The powerful Boon Totem in Dead by Daylight is being adjusted. Not surprisingly, many players – even survivors – are dissatisfied with it.
The balance in Dead by Daylight is a quite complicated matter. Constantly new perks and changes lead to certain abilities being really strong while others are hardly used. Especially the introduction of Boon Totems sparked a lot of criticism from survivors.
What are Boon Totems? Boon Totems are a special category of perks for survivors. Dull totems can be transformed into blue “Boon Totems” that provide special buffs for all nearby survivors. This can suppress their own aura, give a small speed bonus, or grant a new ability, such as being able to heal oneself.
What was the problem? The Boon Totem “Circle of Healing” not only allows survivors to heal themselves but also accelerates this ability – all without a med-kit. This leads survivors to repeatedly run to the corresponding place to quickly heal completely there. The killer has no choice but to either accept this or to repeatedly stomp the Boon Totem.
What will change? The strength of the Boon Totem will be significantly weakened. Instead of providing a healing speed increase of 65% / 70% / 75%, the perk now only grants a boost of 40% / 45% / 50%. While that sounds minimal on paper, it makes a difference of several seconds in the game. For comparison:
- If a survivor heals themselves, it will now take 21.3 seconds instead of 18.3 seconds after the change.
- If a survivor heals another, it takes 10.6 seconds in the aura of the totem instead of the previous 9.1 seconds.
Particularly noteworthy here is also the change to “Hemorrhage”. The former bleeding effect will now cause ongoing healing to reset each second, as long as a survivor isn’t healing themselves. This should combine well with the extended healing time at the totem.
What does the community think: In the community, the change to the Circle of Healing is received mixed. While nearly all players welcome that there is a nerf – a Reddit post with over 5,700 upvotes is at 93% approval – many believe that Behaviour is nerfing the wrong aspect. According to some players, it is not the healing speed that is the problem, but the fact that a single survivor can provide such a massive advantage for the entire team that the killer cannot permanently get rid of. Since only survivors can permanently destroy totems, the killer cannot prevent the blessing of totems.
Therefore, the players’ demand is: killers should be able to permanently destroy Boon Totems by fully stomping on totems. Only then would the perk be balanced in some way, as it can always be renewed otherwise. If multiple survivors bring this perk, there is almost always a healing zone in the game that survivors can also see from a distance.
What do you think of the change to the Circle of Healing? A good thing? Or a one-sided nerf that is too strong for the killers?
