Vigil needs a nerf
A numbers tweak won't work, if the numbers are tweaked, either it'll be too little and change nothing, or too much and the perk is dead. Slapping on ONE perk that can counter dozens of killer perks is insanely overpowered, nevermind that it also supercharges exhaustion perks.
Instead of nerfing Vigil's numbers, I propose the perk be split into 3 pieces. Vigil affects 8 different status effects, so 2 perks will have 3 status effects it reduces, while the last will only have 2. I would imagine the perk with only 2 should affect the most prevalent statuses, probably Exhaustion and Exposed.
Will the other 2 be used less? Maybe, but the perk as is just does way too much for such a small investment.
Comments
vigil just needs to be 11/22/33
thats still powerful and useful and doesnt completely negate out 50 status effects from impacting you or your entire team
Vigil needs to not remove exhaustion and exposed and rest may stay as is.
I have way more survivor perks on the radar that should be looked at… after cross examination was nerfed there is made for this, we gonna live forever, champion of light, lucky break, sprint burst, botany knowledge, conviction, built to last, dead hard, delieverance, dramaturgy, lend a hand, 1-2-3-4m bardic, plot twist, parental guidance, resurgence, reassurance, smash hit, unbreakable, we'll make it.
Once we nerf nurse, blight, ghoul, and Jason we can get some nerfs for survivors. Until then it's just a bad idea.
Nurse I agree onm although I have no idea how. Blight was nerfed and apart from double speed add ons I believe he's mostly fine. Ghoul is in good spot atm, he's not oppressive as he used to be and his free hit and free hit from leap cancel is something not particulary strong, just annoying. If Ghoul should've get further changes, I'd make holding power window shorter and rework Yamori mask and cempetide and that's it. Jason is not very strong, he just promotes the most boring gameplay comparable to old skull merchant. While he can get free hits from 2000 broken pallets on the map, Spirit can do that too. I'm more annoyed from his free tracking because I reckon that killer with heavy infinite mobility, nearly permanent haste and insane projectile truly doesn't need free tracking on top of that. Imagine if Spirit has dried cherry blossom basekit, wouldve been nerfed immidiately.
I don't think I can have a productive conversation with someone who genuinely thinks ghoul is okay and Jason is not very strong. You simply don't know enough about the game to understand problematic killers and why they are bad for the game.
I have serious reasons to think so. I do agree that Ghoul has very low skill expression but after revault been added he's not that great anymore, before you simply couldnt do much. I'm not saying he's not good, he obviously is but not on lvl of killers mentioned above. Jason's overall kit is very strong but not any of it. I do agree he needs tweaks because he shouldn't be able to be master of everything. So we can easily have conversation because none opinion is wrong. While I don't mind playing against some killers others would hate me for that.
at the end of the day vigil is two different perks in one slot, that should change
Not really. However I despise the antiexposed more than antiexhaustion. Those two things must go and perk can serve as tool to remove antiheal perks quicker. Hindred should not be the part of perk ever as that status effect is already nieche out of Clown.
as it stands it's the only debuff cleanser in the game rn, it's a necessary evil as a support style perk. if you want to do anything maybe move the exhaustion component to ghost notes but I feel people would complain even more at that if it was stronger coz of its secondary effect.
I still don't understand why we dont have any alternatives to it.
While I agree it needs a nerf, I don't agree with this approach. If it is split into multiple perks, whichever one has exhaustion on it will still be really strong if left at the same number. Whichever one doesn't have that will be a lot less useful. I think it's fine being a single perk honestly, the numbers are just way too high and there is plenty of room to lower them and the perk to still be useful. Personally I think it should be around 40% which would still be a little higher than the pre-2025 version.
It's a no brain perk that is a catch-all, limiting a huge amount of perk and killer expression. It's just outright unhealthy for the game. It doesn't just reduce effect timers on almost every effect in the game including survivor triggered ones, it also benefits your teammates. That's an absurd perk.
There needs to be rebalancing all around. Vigil needs to eat a massive nerf in the same way that hyperfocus/stake-out need a massive nerf. Unfortunately as you see in this very thread people aren't willing to see X side nerfed until Y side is nerfed, which continues this nonsensical us vs. them version of balancing. If X is nerfed, Y will respond with N, which means X feels justified in M. This creates a new balance nightmare before Y ever even gets nerfed. The crowds will cry and beseech it and whine endlessly, regardless of which side we're talking about.
