How do I improve as Survivor?
I've just been having trouble improving as survivor. I'm terrible at looping, terrible at escaping the killer, I'm having trouble memorizing maps and possible pallet locations and things.
I usually main Cheryl, simply because I'm a SH fan, but I've been doing the rounds collecting teachable perks lately. Most of the time my builds consist of perks that let me rescue and heal the rest of the survivors, improve healing speed, alert me when the killer's near, but I feel like what's letting me down is my lack of ability to survive any encounter with the killer once they find me.
I just want to know how to improve since it feels like I'm stagnating.
Comments
-
Being good at DBD is being good at being chased, so if you want to improve it's going to suck for a while. I'd drop all the perks that help other survivors for now. It's admirable you want to be a good teammate (I wish there were more people like you) but if you want to get better at being chased, you have to play for you for a while. Kate has a good perk - Windows of Opportunity - that will help you learn layouts and loops. I used that perk when I first started playing and I still use it when a new map is introduced. Try to always be planning where you're going to go, especially at the start of the game before you know who the killer is. I try to have a couple moves planned ahead of time, whether it's an LT wall or just a safer pallet to loop.
DS is also must for me. So many teammates will farm you off hooks and killers are happy to tunnel someone out of the game. Dead Hard fails often but it can make chases last longer.
You could also try watching some survivor streams or Youtube videos. I learned a lot from watching survivors and killers when I first started playing.
0 -
This is DBDs biggest failure. There's no practice mode and it doesn't teach you how to play. I would recommend watching streamers like Otz for survivor tips. But I think one of the things you need to ask yourself is what kind of player are you? Are you the kind that likes to distract the Killer, work on objectives, or help the team? I'm not very good at looping either so I like to help the team in other ways. I'll cleanse totems, rescue survivors from the hook, and focus on healing.
I'll work on generators when I can, but for the most part I like to play the support role, and I find that's what works best for me.
0 -
I'll try what you suggested, focus on self preservation for a while before I branch out to other perks and playstyles. Thinking about it, I guess practising looping and escaping could be helping the team in an indirect way since I'll be distracting the killer the whole time.
0 -
Most skill in this game comes from experience. It's mostly just learning what players are most likely to do. Once you understand this, you get a general idea of what the killer/survivor is likely going to do based on what most killers do, and during the game, you start to pick up on what this specific opponent is likely to do. We'll come back to this.
For looping, I recommend Cru5h. He has a video called how to loop almost every tile and he explains looping far better than I ever could using text. After watching that, post in the DbD discord to see if someone will AFK in a KYF so you can learn maps and generally practice tiles and maybe even practice chases. (If you absolutely cannot find anyone, you can post on my activity feed on the forums and ask me. I can pretty much only play during the weekend because of my job but it all just depends). PRACTICE GETTING FAST VAULTS ON DIFFICULT (AND EVEN EASY) WINDOWS! Know what windows can and cannot be fast vaulted and what windows are good or a hindrance.
I also recommend playing as the killer to learn what your opponent will see and ultimately be thinking.
Now that you, hypothetically, learned about looping and even slightly improved. We can go back to that topic I started in the beginning.
Now that you have a general idea of what killers are likely to, I want you to start really focusing on what this killer does. Do they fake pallet breaks? Do they mindgame? How do they mindgame? How often do they mindgame? Do they hug as tight as they can? Do they cut too wide? All of these things are very important.
There's so much more but as I said, it's mostly from experience. I'm sure someone else will pick up what I left out but that's it for the most part
0 -
Run the tiles, link the tiles. And each killer, you play against differently.
1 -
The whole game is a give and take. If the killer is busy with you, your teammates can peacefully do gens. It definitely does help them if you can keep them busy with chase. Most survivors are garbage at being chased and are all too happy to sit on a gen the entire game.
0 -
#########. I knew I forgot something. Linking tiles together is the most important skill to have as a survivor. Any survivor can loop but it's the ones that know how to connect tiles together that get 5 gen runs or long (and efficient) chases in general.
Another thing, try to maximize window use. You have windows forever, pallets are limited.
0 -
If you're serious about improving as survivor go study the YouTube videos and tutorials out there, watch pros play on their stream, and play killer. This is the fastest way to improve as Survivor. You still need to put in the hours; you are not going to beat 1000+ hour killers jsut watching YouTube.
PS - I don't do any of the above, I'm a filthy casual.
0 -
Just learning to loop is a very single minded approch to the game, but the favorite thing for a lot of players. If you overly relay on looping, you have problems with killers that can´t be looped easy, leading to complains about killers with no counterplay from people who just dont know how to do anything else.
My way for getting better as survivor was to play as killer. The more problem i had with a killer (at that time nurse and billy, way before nurse were nerfed) the more i would try them out. Their weaknesses become obvious to you, and you learn to counter them easy.
0 -
I'd say there 2 areas that you can improve as a survivor: macro decisions and chases. There is too much to explore so I will recommend you watch FunGoose for the first and Uncharted for the second.
0 -
Map awareness and memorization is everything. I found that I used to be terrified of being chased because I was so bad at it. But learning the maps and paying attention to landmarks/killer shack/how the layout typically works made a world of difference.
I wouldn't say I'm the best survivor ever at chases, but I can definitely run a killer for 2-3 gens before getting downed, versus, for the longest time, always getting downed in 20 seconds.
Also, learn to be comfortable running while looking behind you. Even if you aren't confident in the map setup, if you can see what the killer is doing and can develop a sense of predicting what moves they're going to make, you can buy yourself more time no matter where you are (minus deadzones of course).
0 -
run and scream, that always worked for me
1
