The actual problem with medkits/COH
I'm wondering what you guys think is the biggest current issue with COH/medkits. Is it the fact that they allow you to heal up so much quicker when combined (or individually on altruistic heals)? Is it the fact they allow you to reset solo?
In my opinion, I see two different problems with them. For medkits, the issue is that, at worst, it's more efficient to heal up alone with a medkit than it is for your teammate to heal you with the best medkit. A teammate would have to heal you at 100% increased speed in order for an altruistic heal to be as efficient as a medkit heal (8s+8s of idle time, as opposed to 16s of solo idle time). And even in this case, the medkit heal is a better option because if the killer happens to push your location, it's only one survivor being pressured. The issue here specifically is the fact that medkits are so strong for self-heals that it's almost always more efficient to medkit yourself next to someone working on the gen than it is to have them heal you then get back on the gen.
For COH specifically, it's the same problem but for different reasons. Firstly, COH is one perk out of 16 that affects 4 survivors. It's essentially a better, stronger version of Self Care that's extended to your entire team. Here's the biggest problem however: self-healing yourself in a boon is just as efficient as an unbuffed altruistic heal outside of a boon. What this leads to is an increased efficiency by survivors healing in a boon, because they're harder to pressure when they're split up, and there is no extra travel time for another survivor to perform the altruistic heal on the first survivor. In addition, COH makes Self Care (a perk that's very well balanced currently imo) completely obsolete. The issue specifically is the availability of a Self Care option, and the speed of this option. Healing yourself in a boon shouldn't be MORE efficient than healing yourself with a perk that's exclusive to healing yourself; that's just absurd.
Comments
The biggest problem is that they make Hag sad D= /j
I'd be down for a CoH nerf, as long as it's not into the ground, because it should still be viable. Make it the same speed as Self-Care, make it only possible to boon once on each dull totem. Would still be useful, but not too strong, and setting it up would mean more idle time looking for a new totem to boon instead of going back to the same known location.
(that's just spitballing, not actual thought-out solution, so not saying it's the perfect way to go lol)
The thing with CoH is... The game is currently balanced around it to a satisfactory killrate.
So if it really is this strong, and this prevalent, and really carries games this hard... Then removing it or nerfing it into the ground would make the game unbalanced killrates-wise, which would entail more adjustments on the killer side.
Unless, of course, it covers around the same variation of killrates that the HUD icons have created. But we, players, can't know that, so it'll be BHVR's call as always.
Allowing survivors to be self sufficent is very powerfull in any factor. By performing the action yourself you gain several benefits:
This is true for not only healing but unhooking (deliverence) and picking up (unbreakable). Medkits are the strongest version of this as they're both fast and reliable. CoH is also good however it loses out on a lot of efficency if you only need one heal and you replace needing to find a teammate with finding a totem, in matches where your team needs to heal a lot it's good but otherwise it's outclassed by a few good medkits. Notablly unbreakable needs you to be slugged and deliverence needs you to unhook so some team play is needed for these options to be set up usually.
CoH is probably fine as a whole due to the inital time investment, although it's quite polarising for killer. Blights, bubas and Weskers can just commit to chase or don't care too much about people being healthy so it's managable, while wraith, dredge and sadako need people injured and to spread injuries to win (although wraith and dredge at least have the mobility to find the totem first). Medkits need to be slower with their heals, reliable self suffency is already good so I don't see why they should also get the benefit of being twice as efficent baseline in terms of time.
The ability to self heal relatively fast is what makes them way to strong.
CoH would be in a way better spot if they made it back to 100 % BUT only for altruistic healing and remove the ability to self heal.
Self Care doesn't fall under that category because you literally take longer to heal yourself than it takes for a teammate to heal you, so there is efficiency lost.
"CoH would be in a way better spot if they made it back to 100 % BUT only for altruistic healing and remove the ability to self heal."
It would be effectively worthless like that, requiring way too much work to get it to positives. You'd save only eight seconds per heal, minus time spent moving to radius, and you'd need to weigh that against set-up time.
CoH is, IMO, way less of a problem than people think, but if it must get a nerf, just make its own heal speed boost not work with self-healing. And even that might be a bit much.
They both arent issues, they just exacerbate an issue that some how no one realizes despite them being the only thing they have in common, and thats healing.
A fix for this that effects normal heals, self heals and most importantly medkits? For everytime you get injured (except for the first) it takes an additional 2 charges to heal with a maximum of 24 charges. This has a big impact on medkits, as already a Green Medkit with Gel Dressings would now only be able to net you 1 heal instead of 2.
With this change they could also return that one thing they tested way back where the more Survivors were hit the more bloody theyd look. This would represent the stage theyre currently in
CoH is too strong imo because it gives Survivors infinite med-kit that is decently fast and makes med-kits even more strong. Any other perks that allow you to self heal are just way worse compare to this perk and it's a team buff perk on top of that.
There are many ways how you can nerf this perk:
Never used Inner Strength, but I might give it a go !
I'm not a big CoH fan, hence why I wouldn't mind it being nerfed. I'm more of a We'll Make It / Aftercare person for fast heals and knowledge of where teammates are if I need another heal later. Or know where they're chasing. Or where gens are and what their progression is (Aftercare op too =D).
