Tips for Artist?

Wanting to try her out, as I lover design and the map wide pressure she can put down, but I'm having a hard time timing her birbs, as we'll as which add-ons and perks she benefits most from. Anyone have any fun builds they run with her and how to properly use them?

Comments

  • IlliterateGenocide
    IlliterateGenocide Member Posts: 6,016
    edited September 2022

    Velvet Fabric + Thick tar to be able to see if survivors double back or not. (Velvet fabric extends the aura even if they try to repel crows)

    Severed Hands addon let's you hit a group of survivors and then injure with a bird PLACES AT THE SAME TIME A LITTLE different place.

    (Because survivors who get hit with the effects of severed Hands can be injured with the same group of 3 birds unlike normal where you have to "place one, shoot, place another shoot" it would instead be "place one, move back a little place another, shoot") and potentially injure

    *note that only works on a survivor the survivor who got hit infects


    General tips, she can shut down loops stupidly easy just by placing a bird trail at a pallet because it can injure if a survivor is in the arrow range.

    Also remember survivors have to completely restart the repel action if they vault or throw pallet.

    Perks she can benefit from really well is dead man's switch. As she can easily push survivors off with birds.

    Other than that it's mostly just learning survivor habits

  • Etherelda
    Etherelda Member Posts: 28
    edited September 2022

    Perks: Nurse calling & gen regression of your favorite flavor.

    Addons: shoes, hands, anything without effects for crow quantity/idle duration

    She's 4.6 speed so don't try to get a crow hit every time and chase with W more. Always use only 1 crow for initial swarming (unless you just need scout the gens quickly) then wait for cooldown and throw a spread pattern of 3 crows towards swarmed survivor location for higher chance of a hit.

    Antiloop: place crows against pallets, along window & door walls, around the corners. Don't expect to hit with the crow though, it's mainly there to discourage survivors of using some loop options and force them to pick the route you want.

    btw crows flying over lockers will highlight hidden survivors with killer instinct heartbeat

  • Steel_Eyed
    Steel_Eyed Member Posts: 4,032

    It took me a while to understand that she is not huntress, deathsligner, or trickster. You do not want to 'aim' at survivors. She's a trap killer. You aim the bird as a threat to survivors not to go and if they cross the path, hit em.

  • LinkToReality
    LinkToReality Member Posts: 115
    edited September 2022

    This was the post that disappered for me first, mentioned in the edit below, ignore it, the second was better written xD

  • LinkToReality
    LinkToReality Member Posts: 115
    edited September 2022

    In my opinion her birds work best if you use them one at a time. That way they recharge faster after sending them off or they go away after idling.

    It's important to remember that the birds deal instant damage if they hit a survivor within the line in front of the bird if unobstructed. This can be great in loops, since pallets and window vaults don't count as obstructions, if you can place a bird and then herd the survivor into it. I get more injuries on survivors this way than M1 attacks.

    Also, if you use only one bird you can line up and hit a second bird before they have the time to disperse the swarm they have on. It's good to remember that if they interrupt the dispersion of the swarm at any point to vault or drop a pallet the action resets and they have to start over from the start again.


    As for builds I enjoy Discordance for cross map harassment. Paired with Dead Man's Switch it can be quite a bother for the survivors. Other than that I usually just take something depending on my mood. Deadlock is always nice to keep the gens blocked even during chases.

    For add-ons my favorite is the Charcoal stick, as unobservant survivors might miss where you place your birds and what way they're facing. And since they have no aura in flight they can more effectively hit survivors on gens cross map.

    Severed hands is also great, especially together with Discordance. Spreading that swarm.

    Garden of Rot is probably the most oppressive add-on she has. Using that you don't need to focus on damaging the survivors with your birds, just swarm them and chase after them while they clear the swarm then punish them. Setting up another bird to incentivize them to disperse the swarm can still be good.

    Edit: I had a reply typed up and sent in this thread but I wanted to fix a typo with edit and the whole post vanished...

  • CrowVortex
    CrowVortex Member Posts: 961
    edited September 2022

    I main her the most out of my roster of killer's. With her bird's you only want to fire one crow to swarm, then follow up with 2 or 3 crows while in chases. As for scouting gen's it's more lenient, fire 1 crow at 3 gens to quickly pinpoint locations or 1 crow at 1 gen to enable a follow up crow if you know survivors are working on that specific gen.

    She doesn't really benefit from chasing perks or most hexes, so you're looking at Slowdowns, gen blocks, auras, information and status.

    The build i favour with her is Agitation, Pain Resonance, Dead Man's Switch and Call of Brine, works really well for me. It all combo's well enough that you can 90% of the time always get to a scourge hook and proc pain res and dms if need be, Call of brine as a backup that also gives you information once they hit a skillcheck, informing you to send a bird that way.

