A major change is coming for Dead by Daylight. The most important perk for many survivors is being significantly nerfed and receiving a new mechanic.
Perks are an essential feature in Dead by Daylight. They provide killers and survivors with additional abilities or small advantages to turn a match in their favor.
One of the most powerful perks is “Decisive Strike”. This perk is now being significantly changed.
What is “Decisive Strike”? To date, Decisive Strike allows survivors to escape from the killer’s grasp once. They must successfully complete a skill check that is triggered a few seconds after being picked up.
The killer is then briefly stunned, and the survivor can escape again. Moreover, simply possessing this perk makes the survivor the killer’s “Obsession”, which interacts with other perks.
Changes to Decisive Strike: Decisive Strike starts the round inactive. After being rescued from the hook (or freeing oneself), the perk becomes active for 60 seconds. If the killer picks up the player during these 60 seconds, a skill check is triggered during the picking-up animation.
If the skill check succeeds, the killer is stunned and the player can escape. If the player fails the skill check, the perk is considered used and has no effect. Those who do not attempt the skill check can save the perk for later.
The cool thing is: After stunning the killer with a Decisive Strike, you automatically become their Obsession – even if it was another player before.
Why is the perk being changed so much? The developers have experienced over the years that Decisive Strike has too profound an impact on the game and has led to several negative consequences:
- In many matches, all survivors had Decisive Strike, which significantly impedes killers, leading many to lose interest in the game. The time loss when 4x Decisive Strike was present was simply too great.
- Decisive Strike had no “risk and reward” component. There was no negative effect for carrying such a powerful perk.
- Killers used dribbling (picking up and dropping) survivors to circumvent Decisive Strike, which consumed time and was frustrating for both sides.
- Due to the obsession display, it was often clear which survivor had Decisive Strike. Killers actively avoided these players or directly “tunneled” the obsession to get rid of the most annoying player first.
D-Strike is now an “Anti-Farm Perk”: It is also interesting that Decisive Strike can especially help survivors who are dealing with inexperienced or toxic teammates.
Many survivors only want to “farm points” and rescue other players from a sacrifice hook, only to let them die again immediately. With the new Decisive Strike, these players have a real chance of not getting back on the hook right away.
What do you think about these changes to arguably the most powerful perk for survivors in Dead by Daylight? Is this a good thing? Or will you miss the “old” Decisive Strike?
Have you seen that Dead by Daylight will soon be available on the Nintendo Switch?
