Observations of a Killer main
I´ve reached rank 1 Survivor for the first time recently. I casually ranked up while doing tome challenges and decided to finally really commit and get that achievement.
It was a hell of a journey for me. I thought why not share some things I picked up along the way, for anyone interested:
DISCLAIMER: All my matches were on Steam, Soloq, EU servers, mostly late at night and early in the mornings. The build I went with 9/10 matches was Borrowed Time, Kindred, Unbreakable, Dead Hard and a Medkit (browns till rank 2, then the good stuff with great addons). I hovered at rank 2 for about 5 days playing Survivor almost exlusively until I finally double pipped to rank 1. I´ve played Survivor before, but never with a strong ambition to actually improve and do well. This reflects my personal experience, nothing more and nothing less. Currently sitting at 1550 hrs.
1) Most Killer players aren´t that good
This is something that really baffled me. Even Rank 1 Killers don´t try to mindgame tiles at all for the most part (or do so very poorly). The difference between an average and a good Killer is very significant. For me, a mediocre Survivor at best, it was very easy to run jungle gyms and LT walls until entity blocker kicked in and then drop the pallet almost every match. Many players are easily fooled by leaving a tile while out of LOS, even without Iron Will. Many Killers will take chases they shouldnt, like a cow tree next to a gym next to a strong main building, or Disturbed Ward center bulding. As long as no one is running around throwing every pallet instantly, ressource management is not a huge concern for the most part. It seems in this context the statement that "Survivors have it easy" definately holds true.
2) There is not much Killer variety in the high ranks
The overwhelming majority of Killers I encountered were Pheads, Slingers, Spirits, Huntresses and Blights. Many Killers I never came across, and some very rarely. In my case, this was a blessing since adequately counterplaying every Killer is a skill in itself, and something I´m not confident in doing properly vs every Killer yet.
3) Spirit is extremely frustrating to verse
This is of course beating a dead horse, but the whole team getting absolutely wrecked by Spirits every match was something I didn´t expect to this extend. It seems it takes some serious skill advantage over the Spirit player to stand a fighting chance, with great Spirit players being nigh impossible to beat. I have yet to discover a way to fight her properly...
4) 4 Escapes happen frequently
In my little anecdotal experience, a 4E is rather common against most low to mid tier Killers and even Onis (I came across a few, none got a single Sac). It goes without saying that 4Ks happen often too, everything in between was the exception. There have been a few incidents of 1Ks due to NOED, but not many.
5) Killer toxicity does exist
It was pretty rare, but there were Killer players talking ######### in post game chat, facecamping for no reason, and tunneling off hook. The worst offenders on my way were definately Bubba and GF players in this regard. I wonder why I, as Killer, never get any appreciation for not using tactics that a Survivor may or may not consider "scummy". In the 100+ games it took me to get from rank 8 to rank 1, maybe a handful of Killers didn´t act "nice".
6) Teammates
It seems to be either heaven or hell. It´s not very pleasant to see a Survivor selfcaring in the corner with 1 team member on the hook, 1 chased and 1 slugged. Using Kindred every game helped, but I died on first hook in many matches despite the fact. The main reason for losing games was less due to the Killer doing good, but the Survivors doing poorly. I´m guilty of throwing games as well of course. Overall, making the right calls at the right time seems to be something many Survivors really struggle with, feeding the Killer pressure and Kills they just don´t deserve. It´s easy to get agitated as Survivor when your teammates (seemingly or for real) let you down.
On the other hand, good Survivors really shine, and there are quite many in EU late at night. It feels awesome pulling off flashlight- or pallet saves with a bunch of randoms. It was less pleasant to see my team mates trashtalk the Killer almost every match though, regardless of the outcome.
7) Skillful Survivor moves take serious skill
Effectively faking vaults, spinning (I suck at it) and moonwalking are way harder to pull off than I expected. Whilst playing Killer, it looks so effortless, but I´ve found new appreciation for these kinds of actions. The Survivors put themselves at great risk while doing these and I can respect a player for successfully pulling them off. Another thing that deserves credit is chaining tiles in an efficient manner even with bad map RNG. Again, it looks so easy from the Killers POV but in practice it seems challenging to pull off for extended periods of time.
I still consider myself a Killer main but the Survivor share will grow in my playtime for sure. Now I only have 4 achievements left to do, looking forward to having 100% soon :)
Comments
As another solo queue player who’s rank 1, I’ll agree to all of these except three, and two to an extent.
