On October 19th, Dead by Daylight changed forever. With the addition of Mikaela Reid to the roster of Survivors, the gameplay elements have changed quite a bit because of a new type of perk that she brings; Boon Totems. Boon Totems are the Survivors’ newest tool to combat Killers by using the Totems to their advantage beyond just using Blood Points, healing with Inner Strength, or getting rid of a pesky Hex that the Killer brought with them. I have been playing with the new character and all of her perks for about three weeks (as of the time of writing). The question is, are the new perks that Mikaela comes with truly helpful, or are they just a waste of Survivors’ time? Let’s go through each perk one by one.

Clairvoyance

This perk is the oddball of Mikaela’s perks. It involves a totem like the other two, however, this one requires that you cleanse a totem (destroy it) instead of blessing it (what you do with the Boons). Once you have cleansed a totem, you gain the ability to see the auras of the exit gate switches, hatch, generators, hooks, and chests. This ability can be activated by choice for 8. 9, or 10 seconds depending on which tier of it you have. A stipulation of this perk is that your hands have to be empty to use it.

This makes sense considering that the skill requires the action button to activate the ability, but it can leave you at a slight disadvantage when the situations that you run into require a flashlight, health kit, toolbox, or any other item. In most situations, this perk seems to be mostly useless. It could become powerful when pairing it with Nancy’s Inner Healing (formerly known as Inner Strength), but this perk makes it difficult to use both it and the two Boon perks.

Boon: Circle of Healing

This is by far my favorite Boon Totem perk of the two. There have been many matches where my team and I have been able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat simply by having this perk activated. The perk increases healing speeds by 90% to 100% within a 28-meter radius. It also unlocks the self-care ability for all survivors within its range, making it a new must-have for any medic builds that survivor players might make. I have seen quite a few players combine this Boon perk with the other one in order to make an extremely powerful area that can be used for multiple different situations. However, Circle of Healing has been used far more often in builds than Shadow Step.

Boon: Shadow Step

While Shadow Step may not be as popular as its counterpart, it is still a powerful perk given the right circumstances. This means that if you can set this Boon up in the right area, you could easily escape a chase by breaking line of sight with the killer within the Shadow Step’s radius. However, the perk is relatively useless beyond breaking a chase.

Another good use for it is to avoid your aura from being discovered due to a variety of Killer perks. This makes Boon: Shadow Step an impressive perk for those who can plan out a way to use this Boon in an area that your team can quickly get to. Especially if that area has a lot of walls or other obstructions to break line of sight.

Overall, the perks that Mikaela Reid brings to the game in Hour of The Witch are absolute game-changers. They give survivors an additional reason to seek out totems, while also giving the killers a reason to keep an eye out for any blue glowing totems. It will be interesting to see how the developers add or change to the Boon Totems concept, but seeing as one of the Boon perks caused massive crashes and problems with various maps, they might want to consider optimizing the rest of their game before diving into any other new concepts.

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Hour of The Witch - Dead by Daylight

$4.99

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Two Game Changing Perks
• Cool New Character

Cons

• One Mediocre Perk
• Some Bugs at Launch