An in depth post about the lack of counterplay to spirit, deathslinger, and pyramid head.
Alot of people believe these these three killers have counterplay so I decided to make a thread going in depth the reasons why they lack counterplay. If I am wrong and you they do have counter play feel free to provide it.
Spirit:
Spirit lack of counterplay comes from the fact that her power has no tell in a chase leaving the survivors mostly in the dark. This lack of tell leaves survivors to guess. This guess is very much in the spirits favor. Add stridor into the mix and you have a broken build more on that later.
The reason the guess is in the spirits favor is because she can stand still observe your moves and act accordingly. If you walk/run away she phrases to your location and hits you, if you walk towards her she hits you. Against a good spirit there isnt much you are able to do and you are pretty much choosing which way you prefer to die. If you are injured it doesnt matter because like I said a good spirit is immediately phasing towards you and downing you.
Stridor spirit is a dirty build and has really.no counterplay. This is because it counters iron will which is usually the reply to "how do I counter spirit." When you are injured you are counting down the seconds until your death. There isnt really much to say on this because the majority of spirits run this.
Deathslinger:
There isnt much to cover mostly his zoning and quick shots.
I'm gonna start with his quick shots. The quick shot shoots in less than a second it shoots very quickly you can not react to that. Because you can not react to his shot you have to guess when hes gonna shoot and dodge accordingly. This is the problem let's say you are dodging preemptively you are losing speed and distance, then he can get up close and m1. You either guess right and he misses. Or you dont guess right and he walks up and m1s you due to your constant dodging.
His zoning is insanely strong and oppressive in chases. He can ads in and out. So let's say you are running from a deathslinger and he aims then you dodge. You start losing speed and distance then be does this a couple more times and now he had caught up and m1'd. His zoning strength comes from the fear of being shot and the fact you have to guess.
Pyramid Head:
Pyramid Head is short and sweet his zoning is far to powerful for how easy it is to do. Let's say you are running towards a vault and a PH is behind you, you vault he hits you with his range if you fake he hits you with his m1. The problem is there is zero delay after cancelling his punishment of the damn to m1. I have footage of this if you want proof. That's really it for PH
Final:
One more thing before I go the usual answer for all of these is to rush gens but then gen rush is complained about kinda confused here but that's all for now. Until next time.
Comments
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Most of what you describe is semi-balanced counterplay. Everything more would make it skew it very much in favor of the survivors.
With Spirit, though, the main issue I noticed (personally) is that a lot of people 'phase-camp'. And yes, Spirit on paper has a harder time locating survivors than wraith, but in practice it's just as easy (I mean, even I can get my hits in and I'm usually horrible at that) as for other killers.
I think in general one thing to change would be making looking behind you easier, maybe through a keybind.
Spirit needs some tweaking to disable phase-camping, which I dare say would make her unattractive to a lot of high ranks for a start
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Looking behind you is piss easy but I can respect your opinion but you havent provided me counterplay to none.
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The counterplay to Deathslinger and PH is to hope that they screw up and miss. The counterplay to Spirit is to hope she isn't running Stridor with a good audio setup, or to play a guessing game.
That is in essence all there is to know. Whilst in a chase, you, as the survivor, have to hope that the killer makes mistakes. How coincidental that it is the exact same mindset you have to be in while playing as just about every other killer. I don't think that these killers are very fun to go against, but I also see the irony that that is the biggest complaint about going against survivors - you have to wait for them to make a mistake before you can do anything to catch them.
I'm simply acknowledging this, I really have no idea if it is a good or bad thing to have killers whose personal skill trumps the survivors. Maybe people will grow a little empathy, or maybe they will dig into their hypocrisy. Who knows.
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I would compare Deathslinger to a LT wall, where You either vault or don't vault the window to avoid the killer. In response the killer can double back or keep going in order to counteract the vault.
Saying you want a counter to slinger is like saying you want a 100% counter to LT walls, when they're deemed fair, you have a 50/50 choice of whether to vault depending on what you think the killer will do.
