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The hostility in this community is just getting worse and worse. Maybe it is time to shut down the forums for good... 😢

He needs numbers tweaks and an add-on rework. His design is fundamentally sound.

First and Foremost, I'd like to open with what I've observed and experience playing against Henry. This DOES NOT have all the information needed to make dealing with "The First" or "Henry" easier. He is a VERY new killer, so obviously, no one has all the details; but I'd like to gather both knowledge and experience for those who might be struggling with him or would like to learn his counter-play.

(At the time I am writing this, I am uncertain if the Wiki has added all the necessary information; so, be aware of that.)

Second, this is not a forum for arguments. Please, DO NOT come into this forum and start debating. This is just an informational guide gathered by first hand experience, if you would like chime in on what you've seen or gathered; then feel free, but please don't argue. It gets nowhere.

Third, this is somewhat of a guide; so this will be very, very long.

Be respectful and kind to one another, we're all going through this chapter together, so there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to work as what this forum is supposed to be: A community. Now, with all things out of the way, let's begin.



1. Vines/Mind Invasion

We all know Henry's M1 attacks with vines; what most people should know is about his M2.

His M2, or what I like to call "Mind Invasion" allows him to spawn vines within a given radius and build up his "Mind Invasion Meter." When he successfully lands 2 Mind Invasion attacks, World Breaker will activate which will switch up how Henry's Mind Invasion works against you. (I will cover World Breaker a bit later.)

Mind Invasion Meter: When you spawn in a match, everyone will have a clock-looking meter surrounding their character on the left side of the screen; there will be 4 notches surrounding your character picture showing you how deep Henry has gotten in your mind. For every successful Mind Invasion attack landed on your character, a quarter of the meter will fill. — This cannot be reversed or reduced, so it is imperative you pay attention to how deeply you are affected; because when that meter is full, Henry can kill you.

This is also shown by a lightning-esque effect around your character's head, which becomes more prominent the more you are affected by Henry's Mind Invasion attack.

Regarding how Henry can mori you, I need a bit more information; but I have generally experienced and speculated that 3 conditions must be met.
- You must be on Death Hook.
- Your Invasion Meter must be full.
- You must be downed by his Mind Invasion attack; which will leave you vulnerable. (This is shown by your character floating in the air and twitching, to which Henry can then walk up and kill you.)

I have not figured out a way if you can be saved before he kills you; but I can only assume you can. (Of course, how it worked in Stranger Things is not the same in an Asym game like DBD.)

Things to Know/Remember

— There will always be an audio que before those vines spawn in, giving you a split second to figure out where they'll spawn. (Assume that if you were running to a pallet, they'll spawn infront of you, behind or generally where your character was going to be.)
— Henry CANNOT spawn these vines beyond his TR (Terror Radius). If i had to guess, his range is roughly 20 - 30 meters starting from him and to the near edges of his TR.
— If World Breaker is not active, these vines WILL NOT damage you; they will only build the Mind Invasion Meter.
— This attack can be held. For how long, I'm not certain. It happened to me once or twice while in chase against Henry and caught me off guard.

— This attack can destroy Pallets. Do not assume because you can vault a pallet, you're safe. Keep making Distance, keep being unpredictable.

It is possible to dodge the attack, you just need to jerk your character to a different direction than you were originally moving. The biggest counter to Mind Invasion is remaining unpredictable, don't constantly keep jumping through vaults or throwing pallets. Henry CANNOT attack when using Mind Invasion but the cooldown between that and his M1 is Negligent, so don't think that because he used Mind Invasion, he cannot M1 you; that's a mistake you will regret thinking

Overall, try breaking LOS (Line of Sight) as much as possible; the more you do, the harder it'll be for Henry to predict or assume where you're going. Perks that shut down aura reading/hide scratch marks really excel here.

2. WorldBreaker/Grand Father Clocks

Remember how I said that if Henry lands two successful Mind Invasion attacks, Worldbreaker will activate? Let's get back to that.

So, the game says that Henry needs Two Tokens to activate Worldbreaker. This is by successfully landing two Mind Invasion attacks. It can be on anyone, but it will usually be on the person that's in chase, so be aware of that.

Once doing so, a clock in the top middle of the screen will appear and you will hear a dull, reverberating grandfather clock chime ring in your ear; your screen will change to a reddish, darker tint possibly referencing the Mindworld from Stranger Things Season 4/5. This when the game changes a bit.

