You Can't Weaponise DS
I've seen a fair amount of discussion around the forums lately about whether or not survivors weaponising DS is a problem, or how to fix the problem of survivors weaponising DS, and rather than toss a response out into the sea of answers in a thread that isn't really about what I have to say anyway, I figured I'd make my own post.
My problem with these threads is that the central claim is rarely examined, so let's do that here. Can survivors currently weaponise DS?
No.
They can certainly try, they can run directly into your face and start trying to bodyblock, but they can't actually force it anymore. The best they can do is try and make themselves enticing bait, but it's always on the killer to fall for it, and the killer can always avoid eating the DS.
If you're in this position, the counterplay is extremely simple: Ignore them. If they're in a tight doorway, hit them, then ignore them. That's it. Weaponising DS no longer exists.
Worst case scenario you're slugging one survivor and chasing a second, which is obviously more in your favour than if that first survivor went to go do generators somewhere- and that's the worst case scenario.
Comments
Yeah, I don't understand this "weaponising DS" narrative going around either. We're not in 2019 anymore.
People with this narrative usually overlook so many details and facts when explaining their point of view.
I agree people are overblowing this "issue".
So a person with DS bodyblocks you and wants you to eat it. Who cares? They are wasting time waving their butt in your face, you can slug them (they are wasting time), or just power through it like nothing, if you have the right killer for it.
By simply having DS it allows them to 'weaponise' bodyblocking with lower risk.
Survivors bodyblock with unhook endurance, forcing the killer to hit the unhooked survivor, but then they continue for a second hit, safe in the knowledge that they won't be hooked again.
They're entitled to use up their anti-tunnel measures this way, buying time for other survivors at their own expense, but the only viable counter for the killer is to then double down and tunnel them after burning through DS, which is understandably irritating when you're intentionally trying not to tunnel.
So yes, for a perk and a basekit mechanic that are intended and balanced around mitigating tunneling, to be used in a way that penalises non-tunnelling killers, can certainly be seen as 'weaponising' something that should be a 'defensive' measure rather than 'offensive'.
Yeah, it is an overblown issue. Ever since conspicious actions exist, people trying to force a DS is not an issue. Since when they try, they are not doing anything, which is good for the Killer.
Also, DS is weaker than before, even when back at 5 seconds. Simply because Killer got stronger over time, maps got weaker, etc… You get less use out of the 5 second-DS than before it was nerfed in 6.1.0.
See, you've missed a step here and it's part of what baffles me about this conversation.
So, you lay out that they can bodyblock with unhook Endurance and force the killer to hit them. Solid, I'm with you so far. You say that they can then continue for a second hit, which I think is starting to stretch things a little but they can do that, so alright, I'm with you.
Then you skip straight to the killer eating DS and doubling down to tunnel them, which raises the really extremely pressing question of "why did the killer pick them up". Surely anyone in their right mind is going to realise a survivor that willingly went down like that has DS, right? So you'd just… not pick them up and continue to chase whoever you were actually focusing on, thus occupying two survivors for the price of one chase.
1. It's a gamble whether they have DS. It's a perk, not basekit.
2. Lying on the ground is what the survivor wants. Whether they get picked up and hit DS, or wait for another survivor to pick them upn they see it as win-win. Your next best option is typically a healthy survivor some distance away by now. You've lost your chance to go for the unhooker. It is making it more difficult for the killer to not tunnel. It's now better to pick up, eat DS, then continue to chase the injured survivor.
So when a mechanism that is intended to make tunnelling more difficult, is used by survivors to make not-tunnelling more difficult, it's a complete reversal, that's 'weaponising' it.
Because even if you completely ignore it, they just wasted at least 30 seconds of your time because the survivor you were TRYING to get, is still running away from you while you are stuck wiping blood off your weapon like an idiot. And on top of that, it gives that survivor time to reach a STRONGER part of the map. Maybe you are currently in a part of the map where a few chases have happened, and there are less pallets, maybe its a TL wall, and, oh look, body block by the guy with DS, now the guy i was chasing is at a killer shack that links to a jungle gym, guess i'm the idiot now?
1: Sure, but in the scenario you're describing where the survivor willingly runs over to get downed, it's a safe bet they have the perk that makes that not a terrible idea.
