Dying Light Rework Needs More Work.
The Dying Light rework is not just bad, it’s unhealthy for the game.
This rework has certainly been substantial, however with the amount of conditions, drawbacks, and frankly tiny numbers placed on this perk, it remains an undesirable perk.
At tier 3, Dying Light grants a stackable 3% slow to repair, healing and saboutage for each time a non-obsession is hooked. This bonus is lost if the obsession dies. The obsession gains a permanent 33% buff to healing and unhooking speed.
First, I want to put aside the obsession changing mechanic. Technically, through Decisive Strike or Furtive Chase you can cause the obsession to switch, allowing 2-3 extra stacks of Dying Light, HOWEVER, you cannot guarantee a survivor is running Decisive Strike to do this reliably, and utilizing Furtive Chase is not a great option. This is because it involves hooking your obsession to use the switch mechanic (giving them the option to die, or be left to die by allies in order to negate DL entirely) but also does not guarantee the obsession status will switch to the survivors you have already gained stacks from. It also involves burning a full perk slot for 9% slow at most, while all other effects are nearly universally regarded as garbage.
So discussing JUST Dying Light by the numbers:
At most Dying Light can reach 9 tokens, 3 for each of the 3 non-obsessions. This would be equivalent to a 27% slow, however the only survivor left is unaffected.
For 2 survivors left alive, the maximum debuff is 1 survivor affected by 24% slow. (An average slow of 12%.)
For 3 survivors left alive, the maximum debuff is 2 survivors affected by 21% slow. (An average slow of 14%.)
If you have all survivors left alive, the maximum debuff is 3 survivors affected by 18% slow. (An average slow of 13.5%)
These are the absolute maximum values of the slow across the entire team, 12-14% different from usual. And keep in mind, this is only what the value reaches after 6-8 hooks, and is only regarding generator repair, as saboutage is largely irrelevant, and the healing debuff is largely offset, or even outweighed by, the buff to the obsession.
Ok, so doing the maths, the numbers are a lot lower than they seem when we consider that one member of the party will be unaffected. So what is the point then?
The point is that it leaves Dying Light in a very awkward position. The perk starts the game by doing nothing. As most people know, the start of the match is the most crucial and without slowing perks, you are likely to have 2-3 generators go off at around the time the first survivor is hooked.
If we’re generous and assume only 2 do, and that no other generator is touched, even if you manage those first 6 stacks of Dying Light you’re only adding around 11 seconds to each generator. 33 seconds total.
Let’s compare that to other stalling perks in the game. Ruin goes without saying, everyone knows it is effective, but unreliable, however in just amount lost by great skill checks not advancing generators, 33 seconds is easily bought by most Ruins, substantially more if it lasts a long time, or if survivors don’t hit the great zone. Thanatophobia, a perk which is widely regarded as mediocre, manages to hit the same maximum slow with only 3 people injured. Pop Goes the Weasel easily outclasses this 33 second value, adding 20 seconds with every use, requiring only 2 to vastly outperform it.
When we discuss Dying Light, it obviously doesn’t exist within a vacuum. It clearly has some synergies with other perks. Pop Goes the Weasel (and to a lesser degree, Surge) work well with it, as each use of them is amplified by Dying Light, as the amount regressed will take longer than it did initially. Combined with Thanatophobia, a substantial potential slow is possible, though this is largely only reliable with Plague and Legion, as they are the only ones likely to keep many survivors injured at once. Freddy is also a possible candidate as he possesses action slowing add ons. Sloppy Butcher presents an interesting option, as it slows healing, meaning each heal would take longer and longer with Dying Light, meaning survivors are more likely to keep the injured status and allow Thana to stack up as well.
However, we have to consider what this means. Are you, as a killer player, going to bring either Pop Goes the Weasel or Thanatophobia JUST in order to make Dying Light feel valuable? Maybe. On top of that, are you going to bring Sloppy Butcher to make Thana actually work? Still a possibility. When you think about all these things, are you going to then forgo Ruin in the hopes that it works? Probably not, because you’re then risking that gens will get done before this whole build even gets off the ground.
In order for Dying Light to feel like a valuable perk, it requires OTHER stalling perks. Even just these simple concepts take 2-3 perk slots before considering you probably still want Ruin. In order to MAKE this perk work, you’re only leaving yourself with 1-2 other perks. If you want any form of detection, anything that functions in a chase, or even just BBQ for points, you’re leaving yourself very cornered for this one perk which buys somewhere around 30 seconds, max.
When we consider other obsession perks, it now leaves Remember Me as the ONLY perk that encourages going for the obsession. Save the Best for Last, Play With Your Food and Rancor all reward or encourage leaving the obsession until last, or even until all gens have been completed. Furtive Chase means the obsession status jumps around and doesn’t affect any one person more than another, and Dark Devotion is pretty neutral. Survivors have just got a bloodpoint scoring event for dying/surviving as the obsession? Why? It’s a pretty easy life as the obsession as it basically means nothing OR it means the killer DOESN’T want to touch you all game.
So why is this bad, or unhealthy for the game? Firstly, it’s probably not going to shift the meta. BBQ will never lose its spot while it grants double points. Ruin will always hold on until there’s something significant that is active from the start of the match. (Which Corrupt Intervention is NOT good for, but that’s a different discussion.) Chase perks like the Enduring/Spirit Fury are always going to be top tier as time saved in a chase is invaluable. A full stalling build can work sometimes, but the sacrifices that it brings are not something most killer players are going to migrate over for.
It quite possibly may become the top meta for a certain few killers, as mentioned before, Legion is already a stalling killer that can benefit from thana, and Freddy has stalling options in his kit. Plague is unique in that it works greatly in her favour, as survivors either suffer through permanent full thana + DL or grant her corrupt purge, making in a very win-win combination regardless of your other 2 perks. POINT IS, we’re always being told holding M1 isn’t “fun” for survivors, so now we’ve devolved 3 killers to a pretty optimal build that only translates to holding M1 for a really long time, while for the other 14 killers the addition of the new Dying Light is going to change almost nothing.
It’s unhealthy because it means these 2-3 killers are risking falling into that “this is #########, I’m DCing when I see them” pool for running perks that synergise with them, for the sake of a perk which now is either garbage or ridiculous.
It still definitely needs work. It should affect the obsession, and be paused when the obsession dies rather than disabled. (Ie, it cannot gain stacks but will still apply the slow to survivors.) The healing/altruism buff is already an upside to the obsession, and they are already in a safe zone of the killer not wanting them dead, making them immune to the slow is overkill and leaves its overall debuff value at a laughably low value.
That said, and as a killer player I realise how poor this sounds, it probably shouldn’t stack with Thana, as it becomes incredibly problematic only on specific killers because of how they interact with injury. Although, to be honest, I’d prefer to see thana just reworked to be a perk that functions at a decent level for all killers, not just those who keep the whole team permanently injured.
Either way, new Dying Light is not a good perk, nor is it a healthy one.
Comments
Should probably make a tldr.
In my opinion, BHVR should take a look and balance the base length of a match and rework most slowdown perks instead of making mediocre slowdown perks that take the fun out of the game for both sides (killers can't change builds as some perks are near must if you want to have a chance as some of the lower tier killers and survivors will be bored holding m1).