Otzdarva's thoughts on recent events

Pre-PTB announcements 9.1.0 Update ✅ July 2025

Some upcoming changes have been announced early! We don't have the final numbers yet but they seem overall quite promising:

• New item type for Survivors added: fog vials (which are basically smoke bombs similar to the ones we saw in the previous Haunted event). I really, really appreciate the developers adding a new item type which is something that basically hasn't happened since the game's launch. I also like the fact that this item actually adds a new layer of counterplay against dash-type Killers that are already pretty strong (ie. Blight) instead of being an item that only works against low-tier Killers. I just hope the smoke and sound effects aren't super annoying or cause any accessibility issues. We're yet to see the specifics, but hey, I'm hoping that it's good.
• Keys get a minor rework that makes them open chests fast, reveal auras and/or open the hatch with a limited number of uses instead of a charge bar. I think this seems perfectly appropriate and more beginner-friendly than the previous system, so I'm all for it.
• Maps get a rework as well that makes them reveal pallets/windows and even show gen auras to team mates, among other things. I love this change because it makes the perk Windows of Opportunity feel a bit less necessary.
• More build loadouts and cosmetic loadout slots, which can be named as well. Amazing change.
• Mouse & KB support finally coming to consoles. This doesn't affect me personally but it seems like a major step forward in making all platforms more equal. Good stuff.
• Even more settings for custom game spectating which is so helpful.
• Pyramid Head seemingly gets a full add-on pass and some features like increased range basekit. His cages, however, will no longer have zero protection to uncaged Survivors. From now on, they'll act like hooks and presumably have the usual 10s of Endurance & Haste. I'm slightly concerned about the fact that he's becoming slower when dragging his sword, I hope this doesn't make him feel even more clunky. Otherwise, the changes seem appropriate. Looking forward to seeing all the new add-ons.
• Clown gets a nerf to his purple bottles but a buff to his yellow ones, with some add-ons adjusted (no specifics revealed yet). Also a small reload speed increase across the board. I think these changes are fine but I'm not sure if they were even necessary. It might genuinely be a nerf to the average Clown player that does not properly use the yellow bottles yet. If you never bothered using yellow bottles before, maybe it's time to start!
• Pîg and Knight get basekit buffs that seem to improve the consistency of their power and make some popular add-ons basekit. These are welcome changes, especially on Pig.
• INSIDIOUS FINALLY REWORKED as well as some other Killer Perks adjusted. Most of them seem like reasonable picks for small reworks or buffs.
• Several Survivor perks also get reworked/buffed due to their low usage rate. Most of them also seem reasonable but I'm very scared about Streetwise getting an unreasonable number buff. EDIT: Nevermind, I missed the part where it's stated that it's a rework, not just a number buff. Let's hope it's good.

Source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/450197/developer-update-july-2025