First and foremost, That clock in the middle of the screen tells you how long World breaker will last. I've usually never waited out the timer, but I've speculated that it can last from 1 - 2 minutes. And trust me when I say this, You don't want that to happen.

"Mind Invasion" or Henry's M2 will no longer build the Meter on the left-hand side of the screen, but will start dealing damage. This can be handled the same way that was previously expressed, just be aware that you can now start taking damage now. Keep trying to break LOS.

The WorldBreaker timer can be reduced by using the Grandfather Clocks highlighted in a white aura scattered around the map. When in use, they'll play some bass and snare music and you'll visibly see the clock's arrow move at an accelerated rate. (Which, personally, I think they should've added "Running up that Hill" but that's just my opinion IMO.)

Multiple people can use the Grandfather clocks, but it is ill-advised. Only one player should be reducing the timer, other's should be focused on gens if not in chase. I've experienced multiple matches where too many players were on the clock and we ended up losing from lack of gen pressure. From what I've observed, the clock does not move any faster if Multiple people are on the clock.

— NOTE: There is a specific section of the clock on the top of the screen that cannot be reduced. (Roughly around the Roman 9 [ IX ] Roman 12 [ XII ] Once you've gotten the timer down to that much, you will be kicked off the clock and it will be resealed in vines. Henry's voice will echo and his power usage will be shortened. Congratulations.

Things to Know/Remember

— There will always be an audio cue when Worldbreaker is activated. When this happens, the world will take a reddish tint.
— The Grandfather clocks will be activated when Worldbreaker is active. Only one person should be reducing the time, everyone else needs to focus on gens. PLEASE, use the GUI on the left-hand side of the screen to see if a player is interacting with a killer item.
— When World Breaker is reduced, henry will have an audio cue and all Grand-Father clock will be re-sealed.



3. The Upside Down/Upside Down Strike

Now we'll get to Henry's extra ability, traversing the upside down. Between every 30 - 40 seconds, Henry possess the ability to move in the upside down, where he'll sink through the ground and his speed will increase drastically.

There is an audio cue when he decides to go underground and it sounds like a wet squelch, as if you were playing with slime.

When Henry is in the upside down, from what I've observed, he has the ability to see auras of everything around him; letting him locate pallets, vaults, objects, survivors, everything. To what extent or radius, I'm also unsure of.

When Henry is traversing the upside down, you can both hear and see him. It will be a dark, bloody stain moving around on the ground with similar noises as if you were dragging your feet through water; you'll know when he's approaching you by the unusual sound.

From what I've gathered, Henry only has one option in this mode as he's incapable of harming you unless he uses what I've coined "The Upside Down Strike." When he uses the Upside Down Strike, a red ring of about 15 - 20 meters will surround him and the dark, bloody stain will expand until it reaches the outer limit of the red ring; then, vines will rise out of the ground, striking any players still within range of the attack.

During this, Henry will slow down significantly allowing players to escape the range if their vigilant enough; however, if they are struck by this, Two things will happen.

— If Worldbreaker is not active, any player caught in the radius will have half of their Mind Invasion Bar filled, prompting Worldbreaker to activate; but you will not be harmed.
— If Worldbreaker is active, any player caught in the radius will lose a health state.

This move is good for crowd control and if Multiple survivors are in a area they cannot easily escape from; but from what I've observed, that's mostly on indoor maps and it's fairly easy to get out of it. If you are struck by it, assume hitboxes and server latency, lol. — It's better for mobility and allowing you to get from one end of the map to another.

After using Upside Down Strike, Henry will reappear in the overworld again and be fully capable of attacking with Mind Invasion or his M1

Things to Know/Remember

— There is an audio cue when Henry is traversing the upside down, it is different from when WorldBreaker or Mind Invasion is used, so be aware of that. Assume that when you hear it, usually after he's done hooking someone; he's moving to another location, especially towards gens.

— Henry gets slowed down when using the Upside Down Strike and it can be dodged by getting out of it's range as soon as possible. Henry is capable of shifting the red circle to some degree, as he's not fully immobilized when coming out the Upside down, but you can escape it.
— If Worldbreaker is not active, any player caught in the radius will have half of their Mind Invasion Bar filled, prompting Worldbreaker to activate; but you will not be harmed.
— If Worldbreaker is active, any player caught in the radius will lose a health state.