2: It's "some" distance but it's not that much distance, it's only a protection hit. They could definitely have made it to a new tile depending on circumstances, but in that scenario the extra time investment you put into that chase is being rewarded proportionately with extra damage to the survivor team's efficiency. You put a little more time into that chase → Two survivors are occupied instead of one.
It may be what they want but that doesn't mean it's actually all that good for them.
See above.
It might not be good for them, but it is still 'weaponising' it.
Kicking a wasps nest isn't a great idea either but it's still an offensive act and the wasps are entitled to be pissed about it.
I mean, I see people who weaponize DS as the same as people who weaponize BT
You've made yourself my target now. If I pick you up and get stunned by your DS, I'm going to pick the chase right back up and take you down again. Your cries of "TUNNELER!!!!" will fall on deaf ears.
I mean… sure, but at that point, it seems kind of silly to complain about it or even really talk about it. Survivors could "weaponise" a bunch of stuff if we accept that them doing so can result in throwing the game and it still counts as "weaponising".
Just seems like an unhelpful definition to use for discourse. Not exactly an impactful weapon if it hurts you and not your opponent.
That's where we come back to killers that aren't intending to tunnel.
You're trying to play fair, your opponent forces you into a situation when playing fair backfires. It sours the entire experience. You get pushed into a lose-lose situation where you either fall behind or you get backlash for tunneling.
You're punishing the wrong people and perpetuating the cycle of toxicity. Those killers are likely to end up thinking they may as well just tunnel to begin with anyway.
No, that’s just wrong. Saying you can’t weaponize it just because you’re not “forced” to pick them up isn’t a rational statement. The shear need to sometimes hit them or down them just to get them out of your way has already delivered the intended value whether you pick them up or not. Anyone who plays at high mmr would agree it can be weaponized, this isn’t a debated fact. The only debated part is how much of an issue it is or how counterable it is.
What?
No, we already laid out that killers who aren't intending to tunnel aren't being harmed by this. They can flat out ignore the slugged survivor and it still breaks in their favour, not the survivor's.
It's not a lose-lose scenario. One of the scenarios - slug the survivor and chase someone else - is a win scenario. It used to be lose-lose when survivors could do objectives in your face, but not anymore. Now you have a win scenario to pick.
How is it weaponised when the thing that they achieved - being hit and slugged - is detrimental to them?
You heard it here folks. Being slugged is what Survivors want.
You're naive as ######### if you think otherwise.
They either have teammates ready to pick them up or Unbreakable.
If the unhooked guy bodyblocks the Killer to prevent him from going after the unhooker, that’s called weaponise what’s supposed to be defensive mechanics. DS, BT, OTR, all are under the same category.
By the way, Survivors still have the option to get into the locker and force Killers to take it.
For example when a Killer downs a Survivor under pallet, a DS user that just got unhooked run straight towards the Killer and patrols the area for the save. When Killer gets close, he immediately jumps into locker. Now the Killer can’t really pick up anyone without being punished.
Of course Killer can just take the DS, but that’s definitely counted as weaponising it.
It is not detrimental to them. The shear fact that they choose to do it proves this. It is a net positive for them to do so. Them getting slugged is worth the hits blocked from the person you were trying to go for.
A slugged Survivor is also Map Pressure. Less with Unbreakable, but without Unbreakable you still have 2 Survivors not on Gens.
DS doesn't actually improve your bodyblocking, through. You still need the Endurance not to get downed when you take the hit, and if you do take the hit, there is nothing forcing the killer to pick you up and eat your DS. If you're just bodyblocking, you get downed, and the killer slugs you, DS is doing nothing in that scenario.
I could see that locker example being annoying, I'll give you that.
How?
Survivors choose to do things that throws the match all the time, most of the time because it's just more fun than playing it safe and doing the most optimal thing.
So, how is them getting slugged worth it? What do they gain out of this?
I mean more than likely a survivors doing this with those perks because it gives them more value. And multiple of them can run this to do it over and over. And it's not like if you don't force the perks out they can't just do it on their next unhook. So your best bet is slug them. Make them pick themselves up with unbreakable. Or eat the DS. So you remove a perk from being threatened again. How's that fun for the survivor. Or why would the killer want to do that if they are trying to play fair. Their options are slug someone. (Survivors hate that) or tunnel them forcefully (hate that to)
That doesn't mean this wasn't the survivors intended outcome. Otherwise they wouldn't be attempting to force a DS hit.
