This is embarrassing but I don't understand crows and how they help Killers
So, I have been watching significantly more Killer content on YouTube and a phrase I've heard a few times when a Killer is looking for a Survivor is "I just saw a Crow return!"
What does that mean? Return from where? And if they know where, how do they know how long the crow was gone for? Does it matter?
Can't a crow that I startled as a Survivor land anywhere on the map?
The only thing I can understand is if you see a crow take off perhaps there's a Survivor nearby but please explain "returns" to me. I am so confused and honestly never used crows to track anyone since as Killer, I startle them as well right?
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When you startle a crow it flies up into the air but it will always fly back down back to where it was originally. I know this because I've had crows fly up and return a couple of times when I've been healing behind a rock (obviously it's risky to do this, since it might give away your position if the Killer returns).
I don't know exactly how long crows take to fly back down but I think it's only a few seconds and the Survivor is likely still in the area. I use crows to track Survivors a fair amount.
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it's only like 15 seconds until they return so you have an idea where somebody was about 15 20 seconds ago. sometimes that one crow is all I need to check that one locker.
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I literally have zero base use for crows, I've honestly never used crows ever, not once. The only time I used crows is when that one perk would alert you to a survivor by revealing their position each time they disturbed a crow but they nerfed it into the ground and I've never touched that perk since nor do I remember it's name. It was definitely useful for survivors in the end game hugging the edge of map refusing to play or help their friend on last hook or if they were waiting/searching for hatch. You can use the other answers for reference but personally I've never not once had an instance where a crow was actually useful outside of the previously nerfed perk.
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Kinda interesting but no one knows everything.
When survivor startles the crow it will fly up and killer can see that and second variant is when in place killer wasnt passing through the crow returns to its sitting place than its clear someone was there and startle it.
Some killers like slinger startle crows a lot because when he shoots his gun they fly up a lot around him so he cant take much info from them but majority of killers can and if they know this fact how crows work in trial than they will have solid info from it, the more nerdy people even know the time when the crow will reset and come back to its sitting place I believe so they can predict a lot.
Crows than have secondary work and thats flying around people that are afk or didnt touch a gen for long time or interacted with the killer, they will just fly above the survivor or sit on locker in which the survivor is.
Many times survivors are “how did he knew?” but forgeting killers have eyes and that crows work as info tool for both roles but modtly for killer because survivors have terror radius as indicator where killer is.
Like ghostface cant startle crow when he is crouched but even when he is in his power and isnt crouching he will startle them and this can sometime tell you that he is sneaking on you etc.
Many people forget about crows and mostly og ones or sessoned ones know because when in 2016 game was mostly hide and sneak the crows were known thing a lot, now with crows only spies from shadow work (killer info perk giving killer info survivor startled crow in 36 metrers range from that killer).
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Crows spawn on objects and the ground around the map and are static to those spots the whole match. They get startled by most fast actions including walking and sounds causing them to fly up to the sky and they return after 15 seconds have gone by. Crouching is the only way to be close to them without them getting startled. They are one good way of seeing what direction someone went or if you see one fly up you know there was someone there that startled it as they don't randomly fly up. I quite often do use them as killer to pin point survivors put its quite often map dependent as indoor maps you rarely can see them fly up but most outside maps that you have good visibility you can use them to find survivors or as survivor maybe see where the killer is coming before you see him. Sometimes you can find the last survivor hiding in some area when they accidentally scare a crow for example. Crows are just one of the tools you can use to gain information on both sides in this game.
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Honestly when I play killer I don't really bother with the crows. When they fly up they disappear in seconds and even if i see one land, it's old info. And that's if I even notice in the first place, normally I'm paying attention to other stuff.
They can be useful if you run spies from the shadows, gives noise notification when a surv scares a crow nearby. I don't often run it anymore but back when I started playing killer it was my go to location perk before I unlocked decent aura reads. Tbh it's a slept on perk, it's very tough to call it from the survivor side, and it gets around stuff like distortion and other aura read prevention.
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Yeah same. I don't have time to look at birds unless there's people ratting and not doing gens. I'm usually a little too busy for that.
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Pretty simple really:
Honestly no clue if their initial position is random or not, but I believe so. Well no matter if it's random or not, if you make a crow fly off it will respawn a short time later again on the exact same spot - I think it was after 15 seconds.
So a crow respawning means there was a player 15 seconds ago (could be you or a survivor. Some powers also trigger them near you like deathslingers shots). If you now look further in this direction you could see more birds respawning and with that you know the general direction that the survivors ran.
Well obviously if you see a crow fly off far away and it's not you as killer it has to be a survivor. Crow are actually pretty simple if you know the trick :D
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Old info is still info like for macro you know someone was there, scratch marks are too old info or pools of blood, crows are the same but take longer to reset.
Even without spies they are good info and can tell you if domeone webt hide to the edge of map because they spawn a lot on edges or near them or if someone sneaks there. Who played so online competitive game knows info is very important and can help you make your macro game sence better.
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