Personally I love facing a Spirit, aswell as a Nurse as they’re extremely different to the rest of the cast. Yes sometimes it can be annoying when I have a poor team against a great Spirit, but I can say that for any killer against a poor team.
As for point two, I see a bit more variety than you claim, with me seeing Legion, Ghostface and Myers fairly often.
Other than that, great analysis! Usually these things often come off as biased yet this one managed to stay neutral, so well done there.
I wish there was more killer diversity in higher ranks. Sadly to have much of a chance of winning against higher level survivors you either have to know a low level killer in and out. Or play the meta and get flamed in the end game chat.
As a solo queuer, the biggest threat to me is always my teammates. The killer is supposed to do damage, yet game after game, it's the teammates who do the worst. That and game-breaking ebony moris. I'm kinda shocked they're still in the game. I've gone from 7 back to 10 in one day because of the constant ebony moris.
2) I strongly agree with this. I firmly believe that it's a product of poor killer design! Most of the red rank killer's I have played against are killer's that anti loop well, or killer's that are hard to counter
3) I hate to say this, but as a Spirit main their is a way to fight Spirit but the thing is, she can adapt to how your countering her! Spirit is a product of what's wrong with looping! Survivor's don't like guessing and not being able to do something so they just have to hope that she makes a mistake, this is exactly how it feels to play 90% of the killer roaster which why I believe something needs to be done about it!
7) I haven't mastered all of these things and I don't mean to rain on your parade but they reason why I believe that the community seems to calling looping, etc, unskillful is due to the lack of effort it takes compared to what is that killer's have to do!
I agree strongly with your post. Just my 2 cents:
"1) Most Killer players aren´t that good"
This is correct. I am one of them. It is not hard to get to Rank 1 on either side IMO, but you really notice the difference between a good Killer and a bad Killer. Like, there was a Rank 3 Ghostface (not Rank 1, but still Red Ranks) who did not break really strong Pallets. Like, he tried to get me on Shack with the Pallet down. I was baffled.
"2) There is not much Killer variety in the high ranks"
I have to disagree on that one. I get quite a big variety of Killers, even tho, the overwhelming majority is always Huntress. Just yesterday I had:
1 Trapper, 2 Billys, 2 Nurses (one of them Console), several Huntress, 1 Hag (urgh, but it is a really rare sight), 2 Doctors, 1 Bubba, 1 Freddy, 1 Legion, 1 Plague, 1 Ghostface, 2 Slingers and 2 Blights.
This is a pretty good variety. At least I rarely get bored, but there are also days, where I go against Huntress 4 times in a row, followed by a bunch of Spirits.
"3) Spirit is extremely frustrating to verse"
This is correct. I use Iron Will, so basically I hope that she does not have Stridor. If she does, she has to mess up a lot (OR Soundbugs happen), to have a chance. And even if she does not have Stridor, no guarantee that the teammates will survive long enough, when they dont have Iron Will.
"4) 4 Escapes happen frequently"
This goes both ways. I have the feeling that games are either 4Ks or 4 man escapes. If it is a 1K, this mostly happens near the end. Of course there are 2 man escapes, but I see them in the minority. Simply because the Snowball potential is pretty high, so either the Killer is not able to apply enough pressure, which leads to a 4 man escape, or they are good at it and it turns out to be a 3v1 quite early, which mostly ends up in a 4K (or 3K with Hatch Escape).
So I guess, the most escapes where more than one person escapes are 4 man Escapes.
Agree on that. I main Trapper and Myers for the most part, and great teams give me a hell of a sweat. This is especially true for Trapper, anything goes in these matches, but with Myers a 4k or 3k+ hatch is pretty much the expected outcome.
I´m glad you encounter more variety! My personal little journey luckily doesn´t reflect the broad sum of experiences.
I think DBD in its current state allows every Killer to do well, given they are experienced enough and the Survivors aren´t top 0,1%. Your argument painting Spirit as some sort of "turned tables" still holds merit, though.
Thank you! This example of questionable Killer play shouldn´t be a thing, yet it does happen even at red ranks....
I´m glad you have more variety. I feel like this is pretty important to keep the game fresh on the Survivor side. Personally, I got pretty tired of Huntress and Phead for the time being.
Strongly agree with your assessment on point 4. Depending on how the early game goes and neither side throws, it usually snowballs from there.