How to win as Pinhead - Extensive Guide

SirCracken

introduction

Pinhead is an extremely high skill ceiling killer. There's a lot to consider when playing him against high skill survivors that know what they're doing. Right now I feel the power he offers in exchange for the time and practise needed to get good with him isn't quite 1:1. But he's still fairly strong regardless.

I will be going over everything that pertains to his power. From his chains, puzzle box, add-ons and synergistical perks respectively. And the 2 play styles that I've found are the most viable in high skill games. I didn't call this guide extensive for nothing! So I'd suggest getting a snack of some kind while reading this. (Also, the reason this guide is out so late is that I was recently unjailed)

How do you use possessed chains?

Let me address a common misconception:

"Pinhead's chains are useless at long range and don't get him any distance"

This is blatantly untrue. If you hit a survivor with a possessed chain, and they have to break the full 3 chains binding them, you will gain distance during a chase. What is a problem with the chains is that they are unreliable in anything but completely open areas. Regardless of how how far away the survivor is. This is Pinhead's biggest weakness and what holds him back from being a great killer. The best you can do is spawn chains directly in front of, or right behind, survivors to minimise their travel time and hope the chains don't break instantly.

Onto spawning the the actual chains themselves. As I already mentioned above you'll want to have as little chain travel time as possible. In addition, when going around a loop you should time hitting a chain with the survivor nearing a window or pallet as to force them to drop the pallet early or lose distance vaulting a window. Once you get good at spawning chains they'll translate to free instant-distance-gains in open areas and are a great counter to Dead Hard as chained survivors cannot dash!

Something to note; downed survivors have a deceptively large hit box and can often shield the person healing them from getting interrupted. If you want to stop a survivor from picking their team mate off the ground, spawn the chain from an angle that doesn't intercept with the downed survivor.

What do you do with the lament configuration?

Dealing with the box is pretty straightforward. At the start of the game it in a part of the map away from both you and all survivors. You can use this information to try and find it once the game starts for some early pressure. But if you don't have a build based around controlling the box, (which I will be talking more about in Playstyle: Map Pressure), then you'll be ignoring it for most of the game and focusing on getting downs. Unless you get lucky and happen to find it while chasing around the map.

what add-ons should you use?

The Best

Engineer's Fang - Allows you to injure healthy survivors when hitting them with a chain. After mastering chain hits, every survivor you chase will always be injured and greatly cuts down on chase time. This add-on also allows chain snipes to be useful and net you extra pressure by easily injuring survivors whenever you have the chance. Works especially well with Thanatophobia.

Iridescent Lament Configuration - Stops survivors from seeing the aura of the box from further than 16 meters away of a chain hunt hasn't started. This add-on greatly increases the chances that a chain hunt actually starts and forces a survivor away from gens to deal with it. Helps deal with large maps and should honestly be base-kit considering how useful this add-on is.

Impaling Wire - Spawns an additional chain whenever a chain is broken by the environment. This helps make up for Pinhead's biggest weakness when at tight loops. It also makes survivors holding the box hostage for their team more vulnerable and very easy to pin down during a chase. In a lucky scenario a survivor will break off 1 or 2 chains with an obstacle and will struggle with the last chain/s long enough for the extra chains to re-target them for massive amounts of slowdown. Although this happens rarely, this add-on's capacity for allowing this to happen combined with making chains slow down survivors more consistently, makes it one of the best.

The Good

Greasy Black Lens - Reveals a survivor for 6 seconds after hitting them with a possessed chain. Incredibly useful at loops with LoS blockers and synergises very well with the Engineer's Fang.

Original Pain - Injured survivors who break free of possessed chains suffer from Deep Wounds. Similar to the Engineer's Fang, this add-on rewards snipes and can help you waste the survivor's time as you switch between chasing and patrolling gens.

Frank's Heart - Increases the range that you can spawn in possessed chains by 8 meters. Very useful as equipping it doesn't mess with your muscle memory by changing the charge time of the chain gateway, whilst still allowing you to use the extra range for easier chain-interrupts for survivors healing, repairing gens, but mainly solving the box.

Larry's Remains - Increases the box solve time by 6 seconds, 10 seconds in total. Not a very good add-on by itself. But important for a box-focused build in combination with Franklin's Demise and Hoarder. Effectiveness of this build scales with how small the map is. The smaller the better. As you're given more time to interrupt the person solving the box.

