Hangman's Trick discussion
I thought it might be fun to make some threads discussing some of the statistically least used perks in the game. For purposes of what I consider "least used" I'm going by an aggregate site I follow which tracks perks used by opposing players in uploaded matches. The very top perks are used by about 20% or slightly higher of players, the least used perks see less than 1% usage. And this thread what is currently the least used killer perk - Pig's Hangman's Trick with 0.06% usage.
For reference, here's the perk description
- Hangman's Trick - Gain a notification when a Survivor begins sabotaging a hook. While carrying a Survivor, see the aura of any Survivor within 2/4/6 meters of a hook.
So in principle seeing survivor auras near hooks could be a pretty decent effect, but the devil is in the details here because the timeframe this works combined with its incredibly small range means it is very difficult to actually get usable auras out of this perk. Not only are you only seeing potential auras while already carrying someone else, but unless they are almost right on top of a hook you won't see them. Sure, there are a bunch of hooks scattered around the map, but basically none of them are close enough to generators that the 6 meter range will pick up the aura unless they literally happen to be running past one on the way to something else. Hypothetically this perk could give you a little bit of a warning if a hook is about to be sabotaged, but losing hooks to a sabotage attempt is so infrequent and easy to prevent even without this perk that it seems really pointless to take a perk mainly for that purpose.
Therefore, to me, this is a perk that I think with tweaks to its range and/or trigger condition it would be a decent tracking perk. Some possible buffs might be
- Increase the range to something like 8-10 meters. You do want to be a little careful because there are quite a lot of hooks on the map, so a small range increase represents a pretty decent total area increase for the effect. But the nice thing is that since this is a numerical parameter it does allow for fine tuning. Ideally the range should probably be made large enough that on average the killer should get about 1 ping per carry.
- Alternatively, keep the range at 6 meters but remove the carrying trigger condition and make it work like Undying's aura but for hooks, i.e. make it a passive permanent aura effect that triggers whenever any survivor is within 6 meters of any hook. Although the range would be small it might have a chance throughout of the match of randomly pinging on survivors during their normal movements or in chases, etc. That could make it useful for not only sometimes getting long range info, but also might help the killer with mindgames at certain tiles that have a hook in them that the survivor is running past.
So if you were going to make a change to Hangman's Trick, what would it be? Or do you actually already use Hangman's Trick and think it's underrated and doesn't need a change?
Comments
For me it's just bringing back the longer Sabo timers (1/2/3 second longer Sabo sounds good)
Just putting the perk to have a consistent effect good enough to use, as it was when the hooks were broken for minutes.
Increasing the range to see survivors' auras will not increase the perk usage, as wesker's perk is much better and honestly this sabotage notification is unnecessary because you're already seeing the aura.
My suggestion: When carrying the survivor, the entity protects the closest hook from being sabotaged, with aura highlighted in yellow for killer. In case the survivors will have to work together analyzing the area around to sabotage the hook before the survivor has been carried and see if it's worth it, for example, they will have to see if there's a Scourge Hook and sabotage it before the survivor has been carried. Either way, the killer will always have a hook to put the survivor, making the perk consistent enough.
I disagree that Wesker's perk is much better, it all depends on the range of the auras from the hooks. If you could see everybody within 12 meters of any hook anywhere on the map for instance that's probably way too powerful!
Also I don't think protecting from sabotage is strong enough to be a perk in its own right. It's fine as a secondary effect but on its own it's not that good. You could literally have the perk make all hooks be unsabotagable and it still wouldn't be worth a perk slot.
The perk's primary effect would be replaced. Instead of getting a notification while someone sabotages, it would reveal the aura of survivors with the same range (2/4/6). The secondary would be what I said, protecting the closest hook from being sabotaged with yellow aura, making the perk a good combo and synergistic with agitation, Mad Grit, etc.
ps: If the closest hook is already sabotaged before carrying a survivor, the next closest one is marked in yellow and stay protected from being sabotaged.
For me strong would be if it protected all hooks from being sabotaged, it would be very OP and it would be enough to always have a hook in range, replacing several perk slots for that niche purpose.
My first thought was match the aura range with Darkness Revealed (8 meters). Not sure if that would become an issue if paired with Hook offerings
Bring back? That was never a thing. It used to reduce the hook repair timer.
Either or.... it's been changed for so long that I forgot what it used to do
I would like it to increase sabotage times within the killer’s terror radius while carrying by 10/15/20%. That would give weight to its existing effects, and stays in line with it being an anti-sabotage perk.