The nerf I’d give to Circle of Healing
This is the only perk in the whole game that I believe is just straight OP, on both sides. I might think DH is too but that’s about hit or miss. I don’t even think that boon totems are that big of a problem as I think the other two are neat perks. After running Circle of Healing a bunch, it’s just too easy to stay healthy and keep the killer from snowballing a match.
Removing the ability for Circle of Healing to self heal without a medkit would be the one direct nerf I’d give to the perk. An indirect nerf I’d give is to have capped self healing in the game so you can’t heal during a chase with an emergency medkit and healing speed add ons while in Circle of Healing’s zone.
I think the perk would still be decent and will still see use in many games. What are your thoughts?
Comments
Think about it this way. The killer forces the survivors in a tight 3-gen. In comms, the survivors can set up a totem somewhere that the survivors can just run to and remove the killer's progress. The killer can't just go break the totem because they have to defend the 3-gen or they just lose. It's too much time loss for the killer to the point where it removes any snowball potential.
Next to nobody would carry the perk if it required a medkit to self heal.
I'm fine with it having a healing speed cap, though.
It would be a fair counter to a 3 gen if the perk were an anti-3-gen perk. The problem arises from the fact that it's a strong perk in basically every situation, and ALSO completely removes all pressure the killer has in situations that are hard to orchestrate. It's just a do-everything perk.
Just make the self-heal speed 50%.
That way, it's the best perk a killer can bring for everyone.
Multiple downsides doesn't exactly mean something is balanced just the way it is also its 14-24 seconds, the limited range goes through floors in a cylinder shape effectively giving some maps 2x the effective area, the noise indicator is directionless and without a notification to see meaning the killer has no idea where the totem is unless it just replaced a hex totem they were looking at they would have no way to know where the totem is, and lastly they have no way of knowing who placed the totem so even if they go out of their way to check totem spots to find it the survivor might have been long gone because it might have just been somebody replacing a boon from earlier or finally getting some breathing room and deciding to place it.
In its current state it does need tweaks
Personally I don’t like the idea of having to bring a medkit to get a use out of it. It feels too restrictive without taking away the actual issue.
For me, the problem I have as killer is when I snuff it and by the time I turn my back it’s already been re-blessed. I think a better downside would be for the entity to ‘curse’ the totem ( I.E. give it a cool down) once the killer snuffs it. So the survivor (or any other survivor with a boon) cannot re-bless that same specific totem, and they are forced to look for another.
The other thing I would change is the healing speeds based off distance. So if the survivor wants to get the most value out of it they have to be as close as possible to the totem. Otherwise the further away they are from the totem the slower the heal speed.
This way if a killer hears the totem, they aren’t completely punished for snuffing the totem without an idea of where the survivor is.
That could work. I guess it is a problem that the killer spends the time kicking the totem but the survivor can just easily put it back.
It's not really about that, a lot of killers on the roster just can't snowball. You expect Pig to do anything about that?
And honestly I don’t know if this happens to anybody else, but I always feel like I have to move my character just the right way to give me the prompt. Lol
Like something about the animation just feels clunky.
Nnnno. The perk doesn't give you Self-Care, it gives you an infinite brown medkit and We'll Make It. There is a huge difference between 32 second heals and 16 second heals. Self-Care is really slow and takes a survivor out of action for a while, leaving them very vulnerable to interruption and keeping them off gens or from doing saves - it takes the 32 total seconds of team time required to heal one survivor (16 seconds for the survivor doing the healing and 16 seconds for the survivor sitting, being healed) and applies it all to one person. The way CoH works halves the amount of team time it takes for all heals in addition to guaranteeing a survivor can heal in any situation - they don't need to find another player and they don't need a perk or medkit, as long as one team member brings a perk and a totem is up somewhere.
CoH outclasses every other healing perk in the game by miles, has less strict activation conditions than half of them anyway, and the killer cannot permanently remove it without killing every player who has it. 14 seconds sounds great until you remember there's 4 survivors and 1 killer. It's 14 seconds of one survivor's time while the other 3 are on gens or healing or being chased or whatever other objectives they have; if the killer takes more than 3.5 seconds to locate and snuff it, they have lost more time than they gained. Killers cannot afford to 'hunt' boons. If they run across one and they're not in chase, they can snuff it; anything else is a gross misuse of time that will cause survivors to rocket ahead (unless the survivors are derping around instead of properly using that time to slam gens, or healing and resetting the team when the killer should be pressing the advantage.)
