The developers of Dead by Daylight have revealed their plans for the future. The killer “Spirit” is getting nerfed significantly.
The Dead by Daylight killer community is still digesting the nerfs to the “Nurse,” and now the next changes are coming. Now it’s the Spirit’s turn, probably the current most popular killer of all. She will undergo some adjustments that will make her less effective in the future.
What will be changed? There are several changes to the Spirit. This affects not only her overall playstyle but also the addons and information that survivors receive. With the next major patch, the following adjustments will be made:
- While Yamaoka’s Haunting (ability) is active, the killer will no longer collide with survivors. This means that in ghost form, she can simply glide through survivors. Previously, she would stop and thus know exactly that she was in front of a survivor.
- The killer receives an animation when going through a window. Previously, there was none, so it appeared to survivors as if she was teleporting. This resulted in less time to react.
- After the ability ends, Spirit retains her speed bonus for a while. This will now diminish more quickly, allowing her to cover less distance with it.
Additionally, there are some changes to the Spirit’s addons. Many addons now have a negative effect to balance their strength. While some addons increase the duration of the ability, they also reduce the speed of usage.
The next killer apparently has a connection to the Spirit.
The largest change concerns the addon “Prayer Beads Bracelet.” In the past, this completely suppressed the sound effect of the killer’s ability, so survivors had no idea when the Spirit was approaching. In the future, this addon will ensure that the phasing sound can be heard throughout the map. So while you still won’t know exactly where the killer is, you will be warned that the ability is currently in use.
Why is the nerf happening? According to the developers, the killer Spirit is “overperforming.” She is not only chosen very frequently but also has a much higher success rate than other killers. This is likely due to the fact that there are currently very few counter-options available against her, as survivors often have no idea what the killer is doing.
The mentioned changes should address this and bring the Spirit down to the level of other killers while simultaneously creating more counter-options.
When will the changes be implemented? The nerfs will go live with the next major patch, but will first be tested on the PTR. This should happen roughly next week.
What do you think of the changes? Are they good and reasonable? Or is Behaviour just ruining another killer completely?
