The Removal of Killer Player Macro Agency, The Real Issue - 4k Hour player's take
I'll preface this by saying I'm probably one of the few people that is going to benefit massively from the PTB changes on both sides as I rarely run gen regression on killer and BBQ is in my build for most killers so for my killer side experience I'm basically going to be getting to run 6 perks every match and that should win me more matches then I lose from the changes, and on survivor side if I get tunneled it usually ends with me dead but my team 3 man escaping whereas if a teammate gets tunneled it'd usually end with us all dead, so the anti tunnel stuff will help me a great deal. For those on killer side that are scared of these changes I'll go over some generic builds that will still let you tunnel and win, still rely on gen regression and win and some perk combos/builds that I think will work well in the new meta at the end of this, now on to the meat of this post.
First why should my opinion hold any weight, I've been playing since 2020 and have just over 4k hours in this game. According to DBD stats I have played 4,894 killer matches played with an average kill rate of 77.36% and 7035 survivor matches played with an escape rate of 50.8%, mostly solo que and since dbd stats was released and I changed my build to use perks I had outlier high escape rates with my last thirty days escape rates tend to hover between 60-66%. With that said I can clearly demonstrate that I've got a fair bit of experience in this game and am neither a killer or survivor main.
With all the hub bub over this current PTB I don't think these changes are the problem, there are some things I have quibbles with but I don't see anything game breaking in it just some things that will cause unfun situations, what I think the real issue is how over the last few years the macro game for killers has become more and more limited creating a lot less player agency and playstyle diversity. When I started playing the game killers had a wide range of macro gameplay options they could employ as a strategy to win/adapt to the flow of the match with but with the changes to the game there is only really one viable macro strategy at the moment for the majority of players, for simplicity's take I'll categorize them as such and also I will say these categories don't really have hard borders as you'd often use bits an pieces of each throughout a game. The macro strategies were Hit and Run, Territory Control, Tunneling, and Just Dominating. Let's look at these strategies and what's happened to them recently.
Hit and Run
Hit and run has been through the wringer over the past few years from being completely dead as a strategy while circle of healing gave self care to getting stronger and weaker with buffs and nerfs to sloppy butcher. This after the PTB will still be a viable strategy and is actually a bit stronger with the buff to ruin. It's also a beginner friendly macro strategy but fully committing to this strategy alone will only work on few killers, mainly high mobility killers with easy first hits, Wraith, Legion et al.
Territory Control
This strategy the most basic and by far the most dead of the macro strategies, reaching it's height during the gen kick meta this strategy is not viable as your main strategy to win a match anymore. With the gen regression limit, anti camp hook proximity detection, and the removal of hook grabs the old days of setting up a three gen as trapper getting your first down and using agitation iron grasp to hook in the middle of your mine field and then letting the fireworks happen is dead, even the more common usage of it where survivors with poor game sense would do all the gens in one area of the map and three gen themselves is dead due to the gen regression limiter guaranteeing survivors always win the battle of attrition in that scenario. These base game changes basically killed off trap killers and really hurt low mobility killers.
Tunneling
I don't think this needs to be explained much but with basekit borrowed time plus all the PTB changes I don't view this as a macro strategy that will be all that viable although it can still be viable with a specific build, it's no longer a flexible one size fits all solution.
Just Dominating
Not really a macro strategy as much as it is when you have enough hours in the game you tend to be able to dominate your chases and end them quickly enough that teams really can't get much going and just end up collapsing under the pressure with all you needing to do is play a killer that has some sort of power you can use in chase and just mindlessly chase whatever is in front of you, this has also become way less accessible with the massive nerfs to gen regression over the years meaning you can't really use gen regression to make up for not being completely dominant in chase and still just going after whatever is in front of you. I'd say gen regression is at the weakest it's been in my entire time playing.
So basically of the four main macro strategies to win we're left with two and only one of them being accessible to the majority of the player base, meaning you don't really have much to think about or decisions to make as killer in most matches making the matches less dynamic to play. This also leads to less diversity in the types of killers you play against as Hit and Run is most effective on high mobility killers and Just Dominating is most effective on anti loop killers, this is why dash killers are so popular as they check both those boxes. Also I think this kills the natural way new killers play, learn the game, grow and improve. Meaning we'll be getting less new killers since there is no real natural progression for them to follow anymore. The natural progression I talk of as a killer is you start barely being able to do anything if you get one down it's a miracle so then you camp it and try to control that territory like a mad man giving you the few victories you're going to see at this stage so you have a little hope that one day you'll do better, then once you're a bit more confident but not really able to win chases in a good amount of time you start doing hit and run, after awhile you start seeing success in your chases while doing hit and run but you're still not good enough to win your chases fast enough to just chase everything you see so you start tunneling, then after you get better you move into the just dominating category.
