Zakon05

Xenomorph does not nee a buff.

The character is basically as perfect as it can be with this design after the last set of balance adjustments it got.

Once mastered it is a high B/low A tier killer.

The problem with it is that the core design is flawed in that the flamer turrets are an enormous turnoff to people who want to try to learn the character. Once you learn how to play around them, they are no longer a big deal.

The only way to fix Xeno's pickrate is to completely rework it so that the flamer turrets are just simply removed from the game. This would also necessitate rebalancing several other aspects of its kit.

For better or worse this is the design we have, and I can't think of a single thing they could adjust about it. It doesn't need nerfs but it also can't really be buffed in any way without making it obnoxious to play against, akin to how it was when it launched and it had basically no punishment for missing a tail attack.

in if you could buff Xenomorph, how would you? Comment by Zakon05 June 3, 2026

@random1543 said:
They need to start spawning pallets based on the killer you are versing

is this too many pallets for killers such as ghost face and unknown? yeah.

Is this too many pallets for the top tiers like ghoul and nurse? not at all.

You know, it's not a terrible idea to increase pallet density for killers who have been proven to be high tier.

The question is if we can trust BHVR to implement that correctly lol.

"Our stats show that Sadako has the highest kill rate, so she will have the highest pallet density"

in Pallet density is definitely a problem Comment by Zakon05 June 3, 2026

@esarraf said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4084082#Comment_4084082
Scream perks, multiple killer powers like say doctor or legion. I mean I know that some people may say that's unfair to nurse and blight but eh I'm fine with perks that are stronger against S tier killers and make lower tier ones good. You can also try using undetectable since the perk has the requirement of being in the killers terror radius so once again a perk that is weak against killers like ghostface and wraith. Then there's just undetectable perks in general, and since the effect only lasts for a few seconds you can also just use a bunch of aura perks to find the survivor again.

I will say it's extremely rude of you to assume bad faith but I digress. Also, there's always mindbreaker to counter sprint burst from gens and there's the new divine killer perk coming out that halves the effect of any exhaustion perk if I recall correctly.

Anyway killers do have it easy, I mean for goodness sake tell me when there's a thousand+ survivor escape streak and I'll fully agree that survivors have it too easy. Until we get to that point however I'll continue to point out the basic truth that this game is fundamentally designed to be catered to killers. Just look at how the devs tried making hits fair by making them validated by the server and killers complained and instantly got that removed. They have literally come out and said they balance the game around the killers winning 60% of the time, objectively killers have it easy because the developers of the game are balancing it in their favor.

Scream perks won't help, I already explained why, stop bringing them up or refute me and explain why I'm wrong (you can't, because I'm not, and you don't know what you're talking about).

The rest of this post confirmed my suspicions: you do not play killer, you look at the killer role as a monolith, a single role where everyone who plays it doesn't care which killer they pick, not 43 different characters. You have such a lack of understanding of any killer that it's actually insane. You must literally never pick the role ever.

Doctor is less effected by it but means nothing to people who don't like playing Doctor. He has a really niche playstyle based around carefully timing shocks to deny survivor actions without losing distance and he's also one of the weakest killers in the game.

Legion has always had the problem that after the first hit, they must chase you like a normal killer, which means their power doesn't counter this perk.

Ghost Face can be revealed out of stealth from wonky angles or just by other survivors who might be nearby not actively involved in the chase. He's also extremely weak and it means nothing to people who don't like playing Ghost Face.

Wraith handles jungle gyms like an M1 killer, his stealth doesn't work in chase except to deny holding W or to try to get hit at chest-high wall 50/50 pallets where Cross-Examination doesn't do anything.

This is tangential to the discussion about Cross-Examination but you do not want to use Mind Breaker if you want to counter Sprint Burst. Mind Breaker makes Sprint Burst 10x more effective, because the most effective thing you can do with Sprint Burst is use it mid-chase instead of at the start of a chase. The only thing you did is make it easier for the survivor to 99 their Sprint Burst. This is why you almost never see anybody but stealth killers run it despite the fact Sprint Burst is so powerful.

