Should I Ditch Stealth During Solo?
After playing quite a few solo q games today, I noticed a trend- I tend to score mid to lower tier amongst the other players, regardless of escape or death. And I'm wondering if it's due to my stealth gameplay.
I usually run Kindred, Sprint Burst, BT, and either Plunderer's or UE. My build is meant to be able to quickly and efficiently rescue hooked survivors, but also compensate for my utter garbage map sense.
But is stealth play holding me back? I'm wondering if the reason I score so low is that other players with a more aggressive style accomplish more in the time it takes me to complete an objective.
Can y'all please share your thoughts and suggestions with me if you have times? I'd really like to become a better solo player. Thanks ❤
Comments
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Stealth is a fine gameplay style. However, if you're only hiding and unhooking, without regard for anything else, then you will score fewer points than other survivors. Personally, I tend to score fairly high in most trials, relative to other players, but that also depends on external factors.
EDIT: If you feel stealth is holding you back, or it's just not for you, then it's OK to experiment with different playstyles until you find one that suits you and your goals. With that said, you should be prepared to lose until you get it right.
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If you're purely playing stealthy, then you're missing out on a lot of chase/stun/escape and bold points.
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If your playing for bloodpoints stealth is not the way to go. You get 0 bp for evading in the evasion category lol. BUT winning the match or pissing off a spirit main is its own reward
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I think it is best to play stealthy in solo when you yourself are vulnerable.
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The pip system encourages you to do a bit of everything to get the most points, including being in a good chase or 2.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with playing stealthy as long as you're doing something productive like gens or hook rescues. I love playing stealthy and evading the killer and usually score top 1 or 2 on the team.
Sometimes though you'll need to purposely get the killers attention on you so that they don't tunnel the same 1 or 2 people out if the game early because they can't find you ever.
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If you care about bloodpoints or pips, I'm guessing you'll have to fulfill the other emblems that aren't stealthy to get more. I noticed that I get many more points in games where I get chased for a long time, whether or not I get out alive, vs escaping with stealth (and my perk kit is pretty selfish and stealthy).
But if you don't care too much about that, like me, then I don't think your build is bad. Chases make my heart beat so fast I need to catch my breath hahahaha -- and my fun time trumps my personal rank or bloodpoints.
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Nah, stealth is fine, but as a Survivor, you gotta know when to pull aggro too. If you see a teammate getting chased who's on death hook while you haven't even been hooked once, it might not be a bad idea to swoop in for a good protection hit and pull the killer to chase you instead.
You can also just cleanse bones, those are really fast and easy boldness points, but personally I don't find them to be very fun objectives.
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To get bp you gotta do it all. If you are more focused on just winning games just being good at one thing, looping or stealth is enough. Just gotta decide what your priorities are.
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Stealth works great, but only if your entire team is committing. Or if you know killer will spend a lot of time looking for you and won't be able to find you, in that case it's a huge waste of time for the killer. I'd suggest finding a killer when game starts and go for chases in order to learn how to loop. If you are stealthing all the time you are not helping to relieve any pressure of your team, so it's 1v3. One of the worst thing you can do to a teammate who you just unhooked is hide.
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Yeah, I'm prepared to lose a lot of chases. I took SB off for a few matches to force myself to really assess my surroundings for options, rather than trying to win a chase through an exhaustion perk.
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Yeah, winning for me is if I had fun during a match. I had a match today that made me realize my build was getting boring: Our team of randoms faced a competent Nurse.
She had BBQ and Nurse's Calling, and some efficient blinks. Because of the Killer's skill and perks, I had to completely change my gameplay. Gens took priority and we all had to play injured. The constant moving and uncertainty was so much fun, even tho they 4K'd us 🤣
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Stealth is fine, it's just not rewarded because the game wants to promote interactions between survivors and killers. Which is rather amusing, considering that DbD is STILL advertised as Murder Hide And Seek.
What I did to break my stealth habit was throw on We're Gonna Live Forever and try to get all 4 stacks in every trial. Or Mettle of Man, but you shouldn't use Mettle of Man unless you're crazy. Knowing what you're doing doesn't actually help, just being crazy.
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Stealths okay but it lacks points. In my early days I put object of obsession on and just got chased by the killer and focused on the chase for a little while. I died a lot in the process but I didn't worry about escaping or points I just focused on getting better in chase and after a little while I learnt tiles a lot better and got a lot better at looping and it improved my gameplay a lot.