Like, think about it. Inner Strength was considered the best self-healing perk and commonly used before CoH. It allowed you to spend 14 seconds cleansing a totem, then entering a locker would provide an 8-second heal. In comparison, CoH lets you spend 14 seconds blessing a totem and then every player in the match can heal themselves in 16 seconds within a 24 meter radius. The totem is not consumed even if the killer finds it and snuffs it.
That's trading 8 seconds of heal speed for letting every other survivor heal themselves until someone brings the killer to the spot where the totem is and it gets snuffed, and a lack of caps on how many times you can use it. The power creep on display here is wild. Even Self-Care is slightly slower than blessing a totem and healing yourself afterwards, and that discounts everyone else getting 16 second heals too.
CoH drastically changed how health states work in killer games because it's so much more streamlined and more universal than every other healing perk to date. Hit and run flat out doesn't work anymore; you will not encounter injured survivors when CoH is in play, and you can't take CoH out of play. 3-genning doesn't work either if 3 players are alive and someone has CoH, when previously 3-gens needed 4 alive survivors to beat it unless the killer messed up.
"Multiple downsides doesn't exactly mean something is balanced just the way it is also its 14-24 seconds"
Please explain this further in relation to COH.
COH has a strong effect just because it can be snuffed or prevent being placed (granted this means the killer is only pressuring 1 survivor doing not much so the team gets a distraction and the other survivors can pressure gens so its not that bad of a trade) doesn't mean its completely balanced, its effect is considerably too strong even with all the current downsides and should be looked at further
"shape effectively giving some maps 2x the effective area, the noise indicator is directionless and without a notification to see meaning the killer has no idea where the totem is unless it just replaced a hex totem they were looking at they would have no way to know where the totem is"
Killers, like myself, need to learn totem spots same as survivors have. 1st consider the map & then where totems spawn. If you hear the boon notification go off 20s into the match odds are it isn't the totems you're near & is most-likely near a gen. Deduce from there where that survivor is, I've done this multiple times on my Switch.
There is almost no point to learning totem spawns you just need to learn where to generally patrol since the sound gives it away, but also saying just patrol for it just wastes time that high mmr survivors will put to good use.
"lastly they have no way of knowing who placed the totem so even if they go out of their way to check totem spots to find it the survivor might have been long gone because it might have just been somebody replacing a boon from earlier or finally getting some breathing room and deciding to place it.
Time management. Unfortunately, people need to learn when it's a good time to go boon hunting & when it's a good time to patrol gens. If you drop a chase & the survivor heals, that's just a consequence of dropping a chase.
As someone with 2.6k hours I will tell you time management wise there is never a good time to go boon hunting, you should almost always be chasing, defending hooks for pressure, or patrolling, the only time you should ever go after boons is if its convenient or nearby after you downed a survivor and have a second or two to snuff it. otherwise you are wasting time. And completely countering hit and run playstyles is too strong of an effect for one perk I get the consequence of dropping chase is someone heals but this is too efficient and effective with no permanent counter
Perk needs adjustments, plain and complicated.
Yes, when you cherry pick only negatives you can make any perk seem underwhelming. You're being disingenuous and you know it.
1)It actually takes 14 seconds and 24 if it's a hex. 14 seconds on a team of four is absolutely worth it even as a Hex it's still worth blessing. Hardly a downside. 2) When was the last time you actually interrupted someone cleansing your hex its inevitable? It's the same 14 seconds to bless a dull. You might have an argument if they're blessing a hex but competent survivors should realistically just cleanse it Instead. 3) 24 meters is BIG for a perk that gives everyone infinite heals and it can even go vertically. 4) that's not enough to call a downside that's like me saying my Ruin getting cleansed seconds into the game but that's okay it gave me loud notification lmfao. 5 and 6) A killer's time is 4x more important the fact that you went out of your way to snuff it and potentially lost survivors and interrupting gen is a huge loss to you. Also back to what I said I can just bless it again 14 seconds is absolutely worth it on a team of four people. 7)There's five totems barely any random survivor team get to cleanse everything anyway even if they do they stop cleansing after someone uses a Boon. 8) it's not risky the boon sounds is audible until potentially 10m and this extends to 24m just heal at the very edge. Now I am not sure how far you can actually hear boons but you definitely can't hear it for the entire 24m boon range.