You don't even understand how aura perks work. You think aura perks are just a button the killer presses that tells them where the survivors are for free? The closest it comes is Nowhere to Hide, which still requires a gen with progress on it nearby to kick.

And no, killers do not get thousand+ win streaks. Blight and Nurse got those. Because they're insanely overpowered. Most of the killer roster is not them. And they don't care that much about Cross-Examination. Because Blight can so easily pivot between chases, if he loses a survivor because of Cross-Examination then it's quick for him to get into a new chase. Meanwhile Nurse doesn't even play tiles, she just guesses where you are and teleports onto you, so the perk doesn't effect her at all.

in JCglitchmaster perfectly shows and explains how broken Cross-Examination is Comment by Zakon05 June 2, 2026

@esarraf said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4083999#Comment_4083999
It's not realistic for survivors to have something to counter everything killers can do just like it's unrealistic for killers to have counters to everything survivors can do. All I'm saying is that if any of your complaints are actually right then killers do have things they can use if heaven forbid the meta changes slightly.

Now I'm pretty sure you are arguing in bad faith.

I asked you to name something and you can't. I already explained why scream perks won't help and you didn't refute my points.

This tells me you rarely if ever play killer since you don't know what you're talking about. You just think there's some nebulous perk killers have that can deal with Cross-Examination because surely killers have something.

No, they don't, killers have no answer to this perk whatsoever.

And yes, some things are uncounterable. Survivors can't stop most regression perks and killers can't stop Sprint Bursting away from gens. But regression perks are literally required for most of the killer roster to even have a chance against good survivors, and Sprint Burst just gives you a strong opening to a chase and the rest is up to your skill.

Cross-Examination is active literally at all times at any loop higher than a chest high wall, killers can't do anything to prevent it, and it gives survivors an insane edge at any mindgame.

It's so exhausting with this community. The tribalism is insane. I am coming at this as someone who plays both sides. I've seen people defend insanely broken perks in the past like Dead Hard for distance, Boon: Circle of Healing, Made For This… it never ends. Killers do this too but it's so much more common among survivors. And I know why, it's because survivor takes forever to learn compared to the intuitive nature of killer, and it's possible and even common to lose as a survivor in the same match the killer also lost (1k/2k scenarios).

If you don't play killer which I know you don't based on what you're telling me then you just think killers have it easy, but they really do not especially right now.

in JCglitchmaster perfectly shows and explains how broken Cross-Examination is Comment by Zakon05 June 2, 2026

@100PercentBPMain said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4083235#Comment_4083235
I'm so bored of gen gameplay I love the turrets just to break the solo q monotony. xeno is what I call a "killer designed by survivor mains" its a shame that humans don't like to play as them though so the killers just dead.
very few killers give basekit help to solo q and xeno goes unappreciated for it

I don't think a killer designed by survivor mains would have the kind of map traversal or chase power Xeno has.

Most survivors don't like playing against Xenomorph. Some people like deploying the turrets, but actually looping a good Xeno is really hard.

in why does bhvr play it too safe with the designs for long waited licenses? Comment by Zakon05 June 1, 2026

@esarraf said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4083940#Comment_4083940
Or killers could just adapt and use perks to counter it? Screams, breathing, footsteps, and just not loosing them in the first place would be good.

If you aren't trying to argue in bad faith, I implore you to watch a video discussing this perk and why it's a problem with an open mind to see the problems with it.

But the short version is that it isn't realistically possible to keep eyes on the survivor at all times in a chase, which is the reason why this perk is a problem. There are a lot of loops in the game which block line of sight and force both sides to guess as to the other's location and what they're going to do. Any jungle gym, shack, most main buildings. These are the situations where the perk becomes a problem.

Breathing cannot be used to track in these situations. Being able to track survivors by breath is important for killers who literally cannot see the survivors (Spirit and Dracula), and for everyone else it helps you find survivors who are trying to hide right next to you, but it won't help you at jungle gyms.

