I won all my killer games for a year. Here is everything I learned. (Long post)

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YearOfTheHag
YearOfTheHag Member Posts: 76
in General Discussions

Hi good people of the DBD forums It has been a long year, but it is finally over.

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I have won every killer game I have played since last year, today, and I learned a lot along the way that I would love to share and discuss.

Before we get into an argument, I will define what I called a win:

• 4 kills

• 3 kills + hatch/gate if I was in control and allowed it

I know there is an ongoing debate about hooks vs kills, in which I am pretty firmly in the “kills” camp, but that’s a discussion for a different thread. If there was an obvious hacker (VERY rare), then I did not count a loss. I can remember only two instances of this happening, where people just escaped the trial before gens were done and without hatch being opened. A key escape of 2+ people, had one happened, would have been a loss.

I will try to answer some questions before they are asked:

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How many games did I win?

• About 700, by my estimates

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Why did I do this?

• I know pushing for wins is not all there is in the game, but I felt it would force me to learn as much as possible about The Hag and DBD from the Hag’s perspective.

• Just wanted to see if I could

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Do I have a life outside of DBD?

• Yes. The pandemic gave me time and an excuse to play more games. I am a PhD student (studying games, partially) so the rest of my time is pretty full.

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I only won because I did not play YOU or YOUR SWF!

• If you are in NA East, I probably did

• No, I am not interested in playing you now for your stream or whatever

• Might be true, might not.

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Do win streaks matter?

• I think so, I got to play a ton of games against a wild array of skill levels and got to experience a lot of different game-states. Having won all of them, I think that I learned a lot, at least.

• A win streak, IMO, is just saying that against X number of teams, none were able to beat me. That suggests that the odds of finding a SWF that CAN beat me is 1/X. The bigger X is, the less likely you are to find such a group.

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Which killer did I use? What was my build?

• I played every killer game as The Hag. She just clicked with me and I love her playstyle. She is one of the harder killers to learn and play optimally, IMO, so it was a great challenge.

• I played a lot with my build. I tried all the new perks as I unlocked them. I played a lot of meme-y builds, too, but my favorite has been:

• STBFL: Obvious pick for hag. Excellent.

• Pop or CI: I like CI because it helped me stay calm in the early game, but Pop is probably “better”. I also don’t love kicking gens. I feel like the time is better spent keeping the web set up.

• MYC: My favorite killer perk. This allows the hag to skip hook traps to free up traps for better locations while also increasing her lethality. Very strong.

• Franklins: Keys were risky, but beyond that people tend to lose their minds when they drop items that they like, so trapping them is a pretty solid move

• Add-Ons: I always used a TP range (cicada) and a Phantasm Duration (Egg shell) when I could. Any colour was fine. Never used any purple or pink add-on.

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This win streak is proof that the Hag is OP!

• I am one person playing in one region with one particular playstyle. This streak really does not prove anything about the game or the Hag. This is not data, this is an anecdote and, probably a pretty majorly outlying one.

• That being said, I think that the Hag does have a couple of bigger issues:

  • Low skill hags get a TON of value from hook traps with very little input. The skill-in to power-out ratio seems broken to me. I think that a perfect solution could be that rescues break traps in a small radius around the hook. This would force newer hags to get better without really interfering with high skill play.
  • Add-ons: OMG her shackles and mint rag need looking at. They should probably be nerfed. Her Scarred hand and Waterlogged Shoe need reworks, too, to make them more viable.

• Hag is not OP. I think that she has plenty of counterplay (see below). I also think that people do not like the counterplay that hag forces, so they do not do it and then complain that they lost. She makes for a very different game on both sides. Whether or not that is healthy or fun is a matter of opinion, I think. I think that there are stronger and weaker killers. Hag is fantastic, but can be beaten.

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Hag has no counterplay!

• I had a lot of close calls vs some very strong SWF (and non SWF) teams along the way.