^ source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/509

First day impressions of FNAF Chapter + 9.0.0 PTB ✅ May 2025

• Springtrap is an extremely solid Killer in every conceivable way; decent design, quite strong, high skill ceiling, some unique quirks, etc... My early impression is that he's most likely a High-B or Low-A tier Killer although currently there's one add-on that really stands out and that might bottleneck his strength if/when it gets nerfed (more info about this in an upcoming video). My biggest concern is that at the moment, Survivors seem to have very little incentive to use the security room doors and cameras, and that the interactions that happen in the security room seem to get more and more scarce. Not a huge deal, but that sort of interaction is one of the most fun parts of this Killer's kit.
• The new Killer perks are quite strong; a situational STBFLesque cooldown reduction (Help Wanted) which I think is mostly fine; and endgame perk that makes exit gates regress (Haywire) which I think will be completely useless EXCEPT in really oppressive endgame builds with things like Singularity + Remember Me; and finally Phantom Fear, which I expect will be a pretty solid info perk, very similar to old Ultimate Weapon but far less oppressive.
• His add-ons are pretty whacky and have some really fun effects which is a pleasant surprise, well done BHVR. I definitely see some adjustments and rarity swaps needed for a few them of them, however.
• The new map is pretty fun and has a lot of personality. I don't see any obvious game-breaking issues in it. My only gripe is that the main building has a few long walls reminiscent of Badham fences that force you to walk all the way around them to get around to a certain hook or point of interest. Seems a bit awkward with prop Killers like Springtrap or Xenomorph, whose power stations are hard to use sometimes. We've definitely come a long way since maps like Eyrie of Crows which were so bad on release.
• New ability to spend BP in bulk is incredible and you even get a summary of everything you've unlocked with it. 10/10, well done BHVR.
• Artist changes are honestly terrible. They nerfed her two strongest add-ons (Matias' Shoes & Severed Hands) as well as some of her very decent one¡s (Untitled Agony and Velvet fabric) and in return they gave some minor buffs to a bunch of weak add-ons that nobody used before and that nobody will use after either. Worst of all, they didn't touch her worst add-on (Charcoal Stick) or do anything else to make her more appealing. Artist currently sits at a very low pick-rate and pretty low kill-rate in public stats (plus a bunch of unaddressed bugs) and these changes won't help her. This really reminds me of other times when they've nerfed add-ons that were statistically "overperforming" and it's sad.
• Vecna gets a bunch of small changes across the board which are an overall buff. Despite nerfing his ability to attack soon after fly and buffing special survivor items, every other change makes Vecna more powerful or consistent. There's too many things to go over, and I'd like to test them in more detail, but I'm very impressed by how many of his previously mediocre add-ons will now be really decent and usable. I also celebrate the fact that using the sphere (big babble) won't lock your camera in place anymore. Good stuff.
• Bunch of Killer perks buffed; with most of them being very reasonable. Thrilling Tremors and THWACK! are the biggest ones, with these perks becoming honestly quite solid now.
• Bunch of Survivor perks buffed; with most of them being reasonable as well. Desperate measures is now a very good healing & unhooking perk, Counterforce is way better at finding totems and removing them faster, Champion of Light now has a shorter cooldown. Biggest buff is probably Botany Knowledge, which will be really good with medkits as it used to (since now it no longer has a item efficiency debuff). Maybe Botany should only work on non-medkit heals? Hmm...

QOL features announced for FNAF patch ✅ May 2025

• Survivors can no longer "go next" on hook by killing themselves. The option to self-unhook is now only unlocked by using a luck perk and/or offering. This is a pretty extreme measure but one that I'm very happy they're implementing it. I really hope this is a step to punish people that repeatedly go next and ruin otherwise perfectly good matches for everyone else. My only concern is that this update is also removing the ability to let go on 2nd stage. I'm a bit worried that in some situations where the game is already obviously lost, you won't be able to end things a bit sooner. EDIT: The devs have clarified that this system works at the start of the game, but the full details are still unavailable. Sadly, this also indirectly increases the effectiveness of tunneling. With 1 person dead and 3 people unhooked, a greedy Killer had to deal with the risk of one of them managing to unhook themselves in the endgame. This risk is now completely gone, as Survivors cannot even attempt the unhook without a specific build (that most people won't bother to bring). It really is starting to be a good time to implement important changes to make tunneling less efficient and more importantly, less necessary.
• AFK players will lose collision after accumulating 3 crows. This is a simple change that we've been asking FOR YEARS to avoid malicious actors from blocking you in a corner indefinitely. Thanks BHVR.
• You can now buy character levels in bulk and automatically spend your BP instead of doing it manually. I'm so happy to see this come to the game already. Great change for veteran players and will also reduce time between matches, hopefully leading to slightly faster queues.
• Basekit mori can be used a bit earlier now, without the need to wait for the 3rd survivor to die on the hook. This saves a bit of time for everyone and also seems appropriate, so good stuff.
• Map offerings are NOT 100% effective anymore, cannot be stacked, and are now hidden. This is a good change in my opinion, although a bit sad for people that just want to do certain harmless memes in specific maps.
• Survivors will now spawn together more often as a general rule. I'm okay with this in general, although I think it's not the antidote to fix some bad maps that are still too large (i.e. Disturbed Ward). This will make mobility Killers and perks like Lethal Pursuer a bit more useful, so be wise. Some offerings are also changed to be more useful than before for each role. With map offerings being nerfed, I can see how luck/spawn offerings might see a big increase in usage from Survivors at least.
• DBD finally gets a brightness setting and it was honestly about time. Good stuff.
• Custom games get more spectator slots, better controls and more upcoming changes in the future yet to be announced. Amazing stuff, thanks for listening BHVR.
• Small tweaks to the Artist, Vecna and several perks on both sides announced. These seem okay at first glance but we don't have all the details yet, so I'll wait until the full patch notes to give my proper opinion on each change.