Scream perks are all conditional, as in something needs to activate them. Kick a pallet, open a locker, or just wait out a timer and have the survivor look at you, which you have no control over. The only perk which might help is Ultimate Weapon and all it will do is let you know if the survivor left the loop or not.

What perk do you think will help in this situation, exactly? Keep in mind that Elusive hides your aura and scratch marks.

in JCglitchmaster perfectly shows and explains how broken Cross-Examination is Comment by Zakon05 June 1, 2026

@FerrousFacade said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4083940#Comment_4083940
The last balance updates were a month ago. You think balance changes have come to a halt because its the current topic content creators have been piling into to get views. Were those updates ideal? No, but considering they came along with diminishing returns it seems likely that diminishing returns was the development focus.
Months? How often in recent history has it actually taken months to make changes based on killer complaints, even over the most mild of topics? Fast track was updated in 9.5 on March 17th and then nerfed in 9.6 on April 28th, just barely over a month and honestly not enough time to get real data about the perk. Fog vials were nerfed a week after release and the same patch that nerfed them re-enabled streetwise (meaning it took less than a week to killswitch) but sure it took FOREVER for them to make those changes. It took them longer to fix Springtrap being invisible coming out of doors and this was the same amount of time it took them to nerf Krasue from her ridiculous release state.
Did you watch the video? I watched it, there is no context to it that makes the perk seem good. Where are the matches that show JC getting owned by the perk if its such a problem? Why do they never show themselves losing to the perk(s) and instead only show matches they won?
If the patch goes live as is and it truly makes killers miserable then it will be patched within a couple weeks and given the overreaction we see here and elsewhere I don't expect it will go live as is. Face facts, killer complaints have the developers ears and get fixed all while pushing through shadow nerfs to the survivor side (I am still waiting for a content creator to cover how easy blocking pallet saves has become for killers). Survivor players are simply not allowed even a single bad match or they are labelled as bad or needing to learn. Killers get sympathy.

First off why would they show footage of them losing to it? That could be dismissed as a skill issue. It's better to show footage of them using it effectively.

Secondly, it took them months to deal with problematic perks in the past. Sometimes years. Regardless of side. Though objectively speaking, overall, overpowered survivor perks last longer than overpowered killer perks.

Pain Resonance, the genkick meta, Circle of Healing, Dead Hard, Decisive Strike, Made For This.

Vigil has been quietly overpowered for ages now.

I look at this perk and I see Made For This and Vigil. A perk that is incredibly powerful that won't get fixed for a long time if it goes live.

in JCglitchmaster perfectly shows and explains how broken Cross-Examination is Comment by Zakon05 June 1, 2026

@esarraf said:
Or… we could just buff the bad perks people don't use. Low profile is bad and needs serious help just like most of the other perks listed.

OP did a bit of a disservice with this screenshot, because it misses the original context and point the video was trying to make.

BHVR in the past knew that stealth perks which could be used in chase needed to have some kind of activation condition in order for them to be balanced. This does unfortunately mean that the activation condition is too limiting to be usable for most, but the alternative of making one that's too strong is far worse than making just another underpowered perk.

They probably do still know this, they just misfired on Cross Examination, because… well, quite bluntly, I don't think they're good enough at their own game to know how to play tiles well enough to make use of this perk. Most likely when they play survivor, they behave like most bad survivors I run into, aka they do one loop at a tile, either misplay and get hit or drop the pallet, then leave.

I'm actually not trying to be mean with that, unlike a lot of people I don't expect the devs to be masters at this extremely unique game with no transferable skills from any other game. But that's why it's critical we give them feedback when they mess up. Which they did here.

Even more now when their balance cadence has come to a screeching halt and they don't seem willing to make meaningful balance adjustments. If this perk goes live it could make killers insufferable to play for months due to bad survivors not knowing how to use it well and running defense for it (like what's going on in this thread to be blunt). Basically Made For This 2: Electric Boogaloo

in JCglitchmaster perfectly shows and explains how broken Cross-Examination is Comment by Zakon05 June 1, 2026

Balance-wise she's basically fine now. She has an obnoxious synergy with Dissolution that can make her feel really unpleasant to play against akin to Iri Button/Enduring/Spirit Fury Legion, but she's not overpowered. Gameplay and aesthetic wise she has issues that are core to her design and unfixable.

