so few informations was bad?
Overall the mechanic is a fine addition. I have no problem with a healing-zone or a "harder tracking"-zone. However I have a problem with the speed of self-healing and getting Iron Will on top of Shadow Step especialy on multi-level maps like Midwich, Haddonfence or The Game.
Plaything blocks up totems for 90 seconds though, and also forces teammates that don't have boons to destroy them.
Problem is that it doesn't stop existing boons and you would have to be really lucky to snuff it, hook someone and spawn plaything over it.
I really don't count Plaything as a counter against boon totems, if anything Plaything got worse because of boon totems.
Well its pretty easy if you snuff the boon and all 4 other totems are already lit or broken.
If boons weren't meant to have counterplay they wouldn't be using the totem system and they wouldn't have added a mechanic to the killer to allow them to snuff out boons.