This game isn't that black and white that every action is either good or bad, most things are conditional. Good survivor teams know that a slugged survivor is worth more than a hooked survivor. They are absolutely revelling in the fact that the killer cannot pick them up.
The counterplay is to tunnel every survivor off the hook, to prevent them from weaponizing DS. It's even better when you can hit a survivor during basekit BT, to deactivate any OTR they might have. Killers don't know which survivors might want to weaponize DS, so the best strategy is to just assume EVERY survivor might want to weaponize DS.
No, the counterplay is to ignore them, or to slug them in the few cases where they can bodyblock tight doorways.
That is far more to your benefit than hard tunnelling them through the tools designed to make that take more time.
There’s a huge difference between slugging survivor intentionally, and being forced to slug survivor. The former benefits the Killer, while the latter hurts him.
Imagine if Survivor runs toward edge of map where Killer can’t hook him, then Killer is forced to leave him. Sure he can’t do Gens to progress the game, but same goes to the Killer as he doesn’t gain any progress without hooking Survivor. All the time you spend chasing that Survivor is wasted.
I mean, sure, but why would you chase someone with DS to the edge of the map? You only even bother to hit them if you absolutely have to, otherwise you ignore them.
Unless that's just meant to be an example of slugging not being to your benefit, which granted, but that logic doesn't apply to the situation we're talking about.
EDIT: Whoops, misread who this was responding to. Still!
Slugging a Survivor NEVER hurts a Killer. What the #########?
Those are mental gymnastics at its finest. Not doing Gens is always good for the Killer, no exceptions. Or how do you twist that a Survivor on the ground (willingly or not) is better than a Survivor NOT on the ground?
I agree, just wanted to chime in and add i'd even go as far as predicting 3 survs not on gens. Because often that 2nd surv is in trouble which will pull a 3rd surv off their gen to help the downed teammate. The survs have now almost completely had their objective progress stonewalled, and its possible that its not progressing at all if the 4th surv isn't even on one.
Exactly. And if you add to this that the Survivors might not be on Comms, you can also imagine that multiple people try to pick that Survivor up. (Since not even Kindred would work in this case)
Survivors in high mmr and 4 man swf aren’t doing it for the funsies, there’s a reason. They do it to deny a PR proc, GE proc, delay a Pop activation, protect someone else that is on death hook ect. All things that provide more value than them going down, of which very often also run Unbreakable to remove the downside anyway.
Yes it does apply.
Imagine a DS Survivor with OTR bodyblocks a hallway, and Killer is forced to hit him. Now what should the Killer do? Still going for the unhooker who’s probably miles away now, or chase the DS guy? If you chase him, and if you managed to down him in 30s, so now what? Wait for 30s for DS to expire? Or leave him and start looking other healthy Survivors? Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for Killer, as Killer doesn’t gain any progress without hooks.
Even worse, after chasing for 30s, the DS user jumps into locker just as Killer is about to down him, and Killer is forced to wait there until Deepwound/DS are gone, otherwise it’s a free escape. Sure you may tell me to just eat DS, but that definitely counts as weaponising DS.
So tell me how is this not benefit Survivors, but counted as “pressure” for Killer?
I think it’s pretty silly to argue that it can’t be weaponized, as it clearly can be. It’s just not often a terribly effective thing to do, especially given the conspicuous action constraint.
You don't really need those perks to proc if you're occupying two survivors with the same chase, and as for Unbreakable, I think it's even more to my benefit if I'm getting survivors to waste two potentially high-impact perks for no real benefit.
A survivor on the ground may be less good for you than a survivor on the hook, but it's still significantly better than a survivor up and doing gens, which is what this outcome needs to be compared to.
The absolute best I can say for this argument is that there may be some slight back-and-forth even though it still breaks in your favour ultimately. That's kinda it. You're trading a perk proc for a different kind of value.
In that scenario, you would continue to chase the unhooker, who is as far away as a survivor can get with a protection hit. Not nothing, but not terribly game-swinging either in most scenarios.
Your ultimate goal is to ignore that survivor. You hit them only when it cannot be avoided. Ignore them and they'll keep running around after you to try and force perk value, which is impossible now, so they're just wasting their own time. Exactly like flashlight squads.
If the end result if them attempting to weaponise it is that it harms them, does that really count as weaponising it?
Maybe that's a pedantic nitpick with language choice, but idk, it feels like a pretty meaningful element to me.
We are here on the list I see.
What?