This is all the information I've gathered about Henry so far and I've got to say, he is one of the best killers I've faced in a LONG while. I've had a lot of fun facing off against him, he doesn't feel unfair, his attacks have good (pretty obvious) counterplay, his voice acting and audio cues are incredible and he has immense potential.

Although there is more I'd like to express as a stark comparison to previous chapters, where those did not feel as fun to play because of how killers were set up and how their powers are used; this is not the forum for that.

If you have any more information, let me know and post it down below; we should all be there to help each other understand and improve. There could be things that I missed that you might have.

I don't think removing stacks should be a mechanic as it isn't an overly powerful benefit and serves as a light punishment to whoever ends up giving him his power.

I like that his power requires some skill to aim and predict correctly. However, the nearly non-existent cooldown AND his ability to hold his M2 infinitely to zone just remove any feeling of accomplishment in chase for survivor. Even when he's spamming and missing he keeps gaining distance if the survivor is actively dodging. He doesn't get punished for anything. I would like at least one of those things to get a slight nerf. Either give survivors a bit more distance for missing or nerf his zoning by slowing him down while holding or a hard limit on how long he can hold it. I would start with that and then let things settle for a while.

Yet, when the PTB was live we were inundated by people saying that anti-tunnel would make low tier killers like Trapper and Sadako unplayable and that this is why the changes were unacceptable. I agree with your take on it being stronger on S-tiers but that's part of why I want it, nurse and blight need to be brought down and anti-tunnel is a great way to hurt the strongest killers more than the weakest. The rest of the systems needed changes but it was a good start.

The only way to expand their strategic options is to change what their current strongest strategy is. If you give killers something strong but leave tunneling as is all you will have done is make tunneling stronger. If you want slower gens/longer matches or regression buffed or some additional form of basekit regression it has to come with changes to tunneling or matches that involve tunneling will just become even more hopeless for survivors than they already often are.

No, I suppose you don't have to.

We all have biases, you and I included, I'm sure. What matters is that we are able to constructively (and civilly) reach a conclusion.

That is where the best ideas come from, generally.

I've been watching this thread for a bit, so consider this a reply to pretty much everything you've said.

I found that you started out quite strong. Asking for better tutorials is always a welcome sight. The titanic amount of information new players are expected to intake, digest and be efficient at is, quite frankly, abhorrent. Anything that makes that better is a W in my book.

However, you then start to get into ad hominem attacks when people disagree with some of your points. This is where your argument, and tone, falls to pieces.

This comment merely highlights it. Yes, if you are smurfing or playing against a brand-new Killer, you can probably avoid getting hit. However, no one serious about the game genuinely expects to go hitless. It entirely unhelpful. Modern DBD simply isn't set-up that way anymore.

You can look at it as handicaps, or you can look at it as preventing bad actors from abusing the system, which is how I choose to look at it. Killer has been given just as many of these as Survivors, possibly more considering how the game started.

Ultimately, to your original point, tunneling is too much bang for your buck, so to speak. You can tunnel and win the vast majority of your games, not because you won't have opponents of equal skill, but because the amount of skill required to successfully execute a tunnel is vastly less than the amount of skill required to prevent (or more likely) win in spite of it. You need not only personal skill, but skill as a team, and that is quite the ask.

Yes, a better tutorial could help that. But the skill imbalance is not fair either, and should be addressed. I have long been in favor of rebalancing the 4v1 and the 3v1. I think that would be the way to go.

As a final point, Killers do not need to tunnel in most games. But it would be like if Survivors spawned with original BNP's and were told, "You can use this, if you want an easy game, but you probably shouldn't!" Of course, people are going to give themselves easier games. It's human nature.

That's why it's up to the Devs to fix things like this skill imbalance, while maintaining Killer agency.

It felt like quite an accusation, surely if it's as bad as you say, we need to make that proof public.

Ultimately, I'm confused why you'd even bring it up if it does not need to be talked about.

You're entitled to your opinion—even if it's wrong.

Egerious slugging happens in my matches all the time. I was bled out twice just recently, in a 24-hour period. One was a killer who was mad I went down under a pallet and people were trying to save me. Every time I got picked up he'd slug me again, until I bled out. You shouldn't be able to keep doing that just because you're tilted.