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Plunderers is good, you'll often need a key to escape in solo's because most killers are fairly sweaty for the 4K when they have the chance to be. So you'll need a key when they slam hatch down, unless you get good gate spawns.
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Stealth is wasting time unless u feel u can't loop the killer.
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Someone needs to unhook you once you get downed, though.
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Stealth is a perfectly valid way of playing the game but, from my personal experience, tends to be abused by SQ players. If everyone is hiding, the one who takes aggro is usually the injured guy who's bleeding and groaning.
Also, people tend to stop what they're doing as soon as inside the killer's TR.
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Which is why stealth is optimal in solo Q. Farming saves is about the fastest way you can ever get blood points. A 1 second unhook is worth more than 80 seconds of gen time. And you cant save or do gens if you are getting camped or tunneled out. Pallet stuns? Not against a ton of the killer roster and it’s risky to do with dedicated servers.
You can loop all you want but it doesn’t matter if your team are hiding in bushes. Plenty of games are lost before you even load in as a survivor. Bad matchmaking, bad map RNG, and a plethora of overpowered killer builds ensure it.
Note I’m advocating stealth when the killer is actually nearby; not urban evading across the entire map and wasting a ton of time like most people do.
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Note I’m advocating stealth when the killer is actually nearby; not urban evading across the entire map and wasting a time of time like most people do.
Only one of those things is actually stealth, though. Stealth is about not being perceived by a potential threat. There's no threat in your second scenario.
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Just mix the two together, try to avoid chases to waste killers time, but also try to take agro when your teammate needs your help to ease pressure of them aka on their second hook/death hook.
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It depends on what play style you are comfortable with. But for me I used to play stealthy but found that my looping skills wasn't as great as others because I always avoided chases. I would definitely try adding iron will instead of UE or kindred. It really helps at losing the killer.
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Lmao, it's so accurate. @MadLordJack brought it and didn't use it, or didn't and we could've used desperately. It's like the Entity KNEW 👀
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Your suggestion is actually quite brilliant...and also terrifying 😳 Honestly though, thank you, that's a great way to make sure I get into chases. Nothing like being thrown into the deep end ❤
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How much of a threat the survivor feels the killer is depends on them, some survivors are so scared they “stealth” the entire game because they never want to be seen once.
To me, stealth is hiding if the killer comes over to your gen, or hiding when attempting to make unhooks instead of just bombing it and relying on BT. I almost never take off spine chill so I usually have a clear indication of when to hide and when to sit on gens.
I think hiding if the killer comes to your gen is the best play pretty much every time. Even if they find you it typically wasted more time than just being at the nearest pallet and starting to expend resources immediately.
Not to mention DBD is more like a battle royal than a team game in solo Q so playing for hatch or to camp a door by not opening yourself up to being chased easily gives you a better shot at surviving overall; regardless of your looping skill.
Especially since some killers it’s pretty much impossible to “take aggro” to avoid a teammates death. If it’s a good nurse they see you and you pretty much just die, for example.
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It depends on the killers style and skill sometimes stealthing it is the smart play while other times you can loop them for your team and hehe it feels good to be face camped because you looped the killer for 3 gens
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Not really, stealth is the first barrier of protection against a Killer and you can make him waste time by having them searching your tile without finding you, Urban Evasion is decent for stealth but Iron Will is much better for that kind of build for it allows for stealth even while injured, BT is good but I believe for Solo is better Spine Chill, it also helps a lot with stealth because it tells you when is safe to switch cover and when not.
The only drawback is if they actually find you, you have lost a headstart on the Killer so only try it on easy to stealth tiles and maps.
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I started playing this game because I thought it was like a hide and seek game. Never realized looping was really a thing until months later. I'm not a pro by any means, but I still find stealth to be fun, especially against Spirit and Nurse.
These days I do semi stealth. I always run Spine Chill because you need it against the Queens, but it is also nice to out stealth sneaky killers (though I usually always stealth right into GhostFaces knife). Stealth at the beginning is good because once the killer passes you, you have some time to work on a gen. It is also good to stealth if they're using Corrupt Intervention so you can work on totems and search chests.
The problem with stealth is, if your team is bad, it isn't going to save the match, but if you want to be selfish, it can get you hatch.
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Honestly it will be really hard at first but it will help a lot and eventually you'll be able to run them for so long the team finishes the gens or they give up and break chase with you because they know if they chase you they lose.
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You can play stealth if you stay near the killer you'll still get those boldness point. It's when you purposefully avoid the killer that you lose on those. Like running bond and going to the opposite side of the map of where the killer is and focusing on m1ing the gens.
