How can you avoid getting wrecked by huntress in open maps?

Tzimiscelord

Title. Im new to the game and have little skill. Any tips will be appreciated

SimpleSage

When you don't know how she works, playing against her can easily turn into a 1 sided stomp, however she's a very simple killer so it's really easy to learn. Most Huntresses are easier to deal with on indoor maps, however outdoor maps are where most Huntresses shine. However they all can be dealt with in the same way and your main points to focus should be as follows:

• Always know where she's at and what she's doing.
• Always be aware of her Line of Sight vs. Your Line of Sight.
• Try to identify her perks and play-style as soon as possible.
• Be mindful of gaps and holes.
• Be unpredictable with your movements.
• Know your hit-boxes.

Always know where she's at and what she's doing.

Huntress is one of 2 killers in the game that can injure and down survivors regardless of how far away they are from her (the other being Artist) all other killers have to be much closer than those 2 to injure and down. However Huntress, and Huntress alone is the only killer in the game where survivors should look up. She has the ability to throw hatchets straight up, and when aimed well, can land on survivors heads (this is called an orbital, its still rare to see but it is increasing in popularity). This means you HAVE to keep tabs on her movements as much as you can. Not paying attention to her opens you up to a lot of sneaky shots and even double taps. So always try to know what side of the map she's on, what direction she's headed to and what she's doing. Doing this removes the first and most important hurdle to playing well against her, and acts as a foundation for all the other tips.

Always be aware of her Line of Sight vs. Your Line of Sight.

When you can keep tabs on her this tip becomes really easy to utilize. When working on gens, healing, getting unhooks, and moving around the map, it it extremely important you keep aware of her LOS (line of sight), her being able to see you is how she's going to throw hatchets at you. So throughout the match you should constantly observing your surroundings and checking any direction she could approach you from as well as any directions a hatchet could come from, always position yourself to deny as much LOS as possible. Work on the side of the gen that faces away from the center of the map or puts the most cover at your back. Don't heal under hook or in the open, move behind cover. Try not to unhook when she can still see hook and use the hook and or hooked survivor to block hatchets so she can't stop you or get a free injury (after the unhook you'd flip sides and put yourself between them and her). And don't stand or walk around in the open as much as possible and always try to keep something in between you and her.

Try to identify her perks and play-style as soon as possible.

This is important as its going to identify things you need to be mindful of as the match progresses as well as how you may want to adjust when playing against her. Play style is going to be the easiest, your main focus should be to identify if they are a "Snipetress" this means they are going to focus on going for long range and cool shots, with these huntresses LOS is even more important as she's most likely to utilize the opportunity to injure you if you're out of place. As for identifying perks, you want to specifically look for Aura perks although there is a few non-aura as well, specifically Iron Maiden, running distortion makes it easy as you'd lose a stack when she reads your aura, however you should know how to identify them without it as you can still play around them.

Be mindful of gaps and holes.

Huntress isn't only able to throw hatchets long distances, she can also throw them through various openings and gaps in loops, walls and obstacles, this takes many survivors by surprise (have you heard about people complaining about getting hit by a hatchet through a wall? This is one of the culprits for that.). Take the time to observe loops, walls, and obstacles outside chase and when you find a hole or gap ask yourself if a hatchet could fit though a gap that size irl, if you answer yes there's a really good chance she can throw through it. Now playing around this is extremely tough as these are everywhere. The good news is, these shots are really hard most of the time, there's so many nobody knows every single one, and its really easy to forget its an option mid chase. If the Huntress is going to use one of these shots its pretty easy to notice as she'll pull up her hatchet at a really weird time and she'll hover the gap, you can bait the throw and make her miss or just stop out of sight and make her drop her hatchet.

Be unpredictable with your movements.

