Circle of Healing needs to be drastically changed
Yes, this is yet another thread complaining about this busted perk since the devs still won't acknolwedge its problematic state.
In case you haven't realized it yet, all it does is promote even more toxicity. Killers don't have the time to go searching for a totem that gets relit immediately the moment they step away from it.
It's the same feeling you have as a Trapper player whenever you have to deal with a stalker who keeps disarming your traps, this sensation however is felt by ALL killers this time. At that point you simply give up and focus on tunneling and camping someone to death since the rest of the team will be fully healed up anyway.
All it takes is ONE (!) person bringing it and the entire team receives an extreme advantage. The perk needs drastic nerfs, I suggest following changes/ideas to achieve that goal:
- Get rid of the broken boost to healing speed, turn it into a subpar Self-Care instead. Survivors should be forced to waste at least half a minute to get healed up from using it. And that's without accounting for the kindling time.
- The affected totem should break permanently once stomped out by the killer.
- The perk should be limited to a single use, afterwards it's disabled for the rest of the trial.
Personally I'm more inclined towards idea #1 but I'd like to hear how you would fix this broken mess of a perk.
Comments
I personally think every boon totem should be single-use, exactly how Hex's work.
Why do Survivors get a better version of a Killer mechanic, in the first place? Just you wait; a later Boon will probably be 'Survivors can self-unhook while this Boon is active' or 'Survivors have to be hooked an extra 1/1/2 times before dying'.
Number one is all that's necessary- I'd personally move towards capping self-healing through any means, since I don't think you should be able to stack stuff onto yourself, but anything that just lowers how much insane time-saving value survivors can get from it would be ideal.
The second idea is a bad one because that's not a nerf to Circle of Healing, that's a nerf to boons- it'd be like if old Undying got "nerfed" by reducing the number of totems in a trial no matter what, as opposed to changing the effect itself.
The third idea branches on from that- I don't see why CoH should work differently to the other two in that regard, consistency in the mechanic is a good thing to build.
Idea number three would require that ALL boon perks would be limited to a single use, that's what I'm suggesting. It would also deter people from stacking their effects.
That would be horrendously bad? Why on earth would we need to do that to Shadow Step, an only decent perk on a majority of maps, and Exponential, a straight up terrible perk?
There's no need to look at the boon mechanic itself to balance one perk, is the point. Nerf Circle of Healing into the ground, sure, but if you even moderately nerf the other two they'll become straight up useless- or even more useless, in the case of Exponential.
So your solution to nerfing CoH is to make it literally garbage tier? Like why on earth would anyone use this perk if it was a subpar self care? I don't get it.
CoH sticks out as THE op perk in this game right now, I agree with that, and it makes killers life even harder than it already was. With this perk it's just even harder for killers to retain some proper map pressure, which is bad, considering how fast survivors can already complete their objective. But making it useless isn't the solution here.
They need to nerf the healing speed increase as well as the self healing speed from 100% to something like 75%.
And maybe they could increase the time it takes to boon a dull totem from 14 to 16 seconds, making it slightly more worthwhile to snuff out totems. But that's it. It would be a shame to lose another perk out of the meta and reduce the amount of meta perks again.
I agree it needs a nerf. The speed should be 75% and you could stack it to make it 100% and that’s it. But nerf it to the ground sucks. Might as well use self care. And then the other boons would be useless. Barley anyone uses the other two, after your idea no one would bring shadow step or exponential. Also boons range should be on one floor not 2.
They don’t need to change the entire Boon system to balance Circle of Healing, just slow down its healing speed enough that it’s still beneficial to bring but not so powerful as it is now?
As far as timing goes I think their current schedule nowadays is they do a balance pass about three months after a character releases, so we’ll probably see Mikaela tweaks including her Boons in next month’s mid-chapter. That’s my guess anyway.
When boons first came out I thought the solution was to nerf COH as well as completely overhaul boon mechanics, but nerfing the actual boon mechanics at this point would just make Exponential even more situational than it already is.
I do think boons should be limited to the floor the totem is on (eg. no having essentially double the range on an indoor map or with totems on 2nd floors of main buildings), and I would be okay with a cooldown after a totem is snuffed out. But outside of that, once Shadow Step no longer works on multiple floors, it and Exponential really aren't a problem. The only other thing I really want to see is giving Pentimento some kind of boon interaction, even if that means slightly nerfing its penalties (eg. 20-25%) to make up for it.