• I play 50-50 killer and surv, so I also play my fair share of hags and I rarely lose to them, now.

• Some survivors went as far as acknowledging that they could have crouched over traps on the map but preferred not to because they didn’t think that was fun counterplay. I understand not liking a matchup, but if you want every killer to provide a similar survivor experience and allow you to play in a similar way without needing to adapt, I imagine that a lot of matchups feel awful. I promise that if you devote some time to the VS Hag matchup, it will be a lot more enjoyable and winnable than you think.

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How to beat the Hag, by a Hag main:

• Harass her traps:

  • Identify quickly that you are playing vs a hag and keep her placed trap count low. If you are a competent runner, take a hit if you have to, just don’t let her set up her whole web.
  • As soon as she picks up another survivor, start running around like a maniac to pop traps while she cant punish you for it.
  • If a teammate gets injured, you could also try to harass traps and hope she drops that person and teleports to you instead, saving a down/hook, hopefully

• Always ALWAYS look at a trap you expect to go off

  • Her camera swing allows the hag to place traps in locations that will force survivors to take one path over another. They can slow vaults, also. This swing does not occur when you look at a trap before it goes off.
  • This allows you more freedom to dodge even an instant hit and pick your path

• Abuse loops:

  • The Hag is a slow muddy lady. Greed untrapped pallets and loops to extend chase time.
  • The longer she is on you, the less time she has to set her traps

• If you are in a chase, always move towards the opposite direction from which the hag came

  • There are traps there.

• The game is about prediction and knowledge:

  • The Hag wins when her game knowledge and prediction is just better than the survivors. She is not mechanically intense, but she gets the most value from just knowing things like running speeds, safety of pallets, totem spots, etc.
  • You have to think like a Hag. Figure out where she WANTS to trap and avoid/harass those places as you go. Places like shack, dropped pallets, lit hexes, are all going to be trapped.
  • A good hag will adapt to you, as you adapt to her. Watch for spicier traps in grass, outside of intersections, near unused hooks.

• Map awareness

  • If you can, call out trap locations over comms

*Try to figure out where the hag is on the map at all times. When she is in chase and injures a teammate you should get some info. * Keep track of her locations so you can better anticipate traps in those areas

• Perks

  • Borrowed time is a very strong counter to hook trapping hags. You already bring it, so keep that up!
  • Urban Evasion is not good enough to bring in hopes that you will get value from it vs a hag, though it is a very good perk in certain situation
  • Fast healing perks will save you lots of time, which is extra important in this matchup. I like Inner Strength, personally. Resurgence might be great, also.
  • Most exhaustion perks really don’t bother the Hag. If you get away just to step in a trap, you still go down. Dead hard is an exception. Incredibly strong perk. It lets you dodge instant TP hits and cover up a mistake or spicy trap.

• Franklins

  • Do not ever go back for an item you lost unless the hag is holding another survivor. You can think of it like you are taking one of her traps hostage, if you want to.

• Make your choice

  • After a rescue, run back in exactly the way you came towards the rescue. It is the safest way to avoid a down. Bring the rescued surv with you when possible.

• Hooks

  • Crouch while rescuing AND while being rescued. If the hag is far away, you are safe.

• Camping hags

  • This is the big one for a lot of people.
  • Bad hags will sit right near a hook after putting 2+ traps around it. Treat this almost like a leatherface. Do gens and get out.
  • If you want to rescue from a heavily trapped hook, you need 2 people. One pops the traps and the other gets the rescue as the hag chases or botches her TPs.

• Scroll wheel hag

  • Not really a threat. Good hags never do this, even if you think they do.
  • A scroll wheel hag does not pick her TPs, she is basically a bot that instantly loses to any mindgame or successful harassment.
  • Better hags will choose when to TP, but may still be faster than you would like them to be, that is part of the skillset.

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Is the game killer-sided?

• I play 50-50 surv and killer.

• I think that solo q players have it the worst, then killers, then SWF, then top tier killers, then optimal SWF.