Source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/446022/developer-update-may-2025/

News & revelations about upcoming features ✅ May 2025

• Skull Merchant gets another preview of her power. The main gist is that she has drones that can be used to injure and detect people, but that she'll ultimately need to be there to down them with a dart. Overall it seems like a healthier type of power (with some compromises) but there'll always be some unhappy folks that miss her old playstyle. I don't have any strong opinions and will wait until we test her.
• Abandon feature gets some changes & clarifications. Namely, we've learned that Survivors abandoning NEVER leads to a loss and it's always a tie. Also, a Killer slugging until everyone abandons will somehow not win. This seems really ill-conceived and could be very problematic. Since this announcement, the devs have further clarified that the MMR is calculated in a more complex way HOWEVER they haven't explained how, so that leads me to believe that they haven't changed anything and the system is still exactly what it was before. Even after this clarification, I genuinely believe this system is broken and could be a source of trouble.
• Haste & hinder changes are cancelled. In other words, we'll still have instances of multiple perks making you faster at once. Awful, awful decision. I'm not sure what feedback BHVR listened to, but this was a great step to secure the safety and "future proofness" of upcoming perks and add-ons. A bit disappointed that they walked back on this decision, and I expect that they'll eventually A) stop making haste perks (don't think this will happen) or B) eventually change their mind about this again.
• Cheaters can now drop your FPS to single digits by constantly spamming animations in your game. Apparently we're getting a fix for this type of cheat next Tuesday, according to a tweet by a developer. Still, I find it very unacceptable that some streamers get harassed and targeted in any way. Devs should consider giving any streamer an immunity to DC penalties in some capacity.

Steady Pulse DLC Survivor, Ghoul nerfs, Haste stacking & more ✅ April 2025

• New Survivor is named Orela Rose, a paramedic with support-oriented perks. She's the first original character to be transgender which is a really nice step in representation.
• Her perks are overall decent and decently well designed. An interesting healing perk, an aura-reading perk with great synergies and a really strong haste perk that speeds up other Survivors when you take a hit. This last one is by far her strongest and might need some tweaks in the future.
• Ghoul receives some undocumented nerfs that might not be the final ones we see. They include a reduction in his range and autoaim, a small delay to his power when breaking a pallet and some adjustments to his add-ons. His enraged mode also lasts less time as well. These changes are completely reasonable and he'll still be really powerful. Let's see if that's all they end up doing or if there's more nerfs coming.
• Oni gets its turn limitations removed. Some Oni mains will be very happy about this, it seems like now it's even easier to flick in any direction. We'll see if it stays...
• Houndmaster's dog vaulting speed gets nerfed very slightly (0.2s longer). She's still very powerful and the vault speed is still very good.
• Rarities have been changed across the board, with yellow items/addons/etc being completely removed. Most items are now brown / green / blue / purple / pink (visceral). It's extremely jarring and weird but I guess it's one of those changes we'll eventually get used to..
• Haste/Hinder NO longer stack in any way, with only the strongest of the effects taking over (e.g. if you have 5% and 7%, you'll be capped at 7%). For Hinder, this is completely fine. For Haste, this effectively removes a lot of "fun" and quirky builds centered around stacking speed perks which is a bit of a shame, especially for Killers like Clown or Singularity since their natural Haste cannot be stacked along with any other form of Haste. Overall, however, I think this is an understandable and reasonable change that ensures that each perk/power can be balanced on their own without having to worry about problematic interactions, especially in the future when we have even more content.
• Some haste perks get buffed on both sides. Unbound is now a lot nicer and Champion of Light has a built-in Fixated haste added to it (but obviously does not stack with Fixated anymore). All of the buffs seem reasonable, though some perks like Batteries Included still could have used some buffs as well.
• Quests replace the Archives from now on, a new system where it's easier to do a bunch of missions at once rather than one at a time. I will miss the unique appearance of the archives but I guess this is a good step forward in simplifying the game and removing annoying playstyles (i.e. "hiding for 5 mins doing nothing to get a hatch archive").
• More quality of life additions: Match overview screen now shows who used which offering, Killer can no longer be held hostage in endgame situations, unhooking repeatedly to hold someone hostage is no longer possible, Doctor can no longer prevent unhooks indefinitely with shocks, etc... Great stuff BHVR, many of these small changes are really starting to make a difference.