I don't think this is a good idea. It would be useless to work if you take a medkit. I would just make it that it doesn't stack with other healing perks and medkits. And lower the healing speed to 75 or 80%
This is a faux list of "downsides" that completely ignore the tremendous upsides.
Killer is forced to dedicate to chases, even ones they shouldn't, or else the person injured will just run to a corner quickly to heal in a matter of mere seconds.
The Killer has to abandon all chases or gen pressure purely to search and snuff a totem that can be relit immediately at no personal cost.
You don't play Killer, we can tell.
lol
I think that is way too harsh of a nerf.
COH's strength mainly imo comes from it's ability to take away massive pressure from the killer, especially if they are a killer that has to spread damage around to generate their pressure. And making the time investment to chase and spread damage not worth the time.
With a small investment of 16 seconds or a 26+ seconds. Not only can you shave off valuable time off yourself with that extra 14 to heal yourself vs say a self care without the need for a medkit. But you as a team also save 14s of time for that survivor to also do the same. Which can be used infinitely.
So the defense that some people try and say that it wastes time to bless and like it's such a big investment is mathematically full of 💩💩 in an effort to protect their precious coh.
I personally think that Shadowstep and Exceptional. Are fine and relatively fair boons. Since they're relatively used against you when you're chasing then, so it makes locating them relatively easy as you're always reasonably close to them when you down a survivor who got the boons effects. and it does feel fine to keep snuffing and blessing. A back and forth of sort.
I would not nerf the other two boons if i could have my way.
With COH, McLean (former game designer) has mentioned before that he'd like it if boons only worked within 16 meters to be more within the games scaling system and map size. Which would mean survivors need to invest more time just getting to the boon first before getting it's effect. So time spent ia roughly equal to the killers investment of catching up and hurting said survivor i believe.
Now the way i would do it, I'd like to see it nerfed slowly. Like for example. After every 100% successful heal, the next heal will take an additional 4 seconds and so on and so on until eventually it goes down to half the speed, so that it's falls in line with self-care speeds.
This is a mechanic already in the game with Freddy's wake up action..
This way the perk can still be strong. Just not all game, it gradually uses up it's power.
Also add diminishing returns to healing value or a cap on how many much action speed bonus plus medkit speed you're allowed to stack on top of each other. The same way that generators cannot be capped for more than 60%
Then leave the other boon alone
So, if it has too many downsides then why it isn't allowed in comp? if a perk really has that many downsides, you think it would be balanced enough for competitive. Oh? Yeah, no CoH is way too good. You say you can snuff it in 1 second which is true but assuming you can either see it or be in its range to hear it is a different story. A 48 meter diameter is nothing to scoff at, 2 heals already gives you value for it, most maps are either small or large so it either covers 1/4th of the map or in one specific section to where the killer would be at a serious disadvantage to go and snuff it, and going out of your way to snuff the totem mid chase just gives the survivor distance so it's really only worth it if you're walking by it to get to a gen or after a down.
I think reducing the heal bonus to 33% instead of 100% would go a long way.
That would make healing others 12 seconds and healing self 24 seconds.
Maybe make it when you snuff a totem that it's blocked by the entity for a minute or so but that might be pushing it into irrelevancy again.
Doesn't matter if comp is regulated by the devs, it's meant to be the most balanced dbd can get which is why there's perk restrictions for both killer and survivor and yet CoH isn't allowed because it was deemed too unbalanced. Also, idk what that image is supposed to represent it shows the square meters inside of the actual length of the map. But anyway, since you want to use that map as an example you could put a boon in the middle of the tree, and it will hit at least 3-4 tiles outside of it. which with this games tile generation they're close together.
Entity curse a Boon after killer snuffing it. I feel this 's going to be a Hex perk for Killer in the future. Where Killer can direct turn a Boon into a Hex.
Killers can defend their hex sure...but you do know if we do that we lose the gens?
