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Which of the "A" or "S" tier killers is the easiest to learn?
Hey there guys! Some weeks ago, I posted asking for advice on getting out of the limbo I was stuck in (Rank 12-10), and I've finally managed to move forward, now jumping in between ranks 8 and 7 :) I'm very grateful for all your advice as it has really helped me improve.
That said, it's becoming more and more common to be paired against Rank 3-1 survivors, and even though now I usually get "Brutal Killer" at minimum, I still find it hard to progress and do better, mostly because I still haven't settled on learning a killer good before moving forward. I felt comfortable with Legion, but I really struggle using him against higher ranked players because Deep Wounds isn't a menace at all and besides stabbing someone to see who else is on the map is about the only thing I can do with him.
I decided to go for some of the stronger "meta" killers, but I have problems with every single one of them:
-Hag: As I've gone up in ranks, keeping up with survivors working hard on multiple gens has made playing her harder, my traps trigger all around the map, usually on different edges, and I can't chase good enough.
-Billy: Chasing while using the chainsaw dash has always been impossible for me.
-Oni: Same as Billy, I can't seem to make any use of its power; dashing makes me lose sight of whomever I'm chasing, and I can't for the love of God hit anyone with the club lounge.
-Nightmare: I've found much more success using him than Hag, but the use of his snares is tricky at best, and I still feel survivors just aren't afraid of falling asleep, and it's the same thing: survivors just spread around the map doing gens very quick, my teleport will let me keep tabs on two at best, but even then that's not enough. The only games I manage to win with him are where my NOED wasn't cleansed, just to be called slurs on chat, more often than I'd like to.
-Nurse: If I can't hit people with Billy and Oni, you bet I can't do anything with Nurse.
-Huntress: I have terrible aim. I can't do anything in PvP shooters, let alone here that hitboxes are so wonky.
-Executioner: Out of those I'd say this is the killer I understand the least...
So, I know I'll have to stick to one of the stronger killers if I want to become better, but I'm sure my dumb self must be overthinking (or overlooking) something about them and at least one of them might be easier to use and understand than the rest. I'd like some advice again :( Thanks for your help guys, and have a beautiful day!
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Freddy, pyramid head, and hag.
Freddy is super easy to learn and that is a fact.
Pyramid head is also easy and simple. The harder part is learning to hit survivors with your shockwave without LOS to them.
Hag I say is easy because all you do is set up a bunch of traps and that is it. It might be just me, but when I started to play hag I watched a few videos on her and the biggest takeaways were to hardly chase survivors, and always have at least 8 traps set up.
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Freddy is the easiest by quite a large margin in my opinion.
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Spirit is very (or maybe too) easy to learn if you bring stridor. Freddy is very easy to learn, since you practically just need to place snares around loops correctly and teleport to gens whenever needed.
But I don't recommend either of these choices. Choose the killer you have the most fun with. Killers like Oni/Huntress/Billy may take more time to learn, but they are way more fun to play.
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freddy > spirit > bubba
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Freddy is the best combination of easy to learn but with some really effective abilities. That’s why in the dev stats recently he had the best kill rates at both all ranks and among red rank killers.
Technically Nurse and maybe Spirit are slightly better than Freddy among players who are top mains of those killers, but Freddy isn’t far behind them. His map mobility is excellent and his anti-loop ability is quite good, plus he has just a touch of stealth as well. He’s definitely in the top three killers. Nurse of course is much, MUCH harder to play, and Spirit takes a bit more practice since it’s not that easy to play entirely by ear if you haven’t done it. Freddy though plays just like a basic 115% movement killer for the most part with a really easy to use snare and teleport.
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Hag is definetely not easy because her playstyle is completely different from all the other killers.
You also need a lot of map knowledge and knowledge about the pathing of survivors.
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Freddy and Billy are the easiest to learn IMO.
Freddy has like a million tools at his disposal, quite a few are passive. No effort needed on the killer end.