Source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/501

Trickster & Skull Merchant update ✅ March 2025

• Trickster is no longer just getting some reversals, he's actually receiving a full-blown rework at some point. I'm honestly quite happy with this decision. I think the current version of Trickster (super high knife count, high laceration meter, constant Main Events...) is inherently diffcult to balance. I'm assuming that a future rework will make his power slower but more deliberate, and if that's the case I'm convinced it'll be an improvement. Fingers crossed.
• Skull Merchant's rework has been teased. She gets 5 drones that scan around and can be disarmed like before, but now they can also be remotely controlled to injure Survivors from afar. Some people are already claiming this could be like a "5-Victor Twins", although I'm not super worried about this. If the actual movement of the drones is fun to play as & against, I can see it working out. She also gets the occasional ability to detect people across the map, probably using her radar. People worried that she will lose her "identity" are absolutely justified, although this might be a necessary evil. I still believe that the new Merchant will still be one of the "complicated" and unintuitive types of Killers that has a very low pickrate (just like Artist).
• Remember that the DBD pipeline is incredibly busy and don't expect any of these reworks to see the light of day until later this year or even possibly later than that. Let's hope they're worth the wait.

Source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/497-design-preview-the-skull-merchant

Tokyo Ghoul PTB & other small changes ✅ March 2025

• New Killer, The Ghoul is introduced. A high mobility dash-type Killer with high potential to injure but not too many tools to down people directly. I think his design is mostly amazing other than a few nitpicks (i.e. Enraged can last the entire match which makes some add-ons redundant). The fact that his power does not directly down Survivors limits his potential but I can see him easily being a high C-tier or even B-tier Killer depending on a few things. Some janky things aside (which is common in PTB), this Killer has a lot of potential and might be the most popular since Wesker in my opinion, due to his ease of use and overall fun factor. Great job BHVR.
• Ghoul's perks are unremarkable. The pick-up speed perk is largely outclassed by Fire Up and is very weak, I expect it buffed somehow. The endgame pallet-window blocker one is scary but ultimately pretty fair. And then we have a basic-attack-induced Hinder perk which is a hex and has a pre-condition. A very wild perk that's probably unusable on most Killers but might become really annoying on things like Singularity. Honestly, I wouldn't be bothered if it wasn't for the fact that Hex: Pentimento still really messes with overall hex balancing.
• Eyrie gets a second variant map without the main building and the realm itself gets some changes. Our map expert AMGC is not too convinced by some of these changes but hey at least it's a move in the right direction.
• Xenomorph changes are a downright mega-nerf. The small buffs he got are absolutely NOTHING compared to the effect of the major nerfs he received. Turret damage builds up almost permanently over time (and critically, DOES NOT RESET upon entering a tunnel). In other words, you're basically guaranteed to lose power after 2-3 turrets almost no matter what. Xeno's tail attack is now noticeably much slower as well, which you'll notice right away. At the very least, the Turret fire damage needs to be looked at.
• Legion gets a mini buff that includes a slightly shorter fatigue duration and and extra 1 second of power duration even without the Mischief List brown addon. Excellent stuff in my opinion.
• Surrender option gets introduced which was about time. Didn't get to test it but I'm happy it's there.
• A few other changes have been introduced that I haven't tested yet, like the new Knock Out, so sorry about that, no big opinions on those yet.