• I have no doubt that there are plenty of SWFs that would have demolished me. The info and coordination they have access to would be more than enough to deal with a strong Hag.

• I think that top tier killers: Spirit, Nurse, Hag, Blight (In that order, fight me). When played by a good enough player have a pretty easy time against the average red ranked SWF.

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I must have been super sweaty and mean

• I try not to be mean. I try to give hatch after good games and I never tunnel or camp.

• Sweat, though? Big time. I was trying to win every game for a year. Yeah, I slugged early in some games against scarier teams. I brought a very strong build with good add-ons.

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Who is the best Hag player?

• Michi. Please go watch his videos on Hag and Trap guides. Even if you don’t want to play the Hag, it is a great resource in learning to play against her. I only won games because I watched his stuff. Space Coconut gets an honourable mention, too. He has some (older, now) good hag videos and plays with a different style from Michi.

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What is the most important thing for a Hag player?

• Knowledge

  • Know the maps, tiles, perks, pallets, escape routes.
  • Play survivor a lot.

• Style

  • Develop your own playstyle. Be a scary unknowable mud lady. If they can predict your trap placements, they will beat you.

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How is playing the Hag for new players?

• Play a lot of survivor and a lot of other killers before you decide to main Hag. Learn everything you can about the game from both perspectives. This will also prevent you from not being able to ever swap to a more standard killer, as only playing Hag does not teach you some of the basics.

• You are going to lose a lot. Just be fine with it and learn.

• Watch high level Hag gameplay and try to figure out WHY each trap is placed and keep tabs on when each go off and under what circumstances

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What do I think about MMR?

• I don’t really see how an MMR system will be able to compare killers (simple metrics of success) to survivors (vastly more complex measures of success), so I don’t think it will be a very good system

• That being said, my games were a LOT harder during some of the MMR tests, though queue times were unbearable. Recent tests felt pretty much like normal games. Take from that what you will. Personally, given my experiences during testing, I think that good killers can still reasonably get big streaks, though it may be harder. I think it comes down to the odds of finding a good enough team and the point at which queue times will get too long in trying to find them.

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Why did I make a new account / what is my steam name?

• Based on my average end game chat, I think some people have a hard time losing to Hags. I also think some people have a hard time knowing what can and cannot be learned from data. As such, I think I will spare myself the hate mail.

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Did I lose?

• No. The goal was for a year and now that is over. I am not interested in sweating hard for wins anymore. I want to play friendly Demo for a while.

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Do I have any neat tricks?

• Yes! I stumbled across two fun mindgames that I would love to share with you:

• Egg tech:

  • You instantly teleport to a trap, but the sneaky survivor was baiting you with sprint burst and ran away before you could slap. Don’t move. Follow them with your eyes, moving ONLY in the X axis, mimicking the phantasm’s movements. A lot of them will come back towards you, thinking you just have phantasm duration add-ons (Eggs). I’ve gotten a ton of hits from this and even some gen grabs.
  • I like it because it works against good players’ knowledge and expectations. Nobody would TP just to stare at you, right? Standing still is a mindgame lol.

• Slapping wood:

  • You are on the other side of a dropped pallet from a survivor. I typically don’t love trapping very close to some pallets and prefer nearby choke points so this happens sometimes. When the hag breaks a pallet, she is one of the few killers who use their hands and not their feet or some weird animation. That means that if you lunge at the pallet, it will look very close to her breaking animation to a lot of survivors. They will usually run away and right into a trap that you are now free to TP to.
  • If the survivor knows what Hag’s animations look like you are going to embarrass yourself and confuse them. Let’s call it being unpredictable. I love this so much.

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That’s what I could imagine people would want to know. I hope we can have a discussion about this stuff and try to learn from each other. Let’s keep it civil.

GL out there in the fog.

TL;DR: I won all my killer games for a year, learned some stuff about the Hag, thought I should share.

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