Billy is just super straightforward. To master him would take time, but anyone should be able to pick him up and do decent. If you only use his power for mobility that's still better than most m1 killers.
I also think Doc is super easy to learn especially at low ranks where most survivors hide. He counters the only thing they can do really hard.
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Freddy and spirit
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Freddy and by far.
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I think saying hag is easy is a bit misleading. The basic concept of playing her is easy to understand but to be effective you need a good amount of game and map knowledge and need to understand some of the basic mechanics of her very well.
Plus one survivor with a flashlight can ruin your game entirely if you're inexperienced.
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Freddy is maybe the easiest killer to play and also one of the best
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Nightmare. Once you figure out where to place snares at loops to either force the survivor to slow or try to evade it and lose distance he becomes brain dead easy. Equip a couple of slowdown perks and you will win 95% of matches against anything but SWF just by attrition of the survivors will to play. He's extraordinarily easy to play for how good for how high his return in kills is.
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Yeah, I sort of threw her in there because of my personal experience with her
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Hmmm, I really like Nightmare, but I'm having problems using him right, usually I kill 1 person at most, and as mentioned, the rest are lucky strikes with NOED.
I put Snares on loops, but I have the feeling I'm not doing it right, as I usually put them nearby Pallets and 100% of the time they drop it and I have to break it. I feel I'm not putting enough pressure as Nightmare.
I'm using NOED, Thrilling Tremors, Franklin's Demise and Blood Warden, for lack of better Perks. I have most of the Meta perks available, except those of Spirit, Shape, Demo and Ghostface (TT not included). I have 0 luck trying to get PGTW for the build, and I think I might be getting paired often against SWFs (I play in Latin American servers btw) as there's just no way randoms can be THIS coordinated against all of my efforts.
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What do you mean having 0 luck with getting PGTW? If it´s a grind thing, you will get it eventually, don´t worry. Otherwise, it might be a good decision to get your hands on the Curtain Call DLC (not only for pop, good stuff in there in general).
With Freddy you can afford to literally spam the snares all around the loop, it doesn´t slow you down and has no cooldown. You place enough of them to force the Survivor to either move away, opening an oppurtunity for a hit, or drop the pallet quickly, which is also good.
Bear in mind that a slowed Survivor can´t fast vault windows, consider this while placing snares in jungle gyms or buildings, for example. Slow vaults give you hits!
Freddy IS the easiest to play high tier Killer. In my opinion, he gets really old real fast though since he doesn´t offer a lot of oppurtunities for you to shine. A good and a great Freddy look basically the same. So if you seek long term DBD commitment, I highly recommend picking up a Killer that has a high skill ceiling as well for later when your general Killer gameplay is already pretty dam good and you only need to adapt to the new mechanics. Great Examples Being Huntress, Oni, Billy or Nurse, but there are more.
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Freddy is probably the easiest killer in the game near the top of the tier list.
Although, I'd argue Spirit is rather easy or forgiven to learn and is the second strongest killer.
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I hate Oni (dislike the rigging and the hit detection) but used to love Nurse before she had her fun levels decreased, so they're different enough that you might try Nurse again in the future. I don't suggest playing her now tho.
Just try whatever you think is fun, and I realize this isn't much help.
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Freddy is extraordinarily basic. I'd argue he's the easiest killer to learn in all of DbD. But I also think he gets boring pretty fast (and he's no fun to play against). If you're newer to killer, he's a great starting point. If you have a decent grasp of how to play the role, I'd move on to a more exciting character instead.
Otherwise Pyramid Head, Doctor, and Billy are pretty straightforward (not sure where the community lumps them all on the tier list these days, but they certainly aren't weak). There are some neat things you can learn to do with them, but their skill floors aren't super high, so you can pick them up pretty quickly.
Though if you really only care about ranking up and not necessarily about winning, Legion still tends to cheese the emblem system quite a bit. They're like a mid-tier killer at best, but they really like to pip (sometimes even on losses).