She is the killer who is the most badly impacted by altruism in the entire game. Survivors running in to bodyblock for their allies are devastating to her.
Having to swap between her two modes is slow and annoying, compounding issue 1.
She might be one of the worst tunnelers in the game after her balance adjustments, which is technically not a bad thing for the health of the game, but it does mean she doesn't have that fall-back option to gamble on when she's losing other killers do.
Trying to infect survivors feels really weird. Trying to hit them directly is shockingly strict by DBD standards, which makes it much more consistent to ricochet it off the wall and let auto-aim handle it, except that sometimes it just splashes in a direction you didn't expect.
Her head attack is one of the strangest feeling attacks in the entire game. It's so slippery. You think it would work like a normal lunge, but it doesn't. Yet it's also not particularly hard to execute once you get a feel for it, reducing the satisfaction of mastering her skill expression akin to someone like Blight or Wesker.
Aesthetic wise, I don't think most people want to play as a normal looking woman whose alternate form is a floating head with her organs hanging out.
Origin-wise, she is based on an obscure Asian monster which likely a lot of people in the US and EU don't know anything about. Seeing Krasue in DBD might be their first exposure to it. The only reason I knew about it prior to her appearance in this game is because I had just finished running the Asian horror-themed Pathfinder 2nd Edition adventure Season of Ghosts for my weekly TTRPG group which happened to feature one of these as an encounter, though it was called a Penanggalan in that (as far as I can tell, almost the same monster, just slight differences). So she doesn't have a big draw when people could instead choose to play as a bunch of famous horror characters, or pastiches of more recognizable horror tropes and monsters.

Basically I don't think she needs anything. She is what she is, she's balanced, she has her fans, it's fine for there to be niche killers in a roster this big. I like her, I dust her off every so often to play a few matches, but she's not one of my mains and I think that's fine.

in Fixing Krasue Comment by Zakon05 June 1, 2026

I think the Shroud of Separation is also bugged. I rarely use it, but tried it recently in a game I really wanted to win for a pip up, and we all spawned together anyway.

in Are survivors supposed to spawn together? Comment by Zakon05 June 1, 2026

@Valuetown said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4083259#Comment_4083259
At almost every tile you can see the survivor during chase. This perk doesn't turn them invisible. They have to step on your footprints to gain elusive.

This perk can be used to make plays at basically any tile that isn't a chest high wall.

I actually think the perk's design is interesting and with some extra limitations on it (like how often you can gain the effect) it could make for an interesting perk that skilled survivors can use, but it's too easy to activate at the moment.

Chasing a survivor using this perk into any tile where the two sides break line of sight can easily cause you to lose track of them. They might even just leave the loop once you no longer have sight of each other and they gain elusive, and you would have no way of knowing.

Keep in mind that you have the Elusive status effect constantly as long as you're stepping on the killer's trail, not just for 5 seconds and then it goes away. The 5 seconds starts only after you're no longer in the trail.

in Cross Examination Comment by Zakon05 May 30, 2026

In ages past I would have said Buffy was too strong to be a survivor, but now we've got multiple Belmonts, Alucard, and Geralt as survivors.

Buffy would be really cool, would love to have it. But at this point the only thing I want is the Predator. I know Predator isn't really a horror franchise, but I want it.

in What Are Some Other Horror Icons You Want To See? Comment by Zakon05 May 30, 2026

Most likely yes.

Just learn the timing, once you get used to it you can do it every single time.