Dev update ahead of upcoming Killer PTB ✅ March 2025

• Mending is now shorter and doing as a team is more efficient than before. Not a bad change in my opinion. This makes the Deep Wound status effect more forgiving and combines with the visual changes from the previous patch.
• Legion gets a sizeable buff to his cooldown, fatigue and duration since he is the most Deep Wound-intensive Killer in the entire cast, which is perfectly fine. No joke, Legion might be quite good for average players after this. Other deep wound related Killers like Deathslinger get nothing though.
• Xenomorph gets a soft-rework. His special cooldown is shorter, his portal abilities are enhanced and the power of each turret is greatly reduced BUT... his tail attack is now slower and the damage that turrets do carries over a long period of time. I'm genuinely unsure if this actually fixes anything. The buffs he's received can be mitigated by good Survivor play and aren't that significant in maps with awful station RNG (such as Grim Pantry). His nerfs will be very noticeable, I expect. Let's wait until we see the speicifc add-on adjustments, but I'm afraid this will be an overall nerf.
• Chucky has a slightly shorter cooldown and achieves his max speed in dash a bit earlier. Let's hope this makes him feel better. Seems like an appropriate change.
• Semi-stealth Killers get reduced 24m TR (Pig, GF, Skull Merchant). Good stuff, although keep in mind that this will make them even better in indoor maps and this could have consequences for the killrates (and thus, the balancing decisions in the future). Right now is a good time to start balancing indoor maps for beginner players a bit more I'd say.
• Mobility-dash Killers get an increased 40m TR (Blight, Billy). Seems like an okay change. I'm a bit worried about TR-related perks becoming really tough on characters like Blight especially. A slugging-type playstyle can be insane with Coulrophobia and will push teams into running Unbreakable even more. Even more potential punishment for solo players that aren't expecting to be slugged.
• Match surrender option will be introduced in certain rare scenarios. About time!! Good stuff.
• New Eyrie variation is introduced. I appreciate their creativity and willingness to give us more playgrounds, but this whole "map variation" trend is a massive mistake in my opinion. Map variations should be trimmed down. Currently they only add an unnecessary layer of complexity that hurts newer players and delays our ability to properly balance the existing pool of maps.
• Several stealth perks on Survivor get minor buffs (Quick and Quiet, Dance with Me, ...) which is a nice thing to see... However some of these perks like Red Herring are awfully designed and need proper reworks to be viable. Not bad though!
• Several Killer perks about stealth also get minor buffs. These are a lot more interesting, with perks like Alien Instinct now having a very decent duration that makes them more worth running.
• Knock Out gets reworked away from being a slugging perk (great stuff!!!) into a hinder-type of perk based on dropped pallets. I'm a little worried about how it will feel on certain Killers. Right now, predropping pallets early is actually one of the only decent strategies against some top tier Killers so it's a little scary. Let's see how it works before making our minds up.

Source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/494-developer-update-march-2025

Health and QOL Initiative announced ✅ February 2025

• Devs have announced a 2-phase initiative to improve the game's health and focus on aspects that make gameplay boring or tedious. All of the suggested areas to be changed seem positive and I'm excited to see them be addressed.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhlE1f927xo

Freddy rework release (changes since PTB) ✅ January 2025

• Freddy's snares hit harder but have longer cooldown. Good change, promotes more thoughtful use.
• Pallets have a bigger range, can no longer be interrupted. Fine change!
• Teleport cancels can now be performed again but at the cost of your entire cooldown resetting. Also shows your appearing aura so it's easier to orient yourself. Fine changes!
• Survivors can now wake up before healing, this was my #1 most expected and needed change. Perfect.
• Some add-ons are tweaked to compensate for the above. No issue.
• Beast of Prey buffed slightly. Actually surprisingly less terrible after these changes, but still a very mediocre perk.
• Wake Up! gets a rework that makes it more team oriented. A bit disappointed that it's weaker but if it's to prevent "super selfish" gameplay, I can understand the decision (but please let's also remove many archives that incentivize this behaviour please?).

Source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/489-developer-update-january-2025-ptb

Freddy rework first impressions (PTB) ✅ January 2025

• Several perks in the Elm Street chapter get a buff. Not a bad thing although I sense some of these perks could lead to problems in the future (ex: Vigil can now make your recover 40% faster against the Hindered effect from Clown bottles or the already pretty short duration of some Mangled effects). Wake Up! is now a really solid solo-escape perk, especially if combined with Sole Survivor (exit gates take 10 seconds to open).
• Knight guards getting distracted at windows has been "fixed" and was considered a bug... HOWEVER just a few patches ago it was considered a feature and it had its own unique visual effect? I'm a bit confused here. Update: After testing it, the "window distraction" trick still works and I have no idea what they meant in the patchnotes. Update #2: The devs have confirmed the bug they refer to is something else, and not the window distraction thing which is an intended mechanic.
• Freddy's rework is overall great. Watch my latest video for a more in-depth look at it and my first impressions. I expect the teleport-to-healing Survivors ability to be nerfed in some way, other than that I think the Killer will be perfectly fine.

