Dead by Daylight remains among the most fun games to play, and the only game with the Killer-Survivor dynamic that allows you to live out your favorite slasher horror flick. However, its many perks, though oftentimes good, seriously need a major overhaul to make them more fun, useful, and balanced.
From bad to worse
Both Survivors and Killers have countless perks that are so horrendously bad that they’re nothing more than a meme. Whether it’s keeping you Broken for half the match or being borderline useless and contradictory, so many DBD perks just need a good, long, hard revamp.
Let’s take No Mither. Unique to David King, this outrageously stupid perk makes your character Broken for the entire match. For the uninitiated, this means you start the match wounded and cannot be healed fully, allowing the killer to strike you down with just one hit.
Take a second to consider that: one of the few helpful mechanics Survivors have is that a Killer must strike them twice (most of the time) to down them, and you’re out here with a perk that, for whatever reason, takes this away from you.
And what’s the tradeoff? Nothing. You can pick yourself up from being dead (as if most Killers are going to just leave you lying there) and, drum roll, your grunts of pain are quieter. Not silent completely, just quieter. Yeah, that’s a real perk.
Now for the Killer side. Beast of Prey, a unique perk for The Huntress, grants her Undetectable while she’s Bloodlusted. And now, tell me, what sense does it make that a Killer, who has to already be known and shown to a Survivor they’re chasing to gain Bloodlust, gains Undetectable. What are they going to hide from? What’s the Terror Radius reduction going to do? Explain yourself, Behaviour, I’m at my wits’ end here!
Another perk, Distressing, just increases Terror Radius. What use is there in that? Sure, some perks might synergize somewhat with this, but there are countless others that you could use instead and gain superior powers. It just makes no sense to have so many of these perks, which often pop up in your Bloodweb, forcing you to spend Blood Points on them instead of something worth the cost.
There are overpowered ones as well
Both Survivors and Killers have some hilariously overpowered perks in their arsenals, too, especially those carrying a license. Because why wouldn’t a premium-priced character not be overpowered? After all, BHVR must sell them somehow, and there are few things as enticing to potential customers as the chance to dominate matches.
Take, for example, Grim Embrace. The only goal of the Survivors is to fix the generators and open the gates to escape. Grim Embrace, however, prevents that at a significant level. Every Survivor’s first hook blocks every single generator on the map for a duration, and if all four Survivors are hooked at least once, all generators are blocked for 40 whole seconds. It fundamentally prevents Survivors from doing anything, especially if they’re not teamed up and geared up.
Speaking of gear, not even that gets past OP Killer perks. Lightborn prevents the Killer from being blinded by any means, and anyone who tries is revealed to them for a duration. So, if you’re packing a Flashlight, like many Survivors are, Killers with this perk render your equipment completely obsolete.
Countless other examples exist, even among the Survivors.
Michonne Grimes, an upcoming Survivor, has a perk that lets her stun the Killer by vaulting near them. And it’s a long stun at that, allowing for some heavily disruptive gameplay (as we’ve seen in the beta branch).
Or how about Decisive Strike, allowing an unhooked Survivor to stun the Killer for four entire seconds after being downed? It thus recovers a health state for them and stuns the Killer for a long while, completely disrupting them.
There is so much in this game that makes no sense, whether being under- or overpowered. BHVR should really take a lot of perks in DBD back to the drawing board and try to figure out what should and should not remain. The more Killers and Survivors there are, the more bloated the perk library gets.
The post Sometimes useless, sometimes OP, always unfun: Dead by Daylight’s bloated perks desperately need an overhaul appeared first on Destructoid.