Slinger is the same, it's either he does, or doesn't shoot, no in-between. It's your job as a survivor to predict whether he is going to shoot or not, just as much as it's your job to predict whether the killer will double back at the LT wall. It's the same type of guess, just because he put his gun up doesn't mean he's going to shoot. You can read a bait just as easily you can read a shot.
Assuming it's a good slinger, you're going to have to do this 50/50 around every 3 to 2 seconds assuming you are at a killer sided loop, even less if the loop has tons of LOS blockers. In some extreme cases he won't even be able to get a shot off such as jungle gyms, rock loops etc.
This is something I absolutely do not get people with slinger, I ask them to predict right against slinger, and i'm told "Just guess right 4head". But when it comes to LT walls, then it's an actual mindgame? #########?
One thing I will agree with you on is that he has no 100% counterplay other than predicting right, but he doesn't need that, and the thought that killers need 100% counterplay is stupid IMO but that's a completely different discussion.
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Pyramid boi and quickscope boi have counterplay. Its called having good reaction times. Spirit I do agree with tho.
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A good pyramidhead doesn't give you reaction. They don't use their ability randomly, they use it at pallets or windows to guarantee a hit. Stick sword in ground: They jump? Ability hits them while animationlocked. They don't jump? Remove sword and hit. I play a lot of killer, and this is the strategy I use. There's no counterplay to it other than prethrow pallets, but then it's just a bloodlust chase against an m1 killer. And if he's too close when you prethrow, you get hit in that animation. Meaning you can't leave that pallet and go anywhere else, because he'll be too close for any windows or pallets, then.
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I agree with spirit 100% and kinda with PH but deathslinger has counter play.
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Fake the window. It works more than you think. Also you can loop normally against him.
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No it doesn't. I play pyamid head. If someone fakes, I just hit them. If they jump, you have time to react to hit them once they do.
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Well its still 50 50. Most people aren't sentient enough to do that.
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you say that's easy, I say countering PH and Deathslinger is easy. I wonder how it can be that I perceive one thing as easy while you don't... mhnnn
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'Most people' should not be included when talking about optimal play XD Optimal play at pallets and windows is what defines the strength of a killer in chase, essentially. Optimal play for phead is omnipotent.
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Still though it works a lot. It rare to get someone who doesnt fall for a good window fake, even at red ranks.
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Deathslinger sacrifices everything he has for a strong chase, though? If you take away his strong chase as well, what can he do?
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Here's a counterplay for every one of these killers:
Spirit - take spine chill (you can pair it with premonition, but that's up to you, it can help to find spirit in her haunting if you manage to save it for that moment), iron will (you can even combine it with no mither to counter even stridor, but that's questionable since you are one hit). Spine chill gives info whether she is looking at your or not which can save your ass sometimes. Iron will reduces chances of her simply hearing you. As for playstyle, you should be trying to avoid chases in the first place.
If you were unlucky to be chased, try doing the following things:
- keep an eye on grass or other surroundings that would be moving if spirit starts using her power.
- don't do one thing for more than 2-3 seconds. You stood still for 2-3 seconds? Run into one direction for 2-3 seconds, change the direction, walk, stand still again and so on. The more random your behaviour will be, the better. If you are certain that Spirit is in haunting (f/e she's looking into other direction, but spine chill is lit up) and has no info on you for at least 2-3 seconds, try to go where she least expects you to be, for example to her husk or just walk to some corner etc. Yeah, that's difficult. That requires you to read her moves. That requires you to understand timings.
- Just waste her time. She can't spam haunting, it requires a cooldown. Force her mistakes, make her lose one haunting by another, every time she misses her ability, she loses her precious time and pressure and you get increased chances to come out of that in one piece.
Deathslinger - Spine chill (and premonition) to counter silent slinger builds. As for general counter, it is obstacles and distance. Just accept the fact the once the following things happen, you inevitable get hit:
- You are within 18 meters from Deathslinger
- There are no obstacles between you.