First impressions video: https://youtu.be/UKePgaiVPXc

January Dev notes (Freddy rework & more) ✅ January 2025

• Some events will allow all players to try certain characters for free. Cool.
• Map prevention now becomes REALM prevention, meaning that the game will try not to send you twice to the same realm (ex: if you went to Coal Tower, you won't go to Suffocation Pit next because they're both in the MacMillan realm). Good change, although keep in mind that map offerings still override this prevention system.
• Deep Wound is now less intrusive visually and its depletion bar shows up in the middle of the screen and not just the HUD, which is specifically aimed to help beginners understand how it works. Not a bad change.
• Freddy gets an overhaul; he now has access to both snares and pallets, and snares are basically projectile attacks that slow down Survivors like before. Awake Survivors become asleep faster if they get hit by his powers. Fake pallets can injure Survivors (exactly how is still a bit vague, I'd love to see the specifics of this). His teleport is now capable of targetting all generators at any time (but cannot be cancelled). He can also teleport to ANY survivor healing that is asleep (similar to how Pinhead teleports to the box, with a Killer Instinct indicator). To make up for this, Survivors have access to all dream clocks to wake up more frequently outside of chase. Overall early impression is positive; this might make Freddy play and feel a bit more like Doctor (||and probably climb at least one or two tiers in the tierlist||), but we'll need to see the specifics to really know how strong he really is.

Source: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/487-developer-update-january-2025 More changes are in this patch, but we'll probably see them on the PTB patch notes soon (tomorrow/Thursday??)

Further tweaks after Houndmaster release ✅ December 2024

• Chucky gets mega-nerfed with the biggest change being a huge reduction in his dash speed. I think Chucky should have had a less favorable ratio of "strength/difficulty" but this was a really rough nerf. Not a huge fan of it, I hope he gets further changes down the line.
• Houndmaster receives some insane buffs, including things like an even shorter cooldown, doubling the speed at which the dog vaults pallets & windows and a more forgiving hitbox. Yes, she needed some tweaks (especially the Quality of Life type), but this is the wrong type of buff in my opinion. I imagine that it won't last very long...
• Thrill of the Hunt gets nerfed, but is still a very nasty perk and remains a bit stronger than before. The normal time it'd take a survivor to cleanse a totem with max stacks goes from ~46 seconds to ~35 seconds. Definitely far less problematic, so good job on that BHVR.

Big catch up on most recent changes (Houndmaster release) ✅ December 2024

• New Killer perks are largely unremarkable, especially considering that Jagged Compass is bugged according to the devs and it should not trigger Scourges like Floods/Gift of Pain upon every unhook as it's currently doing.
• Shoulder the Burden stands out among the new Survivor perks. Some people consider it the strongest Survivor perk in the game and I totally see why. The perk allows you to trade hook stages with a Survivor once per game. It helps delay/prevent tunneling, but can also be used aggressively to have a Survivor come and take hits with anti-tunnel perks like Decisive/Off the Record despite being on 0 hooks. I've already had this happen in a few games and with weaker Killers it's quite infuriating; you quite literally get punished for chasing multiple Survivors instead of proxy-camping to deny the Shoulder the Burden value.
• Houndmaster is arguably buggier than in the PTB and is absolutely not polished enough for a full release. There's several bugs with the dog that happen multiple times per game, sometimes multiple time per chase. She'll be an average Killer once these issues are polished if nothing else changes.
• Myers gets some QOL changes and minor tweaks. They make him more consistent but they're not a huge buff and they do not address the extremely stupid and outdated Tombstone add-ons and other long standing issues with him. Not a bad first step if he gets a bigger change down the line, but it's certainly not enough in my opinion.
• Several perks lose their BP bonus but get buffed to compensate. No One Left Behind is now an extremely strong endgame perk. Thrill of the Hunt is completely broken and will probably have to be reverted, since the current delay on totem cleansing is absolutely bonkers and makes lots of Hex builds unstoppable.
• Weave Attunement finally gets nerfed, one of several overturned/unfun perks that needed to be tweaked. I expect more like this.
• Dracula gets an adjustment nerf/tweak, which seems perfectly fair. Still a very oppressive Killer, now with Wolf form being even stronger than before.
• Chucky gets an adjustment nerf/tweak, losing some cooldown speed in favor of a faster scamper. A small nerf overall, but not too bad.
• Demo gets small basekit improvements to his portal speeds. Cool.
• Ghostface gets his 2 best brown add-ons be partially basekit. Cool.
• Lich has shorter cooldowns partially basekit. Noticeable change, I don't disagree with it.
• Survivor HUD now has more info on progress of things like healing. Super useful, good stuff. Only thing we're missing is a timer for the anti-facecamping meter.
• A few more miscellanous changes which are overall good. Happy to see lots of changes across many different perks and characters.

