The Twins: How to Disappear Completely
When the term "underrated killer" comes to mind, you may think of killers whose strength is sometimes underestimated. Killers that are usually placed in high C or low B tier like Demogorgon and Plague, maybe even ones that are placed even lower such as Michael or Pig depending on who you you are. But what if I told you that there's a killer that is more underrated than all of these? Your mind may jump to the "bottom half" of the killer roster, but in reality who I am talking about is generally regarded as a decent killer. You see, they are underrated not because their strength isn't recognized, but because they are actively shunned by the community and the developers alike. As you might guess, I am talking about the Twins.
I could discuss how Twins are perceived as a killer who can only camp and slug by most of the community, which simply isn't true, but instead I'll be covering something else: How the meta has changed around the Twins and effectively left them in the dust. The point of this post is to call attention to this, and to criticize the lack of attention that the less played killers get as a whole. (Twins is by far the worst case of this, which is why this post is about them in the first place)
While there are killers that have been victims of the meta and power creep before, I cannot think of a case where a killer has been made completely unplayable just by a few simple perks. And yet, this has been allowed to happen with the Twins.
The four ingredients to ruin any Twins player:
-Boon: Circle of Healing (Pretty simple, having all survivors be healthy all the time is a nightmare for twins)
-Unbreakable (makes Twin's slugging much worse. Even if you don't heavily slug as Twins, you physically cannot not slug at all with them)
-Dead Hard (Victor can land a pounce and go through the 5 second stun without the survivor actually being downed)
-Boon: Exponential (NOT ONLY lets survivors picks themselves up faster, but works with CoH and Unbreakable, which are BOTH META PERKS and essentially ensure that the survivor will be picked up before you even are able to reach them, as they have an 8-second headstart from the animation of Victor's pounce fatigue and switching to Charlotte alone.)
Notice how 3 of those 4 perks are meta, and the fourth one synergizes perfectly with the first two? Weird, right? You may argue that killers like Trapper have had this problem with perks such as small game, but realize that that perk benefitted ONE player, while ONE person bringing CoH or Exponential cripples Twins because the entire team gets access to the benefits of those perks.
This is a gross oversight by BHVR that needs to be fixed as soon as possible. The problem itself isn't really the perks (except maybe for CoH) but rather the Twins themselves. They are in dire need of an update and if they don't get one, then they will become dead weight, just there for new players to say "hey, this looks interesting", spend their money, play until they get squashed by the previously mentioned perks, and go become yet another Blight main.
This issue reflects a worrying problem on the game itself. Will the other less played killers be left in the dust, the only hope being a massive shift in the meta that also happens to directly benefit them? Will these killers become outdated and forgotten about? And if so, who's next in line? Hopefully, when I look back at this post in the future, I won't be able to answer these questions.
Once again, I just want to call attention to this problem and how a killer has been allowed to be forgotten just because they lost out on the popularity contest. It's not the job of the developers to simply disregard a core part of gameplay for a reason such as that.
Comments
All of those perks have the potential to hurt all killers rather equally. Maybe not Exponential, but how often do you actually see that run (and actually come in play when it is)? Unbreakable might be more beneficial, but also comes in play a lot against Oni and Myers (among others).
WGLF is far more damaging to Twins. It was overbuffed in my opinion, and should only provide a 50% pickup healing boost. Deerstalker (while already decent on Twins) could use a great deal of buffs too, which I proposed here: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/290279/deerstalker-buffs
Also, it’s pretty easy to bait out and wait for DH on Victor compared to other killer powers. At least in my opinion.
As long as Spirit is relevant I’m happy :P (I’m joking please don’t take it seriously)
But yeah jokes aside, I would love to see a QoL update for them. They’re interesting and I actually like the counterplay against them as it’s different than most killers. It’s such a shame really that they’re just forgotten.
Unless they will get some huge QoL updates, they will probably forever be in the "lowest picked killer in the whole game".
You're right, they do. But the thing is, they hit Twins especially hard because all 4 of those perks make the long cooldowns the Twins have even worse. At least Oni and Michael have the option not to slug. But if you get a down with Victor, you have to slug. Even if you're intent on hooking the survivor, you need to wait 5 seconds for Victor's attack cooldown, then 3 seconds to switch back to Charlotte. Exponential is so strong against them because the survivor can simply hold W toward the boon and Twins are helpless to stop the survivor from picking themselves up unless Charlotte is nearby, again because of the long cooldowns. And WGLF certainly does hurt them, which was kind of an oversight on my part not to include it.
Yup, another wack argument.
If anything The Twins hurt the game by exacerbating the slugging and camping playstyle, and these perks help alleviate some of that problem.
And let's be real for a second (CoH and Exponential only cover a certain area so if you're not in that small circle, or if you never found a dull totem, or if the killer hears the totem and snuffs it, 2 dead perks.
Timing a dead hard perfect so that Victor gets stunned from the hit is not something that's going to happen often so that's a non-argument
And Unbreakable only works if you're slugging people which circles back to my first point that if the killers whole playstyle is to slug people, that is an issue within itself because it's boring as hell and makes for toxic gameplay strats
You say that as if Twins have the option not to slug. I don't mean playing in a way where you leave everyone on the ground, but I mean that in a way where there is mechanically no way for them not to slug.
Let's say you injure a survivor and then send out victor to finish them off. The survivor beelines to their boon totem. You finally manage to down them. You wait 5 seconds for Victor's attack cooldown to end, then 3 seconds for Charlotte to get out of her fatigue. You start walking towards the survivor, and they're already off of the ground. These perks don't alleviate the problem, they essentially make playing Twins effectively impossible by directly using the clunkiness of their power against them.
And let's be real for a second (CoH and Exponential only cover a certain area so if you're not in that small circle, or if you never found a dull totem, or if the killer hears the totem and snuffs it, 2 dead perks.
-It's not like Victor can pick people up. Charlotte has to walk over there and pick up the survivor herself, so if the survivor holds W toward their boon, they're most likely going to be able to pick themselves up, especially with the help of a teammate.
-It's not that hard to find totems.
-You can always re-bless another totem. And if multiple people bring something like CoH, you're suddenly in a lot of trouble.
Timing a dead hard perfect so that Victor gets stunned from the hit is not something that's going to happen often so that's a non-argument
"Nurse trying to grab someone and being stuck there for the whole match didn't happen much so it never needed a fix"
"Old Undying forcing you to cleanse 5 totems to get rid of 1 hex didn't happen that much so it didn't need a nerf"
And Unbreakable only works if you're slugging people which circles back to my first point that if the killers whole playstyle is to slug people, that is an issue within itself because it's boring as hell and makes for toxic gameplay strats
Once again, Twins always need to slug to some extent. If the survivor makes good distance away from Charlotte, they are never getting picked up if they're also utilizing CoH, Medkits, WGLF, or Exponential.