Sprint Burst can encourage tunneling

cogsturning

Yes, I know, it's 2026 and I'm actually complaining about Exhaustion—specifically Sprint Burst—but hear me out. I'm on the record as being pretty anti-tunnel and I'd like to see some basekit protections in that area. But I've been maining Henry, a 4.4 killer, these last couple months and if there's one thing that'll send me back to the hook, it's Sprint Burst. Consider this scenario:

Chase starts, World Breaker goes up. Survivor goes down, gets hooked, I use aura or add-ons to go into Undergate and find my next [distant] target. I get there and I recognize them. It's the Lara with SB, Finesse, and Vigil that already zoomed away at match start, and she's standing there looking at me, waiting for me to initiate my slow exit so she can hurl herself to shack or a strong tile, away from key gens and all my pressure. But the unhook notification goes off and I decide I don't have time for that, so I go back to the hook. And if the unhooker decided to farm and slowly walked away from the hook instead of taking aggro, the blood trail is what I'm following. It's not what I want to do—it really, really isn't—but I've already wasted too much time on the standing SBer.

Sounds specific but it's pretty common for me. I actively avoid SB users in my killer matches, which increases pressure on the other non-SBers. Perks like SB, especially combined with other synergistic perks, are selfish perks that don't help your team if the killer doesn't have the mobility to deal with them. Being selfish is allowed,  but these perks are likely to make many killers break chase with you. And that puts your team at risk, which also puts your personal outcome at risk. Lithe, at least, you can botch and is RNG dependent. Same with Balanced Landing. Dramaturgy has ups and downs and limited haste. Smash Hit requires a successful action. All these perks are also more likely to activate during an already started chase, but SB is a way to avoid chase entirely. It has basically no depth, almost no way to screw it up, and no conditions. If we're ever going to have a meta shake up, this is the first perk that needs attention.

cogsturning

@BigKingWoof said:

Coming back to this and being more mature about it, I will say that you are pretty much correct that if a survivor is too good, or rather, too troublesome to catch in a timely manner, then they just won't. The idea is to be as much of a distraction as you possible can be, so you have to be enticing enough to catch, but not too much to dissuade the killer. SB is such a hot topic right now that killers just sigh in annoyance when they see it, and possibly won't want to deal with it.

Personally, I don't see SB as a problem on its own. You either have to walk the entire match, or waste it getting to somewhere and not have it when you need it. Throwing Vigil in there, I see where that becomes a problem. I feel like a lot of killers complain about exhaustion perks simply because they feel they're owed an easy down, but I'm all for them being changed for the sake of shaking the meta. Things have been the same for a bit too long, and I want to see how the playerbase adapts to the new meta.

I appreciate this more thorough response.

The idea is to be as much of a distraction as you possible can be, so you have to be enticing enough to catch, but not too much to dissuade the killer.

Yeah, this is the balance. Sometimes I'll ego chase even though I know I'm throwing, but not always. The middle ground of enticement is hard to land but important, and faking being worse than you are is probably harder for some than others.

SB is such a hot topic right now that killers just sigh in annoyance when they see it, and possibly won't want to deal with it.

I was not aware of this. My only engagement with the community is this forum (and everything is complained about here), and takes are from my own experiences. That's warped my view a little in a way, because maining Henry since his release, SB is his biggest weakness. I'm often put in the aforementioned situation where I approach someone while in Undergate and they just stare at me, and I know how it's going to go. If I emerge, they run with a guarantee of no hit, and my undergate is now on cooldown. They're also out of M2 range. I can't do anything against them unless I'm running Rabbit Remains, so they've made it not worth it. It's not a situation I really enjoy being in.

I feel like a lot of killers complain about exhaustion perks simply because they feel they're owed an easy down, but I'm all for them being changed for the sake of shaking the meta

I don't personally think I'm owed anything. I'm just making the point that if people play like this, the killer may shift their tactics. I do think Vigil is the bigger issue though, when combined with SB.

Like I said above, I'd love to see the top meta perks on both sides obliterated. I can't stand anti-gen on killers either. I'd like to see a perkless modifier as well. I believe a lot of good info could be gathered from such an event.