At this point you already at the point of no returning and you get hit. So, to counter him you do what? Right, don't allow that situation to happen: Drop pallets early, don't stay in open spaces, don't run short low-wall loops, don't vault windows if he gets an opportunity to shoot you. You can try juking right and left and so on, but don't expect this to work on good slingers, so just try not to let them get an opportunity to shoot you in the first place. This killer has no mobility and relies purely and chases which means what? Exactly, your goal is to waste his time. If he spends at least 30-40 seconds chasing you, that means that at least 40%-50% of a gen (or 3 gens if your team isn't awful) would be done. Also, if you still got shot, don't "wiggle" left and right. Wiggle into one direction, which would give you a chance to get stuck in some obstacle and have a chain broken.
Pyramidhead - Distance. Just. Stay. The. F. Away. Especially if there is a wall between you and Pyramid or you are vaulting within a lethal radius of punishment. Good pyramid head will leave you no chances once you are within the effective range of his ability so you do what? Don't get within that range. Shift+W, pre-drop pallets and vault windows when he has no time and distance to hit you, and just run straight forward around the entire map. Staying within a loop against this killer is basically a death sentence so you would try no to remain in one place for too long.
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- Saying to bring X perk isn't counterplay, its guessing its a Spirit
- The "change direction" point is null if;
- She has Stridor
- She stands still and watches you then phases since you have 0 distance
- "waste her time" when even a mediocre spirit can end chases within 15-30 seconds
"killer mains" can try and defend it as much as they like but the truth is Spirit needs to be brought in line with the others, and yes I do like killers who have to chase me, given how that is the point of the game
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I can tell you never played Pyramid Head
Pyramid Head has a short delay after canceling his rites of judgement, preventing him from swinging instantly. He has alot of counterplay as well, infact his counter is literally baiting him to use his ranged attack and vaulting the window after it ends. The ranged attack isn’t that wide you know, and its pretty short ranged. Gonna add this in, why so I keep seeing people say he doesn’t have an attack delay, I have held down RT (or M1 for you PC gamers) and it doesn’t immediately swing afterwards.
Deathslinger is a 110% M/S killer, his power is meant to be strong as its gonna be the easiest way for him to get the survivors, his counterplay is not being predictable and his quick scope is pretty predictable as it is, most Deathslingers tend to try and get a straight shot before going for the quick scope, so once he starts trying to not zone you out be unpredictable.
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Worded that perfectly.
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I have an 8 minute video of me swinging right after canceling the sword in the ground.
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If you can show me video proof of you consistently countering a good deathslinger/PH then bet.
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if you can show me one that it's 100% impossible to counter them
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I got a video of me playing executioner and showcasing the lack of counterplay I might as well upload it to youtube on private and add the link.
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oh, I was talking about a compilation of players NOT you. Because by the sound of it you deem me and people who don't drop dead instantly when facing Caleb or PH the exception or something
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Thats probably a bug as just like Deathslinger’s rifle, you can’t instantly just spam ADS and fire for the quick scope as you’ll just M1 and look stupid.
Pyramid Head cannot instantly swing after cancelling his swing, and even if he is capable just do what I previously said and try and tempt him to use his ranged attack so he gets a punishment while you get distance. He has counters, you just need to not run in a straight line.
Also I’ve been hit by a pallet because I couldn’t swing instantly after cancelling, along with this if you mean channeling the rites of judgement (as in charging it up) depending on positioning, the window you are about to go towards can actually be safe as his ranged attack takes time to actually activate. And in order for him to actually down you is if he is about to finish the charge up and you vault, if you vault as soon as you see him raise his blade you are safe as long as you don’t act predictable, if he stabs the ground then try and bait the vault and look like you will vault it. I wonder what other killers this works on...
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I dont drop dead either but I also lost the file but the point of the video was to showcase the lose Lose situations of PH.
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I DonT one think it was a bug I did it multiple times.
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I’ve never been able to swing instantly after shanking the ground with my great knife and cancelling, its always slightly delayed
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>Saying to bring X perk isn't counterplay, its guessing its a Spirit
Am I saying using X perk is a musthave? It's an option if you are struggling against Spirit. If you feel like you are able to deal with her without that perk, you are not obliged to use it.
>The "change direction" point is null if;
- She has Stridor
- She stands still and watches you then phases since you have 0 distance
1) If she has stridor you still can make her miss her ability, you should just have less space to maneuver, since she has more accurate info on you. Yet you can still apply "move unpredictably" strat to that and succeed, at least for long enough to cut off her momentum.
