What is the counterplay in chases against Xeno?
So, I am requesting help here because I am afraid I do not understand what are you supposed to do against a Xeno when you are being chased.
If you hold W you get hit, if you vault a window you get hit, if you go for pallets you get hit, if you try to loop him you get hit. Turrets aren't available every single time, and when they are it eventually recovers crawler mode and you get hit. Spinning doesn't really work against most players.
What exactly is the counterplay here? Any help is appreciated.
Best Answers
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if he's not close enough You can try to drop a pallet that he can't easily just walk around
Run towards turrets if you know no one is working on a generator close to them
Try to run towards high walls/main buildings like LT, pallet gyms etc to make it a little bit more difficult for him, but there's not much you can do
Unfortunately He's not really loopable most of the times, if he gets close to you you're done (specially with his vaulting speed add-on, which is one of his best ones)
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If you are found before you have a chance to set up turrets your main concern is the crawler mode. The only way to disrupt the tail attack in that case is by a pallet stun (obviously risky) or keeping it blocked in some way by line of sight blockers/objects it cannot hit over. The tail’s hit box is kind of strange because after it strikes you can still be hit when the tail is being pulled back, so watch for that. The creature does slow down to use the tail attack as well. Your counterplay mostly comes down to reactive timing and map/environmental protection.
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What we do is run to the closest turret (sometimes to the detriment of others) to hopefully kick them out of tail mode but otherwise play it like a more dangerous Nemi or Slinger. Anything a Nemi would whip you at the tail can do, but better and anything a slinger can shoot through gets the nope treatment as well (aka don't stand near holes in rails or walls). If not in tail mode then xenos a temporary m1 and is treated like a t2 Meyers, could pop into power at any point.
Supposed when typing this that the short version is be paranoid...
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Use the turrets when you can, but if you can't, then stick to high-wall loops as much as possible. Treat him like a short-range Huntress that can wind up much faster.
If you do get him to miss, make distance if it's safe to do so. The miss cooldown is a full 3 seconds and he loses a lot of movement speed.
For turret set-up: Try to put them in places that are advantageous to you but also aren't super obvious. Don't put them directly in front of tunnels, they disable for a few seconds when he comes out of a tunnel and he'll be able to destroy it or even just ignore it in some cases. If he uses his tail to destroy a turret, it counts as a missed attack and slows him down, so use that opportunity to get away.
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Turrets.
You aren't totally helpless if there aren't turrets around, but everything you have available is much higher risk and relies on either having high-wall cover available or baiting the killer into a miss. The goal with Xeno is to have a web of turrets set up that you or your teammates would have readily available within a short sprinting distance if a chase happens.
Xeno can be kind of annoying to face in solo queue because you're somewhat depending on your teammates to make smart decisions (and we all know how that goes) but you can be fairly self-serving here and just make sure your exit is covered by a turret if the killer comes after you. The turret stations are near generators, so you spend a little prep time grabbing one and putting it nearby before doing gens and you're usually gonna have it available when you need it.
The turrets are best being placed in or near loops rather than directly next to the generator you're working on, as a tip.
Xeno excels at catching survivors out of position and unprepared, but struggles if survivors are more cautious with their positioning and prepare their defences in advance. Even at the start of the match, the tail attack is formidable but Xeno doesn't move any faster than the default movement speed, so being extra safe and keeping an eye out until turrets are set up is usually a solid plan.
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Hello,
The Alien is a very unique killer in the sense that it is very lethal up close and survivors have to outmacro it to keep it at bay. You are right, the Alien is very hard to loop (maybe even impossible in good hands and a non bustes tile).
So, to answer your question:
In the early game, try to start slow as it will patroll everywhere for a noise. Crouch, grab a turret, set up and brace yourself for it is probably coming. If it has lethal, well, good luck, you will be in the worse position:
Worse position: If the Alien emerges from a tunnel near you and you have no turrets in sight you can try to bait the tail strike by faking vaccum or stuns, of course it's a 50/50, either he sees it and you get m1'ed or you win the mindgame. Windows are way more dangerous since Alien can tail strike on reaction the vault (the danger of the stuns makes pallets safer),. Obviously if you have the distance, run away. Try to break LoS as much as possible, sharp turn windows are great and can nullify is tail strike for a loop or too, be wary, lots of Alien plays Self Destruct Bolt (30% vault speed in crawler mode) + bamboozle.
Good position: If you have a turret nearby, you can run to it, even if the Alien just smack it instantly it will give you a "bodyblock" of distance (depends if it has particular add ons but we'll keep it simple). The burn is only a punishment for ignoring the turret, you should not bank on it, place them away from you path so the Alien has to deviate it's pathing to get it and lose precious meters.
Okay solution: If you have a bad turret, either you move it, or you use the motion tracker to GTFO as soon as the beeps gets too violent (don't wait for it to emerge, it's too lethal for you to lose distance, you can stay and bank on the fact it won't hear you but it will probably emerge if the gens has progress or you runned/walked), crouch and holding a turret will hide you from it.