Bugfix + small changes ✅ October 2024

• Zanshin, Predator & Machine Learning all get nerfed slightly. Makes sense since they were quite strong, but their design is still unchanged.
• Distortion is easier to regain, Inner Focus is streamlined to only work from Killer injuries (both are fair enough).
• WGLF nerfed back to 100%, but still keeps the buffs that remove the activation condition. I think that's perfectly okay now.
• Skull Merchant receives tiny QOL buffs, she's still terrible of course.

BHVR acquires Red Hook studios ✅ September 2024

• BHVR has acquired Red Hook, the beloved creators of Darkest Dungeon and Darkest Dungeon 2, both of which I'm a big fan of.
• This could be positive in the short term, and I'd really love to see some cross-references, cosmetics or similar.
• I'm a bit worried in the long term, however, since I believe BHVR has also bought other studios and/or started other IPs that ended up not going anywhere. Really hope it's not the case with this one.

First impressions on 8.3.0 PTB ✅ September 2024

• Skull Merchant is almost exaclty as bad as we imagined now. Rework next year.
• Billy gets a sizeable nerf, with his cooldown giving Survivors way more distance and LoPro no longer being able to get downs. Overall this seems like an okay change but it might result in Billy players depending on cooldown addons now, which is never a great feeling.
• Twins slight nerf seems okay to me.
• Unknown's slight "nerf" is okay, and the almost base-kit Blurry Photo is extremely welcome. His UI does look really weird but it's fine.
• Most perk buffs/reworks are fine, except... new Zanshin is stupid (revert it!), new Corrective Action is busted with Hyperfocus (please rework it), Lucky Star gets to keep its info aspect (nice!), Predator will likely be super strong on Nurse (who could've guessed...) and yep, that's about it.
• Final Survivor mori is okay but will likely lead to more slugging for the 4k (already a boring part of the match).

Dev Update about 8.30 PTB ✅ September 2024

Lots of changes, let's dig through them!

• Killers now have a basekit yellow mori. Mori offerings reworked to give BP. No problem with this.
• Skull Merchant gets huge nerf, possibly one of the biggest nerfs I remember in DBD history; no longer gets haste, her slowdown is reduced significantly (especially considering she resets bloodlust when placing drones) and the drones now only have one scan line instead of the previous two. Instead of reworking her to be more straight-forward and beginner friendly so she's not a pub stomper, the devs have seemingly gone the route of just making her absolutely terrible. Really strange decision.
• Billy nerfed slightly with his Overdrive being harder to achieve, faster to dissipate, less speedy and increased saw cooldown at all times. I think this is fine considering his current level of strength.
• Twins nerfed slightly by making Victor have a slightly longer cooldown after downs and a slower recovery rate when kicked. Not a huge deal I guess.
• Unknown adjusted; Blurry Photo partially basekit and nerfed to compensate (good stuff!), removed the ability to fake use your power and made his recovery easier to see on the HUD. Green Vanishing Box add-on nerfed slightly too (infected people when they did a gen). Also some changes to his visual effects. Not much to say about this.
• Lots of perk changes at once!! Which I love to see. Let's break them down:
• Good perk changes: Both teamwork perks are now easier to use; Corrective Action now turns failed skillchecks into great ones (might be really good with Hyperfocus on a team mate??); Inner Focus now shows Killer map-wide which is very cool and makes it similar to Alert; WGLF is an even better anti-slugging perk now (might be very strong with "die-under-pallet" strats); Poised reveals the aura of the Killer when starting a gen (oof, sorry Trapper mains); Blood Rush is active when off the hook to discourage tunneling; Quick Gambit is now map-wide and shows auras of everyone (pretty decent!); Distortion has only 1 token that lasts slightly longer and recharges when being chased; Thwack starts out with 3 tokens now; Machine Learning procs on only 1 gen kick; Deathbound now permanently makes the healer(s) Oblivious until hooked; Blood Echo has its cooldown removed; Predator shows auras of Survivors that escape a chase for 6s with a 40s cooldown, no longer does anything affecting scratchmarks; Genetic Limits is now, unironically, a really decent Exhaustion-causing perk.
• Questionable perk changes: Crowd Control permanently blocks up to 5 vaults until cleansed (really scary effect that might genuinely get annoying in some scenarios with the current hex-protecting perks/pentimento); DMS only works on one gen but gets buffed to last 50s (I still think this perk needs to NOT be triggered by Pain Res...); Zanshin Tactics is now an aura reveal perk that works around dropped pallets (Maybe a buff, but I kinda liked the old one better??); Leverage slows down healing after hook by 50% by debuffing the rescuer (this encourages even MORE medkit and Resurgence use and less teamwork...); Lucky Star now gives a longer stealth effect (which is probably worse than Iron Will or Lucky Break still) and no longer gives info (why?? the info was the nicest part of it...?)
• One big concern: With Distortion being gone and SO MANY new and not-so-new aura reading perks on both sides, I think it's really time to do two things; when charging a blink, the Nurse stops seeing auras until her blink attacks have happened and she's recovered from fatigue (similar to Spirit) and (2) the Trapper starts the match with Undetectable status that lasts 20s or until a chase is started.