Or, if you want anti-tunnel protection which has no skill check, try Off the Record. Or Blood Rush + Sprint Burst, which is a shockingly rare combo but let me tell you, if your only desire is to make a killer stop tunneling you, no killer will want to continue chase with someone who just Sprint Bursted twice in a row.

in Is using timer programs for Decisive Strike banned in the juego? Comment by Zakon05 May 30, 2026

@DEMONANCE said:
@Zakon05i think you brought up the worst example imo
cuz Alien chapter was truly stripped of of any original idea and almost any relation to the movies no acid blood no facehuggers nothing that makes xenomorph a xenomorph and we just got nemesis 2.0 Alien has truly been the most disappointing license adaptation in this game and this isn't a rare opinion.

Your feelings about the adaptation have nothing to do with the killer's popularity. If the killer was fun to play, people would play it anyway.

And again, I think it is fun. But the overwhelming majority of people hate the flamer turrets to the point they can't derive any enjoyment out of playing the killer. Whenever you hear people talk about why they don't play the xenomorph, the turrets are always the reason why.

In fact a lot of people think the flamer turrets are so good against Xeno that it may as well be an M1 killer. If you put time into mastering the killer, they're not that much of a threat. But I definitely notice how often other Xeno players get knocked out of crawler mode, because they likely don't main it and don't have the built-up reflexes necessary to deal with them quickly.

People hate the turrets so much that they just give up on the killer and go play a different one.

And yet, despite all of that, survivors also don't like Xenomorph because the tail legitimately is one of the best chase powers in the entire game. Due to latency and survivor momentum, it's basically unreactable, even after nerfs to give survivors more time. You have to guess when the Xeno is going to tail whip and be in the process of pre-dodging, as well as hugging terrain which makes it difficult for the Xeno to use its tail at all. It's not like other killers with skill shots where they pull up their axe or whatever to give you a warning to dodge, Xeno can just do it at any time.

They tried something new: a killer with an extremely powerful chase power that has to deal with survivors having an extra weapon against it. It didn't work for the overwhelming majority of players on both sides.

in why does bhvr play it too safe with the designs for long waited licenses? Comment by Zakon05 May 29, 2026

Flashlights are not meta items, they're far weaker than toolboxes and medkits. They're just really… well, flashy.

Survivors running meta is actually far more boring since it involves interacting with the killer as little as possible. Aka, sprint bursting off of generators, vigil to get more sprint bursts, pre-dropping pallets, splitting on gens and spending every moment not being chased glued to a generator.

What it sounds like you're running into is legitimate bully squads. Bully squads are frustrating if you don't know how to deal with them, but are actually quite weak if you do, which means they are not meta.

The PTB tends to have a lot of them since the MMR is loose and the killer is new and nobody knows how to play them yet. Meanwhile they can just DC if they get a good killer or a killer running Lightborn, since their queues will be instant since most of the people on PTB are trying to play Jason and are not playing survivor.

Aka they are playing for fun, it's just that their idea of fun is clowning on someone worse than them.

in Moaning in PTB is cringe Comment by Zakon05 May 29, 2026

When they try to do something unique, it sometimes comes out unpopular.

Like Xenomorph for example. One of the most iconic horror movie characters in history and one of the most requested to come to the game.

And nobody likes it. Survivors hate playing against it because of how oppressive it is in chase, and killers hate playing it because of the flamer turrets. A killer both sides hate in equal measure.

(I'm saying this as a p100 Xenomorph by the way, I like how it plays, most people don't)

I don't blame them for just taking things which worked well in the past and combining them for other long-awaited killers. They can save the more unique designs for more niche licenses.

in why does bhvr play it too safe with the designs for long waited licenses? Comment by Zakon05 May 29, 2026

@ShanoaLegendaryPlz said:
I know absolute 0 about slenderman or the operator and have no idea where to start. Is it a movie thing? Games? A tv show? Novels? Comics?

Slenderman was one of the first examples of an internet urban legend, famous with millennials and probably older Gen Z. The Unknown is kind of a pastiche of Slenderman and other characters like him, like Jeff the Killer, The Rake, Sonic.exe, and Smile Dog. Although originally created as a work of fiction as part of a photoshop contest on a forum (I believe), the character's eerie vibe caused him to catch on in the mainstream, where people would miss out on the original context and some believed him to be a real cryptid.