Winding up a hatchet, throwing it, and going through the cool down takes time. Unless you are point blank it will not instantly hit you, and that's something Huntress has to think about. As long as you aren't running in a straight line away from her, she cannot throw the hatchet directly at you, she has to throw it where she thinks you're going to go, or predict where you're going and when you'll get there. When in chase most survivors are going to run with a purpose, get to that jungle gym, that pallet, window, behind this wall, etc. When you run with a purpose its really easy to telegraph where you are going and she can use this to her advantage. This is something you should be mindful of when you're in chase. One of the easiest things you can do is fake running in a direction to bait the hatchet before actually going there during cool-down. A better way to explain it, you're running to a jungle gym and shes right behind you with a hatchet up, she throws the hatchet at the entrance at the same time you turn to run in and you get hit. Instead of this, when you approach the entrance pretend you're going to run through and then last second swerve out and away, there's a really good chance she'll miss if she threw at the entrance. Another thing you can do in chase is run to places that don't make sense. You still want to keep LOS blockers between you and her but if shes loosely following you and you can keep breaking LOS you can actually run in a direction away from where you were leading her to throw her off. So if she sees you running to a jungle gym, you break LOS and she moves to run into the loop, you can actually just turn around and run away if she wont see you immediately and she will spend time looking around the loop. This takes time to learn when you should and shouldn't do it and how to actually get away with it, but its actually useful against all killers, not just Huntress.

Know your hit-boxes.

Hit-boxes are very important when going against Huntress as just because you think you're safe behind the cover you've chosen doesn't mean you are. First thing to note is the hatchet hit-box is a sphere, its not much taller than the hatchet but its a bit wider. When facing huntress, pretend you're playing dodgeball, dodge the ball not the hatchet. The other thing to note is survivor hit-boxes. While healthy and standing still your hit-box is a little bigger than you but stands exactly where you are. However as soon as you start moving your model is NOT where your hit-box is. Your hit box follows your feet and doesn't change even when your injured, this means it lags a little behind you. Stack ping difference between you and the Huntress and its going to result in hits that look like they shouldn't hit, so its something you need to keep in mind. When you clear corners or stand behind cover you need to make sure there's enough space to account for the slightly off hit-box.

A few other tips:

Long walls BAD! Short walls GOOD! When I say this I mean long vs short in length not height. The opposite is true for height, anything short in height is death against huntress. She doesn't need to be sniffing your shampoo products to injure you so running in straight lines for too long is really bad.

Vaulting or throwing a pallet in a huntress face is a guaranteed hit. Try to avoid anything that locks you in an animation while she has a hatchet ready. Either pre-throw the pallet before she can get in position to throw a hatchet, or stun her.

When holding a hatchet Huntress moves at 77% movement speed, survivors run at 100%. If she is running around with a hatchet up, she is losing a lot of distance and will never catch up with you unless you let her. This also means she can't zone (push you away from a safe spot) by infinitely holding a hatchet up unless you let her. Run for the safe spot anyway, She knows you're running there, you know she going to throw a hatchet at you, play the game of chicken with her, and then bait the hatchet. Most of the time when I see a huntress that zones heavy, it's because they are un-confident in their aim and are scared to miss. She's trying to zone survivors for the easy m1, keep her out of her comfort zone, it's a lot easier to make her miss when she's panicking or impatient.

Huntresses entire torso bends and swivels when she's aiming a hatchet. When you become more accustomed to facing her, you can actually use this to see where shes aiming and use it against her.

This is a lot to throw at someone, but I hope it helps.

Junylar

Break line of sight with wall structures, all outdoor maps have them. Don't let her find you out in the open, otherwise dodge the hatchets.

Mr_K

The 5 Ds.

Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge.

As you can't Dive you will have a 1:5 chance at getting hit.

moputopia

During chase or when she's aiming at you from afar, find structures that you can hide behind, preferably tall, but shorter ones can also help if you crouch. Try to avoid staying in very open areas if possible.

Pay attention to her wind-up sound - Huntresses are likely to run aura-reading builds, so when nobody is in chase and you hear her winding up, be aware of your surroundings.

Don't run away from her in a straight line, unpredictable movement makes it much harder to hit you.

If you notice her reloading, use that time to make distance in chase, or go for the unhook if she's guarding the hook.

jmwjmw27

If you are new to the game, number 1 tip is walls walls walls.

Anything, wall, object, that huntress can't aim at you, means she has to walk at you, and you don't have to worry about dodging.

Once you get the hang of running away while looking at the killer without bumping into stuff, another way to avoid going down very fast is to find a medium-sized object (like a rock loop with pallet) and run around it a bunch to waste time, since she is slower than normal killers like trapper.

ratcoffee

Learn to look around as you run from place to place, not just at where you are running

Huge_Bush

Everyone else gave you good advice, I’d like to add on that you should unlock Distortion to hide your Aura from her. It’ll prevent her from sniping you from out of nowhere.

Tzimiscelord

Amazing @SimpleSage .

Thank you.