2) She still has to waste 1-2 seconds to initiate haunting, then waste same-nearly same amount of time to get near you. During that time you can: 1) Gain distance between you 2) Get in the position near pallet 3) Simply hide, change your position, do anything.
>"waste her time" when even a mediocre spirit can end chases within 15-30 seconds
Mediocre spirit can end chases within 15-30 seconds if survivors are even more mediocre. If you understand the way Spirit moves in her power, you'll be able to make her miss at least a few hauntings before she figures out the way you move or will catch you in a bad position. Nonetheless, you goal is to win time and not to run her for 5 gens (which is still possible if you read her like a book) and that can be accomplished.
> truth is Spirit needs to be brought in line with the others
She has already been severely nerfed. And what do you suggest to do to "bring her in line with the others"? Tell survivors when she is phasing? Remove any informational gains from her? Perhaps she needs a full rework, but nerfing or downgrading her power even more would be a mistake.
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You're not supposed to constantly counter a killers power. That would be pretty unbalanced. Like an infinite loop against M1 killers. If the killer is good and has a lot of experience, he will win the chase, if you're better at mindgaming, you "win" for that moment, which means gaining time and waisting the killers momentum while the others do gens or heal. If even mediocre or above average survivors could just endlessly make the (good) killer miss, how can those killers win the game? Just M1 everyone with 110% speed?
Most of the chase-based killers have other downsides like no map pressure, being slower or no stalling.
As someone said before, there are loops that are just pure 50/50 guessing for the M1 killer as well, but nobody does threads about those loops. Mindgaming and waisting/ gaining time is a big part of the game.
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'I also lost the file'
....
You're making this too easy, y'know
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They counterplay against all those killers is based on guessing. But chases from the killer side are solely based in guessing. A mindgame is a guess after all. A blink from nurse is a guess. A long range hatchet from huntress is a guess. A chainsaw sprint of Billy is a guess.
So why shouldn't survivors guess a bit too?
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"Let's say you are running towards a vault and a PH is behind you, you vault he hits you with his range if you fake he hits you with his m1. The problem is there is"
The problem there is.... you should fake the vault, I did it last night and easily dodged a PH range attack like 4 times in one chase
Plenty of counterplay to PH.
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PH has counterplay.
He has no map pressure
He has no way of finding immersed survivors
He has a 32m terror radius.
There is your counterplay.
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A lot of (read: basically all) threads about how there's no counterplay to X boild down to people being upset they have to change their MO depending on which killer they face.
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-stares confusingly at post as spirit with stridor-
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Finally. If they can affect it, its not a guess. "Will they do X if I do Y"?
A coin toss would be: Static blast hits you, you now get madness, or not. A harpoon is shot through your chest, theres a chance you are actually affected.
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Survivors want to be in control while also having the clock in their favour while also this being a 4v1 game. Also the whole stridor on spirit thing is a result of the sounds in this game being absolutely bugged for ages now.
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Spirit is probably the killer with the smallest counterplay, due to her powers being easily exploitable (see the aforementioned 'phase-camping')
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As long as the pyramid head has sight of you and is in range and knows what they're doing, they can simply wait for the vault animation.
In the situation described, if you play against any decent PH you will be hit. Faking the window works against bad PH's. Good ones will simply M1 if you do that.
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So there IS counterplay.
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But that isnt the point of the game. The point of the game is doing the objective and not dying.
For you you might do that with chases, others do it with stealth.
The thing that annoys a lot of survivors is that spirit can´t be just looped for minutes, because yes, its a guessing game. Get better at guessing, then.
One of the strong points of the game is that you have to take different tactics vs. different killers. A lot of people just ignore those points, and then complain about it.
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Man, I'm surprised what you write: it has no counterplay, because I don't know how. Have you ever tried to find useful information on YouTube? If you are outplayed, it doesn't mean that it is impossible to play against them.
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And this is called technique, not luck.