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Freddy is easiest by a mile. Other than that it's really who you feel comfortable using. EG for me I am absolutely terrible with setup killers as I'm not used to them. However, if you are comfortable with them then hag is a good choice as well.
Honestly, Id play who you feel is most fun despite their viability. If you manage to like a top tier killer then that's just a benefit.
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Freddy. He’s straight forward and let’s you get closer without much effort. Trap windows, loops, and frequent paths. Upgrade and get great perks to help you (corrupt intervention let’s you set up and then start chasing, let’s them fall asleep first before chases need to happen; BBQ and Pop makes your teleport ridiculous too). Also you won’t be able to beat good survivors without putting in the time. Learn the maps, learn their loops, play survivor some to see how they hide/behave/react so you can get in their heads and start effortlessly predicting them. Most of all, don’t worry too much about rank and try to have fun. When I did this i started accidentally ranking up without even realizing it. Good luck!!
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Freddy, absolutely no contest. He has a little of everything while still being a basic M1 killer for the most part.
Snares in chase, sleep effect for slowdown, teleport for mobility, and the unique ability to passively negate BT (sometimes).
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Freddy, Spamming snares and following isn't exactly hard with passive stall and teleporting to any gens making perks like Pop very lethal on him.
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Hag, Freddy and Huntress.
I'm not good at her, but even I'm able to decimate in red ranks with the Huntress.
Hag is literally just set up, (while in a 3 gen) teleport, hit, set up. Rinse and repeat.
Freddy is legit baby's first killer; he does everything for the player, including the mindgames.
Nurse also isn't actually that hard to play and become unplayable vs, tbh.
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Freddy is the easiest in terms of actual being easy, IMO he is the easiest in the entire game. Spirit is fairly easy, but a bit harder than a Freddy and takes some hrs, but has more worthwhile reward as she is better. Phead is also pretty simple IMO
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Freddy, Spirit, and Pyramid Head...easily
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Three gen with hag isn't viable because playing hag u are gonna lose gens regardless of what u do just to make up time setting up traps a three gen isn't something that u should be doing unless it coincidentally happens.
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I would definitely say Freddy, he's easy and powerful. Another killer I personally consider high tier (of which I do also play) is Doctor, because of his insane ability to shut down loops instantly, as well as his ability not being too hard to learn, at least in my experience, as long as you can time it. With Doc, you just have to be careful because if you play any other killer, you'll probably get rolled when it comes to looping unless they're absolute planks. With Doc, don't play just solely him. But dream snare Freddy is definitely the easiest and very strong.
P. S. I might be a bit biased and think Doc is better than he easy because I do play him alongside Oni and Huntress.
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Hag is definitely hard to pickup if you don't play trapp daddy.
Hey, that reminds me:
I know Trapper isn't on your list, but he can definitely preform at high ranks if you practice enough! I take any excuse to tell people to play him.
But to stay on topic, here's some info that works for hag (and trapper?) that will help you in the beginning of learning:
Never try to evenly place traps across the map, most will get wasted or be useless to you. Don't go for a 3-gen (because that's an easy wrench to throw in your plans), but instead cover a portion of the map that is easiest to control. Playing these killers will result in quick gens lost, their power is meant for snowballing and catching people off-guard. As hag, always place a trap near a hooked survivor and stay within teleport range. DO NOT CAMP, otherwise your throwing away pressure on everything else in the trial, not to mention wasting your trap. Instead, pressure the closest survivor to the hook/important gen/your web of traps.
This is not the end-all for learning hag, you'll get to a point where you know when not to place traps on hook, how to make a 'web', etc. I would recommend checking out Otzdarva's videos for a different, more in depth, explanation that is done well. This goes with every killer also!
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Freddy
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Freddy, Spirit, PH, Billy, Bubba
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Freddy and Spirit are actually braindead. I guess Spirit at least requires you to listen for sounds, but even then any intermediate killer player can already and should be doing that.
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That is literally how the Hag is played at red ranks and it works every time.
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Freddy of course
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Spirit.
