Dead Hard needs its full second back.
I used to hate Dead Hard, don't get me wrong. I hated how it gave distance and made loops impossible. Thanks to its recent change though, that issue is no more. After using it in a few games (thematically, Carlos can tank more than 2 hits 100%), I gotta say, now it's woefully unfair on Survivors, but not because of the perk itself, but rather server desync.
In order to effectively use it, you either have to rush a Killer and use it in hopes they don't know you have it, use it in a state you know the Killer can't bait it out (Wesker dash, Billy Chainsaw, Bubba Chainsaw, etc.), or use it properly by timing it, and praying to the Server Gods that desync doesn't hit you and the game actually realizes you used it.
I can't count how many times on both my hands and feet I've used Dead Hard, knowing I hit it before I went down, and it never worked. I feel, personally, its smaller nerf needs to be reverted and it should grant a full one second of Endurance, so it's more fair overall. It can still be easily baited, and it gives more of a chance for others to use it.
Still won't fix Auto Dead-Hard scripts though. :(
Comments
This might be more of a matchmaking issue.
Players from Russia keep having to play on servers in Germany and UK; West coast players have to play on East coast and vice versa.
If some matchmaking speed was sacrificed in order to keep everyone playing on servers closer to them, the thing where you are instantly downed without seeing the killer start their swing would happen less often.
Not a DH user here, but I did some matches with it to learn how people use it so effectively.
I have the same problem as you, that it doesn't work when I react on a Killer's swing.
But I soon realised that you can react to lunges. These are easily DHable. The most effective DHs are at windows or pallets. And you can even spin at the killer and hope they will hit you. This doesn't work on killers who expect this trick.
Don't greed new DH pretty simple. It may have been nerfed yet it's still in the top 2-3 exhaustion perks in my opinion. You completely counter ranged killers. There is also still the mental aspect of the perk because if you lunge at this pallet you may hit the survivor, but if they have DH they just saved a god pallet and gained a third health state. DH still has to be respected a bit, but extremely risky now at vaults with some potential to burn DH and still drop a pallet in time.
1 full second was excessive, and if you played the PTB with it as killer or survivor anyone would know. Since this is an online game however, lag should be better accounted for. I would totally be fine with .75s, because all too often matches are just way too laggy. If this were only a LAN/splitscreen couch game I would say .5s is appropriate, and anything more would be too much, but it isn't local only.