The Worst

Chatterer's Tooth - Picking up the box will stop chain hunts and grant you undetectable for 12 seconds. You can see the aura of the box when it's on the ground. A very gimmicky add-on that neuters the power of picking up the box. Chain hunts are extremely disruptive and grants massive amount of free map pressure. Removing that for 12 seconds of undetectable is simply not worth it.

Slice of Frank - Survivors holding the box are exhausted. A very situational add-on that isn't even that good in the ideal scenario. No reason to run this over the better add-ons.

Bent Nail - Possessed chain hits only spawn 1 additional chain. Gain 100% extra pity points for running this add-on. This is a dumb meme add-on. Don't run it. You actively lose distance when using your power in a chase.

Spoiled Meal/Larry's Blood - Increases the travel distance of possessed chains by by 2/4 meters respectively. Outclassed by Frank's Heart and Flickering Television that effectively do the same thing but with higher numbers. Spawning in chains closer to survivors is better than having the chains travel for longer as survivors cannot dodge chains already next to them.

Wriggling Maggots/Lively Crickets - Increases possessed chain turn rate. As already mentioned, spawning chains on top of survivors is better than trying to hit them from afar. Extra turn rate is not useful when the most effective way to use chains is to make them travel as short a distance as possible before hitting their targets.

Skewered Rat/Leather Strip - Reduces the recharge of your power by by 0.45/0.15 seconds. The numbers are simply too small to worth running over other add-ons.

what perks should you use?

Save The Best For Last - A very useful perk on most killers. It has a trade off with Engineer's Fang as you'll typically gain stacks slower but also lose them slower since your obsession will almost always be injured during a chase. And chain hits don't count as basic attacks.

Play With Your Food - Not a meta perk by any means. But using this perk in combination with the Engineer's Fang is a good combo since launching a possessed chain doesn't make you lose stacks! Enjoy an easy down when chasing your obsession.

Franklin's Demise + Hoarder - Specialising in a build that focuses on protecting the box, these perks are playstyle defining. Hoarder will detect whenever anyone picks up the box within 64 meters. Allowing you to know how far away they are, and some information on where they might be if you notice a survivor icon change to holding the box and the perk doesn't activate. Hitting a survivor while using Franklin's will drop the box to the ground. Allowing you to leave it there to be guarded and force survivors to danger themselves picking it up, or use it immediately for free map pressure and information on survivor locations. A very powerful perk combo when on a small map!

Playstyle: Chase pressure

Add-ons: Engineer's fang + Impaling Wire/Iridescent Lament Configuration/Greasy Black Lens

Perks: BBQ&Chilli + Thanatophobia + Your choice of gen regression/control perks (Mine is PGTW and Eruption)

Strategy: At the start of the game focus on injuring as many survivors as you can before committing for a down. Thanks to EF It'll be very difficult for survivors to keep healing and maintain gen pressure because of how easy injuring them will be. Which will allow Thana to buy you more to win chases.

This build is very consistent but requires you to be adapt at hitting survivors consistently with chains. Be aware that all bugs that Nurse experiences when aiming her blink also applies to Pinhead. So if you're experienced with Nurse you'll feel right at home with this playstyle.

playstyle: Hex: Gambit

Add-ons: Frank's Heart + Larry's Remains

Perks: Franklin's Demise + Hoarder + Hex Devour Hope + Hex Undying

Strategy: The win condition for this playstyle is to reach 3 stacks of Devour and keep survivors split between doing gens, cleansing your totem, and stopping the chain hunt until they lose out on time efficiency. Focus on the survivor going for the box at all costs. While the chain hunt is active, not only will gen progression be slowed down, but cleansing totems will be near impossible. Which is why the accompanying add-ons increase the box solve time and the range that you can spawn your chains. So you have as much chance as possible to stop the box from being solved and cancelling your snowball.

This build is fairly RNG-dependent and struggles on big maps. Getting your totems cleansed early on usually means a loss and thus I highly recommend putting on a map offering for Dead Dawg Saloon for it's small size and great totem spawns when running this build. (Assuming it's not disabled again...)

Guide over

Thank you for reading! I hope I have improved your knowledge on how to properly play Pinhead :)