Tips for playing Pyramid Head?
I really want to get good at him because he looks so cool but I keep only getting 1k or 2k. What happens is when I chase a survivor they almost always shift w in a straight line away from me and do the same after a hit and just by doing that they can make a chase last at least 40 secs. Then when they get to a loop and I try to use my power they just run away from the loop lol. What makes it worse is you can't use a ton of killer perks on him effectively because of his cage and when I try to use Hex: Ruin for slowdown it gets cleansed in the first couple of minutes. I always feel the need to tunnel with him because by the time I get my first hook 2 gens have popped but then the entire team takes protection hits and I lose him. Overall just a really sad experience but maybe it's because I'm playing killer in the evening.
This post emphasises my point about killer perks on him well: Why don't hook perks work with Pyramid Head? : r/deadbydaylight (reddit.com)
Comments
If you don't play the S and A tier killer you are not gonna win anytime soon. That's the meta right now and there is not much you can do about it so either play Pyramid Head and have fun and lose your games or spam the ######### out of Nurse/Blight/Wesker and 4k every game. Your choice.
Its a bit dated, but this is still one of the best guides to get you started with Pyramid Head.
His best perk, by far, is I am all Ears. Combo this with Lethal Pursuer and you already got half a build. Lethal lets you get into the thick of it right from the get go, and I am all Ears is THE essential Pyramid Head perk that allows you to anticipate survivor movement through walls and LOS blockers. It won't always translate into hits, but it really helps you a lot to get a feel for survivors movement. Eventually you will learn how to anticipate panic moves in a straight line and get some sick skill shots at shack or through jungle gym walls, but till then, I am all Ears will get you covored.
Basically all close range aura reading perks are golden, for a while I used Monitor&Abuse in combo with Nurses Calling and got fun pot shots at healing survivors who thought that I was still miles away. Awakened Awareness is also very good on Pyramid Head. Yeah, you need to down a survivor first, but then while hooking, you will very often see someone hiding nearby and get a free hit against a sitting duck.
Same goes for Nowhere to Hide, but survivors are kinda expecting it at this point, so the value of AA is that you didn't kick a gen prior and the survivor might be at ease in their hiding spot.
Add-ons wise there isn't much to say: the double range add-ons are his best ones, and frankly the only ones worth playing. Everything else is "nice to have, I guess", but rarely will dictate how you play. The +20s Trails sound okayish on paper, but in praxis will do nothing of worth 90% of the time. His iri-add-ons are some of the worth iris in the entire game and the increased killer instinct duration ones are barely noticable at the best at times. The two purple books are niche and fun to use every now and then, but too inconsistent in their effect. But Pyramid Heads base kit is so strong that he can do with just range add-ons.
His own perks are rather meh for the most part. Forced Penance was fun in the past, but nowadays with MFT and the "stay injured"-meta, most survivors couldn't care less for 80s of unbroken. Trail of Torment can be fun to build around and can lead to a lot of unexpected jump scare hits, but even after its buff it can countered within 2 frames of a survivors attention, while you are hit with a 60s cool down, and that I find very frustrating. Lastly, Deathbound is one of the worst info perk in the game. Its effect would be fun if you could also see the aura of the survivors for some significant time and thuss hunt them down while they are oblivious, but as it stands, its very lackluster and niche.
Pyramid Head is rather hard to master and in the beginning you will miss A LOT of skill shots and find his ability very frustrating, but once it clicks and you get a feel for it, you can be a real menance. Oh and one easy tactic: when a survivor is running straight at a pallet, just lower your sword, 99% of the time you won't get a hit, so don't shoot, but also 99% of the time that survivor won't drop that pallet for fear of getting hit while in animation lock. All animation locked actions are your friend, btw, so its sometimes advisable to not kick unsafe pallets, as they can turn into quite the death traps for the survivors.
Um, I haven't seen any tier lists that don't have P-Head as A tier. He's absolutely one of the strongest killers in the game and easy to win with once you figure him out.
He just takes a lot of practice, but once you figure out the timing on his attack and when to put your sword in the ground and when to keep it up, he's one of the most oppressive killers in the game.
Shameless plug for my own (very, very smol) twitch channel. I play a lot of Pyramid Head, so maybe check out some of my game play ^_-
My 2 year old Pyramid Head guide still being mentioned brings me great joy.
Now if only I could get an adhd diagnosis to get some meds from the nhs I may be able to finish the
202220232024 EditionI'm ngl most everything I'd have said is here already. Range addons are goated, I'm All Ears + Lethal my beloved, etc. Only a couple things (a 50 point list) I haven't seen really
- pgtw may not seem good on him. It is.