Dracula PTB ✅ August 2024

• Dracula is a pretty cool Killer with lots of complexity. In this sense, seems to be similar in depth and strength to Vecna. His fire pillars are incredibly nasty when used well but his power is not very beginner-friendly so I don't expect him to be super popular like Wesker was, for example. Waiting to see what changes he gets for the live release.
• New Killer perks are terribly designed and will likely be changed when it becomes apparent how annoying they will be. Dominance helps protect totems (fair enough) but also punishes Survivors for doing chests and side-objectives (why??). Human Greed is a similar perk to Weave Attunement and will likely have the same issues (enjoy playing against a Nurse that can see you randomly across the map!). Hex: Wretched Fate is an unbelievably boring slowdown perk that encourages tunneling a non-obsession and that further solidifies the issues of other perks like Hex: Pentimento. I appreciate having different types of slowdown but this one is possibly one of the worst paths they could've taken to achieve it.
• Survivor perks also have issues. With Eyes of Belmont, Survivors now have a Lethal Pursuer-like effect that enhances other aura reading durations. I am not a big fan of this type of effect, since it slightly compromises current and future aura perks and makes them harder to balance, since you now need to balance them across two different potential durations. The perk to increase your item's rarity and regain charges is mediocre with average items, but will probably do well with stronger ones. I personally dislike having more item-related perks while the items themselves are so unbalanced but whatever, that's my personal view I guess. The perk to heal passively after doing two chests is okay, althought chests still suck as a mechanic. There will be a video about the state of chests in DBD so keep an eye out for that.
• Dredge gets a massive buff to his overall numbers and also has his horrible loud noise effect removed. These changes are phenomenal and probably a result of the consultancy program so well done whoever was behind them. That being said, BHVR should really consider reducing the darkness in Nightfall because it is horrible for people that play on TVs or without any brightness filters.
• Nemesis also gets a buff to some of his numbers, including a faster T2 mutation (which you can now get from 1 single Survivor) and a reduction of the overall distance Survivors make when hit by a tentacle. At first glance, these changes seem fair and pretty good and should reduce his dependence on Zomie rng. Good stuff although I'm sure they'll still tweak some things about him in tge future (addons, likely).
• Midwich gets some changes to increase navigation routes and reduce the visibility on long hallways and exit gate areas. I'm sure these changes will introduce some unexpected issues but I'm happy with their overall direction. Good stuff.
• Ormond gets a ³rd variant for some insane reason. I really dislike this trend of having many variants for existing maps and think they should pick one of the variants and stick with it. These variants make learning maps harder for beginners and makes it even less likely that each map gets the polish that it deserves. Did we learn nothing from having 5 different Badhams? Does anyone actually enjoy this? I find it really weird.