Dead by Daylight nerfs two perks. One is almost indispensable for killers – the other could grant survivors “unlimited power”.
The balance of Dead by Daylight is a pretty fine thing. Mostly, both killers and survivors complain about the lack of balancing – which ultimately probably leads to the assumption that it is indeed quite balanced.
However, in the next patch, the developers have a few changes in mind that could significantly affect that. Because killers lose a large advantage of their most powerful perk and survivors get a buff that forces killers to destroy pallets immediately.
Nerf on the Killers: The Best Perk Gets Weaker
Killers face massive nerfs on the perk “Eruption”. It had proven to be extremely powerful in recent months. While “SWF groups” were able to counter the perk relatively well, solo survivors facing Eruption could expect frustrating rounds.
Until now, Eruption ensured that every generator kicked by the killer was marked. The next time a survivor is knocked down, all marked generators immediately lose 10% progress and start losing additional progress. If, at that moment, a survivor is working on an affected generator, that survivor screams loudly and is incapacitated for 25 seconds – meaning they cannot continue repairing or stop the further regression.
The developers find this too strong and it caused too much frustration. With the next patch, Eruption will be revised and receive the following changes:
- Eruption now reduces the current progress by 10% upon triggering instead of the entire progress. If the generator is at 60%, Eruption would reset it to 54% (instead of the previous 50%).
- Survivors are no longer incapacitated upon triggering. Instead, they scream and reveal their aura to the killer for 10 seconds.
Overall, the perk gives the killer slightly more information about the survivors’ whereabouts, but this is usually negated because the recently downed survivor still has to be hooked and the 10 seconds have already elapsed by then. The perk thus loses its power to drag out the game and to temporarily prevent survivors from repairing.
Unlimited Pallets – When the Killer Plays Along
Survivors, on the other hand, receive a massive buff that affects a previously very niche perk. This is about “Any Means Necessary”. This perk allows survivors to upright a downed pallet, allowing it to collapse again when needed.
The perk has been somewhat useful in the past. On the one hand, it had a fairly long cooldown of 60 seconds, and on the other hand, killers often decided to destroy a pallet immediately, which made the perk useless.
With the next patch, the perk completely loses its cooldown. This still does not make it useful when the killer destroys all pallets immediately. However, it should now provide more utility in many scenarios.
Since the killer must sacrifice time to destroy a pallet, many killers choose to do this only after the chase ends. When another player is being pursued, the person with “Any Means Necessary” can simply run around the map and immediately right all downed pallets.
What do you think of these two changes? Good, sensible, and healthy for the state of the game? Or unfair or even useless?
The strongest killer in Dead by Daylight has already been nerfed – The Nurse has been dethroned!