- do not overcage. Save your torment for a good moment to turn the tide of the game and instead get hook value when you need to.
- don't go for funny shots if you're trying to win. I don't play to win so every single match is me throwing for a funny haha but if you genuinely want to win don't go for them much if at all
- aim slightly to the left/right of a window/pallet if you think you're slightly too late. Depending on the loop a lot of the time that can fix a mistake and still get you the hit.
- it's okay to fake your power to make someone leave the loop and get a free hit. It isn't fun but it's very effective.
- deadlock my beloved.
- dont use your power if people are shift w key ing. It is very good at shutting down loops so use it to shut down loops. It's worthless at making distance so don't use it to get distance, yk?
- i still don't think you should break most pallets
- learn every map inside and out. They all have special terrain quirks, so know where you can and can't shoot (like on saloon, the top floor of main building can't be shot through, but the one side curving from the gen to the back window not going via the stairs has that little landing that extends all the way to the wall so you can get a lot of cheeky hits there for example)
- don't tunnel. As a general rule but also if you aim for a 12 hook 4k with no camping/tunneling with exceptions (such as being forced to hit BT/otr) and 0k 8h a lot you'll generally rise through the matchmaking slower than if you tunnel and get 2k 6h meaning more time to practice.
- DO NOT PRACTICE AGAINST BOTS. You cannot get any hits outside of animation locks with his power vs bots because of 0ms ping. They can react to everything.
- practice makes perfect. He's very mechanically skilled and doesn't have that many transferable skills due to his kits innate clunk. Simply play him more and you'll get the hang of it all.
Thanks for all the tips :D. I've been using pop and rarely caging mostly just using Final Judgement and feels much better. Some maps like RPD are so painful but i'll keep at it
You still ARE the authority on everything Pyramid Head here, even though I feel pretty comfortable to chime in in a bind and offer my own morsels of knowledge.
You can generate a lot of pressure my making survivors pay for unsafe hook saves that they didn't even knew were unsave. In essence, when unhooking time your shot so that you will hit the unhooker and the unhooked survivor the very moment they touch ground. This will injure the unhooker and send the rescued survivor straight into deep wound and probably into panic mode.
As Karu mentioned, its not good practice to tunnel when you are learning the game or a new killer, as your opponents will quickly outpace your skill, but even forcing the unhooked survivor into deep wound and just focusing on their would-be saviour instantly changes the dynamic of the match: you already got them one hit closer to being downed and the other survivor has to mend.
Back in the pre-BT-basekit days it was actually EXTREMELY punishing, as you could just down the unhooked survivor with a well placed shot. I had situations where the unhooker was injured themselves and that botched attempt of a save ended with them both lying on the floor. I felt so bad for them every time that happened and usually just left the unhooked survivor slugged while hooking their would-be savior, but todays fast-paced, gen-smashing, stay-injured survivor-meta sadly turned me into a lean and mean tunnel-machine. I would wish it to be differently, but it is what it is.
BTW, caged survivors have no BT protection, so you can still pull off this stunt if you can somehow get to them before they friends rescue them, but it IS very dirty. Even in todays meta I feel dirty doing it and there is no beating around the bush that you are ruining that survivors fun with this tactic ... BUT sometimes they were just cheeky all game and flashlight clicked you from safe angles, just to anoy you, so sometimes its the right call to teach a lesson and make a point. Just don't go full bananas and outpace your own skill.
Here's my 4 quick tips:
Tip #1 never draw long trails, only draw trails at pallets or windows as you traverse the map. even 1 CM of torment is enough torment the survivor. Strong windows and Pallets are high traffic areas. Be aware trails only last set amount of time(60 sec?)
Tip #2 Always try corner the survivor in the corner of the map to spam POTD to get downs. Do not break pallets or vault windows when survivor is the corner of the map.
Tip #3 the reason why survivor are running away from loops is because of your trails. Whenever you cage someone, they always go to other side of the map. Learn to predict where cages are. Cages are 2nd best tunneling tool in the game for farming hook-states. You should cage when you know someone is on other side of the map so you they unhook leading you to tunnel them. Ideally you want them to hook in front of you so you can instant down person that got unhooked and injure other person. Be aware that camping cages within 10 meters will teleport the survivor so be careful of how you proxy camp as distance increase was big nerf to PH as of recent patches.
