Anxiety when playing Killer?
I don't know why, but recently I've been getting anxiety whenever I queue up to play Killer. I don't have this issue when I play Survivor, or when I play custom matches as either role. I tried looking up advice from others with the same issue and saw to run weaker builds so I would have an excuse if I lost. However, I feel like that has only made it worse, and now I'm completely lost on what to do. Should I just stop playing Killer? Should I take a long break from DBD entirely? What should I do?
Tagged:
Killers
Comments
Stop playing to win. Im an anxios person normally and get stressed out easily and while i generally dont have stress in multiplayer games, i just dont care if i lose in games.
Killer in dbd is different. not so much over winning but the level of obstacles i feel i have to fight through to succeed especially when i know i can perform super well.
Set your goals lower. dont shoot for a 4k. shoot for a 1 or 2k. whatever feels achievable. focus on no kills at all, focus on getting better at 1 loop or 1 action.
With huntress recently to learn her i completely stopped caring about if gens were done or who escaped. the only thing i do is throw hatchets so i can get better at it. i wont even m1. i just throw the hatchets and let people escape. This for example was waaaaaay more fun than having to eat 20 pallets to get 1 down to be blinded when i pick up for hook 2 in end game.
Its not easy to get out of that mindset but the reality is this game is asym and its not perfectly balanced and you are expected to stomp some lobbies and be stomped on by others.
every loss pushes your mmr a little bit closer to being more likey to face people at your level.
Dont fall into tribalism. that will be one of the biggest drainers of fun in existence when you start viewing the other role as these spiteful toxic people that want to ruin your day and the game is rigged against you and caters to the other player. this is a pitfall 80% of this forum and userbase are trapped in
Well hold on now—you are right that lowering your goalposts can help reduce anxiety. Focusing on improving at one aspect of your gameplay instead of obsessing over the final result is generally good advice.
However, I think you're also unintentionally suggesting something else: that killers should simply expect to lose. When you say "stop playing to win" or "aim for 1 or 2 kills," it can come across as saying that a killer shouldn't realistically expect to succeed, but instead should enter the match assuming defeat because it's mentally easier.
that's NOT a healthy mindset either.
There's a difference between having process-oriented goals (landing more Huntress hatchets, improving at mindgames, learning a tile, etc.) and expecting to lose before the match even starts. The former helps you improve regardless of the outcome whilst generally accepting defeat, the latter quite literally risks becoming self-defeating.
If someone feels anxious before every Killer match, the issue probably isn't just that they care too much about winning. Anxiety usually comes from believing the outcome is largely outside your control - which sad to say, statistically (according to Nite Lite info on kill rates on various killers) often is to some degree(assuming the killer in question is of "average" skill capacity. If a player feels like they're constantly fighting uphill against opponents where every mistake is punished so heavily that they never have a realistic chance + taunted + ridiculed in the end-game-chat (sometimes w/ threats that go unbanned as is documented), then telling them to "just care less" doesn't really address why they're anxious in the first place. If anything, could perpetuate a growing belief amongst a growing number of people that the killer side is the "bad guys" - when in reality, it is a game and everyone *should be playing to have fun and ideally to win.
That doesn't necessarily mean the game is THAT unfair or that survivors have too much an inherent advantage (it is a 4v1 afterall). It could simply mean:
In those cases, the answer is to redefine what counts as success—not because you should expect to lose, but because improvement is a better long-term measure than a single match's result. You should still queue into a match believing you have a fair chance to win if you play well. Otherwise, the game starts feeling less like a competition and more like an exercise in damage control or a humiliation ritual, and that's not a particularly enjoyable mindset either.
I personally just play matches for fun, almost always using meme perks because they’re more enjoyable than meta perks. I never go into a game expecting to win, so losing doesn’t really bother me at all.
Interesting considering expecting to lose is how a huge chunk of the player base view survivor.
I personally have not met a single person who openly honestly admits that they view the survivor role as the designated loser and I do a good bit of SWF's in the discord
Killer is definitely a higher pressure role.
As surv i kind of expect to die most of the time. Whereas when I play killer a loss is much more unpleasant. You're up against 4 other players and a loss with nonkills is embarassing and surv players will often stick the boot in and bm/ talk smack in egc if they've done well.
My best advice is to try and change your outlook when you enter a natch as killer easier said than done i know. But it helps lessen killer anxiety.
Maybe it's not anxiety and maybe you are burnt out on it also?
This is not saying it's not true re your anxiety, but the amount of threads that have suddenly popped up after the anxiety video feels like people are trying to ride a wave.
As a killer player who plays whatever I'm in the mood for, just go with the flow, maybe it's not a killer day, sometimes I just play something else like another game.
Well there's one right here in this thread for you.
Go through the current killer anxiety thread and you'll find two versions for survivor: people who queue up expecting the worst, and people who don't want to queue up because they expect the worst.
It's perfectly fine and probably way more healthy to expect the worst and hope for the best. It's better queuing up for either role expecting to lose and being okay with any outcome than expecting to win and being emotionally harmed when it doesn't happen.
I just literally played a Mina game where I could not aim for the life of me, it was like reverb fart sfx tier gameplay. It's embarassing sure, but mistakes can be hillarious also. Some of my best memories are making mistakes in this game, like falling down a hole coz I whiffed a lunge is so funny to me.
Honestly the answer can be broken down to: Be Kinder to yourself.
Maybe you watch a Youtube video on DBD anxiety and started to feel anxious?
If you feel anxiety over playing killer then stop playing and take a break. Nobody is forcing you to torture yourself.
Take a break, or as said above, stop watching YouTube videos. There's a lot of recent videos about killer anxiety, I'm guessing you've seen some and as they say, life tends to meet your expectations. There are qualified people out there who can help you unpack anxiety issues, but the easiest form of self care is just to set your own healthy boundaries.
Take a break. It doesn't have to be years but a week off DBD until you really feel like giving it another shot won't hurt. Many players do that. It's healthier than forcing yourself through the anxiety and it works much better.
A good rule of thumb: If you're constantly having second thoughts about queueing up, you probably shouldn't. Your brain is trying to tell you that it's not ready to deal with this.