How did you adjust to and start playing Killer?
As a pure survivor main, trying to do killer challenges for the tomes/rifts has been an absolutely miserable experience. I've tried following guides, playing suggested killers, using 'meta' perk builds, but my experience has been so terrible and has only pushed me to just not play. I consistently get matched with survivors who clearly know what they're doing when I don't, and they can clearly see it and choose to taunt me the entire rest of the match. It feels impossible to learn and improve when I'm just constantly outmatched no matter who I play or how I play, and I really don't want to get turned off from ever trying again. How did any of you deal with this if you experienced it? How did you get out of this 'impossible' rut and begin to improve and learn? How did you deal with just trying to play normally when more skilled/knowledgeable players were purposefully taunting you? ;_;
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I feel you, mate, but can you imagine that it was even worse before patch 6.1? I mean, not just by a little bit, but really a lot? The old DH meta was so miserable, so killer with YNt new DH (or better: not old DH anymore) and he buffs to basekit speeds put them in the best spot they ever were.
That being said, let's try to help you out. I think what you experiencing is the shock wave of the modern meta, ie a lot of killers trying to 3 gen with their kick perks and survivor's adapting by being hyperfocused and efficient. Plus some jerks will always be jerks and a certain part of the survivors player base has always tried to make the killers life as miserable as possible.
So, there is the MMR system. Depending on your performance so far, you might have been rolled up with too strong a suevivors. Yes, it's super easy to reach the MMR softcap and be thrown in with peeps with 2k hours experience, but if you loose like 5 times, you should drop out of that range and actually play less experienced survivor's.
If you do that, try to not go for kills (and this rise again), but learning the basics of killing, learning your own speeds and reaches and the cues of survivors going for a 360, juke or fake vault, etc. The basics are important and special killer tactics and builds can come later.
Ooh, fun question as I was in the exact opposite position earlier this year - about a year as a pure killer main, starting to learn survivor.
A few things to get you started.
Mine was pretty unorthodox and more focused on learning not to get frustrated or hurt by my opponent's attitude, more than learning how to play optimally.
It came after a first few killer games of getting extremely lucky and being matched with very nice survivors. I was still losing, but they were on the wholesome side, offering kills or items, I can also remember one showing me the way through Midwich when I was lost... These games set a precedent for me to grow into a mindset that most survivors are really not mean or cocky. Most are just casual players like me who aren't playing specifically to ruin my day.
I play more to have fun than to win, so I always play very fair. Whether because of that or from luck, I did not encounter BM very often while practicing and growing in skill, but when I did, I'd do something very stupid but that weirdly worked.
If a survivor teabagged me after a pallet stun for example, I'd headbang until we both moved on from the bit. That way, it was not them making fun of me, it was both of us memeing together. As I said, it's stupid, but it made me feel better. They usually stopped trying to tilt me afterwards, either because they thought I was chill or funny or because it was not satisfying anymore if I looked like I enjoyed it as banter.
I've also taken to being positive in endgame what, wishing good games next whatever the outcome and sometimes complimenting my opponent(s) if they did very well. That usually makes them relax and start being positive towards me as well.
Now, a few months later, I'm not a great killer, but I very rarely encounter mean survivors. I'm still a bit more stressed to play killer purely because it's more intense than survivor games, but I'm not anxious to see BMing survivors anymore.
As for the learning to get more skilled at killer, just familiarizing myself with the killer's power and trying not to revert back to M1 if I can. Also learning to drop chases and to not go for the taunting survivor if there is one, because chances are they'll just follow you around instead of doing gens, and that's 2 pairs of hands off of the generators.
The best thing to do, and this goes for all skill levels, is to focus on one area of improvement at a time on killer. You don't build a house by plopping a complete fully assembled house down on a plot of land. Go into each killer game with one specific thing you want to get better at. That can be running every tile correctly, red stain mindgames, not getting hit by DH, using your killer power efficiently, etc.
So others have touched on a lot of great things. I'll add my bits as well.