Tip #4 Use range add-on's. With burning man drawing, it gives 9.5 meter of range just enough to hit both survivor while staying out of proxy cage teleport distance. Another good set of add-on is mannequin foot & Cinderella music box. they increase duration that trails are active. this is really good because you can +35 second on trails. It means you can put trails around pallet or windows(small amount) such that survivor walks through it to perform your tunneling cage ritual. I like to call it the Formula.
good perks to use PH are Lethal Pursuer and Deadlock. Lethal pursuer is good because you can see all 4 people at start of trial. Normally I would say Lethal Pursuer is terrible perk by itself but for this killer, it is amazing perk to jump-start your Formula. this allows you to plan where to draw trails then begin a chase immediately hoping survivor goes in one of your pre-placed trails. PH is all about speed to tunnel someone out to get fast 3vs1 with torment. Deadlock is good perk to add additional time on gens for free while you tunnel first person out. The other two perks should be perks that help you win in 3vs1.
I'd actually like to add to this a bit.
Don't cage when you know someone is on the other side of the map if you want to tunnel. Hook them normally and force someone to come over, then tunnel and cage, before tunneling out of cage for death hook. This way you don't have to deal with people taking hits on top of basekit bt when the team will be more concerned (on death hook) and instead they'll be thinking there's less pressure to take hits and be a nuisance (there isn't).
Also, BMP increases range by +1.5m, yes, but it stacks with Wax Doll for an additional +1m, taking it up to 10.5m. And what's the cutoff point for cave teleport? 10m. So if you really wanna tunnel outside of cage, I'm just saying...
But also, because tunneling is just not fun for me, you can save those cages for a more monumental time. You've been building pressure all game and survivors are on the back foot, and you've got one down and someone else nearby. Cage then and instantly go into a chase - that one act creates a monumental amount of pressure, particularly if the team aren't as spread out in trying to recover. They're so much more than just a tool for tunneling it's a shame they're seen as such.
My Pyramid Head build is
Low hours played, so your mileage may vary.
I find him pretty unwieldy because he has to inexorably walk everywhere. So I find that he needs Ruin as an early game crutch so he can focus on chasing, he needs Surveillance so he doesn't waste time, finds Sloppy Butcher good so the survivors waste time, and he needs Spies from the Shadows so people being sneaky can't slip by him.
With this build, I focus on patrolling gens. If someone is going to run you away from gens, just leave them and go back to patrolling gens. Let Ruin take care of regression as you patrol around and chase people off of gens.
Ruin activates Surveillance, so you can see at all times when someone gets on a gen. Once Ruin is deactivated, then be thorough about kicking gens so you can use Surveillance to go back to any gen that is being done.
Even if I'm running into exploitative bully squads that find my Ruin totem right away, I still run it.
Put trails in cheeky positions, like sticking small bits of trail in tall grass, behind windows, or around corners, so they won't realize it's there until they run into it.
Anticipate and begin dragging your sword when you predict they're about to vault something, then snipe them once they're locked into that decision.
Note: Spies From The Shadows might be a bit hit-or-miss at the moment, because everyone is running Calm Spirit so they don't get crushed by everyone running Ultimate Weapon.
One Pyramid Head I played against used Nurse's Calling + Sloppy Butcher to snipe us from a distance while we were healing behind a rock. That was pretty impressive.
Don't cage when you know someone is on the other side of the map if you want to tunnel.
Instant unhook is good for you as killer in early game. it means you can just tunnel same survivor twice and they will already be at death hook. This puts so much pressure on survivor to get unhook especially if there is more then 3 gens remaining. I prefer to put pressure on the survivor immediately to put them on death hook then to do formula on 2nd hook. you can still put trails around borders of the hook(like jungle gym) so survivor have to crouch walk or get tormented.
You are correct that ideal situation is for survivor to unhook in front of you as PH however smart survivors will not unhook and just sit on gens if you proxy camp. it is better for survivor team to be at 1 gen and use 0 resources with 1 person dead then be at 3 gens with 1 person dead due to hook farming. if you proxy camp from hook with 2 minutes, survivor can do gen before friends strategy and this really hurts your early game. Your torment is very useless if survivor ignore hook regression and just sit on gens while other person goes on 2nd stage for 90 seconds. you can lose 3 gens from that before you tunnel person out successfully. it is hard to win on 1 gen or 2 gens remaining as opposed to 3-4 gens remaining from an early tunnel cage formula tunnel.
Ngl, Pyramid Head threads are always the most cultured, nitty-gritty, cold-hearted discussions about the ins and outs of tunnelling and killing survivors the most efficient way, with the gentleman caveat that we all know that we shouldn't do it and this discussion is just purely academic :D