Endurance (& by extention Deep Wound) doesn't make sense (anymore)
Prior to 6.1.0, Endurance was a somewhat niche status effect, to my knowledge only applied by Styptic Agents, Soul Guard and Borrowed Time, only 1 of which came in use frequently. As such minor discrepancies and oddities that it had back then such as protecting Survivors in Deep Wound, being ignored when the survivor is grabbed or Mettle of Man using an entirely different effect that works almost the same way were never really considered major issues.
With the release of the infamous Meta Shakeup to live Servers, that changed. Namely through 3 changes to Borrowed Time, Dead Hard and Off the Record respectively. BT was now naturalized as a basekit anti-tunnel mechanic, Off the Record took up Decisive Strike's mantle as THE anti-tunnel perk and Dead Hard dropped its Dash Ability in favor of gaining a half second of endurance that could be used to tank hits. After the Discovery of Endurance stacking was made on the PTB, an additional change was made to the mechanic that made it deactivate while already in Deep Wound, as well as being affected by conspicuous actions.
Its safe to assume BHVR thinks of Endurance as a way to rebalance the game in light of an increase in tunneling, so I feel the need to point out why that isn't really working, alongside some suggestions on how to do it better.
The core issue is the ways you can completely counter Endurance now, the main offenders being Legion, Deathslinger and any killer that can apply Deep Wound (for example Pinheads "Original Pain" Add-on). Now it makes sense to provide some sort of counterplay with the status effect becoming more prevalent, but all it really seems to accomplish is letting these killers tunnel without a downside, which really doesn't seem like what they were going for here. Even worse is that a lot of other killers can just shrug off a tanked hit like this anyways, say a certain Chainsaw wielding Texan or basically anyone using STBFL. Anyone else can just waddle behind a survivor with BT and hit them as soon as the duration ends. This was fine when BT was just a perk; it was a risk you were willingly taking when equipping it. Now that its a part of the basekit its no longer something that can be pushed aside, but a realistic issue that can come into play in every single match.
On the exact opposite end of this debate is the ability for Endurance to counter various killer abilities. Off the Record and Dead Hard are the main offenders in this case. Dead Hard in its previous state was already notorious for ignoring the likes of Trappers Traps outright, but removing this aspect has proven ineffective for fixing the problem as Endurance basically also does this. Its not neccessarily bad to be able to last longer against the likes of Huntress and Nurse, but when the same can be said for any instadown killer (Billy, Myers, Bubba, Plague (ish), Ghostface, Skull Merchant to name a few) making Survivors genuinely safer injured than they are healthy, then we run into a problem. Its even worse for Killers who, as is, struggle to down survivors with their power efficiently, such as Trickster, Twins or Knight.
My Point is that Endurance as a game mechanic doesn't work in the areas that its being used in. Therefore I ask for either a complete rework of the Effect or an individual rework of the affected perks. As a starting point I suggest replacing basekit BT with a full-on invincibility period if you want it to actually work against tunneling, or giving Dead Hard its invincibility frames back without giving it a dash, making it more of a dodge button than the third health state that it is at the moment.
Comments
I'm fairly sure basekit endurance was introduced alongside a movement speed increases to make unhooked survivors not feel helpless as weather on not your unhooked ran BT was outside of your control.As further proof the initial duration was 5 seconds,clearly not enough to stop a tunneling killer.
If you feel that killers bypass your endurance to quickly just run DS,i don't know where the mentality that its dead came from.I do believe its worse that OtR,and it doesn't let you make distance anymore,but it still allows you to continue looping the same tile/structure.It went from the best perk in the game,to a very powerful one.(killers even expect it less than before).
Out of the killers being able to bypass endurance you mentioned,Legion and Deathlisher are not problematic,they techinally "hit" you,and even give you a speedboost.Only pinhead is problematic, other killer addons are fine,trapper for example applying deep wound with his traps for example is irrelevant.
DS can do something only if it's slow M1 killer. The perk is bad. Get chased by blight, nurse, spirit, wesker, plague in power, piramidhead or even nemesis and there it's super likely you will get much less value then 10s out of it (the only thing that can save you is strong tile for respective killer. But how/why would you go down to said killer if u were at strong tile to begin with?).
The perk has any value only if it's freddy, trapper, pig, meyers (without any tombstone) and other like them...
You have a layer of endurance(Dh,OtR,basekit or even BT if you are brave enough) meant to help you out.If that is somehow not enough,DS can be added on top.Also even old Ds against nurse or blight didn't do much,and as mentioned previously its not meant to give you distance anymore,just to allow you to continue looping a nearby strucutre/tile,while also buying your teammates time to come and bodyblock for you.
Old Ds reset your whole chase. It did much. You could actually relocate to a tile that made more sense. Current DS is almost useless (well it helps against weak killers and it resets your deep wound status so you could use DH - which will no longer work in new patch - making the perk about as useful as say solidarity - meaning it's not totally useless, but chances are high it will not change anything in the match).
As for the other mentioned perks. BT helps against campers so you at least can get to a stage where u r tunneled instead. OtR is perfect anti-tunneling perk, that works only if you are being tunneled without being camped (camping w tunneling change the perk to just distortion and iron will for 80s). Personally - I don't like the perk for this reason (it's wasted if killer is "fair" and it does nothing if killer really wants to tunnel hard). DH is getting fat nerf and considering you were at mercy of ping even before this change + same as OtR it will not help you against camping tunneler (or blood echo. Or slinger. Or legion. Or pinhead w original pain. Or.....) The perk is so limited now, that it hardly makes sense.