No, the counterplay is to tunnel survivors off the hook. Remember that not every survivor uses DS, and over the course of many games, the time saved by tunneling survivors that don't have DS, makes up for the time lost by tunneling survivors that have DS. Also, if a survivor does have DS, it's best to just attack them immediately, to stop whatever DS combo they might want to do.
Also, if you honestly think my strategy is bad, then you should be happy that I'm doing this strategy, because it means that, according to you, I'm worse off doing this, which is a benefit to the survivors I'm playing against.
Oh is it? Slugging NEVER hurts Killer, is that what you’re saying?
If that’s what you say, “All Killers, hear me out! From now on, go for 4-man slug every single match! It’s what Survivors thought to be the best strategy!”
Imagine you get into a match as Pig, slug the first Survivor, and now you search for another one. Since you don’t hook anybody, so no Pop Pain etc, so by the time you find another Survivor and injure him, 3 gens done, and you got no hook. WOW Killer is winning!
Now unless you’re some god tier Pig who ends chase under 30s, and is capable for going for 4x slugs, Survivors can just reset everything you did by picking up slugged Survivors, as you don’t gain any progress throughout the entire match. Even better, there’s 4x Unbreakable, so they can just pick up themselves! WOW Killer is winning again!
“Slugging NEVER hurts Killer, eh”
You’re focusing on overall value rather than second to second value. Yes getting unbreakables out of the way and pressuring two survivors at once is great but the reason to do this is buying precious seconds to finish popping a gen right before they can hit it with that PR or right before they can get there with a Pop kick ect. It isn’t always about overall value. That isn’t two wasted perk slots.
Sometimes two cups of water now, is worth more than two gallons an hour from now even though a gallon is objectively better.
Tunnelling survivors off the hook means chewing through their layers of anti-tunnel, one of which - DS - is now quite powerful. You then, at the end of this, have occupied one survivor for an additional hook state.
Ignoring the survivor trying to weaponise DS means you don't have to chew through their anti-tunnel layers, at most only having to hit their Endurance once if they block a doorway, and at the end of it you've occupied two survivors.
In terms of progressing your objective and slowing down the survivor objective, ignoring the survivor is the better choice.
Why would I care about the survivors you're playing against…? I'm speaking from the killer perspective here, pretty obviously.
Yes, correct, the overall value is the part that matters. The overall value here is much higher because you're occupying multiple survivors, which both slows down the survivor objective and puts you in a better position to progress yours.
They might pop that one generator. That's about all they're getting with so much of their team occupied, though. One generator doesn't matter unless it's the fifth, and even then you've got time.
So? That means it’s a free distance for the Unhooker, meaning DS user has successfully waste Killer’s time by extending the chase. How is this not counted as weaponise DS?
Their time is the one being wasted, not the killer's.
Again, don't compare this situation to how long that chase would take without bodyblocking. That's not the thing you need to compare this to. Don't even look at the chase time, frankly.
Ask this, instead: How much repair time would the survivors get with three on generators instead of two? How much better is it for the survivor team to let the unhooked survivor heal and reset, instead of them chasing the killer around to add a few seconds to their chase with someone else?
It's not weaponising DS because the end result for the survivor team is often worse than if they'd just treated DS as a defensive tool. Even the best case scenario is an extremely marginal benefit with downsides.
You’re severely downplaying how important that second to second value is. Getting that one gen done at that moment before all the regression can activate can be worth a lot more than you’re realizing, even when it’s not the 5th gen. That could be the break of their 3 gen and now their final 3 are on opposite sides of the map. Overall value is not always more important than second to second value. Realizing this would change your entire stance on this topic.
I mean, sure, any slight extension in chase can be a big deal in the right circumstances, but I don't see how that really affects the overall point here.
It's also worth mentioning that none of what you're describing has absolutely anything to do with DS. The slight extension to chase we're talking about comes from Endurance, not DS, because the only thing DS is doing is compelling that survivor to run around behind the killer like a headless chicken.
You can absolutely weaponise Endurance. You cannot weaponise DS.
I never said that slugging is the best outcome for the Killer. Obviously, if you have Pain Res or PGTW, hooking is better than slugging. But slugging does not hurt the Killer at all. The Survivors dont benefit from a slugging Killer.
So maybe it benefits the Killer less if they slug instead of hooking. But it never hurts them.
And dont worry, Killers already know that slugging is good for them.