Gearhead needs a rework

HoodedWildKard

So started gunslinger a little while ago, the gearhead perk sounded good. But it almost never benefits me because the survivors aura is the same colour as the gen, it's often masked by it. I reckon it should also give a loud noise notification too. Otherwise it's too hard to notice and doesn't benefit the killer at all.

K139K05

I think they should change the auras of survivors similar how survivors see the killers aura. So you could actually see survivors on a far generator. Noise notification seems cool, but I think it would still be a sid perk without it.

Chilli_man2400

@K139K05 said:

I think they should change the auras of survivors similar how survivors see the killers aura. So you could actually see survivors on a far generator. Noise notification seems cool, but I think it would still be a sid perk without it.

It just needs a noise notification so we know the perk has activated

dugman

I just posted a thread about Gearhead feedback a couple days ago as it's one of the least used perks and in need of a buff or revamp

@dugman said:

Continuing with discussion thread on the apparently least picked perks, let's move on to Deathslinger's perk Gearhead, the second least picked killer perk on the aggregate site with 0.19% usage

Gearhead - After a Survivor loses a health state, Gearhead activates.

While Gearhead is active, each time a Survivor completes a Great Skill Check while repairing, their aura is revealed to you for 6/8/10 seconds.

At least on paper a 10 second aura is pretty good. Think about Lethal Pursuer, for instance, it lasts 10 seconds and that's plenty of time to go chase one of the survivors you see with it. However, Gearhead is weaker than Lethal Pursuer for a couple of reasons:

• You have no control over when Gearhead will trigger, and an aura appearing in the middle of a chase or when you're in the middle of hooking someone might not be actionable info. And since there's no sound cue it can also be easy to miss the aura appearing in the first place. (Compare that to Lethal Pursuer where you know right at the start to look for the auras and you are in a position to head straight to them at the start of the match and you can see the difference.)
• Gearhead only triggers after Great skill checks, but historically Great skill checks don't get hit all that often by most players so the trigger is going to be kind of sporadic. (Most people hit Good checks all the time but Great checks less frequently. Of course with Hyperfocus and Stakeout possibly gaining in popularity as a combo that might change soon, but we'll set that aside for now.)
• Finally even when a survivor's aura is shown from Gearhead, there's still a nagging issue that it can sometimes be hard to see the aura of a survivor who is working on a generator because the generator's aura sort of bleeds over it. This isn't a deal breaker for the perk but it is a bit annoying. 🤷‍♂️

Now maybe if Hyperfocus plus Stakeout catches on and survivors are constantly doing Great Skill Checks killers may give Gearhead another shot, similar to how Discordance is seeing an uptick to counter Prove Thyself currently? But the nice thing about Discordance is it always works, there's no prior condition of doing damage you need to meet for it to trigger, and it has a nice noise notification and is really easy to spot.

So maybe possible buffs for Gearhead to make it a bit more popular might be

• Get rid of the damage precondition altogether and simply have it show you the aura of survivors who hit Great skill checks period. That would allow it to trigger more often during the match
• Give a noise alert when it triggers to make it easier to spot the aura that's been pinged
• Extend it to trigger on all Great skill checks, not just generator repair ones. That would again allow it to trigger a bit more often and also show auras of survivors who aren't sitting next a generator at that moment.

RaSavage42

It needs to be changed to turning the Gen yellow for hitting any skillcheck

So the Killer knows which Gen that the Survivor is working on... instead which Survivor is on the Gen

Dreadnight

Gearhead (Buff):

After a Survivor loses a Health State, Gearhead activates:

While Gearhead is active, a Survivor succeeding a Great Skill Check while repairing reveals their Aura to you.

Aura reading effect will persist for 6/8/10 seconds after the survivor stops repairing.

After which Gearhead deactivates.

HoodedWildKard

@dugman said:

I just posted a thread about Gearhead feedback a couple days ago as it's one of the least used perks and in need of a buff or revamp

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/346601/gearhead-discussion

Good suggestion, highlighting the generator would be great. And i also agree that the injury precondition seems kind of silly when the trigger is already rare enough.

HoodedWildKard

@Dreadnight said:

Gearhead (Buff):

After a Survivor loses a Health State, Gearhead activates:

While Gearhead is active, a Survivor succeeding a Great Skill Check while repairing reveals their Aura to you.

Aura reading effect will persist for 6/8/10 seconds after the survivor stops repairing.

After which Gearhead deactivates.

I don't see much point to the aura reading effect persisting. If you haven't threatened the gen, then they'll have no reason to get off the gen.

Dreadnight

@HoodedWildKard said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3191855#Comment_3191855

I don't see much point to the aura reading effect persisting. If you haven't threatened the gen, then they'll have no reason to get off the gen.

Because you don't lose your aura reading in the middle of a chase. It would allow you to finish the chase and see those generators where they are still repairing and thanks to the fact that the effect persists, you will be able to use the 10 seconds to see where they move or where they hide when you get close.

HoodedWildKard

@Dreadnight said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3192547#Comment_3192547

Because you don't lose your aura reading in the middle of a chase. It would allow you to finish the chase and see those generators where they are still repairing and thanks to the fact that the effect persists, you will be able to use the 10 seconds to see where they move or where they hide when you get close.

But the point is it's hard to see the highlighted aura to figure out which gen they're on, the gen and survivor aura shows up exactly the same colour and with no audio cue it's actually very hard to notice when gearhead triggers in the first place.