Fully agree old DS was a different beast,but iron will or ruin are dead perks,ds is still serviceable and arguably the best perk to pair with DH.Regarding the dh nerf,i'm willing to bet it will still be in the top 10 survivor perks,but i guess we'll have to wait and see(it went from 3 uses a match to 2).
While I don't think any of this is a compelling argument against Endurance (and by extension Deep Wounds) itself, you have hit on one thing I agree with here- I don't think the basekit anti-tunnel should be using Endurance, because it should be uniformly useful against all killers.
Deathslinger and to a much, much lesser extent Legion (as they can't bypass BT, they still have to hit you to put you in Deep Wound, but they can bypass Dead Hard) being able to counter Endurance isn't that much of a problem for most uses of the status effect- as you say, they're perks and addons, and that's just the risk you're taking by bringing them. But, Deathslinger being able to tunnel with impunity, while not a hugely prevalent problem, does raise some question marks.
There are two suggestions I would make with this in mind. The first is what I think should've been done from the start: Make the anti-tunnel protection a complete loss of collision. No using it offensively, no weird combos, just make distance or be vulnerable when your ten seconds elapses.
The second is to make the basekit anti-tunnel work like Mettle of Man, give the block without causing Deep Wounds. I don't favour this outcome, it's too easy to use offensively, but that's true of the current system to and at least this would function better when it's used defensively.
Either way, anti-tunnel perks that provide Endurance (or just other sources like Dead Hard) aren't invalidated by hard tunnelling, which I think is a good state for the game to be in.
As mentioned in my first comment,basekit endurace was very obviously not meant to be you weapon against tunneling.It was added because you we're helpless if you unhooker didn't bring BT(outside of your control),as proven by that fact that is was initially 5 seconds.
If you want to implement an anti tunneling change, you need to buff killers in return.You can't just remove one of if not the strongest tactic a killer can use without a hefty compensation.
I'm confused on what you think the difference is, though. Obviously "anti tunnel" means... giving you a tool to ensure you're not helpless if the killer decides to tunnel you?
I think you might have a broader definition of "tunnelling" than is helpful for this discussion. When I say anti-tunnel, I only mean when the killer decides to chase someone immediately after they're unhooked, not the killer prioritising them later or happening to find them again after a short duration.
That's why I suggest a loss of collision. Something to ensure you can't be downed immediately and that'll give you time to reach a loop, but not something that'll protect you if you play aggressively - nor something that'll stop the killer from trying to down you anyway if that seems like the best decision.
Basekit endurance was added so the killer can't down the unhooked survivor for free.It felt unfair and out of your control whether or not the unhooker had BT.If the unhooker didn't have it the killer could have also easily downed both survivors in quick succession near a hook,which was in most cases was a game over,that felt uninterractive.
Giving the survivor no collision changes nothing,the killer can in very few and situational scenarios bodyblock the survivor(Basement is a good example),meanwhile it allows the survivor to stay inside the killer hitbox which makes the killer unable to swing at anyone else.(bad for endgame scenarios)
Giving them a MoM is straight up busted.Everyone would run OtR and tank 2 hits for free,pair it with DS and deadhard and its borderline unfair,and the sole reason why endurance doesn't stack.
I'm sure they could figure out a way to prevent the survivor stopping the killer from hitting anyone. If nothing else, the killer moves faster than survivors and could lunge out of it, lol.
You're right that losing collision wouldn't change much, but it would crucially prevent your basekit anti-tunnel from simply not working against a killer that can bypass Endurance. That may only be two killers now (Deathslinger and Pinhead), but it's better to nip that potential problem in the bud rather than let it fester.
Yes, I don't personally favour the MoM answer myself since it does allow survivors to bodyblock and tank hits. It could be balanced properly, but it'd require a lot of careful tweaks and I think losing collision would be simpler; they're just both options for fixing the specific problem of basekit anti-tunnel sometimes not working.
I'm glad we can see eye to eye on certain points.
Regarding the loss of collision,do you want survivors to be unbale to be interacted with for 10 seconds?Because losing collision doesn't prevent slinger and pinhead from spearing/chaining them,it just prevents bodyblocking.If you do,then from a balance perspective it might be fine,but i fear it interrupts the atmosphere the game is trying to portray.You should never feel safe from the killer,and being untouchable easily breaks immersion and the logic the game tries to present.
Losing collision would mean they cannot interact with any other entity in the game, surely? That's what I'm given to understand it means in most games, they'd simply phase right through everything except terrain. Great for making distance, basically useless for trying to mess with the killer in any way.
The atmosphere objection is one I empathise with, though I do think that at some stage a little broken atmosphere is an acceptable price to pay. It comes down to how badly you want to address the current tunnelling problems, really- something should be done, and losing collision has the least balance repercussions. Personally, I could live with the little broken immersion- it'd only even be noticeable if the killer's really on your ass.
For the record, I was also imagining this intangible state would cancel when you perform a Conspicuous Action, and only last about as long as the current Endurance, so not exactly a huge shift in tone.