You may ask yourself why should you care if playing killer is less engaging with less choices to be made I'll give you the very simple answer, with the lessening of options matches are going to be a lot more one sided and more uniform as there is no pivot to be made mid match to address the changing situations. Before the gen kick meta 3 gens were actually amazing and fun on both sides, it was a tug of war where either side could win if they made the correct choices, also most killers didn't play for the three gen territory game but pivoted into them as a way to try and salvage a game that had gone off the rails, likewise tunneling as obnoxious as it is when somebody does it right off the bat when it was used in a game that had gone off the rails for killer a bit it added suspense and stakes on both sides keeping the match interesting rather than being a cake walk to a 4 man out. We've also see survivor lose their most fun comeback mechanic recently, where the game is lost but somebody 4%s off the hook and then the team is able to rally and recover from there, these are genuinely engaging and fun gameplay moments that we've been losing over the last while, I think the most egregious PTB change that is going to cause these fun moments to be lost is the slugging one, where a killer does a mass slug to try and bring back a lost match or your teammate with unbreakable turns a lost match where the majority of the team is slugged into a win. It's making the games a lot more predictable and a lot less dynamic. That being said I think with a slight tweak the anti tunnel thing in the PTB could be healthy, make it so if 2 or less gens remaining the killer can't get the punishment and putting the number of hooks down to 5 and that probably solves most of the pain points and covers for bad survivors getting themselves killed early while still eliminating the obnoxious start of game tunneling. Generally my thought is more choice as a player equals more fun and less predictable onesided matches.
Now as promised for those of you who still wish to tunnel from the start of the match and win here's a generic build that will work on any killer and should cover this wish. No One Escapes Death, No Way Out, Lethal Pursuer, Deadlock. Hard tunnel person number one right off the bat using lethal pursuer to go to where the majority of survivors are at the start to make the weak link obvious and disrupt as many others as possible, deadlock slows down gen progession during your tunnel, all you need to achieve is your tunneled person dead and one person hooked by the time the last gen pops and you'll usually get a 3k/4k just by camping that hook and surprise noeding their team when they try to rescue, no way out incentives them to go for the rescue before doing a door to maximize your chances at a 4k.
If you still want effective gen regression it's also still very possible, most people don't remember the glory days of ruin when it was 200% regression so probably don't realize how powerful it's going to be again at 150%, running Ruin, Undying is going to be very effective most matches you just have to play a more split pressure based game like hit and run style instead of committing to chases like you're used to with the current regression system. If you're using a killer that gets M1 downs adding Surge can make ruin that much more oppressive and since we have basekit Pop Goes the Weasel now if ruins goes down you still have decent gen regression and you could even supplement that with something like Oppression.
If the changes go live as they are you're going to have two options to win, play hit and run or just dominating your chases. For a hit and run build that will get you good milage in the new meta. Ruin, Undying, Gift of Pain/Sloppy Butcher, Nurses calling. The way to decide on Sloppy Butcher vs Gift of Pain comes down to your confidence in how fast you can get hooks, if you feel confident in chase Gift of Pain is better, if you're less confident Sloppy Butcher is better. Ruin and Undying are there as a better Corrupt intervention as it should let you start to build pressure in the early game and if it somehow lasts past the early game it'll guarantee you the win. Nurses calling will help you interrupt heals to maintain your pressure and find easy targets. I suspect we'll see a lot of builds like this going forward.
For dominating the game there are two ways to go about it, you can focus on making your chases miserable for the survivor with your perks so they don't last long building up pressure with constant hooks or if you're more confident in your chase ability using perks to get yourself easy first hits then relying on your skill to get quick downs that way. So with that in mind here is a build for each way. Crowd Control, Blood Favour, Undying, Thrill of The Hunt/Pentimento. I'd go with Thrill of the Hunt on killers with good ways to protect their totems for other killers I'd go Pentimento, the idea behind both of them is to make survivors waste as much time cleansing totems as possible, Undying makes it so you should have Crowd Control and Blood Favour both for your first few chases which should help you snowball the match by the time all your totems are gone. For the less chase oriented build way to play this style I'd go No Where to Hide, Unforeseen, Machine Learning/Oppression, Lethal Pursuer. Lethal ensures you start the match well building up pressure from the get go, Unforeseen will get you a bunch of free hits and mask that you have No Where to Hide, likewise Machine Learning/Oppression also masks that you have Nowhere to Hide. Nowhere to Hide will get you a lot of free hits. The decision between Machine Learning vs Oppression comes down to whether you want to slow the match down a bit or get a bunch of free hits and easy chases. This build also synergizes nicely with basekit pop and bbq.
My personal predictions for the new meta is killers we'll lean hard into chase perks and aura perks when survivors get used to that they'll start running counters, we might even see a resurgence of distortion at which point I think a lot of killers will start using stealth perks, but it's hard to say how the new meta will shake out at this point.
Comments
You are not going to get any insightful comments from anyone on this thread, I mean look at this you wrote a logical essay but you get downvoted anyways because you are defending killer and saying something other than "tunneling is an easy braindead mechanic which gives killers free wins and anyone who does it deserves to be executed" so despite your 4k hours you are still seen as garbage in this communities' eyes, welcome to the DBD forums and community as a whole
15.000 h player here (2 accounts)..