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All 3 killers that you are complaining about are fine and balanced. If you're getting hit by P.H's torment or special attack, you are definitely setting yourself up for it. If you're going to continue running the same loop, yours either going to catch a M1 or get torment applied to you. Leave the loop and run somewhere else. His rites of judgment is incredibly easy to dodge as well.
Deathslinger is even easier. If you're scared of getting pulled in, make sure you have objects in the field. Don't run in a straight line. Pre drop a pallet. Don't get me wrong, a very good D.S will hardly miss, but I find him to be an incredibly easy killer to lose in a chase.
I know a lot of people in the forums have an issue with Spirit but I have zero problems looping her or losing her in a chase. If I hear the whooshing, I assume she's coming to me and plan accordingly. I don't run so no scratch marks. If she is running stridor, I won't bother hiding I just make distance or vault a window/ pallet and keep moving.
All in all, these killers are fine and have more counterplay then I have mentioned. Your lack of an ability to lose them in a chase does not mean they have no counterplay, it means you are simply not good against them.
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I wouldn’t pay attention to any of the killer mains on here talking about counter play. They think that running around looking for 5 little totems for a few minutes with no information on what other players have done is perfectly fine counterplay to stop the killer from activating god mode but ask them to not pick up a survivor within 60 seconds of them being unhooked and they flip their lid.
Basically to them everything on the killer side has counter play no matter how small but everything on the survivor side is expected to have huge and easy counter play.
These are the same people whose answer to anything is often “don’t get caught” or “dont get seen”.
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5% speedbuff is godmode now. Oh wait, it's the onehit down but that doesn't matter since mostly survivors in a well balanced game will be injured by endgame most of the time anywa...oh wait there's adrenaline which either heals you up or picks you up in addition to giving you a sprintburst.
Not picking up a survivor for 60 seconds, great counter, now this survivor doesn't work on a gen while I can pressure another survivor off a gen, luckily there isn't 2 other survivors in the game...oh wait....
Well I could just tunnel 1 out of the game...oh wait that's not fun for survivors and now I'm a garbage baby killer.
You're well known for being biased as ######### and that's coming from somebody who is a 50/50 player with 100% achievements in this game.
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And running around a huge map looking for 5 little totems is perfectly fine? Especially if I do 4 and waste 5 minutes looking for the last just to find out the reason I didn’t see it is because someone else did it?
Are “just dont get caught” or “just dont get seen” reasonable suggestions?
This forum is well known as being killer biased and anyone who joins here can quickly tell that so I couldn’t care less what your opinion is of me.
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If you don't find all 5 totems the perk goes off, more often than not you can find them in most maps, if it truely bothers you then you have perks to find totems for you that also counter certain killers ontop of it as a nice bonus...oh wait that would mean you can't equip the other easymode perks that invaluate 90% of the other survivor perks because they amount to extra-healthstates.
if you can't find it in endgame accept the death of your teammate and move on. If you want to play overly altruistic then you're playing for fun while the killer is sweating and only have yourself to blame for dieing to NOED. There's a reason why I mostly dont have people playing with me, because I will leave them for dead if there's a NOED that I cannot find but then again I have fun playing effective instead of for some reason finding it funny dieing in a hopeless situation for that 1 in a thousand play.
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Lol and there we go, the side rant into survivor perks. Your bias is showing.
NOED is fine but DS is awful.....the best way to spot a biased killer main from a mile away.
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Yup, DS IS awful, it does almost nothing for survivors who would need every extra edge they could use and pushes survivors who are great at the game to unbeatable levels unless you play scummy too.
NOED amounts to 1 kill unless the survivors are overly altruistic while DS amounts to up to 120 seconds of not getting hooked as a survivor which is ridiculously much or into a hookstage. Mind you that killer perks SHOULD be either as powerful as survivor perks OR more powerful yet not many perks in the killer roster come close to dead hard, DS or BT. NOED is still better because as a solo I'm mostly unaffected by it and it only pisses me off because my SWF friends won't just leave and give the killer that 1k and instead turn it into a 3k with moí even tho I'm such a swell guy not being played with after because I "just left" instead of going for a trade when we couldnt find noed anyways.
There's no point in discussing with me tho, I'm way to smart for you but that's okay, I often donate to people who are not as gifted as myself.
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