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Great advice.
As @Jyn_Mojito, I was playing stealthy. I still do when I see it's the better option. But before, I didn't want to be chased because I knew I would be downed in ten seconds. I watched lot of videos, hoping I would suddenly be good... Theory helped, of course, but practice is where I started to improve.
Huntress is my weakness, for instance. This morning, I looped and stunned a red rank one. I was proud of myself. She got me later though!
I still have a lot to learn. But forcing myself to get involved into chases had two benefits to me:
- It's fun. Being chased is fun! I do hope the Killers I face have fun too, trying to predict what each other is gonna do next.
- I improved and now, I'm not afraid anymore of being chased. I still am afraid of some Killers (Spirit, I look at you!), but I know I will learn.
Also, I played the whole day without perk yesterday, and it helped me too to improve. I was like, I don't rely on anything but myself. I'm not saying perks carry us, but having none, I sure focus on my gameplay only. When I will feel enough comfortable with no perk, I think I will use more variety into my builds, instead on counting on the same ones over and over.
Good luck, @Jyn_Mojito with your matches! I would like to hear about how it went with all the advices you got there.
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Stealth can be great sometimes, but I'd say there's something wrong if you describe your playstyle as "stealthy", especially in SoloQ
Most of the time stealth is useful at the beginning and end of a match.
- Waiting for Corrupt to expire instead of letting the killer take advantage of a tight patrol route
- Avoiding an early hook (every second you save before first down is 3 people simultaneously working on gens)
- Healing everyone to full before opening the gates for an easy escape
There are some other specific situations such as Blood Fury, Blood Warden, and Nurse where stealth is important, but the thing you should always consider is whether or not stealthing will increase the overall time your team spends on gens. If not, stealth probably isn't the best option.
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Agree! Every time I hear the Lullaby I cringe. But like you mentioned, I tried taking out the perks I rely on and just tried some builds that might be interesting. I didn't exactly slam pallets to incite the Killer, but I tried instead to stay in the TR much more.
Can't argue with results, I feel a lot more confident and pipped more frequently. Hope your games are going great in the Fog 😊
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Stealth usually hinders the team, because you either need to be looping the killer, doing gens, or unhooking/healing. If you're on death hook or something, then sure you can stealth.
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It depends on a ton of factors
Is it a killer you should give chases to, spirit, nurse, clown (no)
oni without power in a good spot, wraith, pig (yes as a distraction for the team)
Teamates being death hook / not getting enough pressure off them (no)
Teamates healthy and across the map while you are hiding away from a nearby killer alone (fine)
and like 2000 other situations but generally just give it your best judgement and you should be fine
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I don't know your rank but in red ranks, I'd say let go of that approach. Get into the mindset of being aggressive because good killers will spread pressure on your team and do it fast. If you're stealthing around too much, you're letting your other teammates gain that pressure that could have gone to you. Everyone needs to play their part.
Your perks are fine for the most part but def get rid of Plunder/UE. I'd recommend something like Prove Thy Self/ Adrenaline o help speed up gen progress which can clutch out games as well as max out your gen repairs rather quickly or help you out end-game.
Stealthing at the start is fine but you should always get on a gen the moment you feel like the killer is somewhere else (in a chase already or on the way to another gen, setting up traps, etc). Same thing applies to end game. Opening the gates for your team as soon as possible (if no one has gone down). Stealthing is very situational and people often make the wrong call about it and the other survivors who put in more work/do more for their team despise it.
I know chases may be tough sometimes but you putting aggro on yourself for your team can benefit everyone, you get points for boldness and they get more time to heal/do gens/bones.
Best of luck!
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If anything you should just ditch hope
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Obviously it sucks to get caught, but to be the best player you should be running around as much as you possibly can. You can spend the first part looking around for totems while you're avoiding detection, but once the killer gets their ball rolling, you and your team need to be swift to punish them during the chase.
The issue with this concept, is it ruins your ability to use Sprint Burst on command. The only time you'd be able to use SB like this, is after it cools down when you're on a gen, which can be the most useful time to have it (assuming its not on Cooldown).
Realistically, as long as you aren't idling when someone is being chased, you're doing better than most survivors out there.
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I guess that's one thing I should clarify: I'm never idling. It's more I'm constantly hopping on gens/doing bones than trying to loop/engage with the Killer. But like I mentioned I'm changing up the tactics and seeing some good progress! Thanks!
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