Inspired by Slenderman, a youtube content creator made the Marble Hornets series, obviously inspired by Slenderman but technically a unique property, seen as one of the best online horror series ever made. The character was called The Operator instead, and a lot of aspects associated with Slenderman originated from that series, but although the two characters look similar, they are distinct from one another.

Marble Hornets further catapulted Slenderman's popularity, along with an indie video game based on him and some of the stuff from Marble Hornets, which youtubers like Markiplier would play and further increase his notoriety.

Sony would eventually make a movie based on Slenderman, but it was widely hated.

Why this discussion has come up (Slenderman versus Marble Hornets) in relation to DBD is that the creator of Marble Hornets publicly asked BHVR to contact him, and a staff member of BHVR confirmed that they reached out to him. We don't know what will come of this, just that it happened.

Slenderman is a widely requested character to come to this game, but I guess some people wouldn't be satisfied with The Operator coming to the game instead. Even though The Operator invented most of the traits people associate with Slenderman, like trying to collect multiple pages before he gets you.

in "We don't want Operator, we want slenderman" is stupid. Comment by Zakon05 May 29, 2026

I legit think my unpopular opinion might be too unpopular even for an unpopular opinion thread, but I never get to crash out about this, so here goes.

Trapper is the most unfun killer to play against in the game and I pray he never gets buffed so people don't play him more.

I cannot see the traps. I just can't. Unless it's Eyrie of Crows where it's broad daylight with no grass anywhere, I CANNOT SEE THEM. Maybe it's because I play on max settings, but I have a really nice PC that I saved up and paid a lot of money for, I'm not lowering my settings to make one killer more tolerable to play against.

"I'm a basic M1 killer unless you run into the loop I pre-trapped and now you're dead" is garbage gameplay. Putting a survivor in the basement and locking it down with a million traps is garbage gameplay.

Sorry not sorry, screw Trapper, god I hate him so much. I would rather lose 10 Ghoul games in a row than play one winning match versus Trapper.

in Unpopular DBD opinions that would get you downvoted? Comment by Zakon05 May 28, 2026

@Mrpugalug916 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4082531#Comment_4082531
Is it ragequitting or conceding? If I know i have no chance id rather queue up and go next instead of wasting my time. Survivors are allowed to do that. All I want is for killer to get the same opportunity. But go ahead keep huffing your own farts. Your p100s literally mean nothing but bloodpoints youve dumped lol. Even more useless if they're survivor p100s. Also your argument is a fallacy and holds zero weight. Youre trying to argue from authority. I probably have more hours than you but id never try to win an argument with that fact.

I said 3 killer p100s. I only have 1 survivor p100. Also you're the one who started accusing me of not playing killer and then not playing high MMR.

I'm not even trying to win an argument, I'm just pointing out that killers do have a concede button and you really shouldn't take the game so seriously.

in Killer abandon at 4 alive no gens Comment by Zakon05 May 28, 2026

@Mrpugalug916 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4082521#Comment_4082521
Its almost every game that they get to endgame lol. Especially if there are 3-4 still alive. But once again just because one player never sees it because they dont play killer at high mmr, it doesnt happen. Survivors are just wholesome goofballs right? They cant do anything wrong and it's the big meanie killers fault for playing killer

Okay, which one of us do you think is more likely to be at high MMR? The person with every achievement in the game, three p100 killers, who showed you they have more hours on killer than survivor… or the person angry because they can't ragequit faster?

But secondly, I can 100% imagine a scenario where the survivors are mean enough to hang around the exit gate not opening it to make you watch them t-bag. I have been told to self-harm by survivors who beat me before.

However, unless you are actively seeing them all gathered up at the same gate, what I think is most likely happening in the majority of cases is that they're split at opposite gates unsure of where their allies are and waiting for a terror radius to finish opening the gate and start the EGC, and you are assigning malice to what is likely concern for their allies and not wanting to leave before they know people are safe unless they get pushed out.

Instead of me needing to play more killer, I think you need to play more survivor so you can understand reasons why survivors might not want to open the gate beyond wanting to make you upset.