    Though you can use any of these and switch it up: Agitation, Pain Res, DMS, CoB, Eruption, Gift of Pain, Plaything, Pentimento, Discordance, Floods of Rage, I'm all ears, Lethal Pursuer, BBQ, Overcharge, Devour Hope, No Way Out, Deadlock.

    Add-on wise, Severed Hands enables her to pressure multiple survivors, so i favour that myself. Her purples are all quite good except for the one that provides an extra crow. Her iridescents are bad in that you won't get much value from them. Thorny nest, o grief o lover, silver bell are decent, Thick Tar and Carrion combo if you're struggling with her dire crows, drop that once you're reliably hitting them.


    At loops, you'd want to place a dire crow to one side of the pallet, and try and force the survivor into the pathing or M1 them if they decide to leave the loop, windows treat it like Pyramid Head and hit the swarm crow, then follow up. Walls and shack, same idea as pallets.

    Might help you a bit on the dire crow's prediction.

    PS. Someone inform that Nea that crows can go through walls.

  • EQWashu
    EQWashu Member, Mod Posts: 5,019

    Definitely will second Steel_Eyed, its something I had to learn a bit as well. And IlliterateGenocide & Etherelda listed some great stuff as well! The birds do work best with denying areas, or if I suspect they are on a faraway gen, I may send a few off in that direction to confirm (and keep the survivors on their toes a bit). If you notice a survivor not particularly keeping an eye on you and just running in a direction, you can likely set up some birds ahead of them with a fair likelihood they'll make contact.

    I've mentioned this one before, but I gave Zanshin Tactics a whirl on Artist once and fell in love with it. If you have survivors that know their vaults/pallets well, it can be pretty helpful. Definitely don't be afraid to try different perks/add-ons and see which ones work with your particular playstyle!

  • Viciusaurus
    Viciusaurus Member Posts: 407

    Just got off work, and jist now seeing this. Thank you ll so much for the incredibly detail3d information and gameplay tips! There's a lot to unpack, but I've def gotten some good info from yall today, and I appreciate it! This also makes me realize how badly I've been underutilizing her power 😗 However with all of this I can now shoot for hopefully being a much better Artist! Also thank you Rathoric for the video, that really helped! Cheers!

  • Kira4Evr
    Kira4Evr Member Posts: 2,025

    Don't expect anyone to loop and bring Brutal Strength because they will pre-drop

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,090

    Her 2 yellow recovery add-ons. The one that affects the expired bird recovery, and the one that affects recovery on launched birds.

  • K139K05
    K139K05 Member Posts: 217
    edited September 2022

    Artist is actually one of the easier killers to learn and doesn't rely on slowdown as much as other killers do (especially if you have info perks like Gearhead or Discordance). I like to Choclo Corn or Still Life Crow, these come especially handy against strong tile set-ups near shack. Thorny Nest is also pretty good against people who don't know how to play against Artist (since these people usually try to loop her and get hit by a crow). My current favorite perks for Artist are: Dead Man's Switch, Discordance, Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance and Tinkerer.

    I might swap out Pain Resonance and Discordance for something else, since Artist by herself can get big Dead Man's Switch value. Discordance might be still useful if you run Severed Hands.

    Sniping also feels kinda rewarding, but it requires some practice and knowledge about where survivors will go to.

  • CrowVortex
    CrowVortex Member Posts: 961

    How are your matches with her going now after this post? @Viciusaurus

  • Viciusaurus
    Viciusaurus Member Posts: 407

    It's been going great, thanks for cheking in! I was able to get het Adept achievement, and I've consistently been getting 3ks :D

  • LinkToReality
    LinkToReality Member Posts: 115

    Good job!

    She can be a blast and, as someone mentioned, feels really satisfying when you start to land those snipes.

  • Viciusaurus
    Viciusaurus Member Posts: 407

    I didn't want to open a new thread for this one question: Could anyone tell me what the practical application for the Charcoal Stick is? I'm confused why I'd want to swap flight Aura for 0.5 sec Summoning Aura

  • Gary_Coleman
    Gary_Coleman Member Posts: 732

    Nobody tips artists. Hence the term 'starving artists'. Trust me, I know.

  • CrowVortex
    CrowVortex Member Posts: 961

    0.5 seconds is how long survivors see your crow placement when summoned, then they don't see the flight aura when launched. I guess it's ok for scouting gens but outside of that, not much use, as you don't want survivors to see your crow placement through walls at loops ect.

  • dictep
    dictep Member Posts: 1,333

    PR, DMS and camp. Easy 4k

  • Viciusaurus
    Viciusaurus Member Posts: 407

    Oki, gotcha. Thank you! The wording was confusing me a bit there

  • Brix
    Brix Member Posts: 128

    Also a good tip if they are swarmed and you are close to them looping, making them forced to throw a pallet/vaulting resets their progress on repelling the crows making it harder for the Survivor to avoid getting injured/downed by a Bird hit afterwards.

  • Viciusaurus
    Viciusaurus Member Posts: 407

    Oooh that is a good tip! I'll be sure to apply that in chase!