Otherwise I usually take a brown medkit for one independant heal if I'm in a pinch. It can be super fun to mess with Bite the Bullet too, though that's usually with a better medkit.
Right now I play item roulette with a chest build.
But yeah, give us back our totems guys, survivors don't have too many side quests as it is that we can leave CoH users hoard all the dull totems haha ! X)
8s per heal without any strings attached as long as you are in a boon is insanely strong.
"As long as you are in a boon" IS the strings attached. 14+ seconds to set it up and whatever time it takes to get to the boon area. Say it takes four seconds to move into the boon range, you've only saved 4 seconds. You'd need FOUR heals in that boon to get a minor increase to efficiency that would pale in comparison to Botany Knowledge, Desperate Measures, We'll Make It, heck, even Empathic Connection would shave off more time with heals like that.
All those perks have arguably more strings attached than a simple boon does, on top of only affecting one person. A boon affects the whole team.
The only one with more strings attached is We'll Make It, since it requires an unhook. BK, DM and EC are all total freebies.
BK eats your medkit charges, DM requires your team to be injured, and EC saves a whopping 1.6s. Not to mention they're individual perks, and don't force the killer to go out of their way (and possibly lose chase) to snuff.
Blights, bubas and Weskers can just commit to chase or don't care too much about people being healthy so it's managable, while wraith, dredge and sadako need people injured and to spread injuries to win (although wraith and dredge at least have the mobility to find the totem first).
I agree with this sentiment the most. I think this is major problem behind healing in dbd. chase killers with proper mobility in-chase mobility or instant down can mitigate effectiveness of healing making the mechanic relatively balanced. The problem with healing comes with killers that have in-chase low-mobility or rely on stealth hit & run tactics. all stealth killers too majorly effected by healing speed as their whole premise is striking at unpredictable times. With health-states, you can use health-states as aggressive armor-tool to second chance their stealth and once a survivor get to a loop. The stealth killer are not that good at the chase and can be really strong if the survivor is competent at using them. In-chase low mobility killers is every m1 killer. For example, Demogorgon is chase killer but at base-kit, he does not do well against health-states and you can yoyo him before the chase with the generators. The remedy perk for those killer is stbfl but being married to particular perk is somewhat not ideal. The negative drawbacks of the perk are also not ideal for that perk as some killer cannot mitigate the drawback like freddy, clown, doctor and so on.
The time it takes to bless the totem only applies to a single player. The other three only need to worry about going to the boon's area, which you can call a time investment but considering they'll likely be going there to run away from the killer that injured them in the first place, I doubt it's really a significant cost most of the time.
CoH is more efficient than any other healing perk because its cost is minimal, it's renewable, and can be moved if necessary. The only downside is time and placement and both of those are insignificant by comparison to other perks.
Basically the reason why they're so busted is because you basically get no multiple people pressure (excluding perks like old eruption) unless you hook camp which multiple medkits leads to anyway.
The issue with medkits is that it makes self-healing too fast and too easy. Altruistic heals are totally fine. I would actually say medkits should be slightly better for altruistic healing but nerfed for self-healing. Addons that add extra charges to medkits should also further reduce the heal speed as a tradeoff (like current Abdominal Dressing, but opposite). 44 charge green medkits that let you self-heal 50% faster and 60 charge purple medkits are also dumb and unbalanced.
As for Circle of Healing, the issues are that it's too efficient for self-healing (especially as an unlimited resource) and that the killer doesn't usually have a good counterplay option against it. Snuffing a boon on the opposite side of the map or in some other inconvenient location (eg. the top of Ironworks/Eyrie or a boon on a multi-floor indoor map) isn't really worth it when it can just be reset. Though the second issue there gets more into why boons as a whole are badly executed, not just CoH.
The only downside is time
In most discussions, time is the only thing that matters in the game.
If you nerf CoH, people will just bring medkits, which can be used anywhere, and heal considerably faster than Circle. Are you really sure that having someone full heal in your face while you break pallets during chase is the preferable option here?
The returns on CoH are variable, but it's also possible to spend 14 (or even 28) seconds booning a totem that gets zero value if found before it can be used, or even snuffed mid heal. Some people have clearly never had to bless (14s) and then self care for 21+ seconds, *after* hunting for and finding a relatively safe totem because that's the only option to go for a hook save.
The problem with CoH, as other people have said, is that it turns survivors self-efficient. So, instead of losing some time, traversing the map searching for another survivor to heal yourself, using time of both to heal and then go back to gens or chase, CoH negates all of this pressure for the killer, making survivor sel-sufficient.
In most discussions, time is the only thing that matters in the game.
Correct. I'll clarify: the only downside of CoH is time, but only one player's time, and it saves time and effort for every survivor on the team. If CoH is discovered early and snuffed, that set-up time is wasted. But if it's not? It pays for itself, several times over.
If you nerf CoH, people will just bring medkits, which can be used anywhere, and heal considerably faster than Circle. Are you really sure that having someone full heal in your face while you break pallets during chase is the preferable option here?
This already happens.
What makes medkits strong is that they take teammates out of the equation when you are the most vulnerable. And that is naturally going to throw off balance In a team oriented game.
The thing is that every item has been nerfed to where there is no reason to bring in anything else.
Medkits already need to be nerfed heavily.