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3561081972
left: my old OG 2016 account (no vac, no cheats, → only rare skins, so i prefer to play my new one) right: my main. (created a bit after legacy was gone)
and my achievements too — shows I played way more surv than killer back then, in case the whole ‘yeah, killer main’ chatter pops up again (i play both super active - and i still do.)
i’ve posted this before in another thread (and on steam), but it fits better here:
What BHVR’s rolling out is straight-up dumb: more survivor safety nets that reward bad play while punishing the killer for, y’know, reacting.
And no, I don’t care what consolation buffs killers get—none of it fixes being told to play blind and ignore stuff happening right in front of you because “you shouldn’t.” You can’t have a PvP game where one side gets to play bad with zero pressure to improve, while the other side is forbidden to punish the misplays they’re literally watching. It’s wild—no other game does this. Play bad? Here’s your shield and a buff. React to bad play? Here’s your penalty.
This doesn’t reward good killer macro; it actually rewards bad survivor macro.
30s mini-godmode after unhook: Haste, Endurance, “elusive”/concealment (less info/tracks), sometimes killer aura reveal, no loud unhook notif, delayed hook status, etc.
Result: Unsafe unhooks aren’t punished—they’re masked. Team can play over-aggressive and the killer is told to “move along.” If I stay, I’m the bad guy; if I leave, it’s a free gen rush. That’s rewarding bad survivor macro (greedy trades, hook rush) instead of good play.
Killer doesn’t instantly see hook state, no hook ping, sometimes no hook aura. So: less info exactly when good reaction matters (anticipate trades, separate saver vs. saved, hold zone). That’s not “balance,” that’s blindfolded killer. Again: good killer macro (zone control, informed swaps) gets nothing.
Sounds nice (“play fair, get Haste/gen-kick/aura ping”), but it’s basically a design shove: play our way or pay. It shifts skill from macro (holding zone, prioritizing) into a gen-kicking minigame. Survivors can even trade bad unhooks because the killer is incentivized to walk away.
Meaning: Mistake ≠ consequence; it’s “mistake → killer, please swap targets.” Bad survivor macro = protected.
Early kill before 6 hook states? Team repair +25% and/or killer can’t block/kick/regress gens. So… if I play efficiently, I get punished and they get faster.
Literally “Play dumb, win dumb prizes—(for the killer).” Why would I secure a strong zone if a quick kill slams me with a gen lockdown debuff? That devalues good macro and rewards bad survivor macro (feeding in a hotspot).
Combine unhook shields, info denial, target-swap candy with anti-slug thinking and you get: dive in, trade, mask it, while the killer loses reactive tools—the exact stuff that makes the role deep. Slugging isn’t pretty, but it’s a counter-tool vs. that over-aggression. Removing it protects bad survivor macro even more.
Everything this game is drifting toward: bad survivors can do whatever they want—no matter how aggressive, careless, or dumb—no consequences, still a good time. The killer? Not a threat, just the party clown to entertain the group. And when survivors lose interest because two things don’t go their way, they just DC for free and queue the next match. (Yes, really—no DC penalty when the round goes bad for them.)
Meanwhile the killer has to watch a hook get sabo’d, someone intentionally go down in a pallet, the full team rush in with flashies/body blocks/whatever—and the second you react correctly, it’s: “Yup, try to pick—nope, that’s evil… slugging.” And tunneling as a clear consequence? Also not allowed.
Play like a killer and you get punished; play badly as survivor and you get bubble wrap.
I play pretty much the whole roster on both sides. As survivor I’ll sometimes full-send into the killer to deny all pressure. That’s legit. But it also has to be legit for the killer to punish that without griefing themselves. Don’t force me to roleplay blind and ignore free value when someone misplays—that’s the game, that’s the price.
Now we’re talking about stripping a huge reaction tool from killer so survivors can misplay (or even profit)? Why? Keep doing that and the answer for a lot of players is Nurse/Blight only. Boring lobbies, shrinking killer variety. And no, this isn’t “bad killer wants ez 4Ks.” It’s about fair, skill-expressive, symmetric risk–reward. If I overextend as surv, I deserve the hook, a hard tunnel and a slug. If killer throws, survivors capitalize. Let killers react to greed and mistakes so matches stay dynamic instead of forcing everyone to look away from what’s happening on screen.
Let killers punish greed/misplays. Don’t delete reaction tools or you’ll push people into Nurse/Blight and flatten variety. It’s not about easy wins—it’s about fair, skill-based, two-way risk–reward.
/edit..
so all in all: (only my Pov)
ook-state economy flattens: single mistakes cheaper, mistake chains pricier.
how is this a good direction? we’re ripping reaction tools out of killer, telling us to RP blind and ignore free value, then acting shocked when everyone defaults to nurse/blight. less punish = more free value for greed plays → linear games, variety dies. it’s not “bad killer wants ez 4Ks”; it’s about symmetric risk–reward. if i overextend as surv, hook/tunnel/slug is legit. if killer throws, survivors should capitalize. slapping a handbrake on killer until only dash tops are viable doesn’t make the game fairer—just dull. seriously, how is that good?