That said, without changing general boon mechanics beyond that, I don't really see how Circle of Healing can be made fair without making it bad. In my opinion, the entire concept of the perk was a mistake regardless of the numbers on it and ideally I would like it to just be replaced with something completely different.
However, I don't think the devs are going to do that, so in that case, the way I would nerf it is to simply reduce the bonus to 33%. This means a self-heal takes approximately 24 seconds (16 / [1.33 * 0.5]), and it takes approximately 12 seconds to heal a teammate (16 / 1.33). This means if a survivor is in the totem's range, it would be exactly the same as if that survivor was running both Self Care and Botany Knowledge.
Given that the boon totem mechanic is fundamentally busted they need to overhaul the lot, not just CoH because it happens to be the worst of a bad lot.
idea 4: Make boon perks only affect the survivor who lit the totem but make effect global. At least than, entire team does not acquire self-care/fast healing for boon being alive. only survivor with boon totem lit. It might also make other boon perks more competitively useful as opposed this one being over-tuned and other ones being ineffective.
The Boon totem mechanic isn’t fundamentally busted, it works fine. Circle of Healing is overpowered but the other two don’t seem to be that bad.
Let BHVR sell the DLC, then the nerf should come.
You are welcome, thanks me latter.
After totem is blessed it cannot be blessed again and it breaks after being snuffed or darkens out to show the survivors its now only ashed out dull totem. Survivors have 5 totems they can bless this gives them 5 boons per match. I think thats plenty but forces them to actually find them and not just camp that same totem over and over again.
Also i think CoH should be just a self heal. It still gives the power for people to heal themselfs but not in 2 seconds. Right now the speed is ridiculous.
Shadow gives the entire team infinite Distortion + infinite Lucky Break - so one perk on one survivor adds 2 perks to the other three survivors at zero time or perk cost to the rest of the team.
Definitely busted.
It’s hardly “infinite”, it’s limited to the range of the totem and goes away when snuffed or the Boon owner dies.
It really doesn't. Infinite Distortion, yes, but it does not give infinite Lucky Break- it gives infinite Poised.
Lucky Break is way stronger than Shadow Step even if you disregard the range requirement, because it also hides blood. Shadow Step is nowhere near as strong as CoH, it's reasonably powerful but it's not game-breaking in the least.
So it still gives 2 free perks to the rest of the team at no cost, effectively adding 6 perks to the Survivor side.
Just because it isn't as fundamentally broken as CoH doesn't mean it's still not OP.
You and I both know that the cost is the time it takes to set up, the limited range, and the restrictions on where it can be placed.
Boons are not a broken design. They're designed to pull survivors away from generators in exchange for buffs that the killer can interrupt and thus prompt more slowdown from survivors trying to relight it, and Shadow Step is honestly a really good example of how to do that- it's got a good effect, but one that can be played around if needed. It's not game breaking, it's not OP, but it's enough for survivors to want to go spend time setting it back up again.
What exactly is wrong with it?
i rather they nerf boon totem to break when snuffed and then nerf COH if its still problematic at that point
In a way, I agree that can helps killers buy a bit of time in "wasting time setting it up"; but the problem is... unlike other Boon Totems; the effects of CoH are so great that it is literally saving half the times it takes to heal yourself and others; especially if you are stacking healing perks, med-kits, and even teammates. Boons are not revealed to the killer, so it can be time consuming trying to memories the Totems location and cleanse fast enough and then having to be certain that the same survivors wouldn't bring it back.
Keep in mind, the problem with Boon Totems is not the effects, and the ability to reBless at any time; but also the fact that you are taking away Killer's precious time-consuming in their many task to do; by 4 times. Killer is their own team, vs. 4 Survivors players, that is 1v4, or 4 times the amount of times, mistakes, etc. that survivors can give themselves. Boon Totems may have taken away abit of their time from gens, but it also benefits them alot more of the killer is unable to snuff the perks in play, by massive healing them way too quickly.
That and bad map design makes perks like these unbearable to track and find Boon Totems at ease; when pressure with time efficiency with stopping survivors and chasing them too.
COH needs a nerf to its effect, or.... Boon in general needs a nerf too! One of them has to go, to give the killer less stress then it needs it. For me, I would either nerf the 100% down to 50 or 75% of Healing; or make it so that it doesn't stack med-kits, healing teammates or teammates healing you, self care only.