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freddy by far
spirit and bubba are also pretty easy to learn
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You didn't even mention spirit. I'd recommend using either spirit or Freddy until you develop a little more skill. They're both very basic and easy to use.
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I say keep trying with Freddy because he is the easiest to learn/play. I recommend ( if you have them ) Tinkerer and Trail of Torment.
I get a lot of gameplay from those two with him, and also Billy; don't chase with the chainsaw. Just use it to get back and forth until you find someone and then start practicing to use it up close and personal.
Trust me, Billy can be A LOT of fun.
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Freddy but I enjoy bubba way more
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Freddy and Spirit
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Freddy you hold W and eventually get a down *something something old Legion*
Spirit you hold W but at least have some chance to lose the person you're chasing
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Freddy is almost universally agreed to be the easiest killer in the game. Nurse is the hardest.
Once you've learned Freddy, you can try PH—the real challenge is mastering his shockwave attack. Hag is a very good killer, but she's also very unique—like Nurse, she plays completely differently from any other killer.
Side note: Ignore the people saying Spirit is easy. Yes, having a headset and using Stridor will help a lot, but smart survivors will know how to trick you. Still, she's one of the best killers in the game if you want to take the time to master her
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This is just my opinion.... But I like to play a killer until I'm comfortable enough not needing addons or perks to get a brutal killer consistently.
I'd say that if you're having trouble against red rank survivors, it may be for a variety of reasons. Do you understand how to loop? Do you know how to run L and T walls? How long do your chases typically go for? If you are running noed, how many games would you actually get a brutal killer without it?
Would highly recommend YouTube videos from interact. Very informative killer videos.
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To the people who recommended me Spirit: what makes her easier to learn? I just bought her and she seems to be Nurse levels of hard to use, games as her are over very quickly, never in my favor; chasing people I can't see isn't much good when I can barely end chases I can see XD :/ I've been doing quite good with Freddy lately but I agree with the lot of you who say he's quite boring. Thanks for aiding me understand the snares though <3
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Maybe for you but I only have fun playing as Freddy
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There's Doctor which is easy. the only thing you needa learn is timing your shocks to stop pallet / vaults and thats it
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I will say as everyone here that the answer is Freddy and Hag. But I have another opinion. Since you mentioned you felt comfortable with Legion I highly suggest you stick with him even if his power feels weak (This coming from a old Bubba main, before his rework), but I'm not saying you shouldn't play any other killers, I find it better play different killers and builds to understand the game better.
On a side note a Legion with enough ability can still go against red ranks survivors, this coming from experience in red rank matches as Legion. Another thing I highly recommend is to not take the Killer/Survivor Rank seriously since that doesn't really shows the ability of said player and forgetting about it makes the game more enjoyable (at least in my opinion)
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Billy sucks now tho
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Freddy and Spirit are the easiest but you can rank up as any killer. I have never hit red ranks yet because I still barely have any teachables unlocked and stuff, but I've successfully gotten to purple ranks just by using Plague and occasionally playing Doc and Legion.
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Absolutely Freddy. I got into rank 5 really quickly on EU servers as a new player, just using tier I fire up as my perk and no add ons. I could have gotten red like that but I quickly realized I'm barely a green rank player when I started trying other killers.
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some people may not agree but, i feel Blight is an A - Sometimes S tier killer , his power is a bit tricky to get the hang of but once you put some time into him , hes got amazing mindgame potential , his add-ons change his style/mindgames completely , Map size / RNG doesnt affect him AS much as other killers , i feel blight is quite underrated due to the skill ceilling he has , hes my go to Stomping tool at Rank 1 when survive with friends are on the loose , when the power starts to feel natural , you can expand at predicting and countering loops (he can counter shack looping quickly something not many other killers can do)
on a side note: i have a friend whom started playing DBD just prior to blight release , she decided to pick him up as her main and after putting 50-60 hours into him (she got about 150-200 hours playtime now) she managed to get to rank 1 and hang onto there easily , she even on occasion plays addonless blight without any issues , consider him , give him a try.
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