The entirety of the current balance is going to need to be nuked from orbit and rebuilt, at least initially, in total ignorance of both survivor and killer feedback. Then, after the readjustments are done, the feedback can be addressed.
Survivors will cry out over any surv nerf and killer buff and think they are right.
Killers will cry out over any killer nerf and surv buff and think they are right.
Neither will stop their whining long enough to allow a more holistic across-the-board readjustment to occur. You can see examples of that here in this very thread. It's this inherent and ongoing vitriolic tribalism that keeps us locked into the current stagnation.
Hyperfocus Steak Out has already been nerfed with Diminishing Returns.
Vigil is powerful but has a limited range. It also changes it up when the killer expects a certain time or strength of a debuff, but Vigil means they have to adapt on the fly. There have been so many nerfs to survivor, especially the syringe and styptics. I'm sure the strong killer perks and powers have been developed with Vigil in mind, too.
1 - Hyperfocus/Stake-out is not effected by diminishing returns.
2 - The range is the bonus, not the issue. It's the cherry on top. It having range at all is absurd.
3 - The Killer perks have not been designed with Vigil in mind in any way I can see.
I'll expound upon 3.
[Friends 'Til the End] is a 20 second Exposed. This is reduced to just under 7 seconds for vigil. 20 Seconds is not often enough time to track down a surv inflicted. 7 is right out.
[Haunted Grounds] inflicts 60 seconds of exposed on all survivors, once in a match, upon being broken. With vigil this is reduced to 20. A perk being balanced to inflict 20 seconds of exposed a single time in an entire match is flatly and dramatically underpowered.
[Hubris] inflicts 20 seconds of exposed on a pallet stun. This is reduced to 7 with Vigil. The pallet stun lasts 3 seconds, just under. Now assuming the killer breaks the pallet they have 2 seconds left to chase you with Exposed. You are going to lose this by the time they move. Equally, if they don't break it, you can just vault game it. Hubris is functionally 100% countered by Vigil.
[Make Your Choice] inflicts 60 seconds exposed, requiring the killer be 32 meters away. With Vigil this is reduced to 20 seconds. A standard 4.6 killer covers 32 meters in roughly 7 seconds. However the survivor covered another 28 meters running in this case. By the time the killer catches up vigil will cycle Exposed. They quite literally only need to hold w.
This is just the Exposed examples mind you. The examples for Hindered and Mangled are more damning still.
[Forced Hesitation] inflicts Hindered at 20% for 10 seconds, then enters cooldown for 30 seconds. Vigil reduces the Hindered to 3.33 seconds. This effects all survivors within 16 meters as does vigil, mind you.
I say the perks and add-ons aren't balances for this because I cannot see a way in which you balance 66% off of a given status effect as a potentiality, without overpowering these effects on those who do not use Vigil. The problem isn't that Vigil is strong, Survivors should have strong perks. The problem is that it's cripplingly strong, boosts survivor builds, shuts down killer perks and some base kit abilities, and does so in an AOE. I cannot see them having balanced killer perks around the possibility that the killer would only get 33% of the perk value. That would require sizable buffs to durations, which I fear is what we will see if Vigil isn't nerfed.
What part of hyperfocus/stakeout was nerfed by diminishing returns? My understanding was that they are unaffected because they give progress on skill checks rather than a direct gen repair speed buff like deja vu.
Below is what I posted on another thread:
As I understand it, Stake Out/Hyperfocus/Instrument builds have also been affected by Diminishing Returns, in fact they are hit twice - with both reduced Skill Check Chance and reduced Skill Check Bonus progression compounding:
Part 1: Skill Check Chance
Before: Maximum theoretical Skill Check chance: 84%
After: With Diminishing Returns: 40% + 12% + 5% = 57%
Part 2: Skill Check Bonus Progression
Additionally the bonus progression is reduced - assuming Stake Out is also in the build:
Depending on the number of Hyperfocus tokens, either the Stake Out bonus progression is halved, or the Hyperfocus bonus progression is halved. So a ~4% bonus progression becomes ~3%, and a theoretical maximum bonus progression at 6 Hyperfocus stacks goes from ~7% to ~5.5%.
Result: Fewer Skill Checks x Reduced Bonus Progression
Very Rough Example
The full/accurate calculations are more complex but this does show how Diminishing Returns definitely does impact this type of build. It is noticeable in-game, but I think it just softens these builds instead of nerfing them. In this case it does open up the possibilities for new Toolbox add-ons to increase Skill Check Chance, like their medkit counterparts.