We can't just be oh well lets relight that thing again when it goes boom. CoH should be just simple self heal without the 100% of relight 1 totem ONE time only. Still gives you 5 totems to bless and you actually have to run around to find the totems and not just keep relighting the ones that have been found.
This perk is busted and has hurt multiple killers so bad you barely see them anymore. Hope you enjoy plagues :)
My survivor queues are ok at daytime but evenings they get pretty long. I've noticed less and less of my favorite killers which makes me super sad. All i see is ranged killers nowdays+ blight and nurse.
CoH covers an area of approximately 1800 m^2.
There's only a single map where that doesn't potentially cover between 1/5 to 1/6 of the playable area with a single perk (Mother's Dwelling), and a few of the smaller ones where it covers closer to 1/4.
Ignoring the blatant absurdity that is The Game, where it instead covers 1800m^2 on two of its ~4400m^2 floors, for nearly 50% map coverage.
Ok my dude please understand 14-24 secs to bless a totem is NOTHING to a survivor when he has 3 other teammates doing Gens and drawing the killers attention.
Killers dont have time to patrol "known" totem spawns so a survivor is safe to re bless a totem. Just dont be stupid and wait for the Killer to leave.
The Noise that Boons make is not directional so knowing where the Boon is actually located is hard unless the killer is lucky and downs a Survivor near one.
Here is the thing we all know the major issues with CoH and Boons in general so here is my idea to somewhat balance them.
BOONS IN GENERAL
1) Area of effect changed to 15m. Let's face it 20-25m range is just too big still. For example the two totems that can spawn in the main building of Mt Ormond can cover roughly the entire building and some of the outside around it. Setting up a 2nd Boon near it can cover a huge area. (And yes I know BHVR uses sets of 4 but I cant stand it I like a good stable 5)
2) Boons have 2/3/4 tokens, every time a player blesses a totem they use up a token. No token no blessy. Risk vs Reward is non existent with current Boons as they can be replaced infinitely, so making them have tokens will give more risk and reward.
3) Make Boons easier to find for Killers, Giving it a direction sound will fix it right up.
4) Allow Killers to BREAK totems instead of sniffing them.
CoH CHANGES
1) Healing speed hard cap. We all have seen the videos of the 7 sec heals back to full. Setting a hard cap to healing speed will make it more manageable.
2) Increase the rate and difficulty of skill checks. Healing that fast should make more skill checks happen not remove them.
These are just my ideas to make them a bit more balanced and not so OP.
The most simple way to use Coh effectively is, do a Gen that has a totem nearby. Once you finish that Gen, especially a corner Gen, you can bless that totem and it lives forever.
What is killer gonna do?
Boon problem isnt just the powerful effect it gives (4 Self care + 4 We will make it). The Boon brings the totem game into Survivors' favor, which should be heavily on Killer's favor as before.
This is so much for nerf. No one will use Boons if you nerf like this.
They should just cap heal speed at 100%. That way you can't stack it with med-kits or other healing perks. Maybe even reduce it to 75%. People would still run it imo.
good
Coh is powerful even if it has 10m radius. But it would make 2 other Boon useless.
Other 2 Boon requires you're in chase or dying in Boon area to make it work. While they're chased inside Boon radius, Killer can hear the Boon and snuff it out.
For Expo, dying near Boon make the perk pretty much useless, Killer can snuff it the carry you, or just hook you, they will never leave you on the ground with the Boon nearby, unless there is another survivor trying to flashlight save you and buy you time for the Expo use.
Shadow step is annoying (especially Spirit), but other Killers are manageable.
Coh, as long as you stay away from Coh (lets say the Coh near to a finish Gen that Killer will no longer patrol there anymore), the Boon will stay forever. Which is an unlimited Medkit supply.
I'd make 100% lowered to 50%. This makes altruistic heals 10.7 seconds and self heals (due to how it's coded) to be 21 seconds. You'll need an emergency medkit to get an 8 sec self heal rather than having at least that with any medkit.
I'd still run it but it wouldn't be quite so gamebreaking.
I would nerf boons overall instead of just COH, something like if you snuff a boon it cannot be activated again on the same totem again, at least the maximum number of times it can be active would be 5 and even less if totems get destroyed, and also allow the killer to destroy the totem, we can't re use hex totems so destroying it wouldn't really be an issue.