* Start with a primarily M1 killer. It can be tougher, but the skills you develop will translate into almost every single other killer. Clown isn't bad with his ability to slow survivors in chase. Avoid insta-downs as you want as much chase time as possible to learn.
* My personal generic setup is Lethal Pursuer, BBQ, Jolt, Deadlock. Information and buying time that you have to put zero effort in outside of doing your main objective.
* Start by avoiding the camping/tunneling/3-gen strats. They can help you later, but right now you want to get comfortable with the mechanics and perspective of killer. Use lethal to find a survivor, down and hook them, use BBQ to find the next survivor. Preferably someone you see jump off a gen to go for the rescue. Rinse and repeat until the end of the match. If you win, you win. If you lose, you lose. It doesn't matter. Chases, learning how to deal with survivor tools, these are your goals.
* All the things survivors do to get under your skin - ignore them. They are meaningless and you are on a mission.
You kind of just start playing.
That's all I can really say, as a lot of skills youll pick up on from playing Killer or watching others play Killer. People will always give you lists upon lists of ways to improve, but at the end of the day, the only way you can actually get better at the game is by, well, playing it.
I find that guides don't work for me as well as just playing how I would normally. At least until I have a solid grasp of the fundamentals of whichever Killer I'm playing, but even then guides are hit/miss.
On the survivor side, I picked up some things from facing a lot of Freddys in 2017. Picking up on killer behaviors vicariously during survivor gameplay. You can't pick up on every little detail and everybody has their own style, but there are similarities in specific areas you can hone in especially in like chasing behavior, mind gaming, hitting, how to use power, and how to patrol generators.
The rest comes just from active experimentation and concrete experience. Pick 1 strong killer and just level them up and main them until you feel confident you understand the killer better. Spirit is usually a safe bet if you have the shards. Also, perks, perks, perks.
When I started playing killer, my baby build was Sloppy Butcher, NOED, Jolt and Iron Grasp(later swapped out for Starstruck/Mad Grit). I found that this build really helped me grasp the game and the basic mechanics of the killer role, along with what to expect from certain survivors. Also try not to fall into the trap of using too many crutch perks, like as much as I love Lightborn, it can teach you bad habits. So just remember to keep flashlights in mind when playing with that perk, and try to get a hold of Franklin's.
The biggest tip I can give you is to just remember to try and have fun, which can be difficult I know since I can also fall into the tilt trap thanks to BS from toxic players. So take breaks when you feel tilted or tired, like never trying to do "one more" because you will just tilt yourself by making more and more obvious mistakes.
There's some great advice here. Couple things I'll throw out in addition...
It's ok to 'lose'. Don't get triggered. Take your time getting a good foundation. As others pointed out, winning too much will bump you up before you're ready. Don't camp, tunnel, or do things that give you an 'easy' kill. Doing that stuff will hurt you in the long run.
Spies from the Shadows is a great info perk for new players. Every killer can get it and no one expects it. You can always passively find people with Spies.
Be unpredictable. Drop chases that aren't going well if you see someone on a nearby gen. Check gens that you would do as survivor, walk away, then quickly double back to catch someone off guard. Change the way you patrol gens...if you always rotate in the same direction, survs will know to hide til you pass n jump right back on em.
When you're looping, hug the walls as closely as possible. One of the most common mistakes is going too wide. You lose distance if you drift too wide.
Remember, you don't need to kick every pallet in chase. Kicking resets your bloodlust. Sometimes it can be better to keep that speed boost to run em down. Learn what pallets MUST be kicked, then ignore everything else if you're in chase.
OhTofu has a good series of videos on youtube from like 3 years ago. People would send in their gameplay and he would pick apart what they did right and wrong. Some info is outdated now, but the core stuff is still relevant. Those videos did wonders for my gameplay when I was starting out.
Find a killer you like, then stick with em for awhile. Changing killers a lot during a play session will throw off your rhythm. Learn a killer inside n out before you start changing killers. Each one has their own feel and tactics.
Most importantly, just keep playing. Things will start to click for you without even consciously realizing it. The more time you play, the more you'll improve.
Thrilling Tremors is actually a really underrated perk. I've really been digging it on Dredge.