Will to live adjustment
Think about how often this situation happens as Killer:
A survivor gets unhooked. Rather than chasing the freshly unhooked survivor, you immediately switch targets and go after the rescuer—as the game generally encourages you to do.
Instead of running away, however, the recently unhooked survivor deliberately steps in front of you and bodyblocks, using their Endurance to physically prevent you from reaching the rescuer. At that point, you have three realistic choices:
- Ignore the bodyblock and let the rescuer escape.
- Hit or chase the bodyblocking survivor instead.
- Wait for the survivor's endurance to run out and then smack em
In my experience, this scenario happens frequently. More importantly, the survivors willing to make these aggressive bodyblocks are also often the ones running Decisive Strike. As a result, the Killer can be punished for responding to a survivor who intentionally inserted themselves back into the chase.
That creates an awkward gameplay loop. A perk designed to discourage tunneling can end up rewarding survivors for making high-risk, aggressive plays that they otherwise wouldn't be able to make safely.
I don't think the solution is to fundamentally change or heavily nerf Decisive Strike. Its purpose as an anti-tunneling perk is important.
A much simpler adjustment would be to delay the perk's activation. Instead of becoming active immediately after being unhooked, Decisive Strike could activate 20 seconds after the unhook, with its 60-second duration beginning at that point.
This preserves the perk's intended role of protecting survivors from being tunneled shortly after an unhook, while reducing situations where a survivor can immediately bodyblock, force the Killer into hitting them, and still retain full access to Decisive Strike. Choosing to aggressively re-enter the chase would carry meaningful risk, while survivors who simply leave the hook area would receive the same protection the perk was designed to provide.
Comments
You missed the 4th of smack the body block the second they try and continue to chase the unhooker. It works super well 90%ish of the time.
Also how is ignoring the body block letting the rescuer escape?
Regardless of that, a 20 second delay will make it so its practically useless to the average survivor (and many above average at that).
DS should not work once the user is fully healed, uses Plot Twist, or the killer hooked a different survivor when the other one is already unhooked. That would fix most of the aggressive abuse issue.
by the time you realize whats happening, realize you cannot get around said survivor, etc 5ish seconds has likely passed - thats a 5 second head start. If you smack the body blocker, that gives an additional 2 ish seconds for the animation to go away - so you would be starting a chase around 7-10 seconds delayed if you play that optimally - which a survivor can just hold W and make hella distance- making a chase often non practical or a waste of time.
Option 5: A lot of killers have the option to go around or through the body blocker without issue. Nurse, Blight, Billy have the mobility. Myers can clip right through with a short stalk. Etc.
Option 6. Slug the body blocker.
I dislike this suggested change to DS. Imagine being an innocent non-tunneling killer who picks up a survivor 79 seconds after they got unhooked to get hit with a DS stun.
....if it takes 5 whole seconds to figure out your body blocked I would question the competency of the killer.…
Regardless of that, if you smack the body block immediately then it's 2 seconds instead of your supposed 5+2 and there's a guy gotta mend for bonus.
I agree survivors should just have one hook state and should die instantly after being hooked.
Can you show me where in the perks description it says the perks "intended role", or why its usage should be limited to a specific scenario?
I can see a few flaws with your adjustment. First one being that it completely removes the protection for those that are genuinely being tunneled (which according to your reasoning is intended purpose for the perk). I get unhooked, immediately get downed, and hooked again before 20 seconds is up. It's useless in this sense.
Another thing is that it can still be used aggressively, maybe even a tad bit better if used properly. Waste a few seconds getting chase, you get hit, go down, and the killer chases down any hovering survivors nearby, then the perk is up. The delay can easily give you more time to use it by essentially adding 20 extra seconds to it's use. All you'd have to do is get your friend to hover around long enough. It'd be way worse paired with OtR wich gives you 40 seconds to get hit, which is enough time to get Will to Live active, and then a bonus 60 seconds to get downed and picked up. That just seems a bit too strong to me.
The OP is making a suggestion for making it harder to use DS offensively which is not its intended purpose. Maybe explain why you think that’s a bad idea rather than unhelpful sarcastic comments and turning the discussion into an “us vs them” thing again. See comment just above mine for example.
A slippery slope. I've downed unhooked survivors after five seconds with bubba again. That would create a scenario where proxy camping with strong abilities could be encouraged.
people with DS are so obviously desperate for perk value they're kind of easy to ignore imo. Yeah its cheeky but very rarely does it actually help them like they think it does.