Who on earth thinks that botany knowledge, champion of light, the instrument perks, parental guidance, reassurance, and smash hit need nerfs??? And that's just me picking out the half that are the most obvious, but even something like We'll Make It is strong but not OP
Let me explain…
Botany knowledge itself powercrept half the healing perks like desperate measures, flow state, empatic connection… with no real downside. When it had antieffeciency it made sense, yet still was strong. If you ever want to run any heal perk you always pop on botany because ot works on you too.
Champion is a free getaway from chase along with hinderance only because of the haste. It's even stronger than lucky break or cross examination because you get it only for blinding killer at the pallet.
Both 1-2-3-4 and Bardic are purely genrush oriented and are insane at it. I'd even say that 1-2-3-4 is even stronger because it provides the skill checks that bardic doesn't. So you can roll 20 and still have no skillcheck but 1-2-3-4 is melting that.
Parental guidance is the same issue as lucky break or cross examination. If you dissapear, more tunnel will happen and you can hide cheaters by those perks.
Reassurance obviously shouldn't even exist. 100s of hook stage is way too much. There is already enough punishment for camping.
Smash hit has highest speed boost while being weak if useable against strong killers and too strong against weak killers that have no way to deal with pallets.
I understand your reasoning with Botany and Smash Hit, although with Smash Hit your suggestion was just to triple its exhaustion which just nerfs the perk a ton without changing how it's more effective against weaker killers. However, between your post on these changes and the explanations here, it just kind of sounds like these are the perks that frustrate you, whether or not they actually need nerfs. Like who on earth is saying Reassurance needs a nerf besides people who hard tunnel and camp (something the game and devs constantly try to discourage with changes and perks), the only thing it does is counter tunneling and camping, it basically isn't a factor at all if you aren't doing one of these two things.
That's not how it works at all, Vigil makes it tick 66 percent faster, it's not literally 66 percent of the duration.
You can test it out with Sprint Burst it's about 23s, which is not 66 percent of 40s:
40 seconds / (1 + 0.66) = 40 seconds / 1.66 ≈ 24 seconds40 seconds * (1 - 0.4) = 40 seconds * 0.6 ≈ 24 secondsIt reduces debuffs by approximately 40 percent
When the description got updated players have been complaining like it got buffed to 66 percent, when it was just changed to more accurately reflect what it does.
Given it doesn't stack anymore, the perk is fine, even on nightlight its at a 40 percent escape rate which is well within BHVR's balance range, unless their official stats reflect differently there is literally 0 reason to nerf this perk lol
Woo, now that's confusing. If that's how that perk works, they definitely need to address terminology in the future.
It's funny you say that, as they changed it FROM 40 percent to the now 66 to reflect how it's calculated, so it's a bit misleading lol
That said I'd not be opposed it to go back to the old value which was 30 percent (currently 40) If official stats are showing its overperforming.
It really shows how much of a numbers game DbD is! I don't use Vigil much so had not looked into it too much. Yeah it provides a good benefit but since it hasn't changed in 5 years, it doesn't need to be nerfed.
It has changed though, it received a massive buff 1.5 years ago which is what made it a problem. Prior to that it wasn't an issue
You're right, but it was a 10% buff and back then it stacked with itself, so that was the issue I think. I think the AOE is useful but can't say it's game changer.
The patch notes from that were wrong and I think is part of what led to the confusion around the numbers - the notes claimed it went from 30% to 40% which I agree if that were the case it would've been fine, but it actually went from 30% to 66% - 66% being roughly equal to the 40% duration reduction as was noted above (with the old 30% increase being around a 23% duration reduction which if anything was probably a little too weak). The effect was more than doubled basically along with getting a bigger range. It later lost its ability to self-stack but I don't feel like that really addressed the problem with it since 1 instance of the perk now is still worth more than 2 instances pre-buff, and the larger range means it applies a lot more often too.
old Wiki Vigil page
You can find the old calculations here, it was infact close to 20ish-30ish percent reduction which might go with what you are stating, then again I can't count I'm just going off face values, sorry if I'm wrong:
edit: sorry I read the message quickly and misunderstood some things, but hopefully these calculations help
They explain it in the wiki here: https://deadbydaylight.wiki.gg/wiki/Vigil#Temporary_Description_Discrepancy
The "+66% recovery rate" is functionally equal to "-40% effect duration". And it was "-30% effect duration" before patch 8.5.0.
Yep this is correct and these were the numbers prior to patch 8.5.0. (And this is still how it works now just with the 66% number instead of 30% and no more stacking)