By fire be purged solution: Double turrets will either force it upward for 35s (without ovomorph add on) or make it retreat to the tunnels, be carefull, it could follow you from below and follow you while recharging crawler mode. You have to really place them badly to not knock it out. You can use double setups in high traffic place, or in crucial moments to obliterate the Alien's momentum.
Alien is really uniquely challenging to play and to face, and i do understand that many hates it for that. I personnally love it just like you with Freddy so im biased. At the end of the day, there is no miracular solution against the Perfect Organism.
I won't lie to you about your chances, but, you have my sympathy.
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keep distance, use turrets, win 50/50s. if pallet is normally safe, then predrop and force xeno to break or play around it, if it's unsafe, then greed it till kingdom come or fake greeding or double fake greeding etc.
always try to run such direction where you immediately turn into pallet/window and dont give xeno immediate straight line LoS on you to hit in animation or see what you're doing.
when you vault window/pallet / drop it and xeno is about to hit, dont crouch, keep running and breaking LoS. crouch only if you clearly dont make it in which case you may try to gamble and crouch behind tall side of the pallet.
if xeno tries to hit you over anything that isnt a pallet then just crouch. learn where he can you hit you where you're crouched nonetheless and dont crouch there, instead change your movement direction and avoid playing those tiles.
as a last resort juke if you have nothing and xeno is likely to hit with tail, run directly in xeno's face and crouch. if they dont heavily adjust tail's trajectory, they miss.
generally, this isn't the killer whose power you're meant to counter consistently in loops. it's a power which has the entire design based around the idea that it's incredibly lethal if survivors do let you get within attack range, but they are given full carte blanche to never let you have that - xeno has no ways to catch up to w key fast, destroy predrops faster and on top of that has to deal with turrets which allow survivors to get more distance or get a chance to leave a loop.
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You need to double up on turrets. The only bad thing about this is that if your teammates don't know this, they'll just waste them by putting single ones somewhere.
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from my experience the counterplay is hoping the game bugs out and the tail attacks miss plenty of times where the tail visibly went through my hitbox and nothing happened
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Answers
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Isn’t this a killer people said was so underpowered when the bug that gave the tail attack 0 cooldown was fixed?
It’s a very strong anti-loop killer but the way you’re supposed to combat that is with turrets. Set them up in a way that basically gives you a head start in chase. You don’t want it in crawler mode (all fours) although the cooldown for that is super short anyway. I think stunning it in anyway brings it out of crawler mode as well. Use pallets, flashlights are difficult to use against it in crawler mode.
It can hit over objects and loops just like Nemesis but is somehow better at this than Nemesis, so any ranged hits he can do Xenomorph can do better. Beyond that try to keep line of sight broken so it struggles to land the tail hits.
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Isn’t this a killer people said was so underpowered when the bug that gave the tail attack 0 cooldown was fixed?
Honestly, I do not know. Don't think I was around here for that.
It’s a very strong anti-loop killer but the way you’re supposed to combat that is with turrets. Set them up in a way that basically gives you a head start in chase. You don’t want it in crawler mode (all fours) although the cooldown for that is super short anyway.
But what are you supposed to do if he finds you with Lethal Pursuer before you can set a turret? Or if the turrets are around gens (which they usually are), and you weren't close to a gen?
And when he recovers crawler mode, what do you do?
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Seems like you often have to resort to high walls, similar to Trickster, but then it depends on which map you're playing.
This just sounds like bad design, to be honest.
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Does anyone know why the turrets sometimes fail to kick it out of crawler mode? I see it getting burned, and hear it screaming- yet it still stays crawling.
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They need a prolonged flame to remove tails and many xenos run an add on to increase the time. You need to cook your aliens thoroughly before serving
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xenomorph loses crawler mode only if it gets fully burnt out of it. by design, this is not meant to happen unless survivors REALLY go out of their way to set up multiple turrets at once or place them in a really cheeky spot and catch xenomorph off guard.
losing crawler mode is meant to be a punishment and motivation to prioritise breaking turrets and avoid them.
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First of all, thank you my friends for your replies! I appreciate the assistance.
Since this post was written the game has given me only two Xenos to go against, but I've tried my best to employ every tactic and strategy that was written here. While both games resulted in four-man escapes, there were a few different factors to consider: good teammates, the skill level of the Xenomorph players and the maps, although I'm not certain if Ormond and Family Residence are bad maps for this killer, because I don't play it.
Overall, it seems to me that the proper turret placements and breaking LoS when possible were the keys of our survival, however it is clear that both of those won't be available every single time. I think this just reinforces my opinion that Xeno is one of the worst killers to go against, but I have a better idea of what to do.
I'd say I learned something here.
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The chase is already half won or lost by the time you enter chase. You need to preemptively invest your time in base kit "sprint bursts"with the turrets.
SSurvivors Who try to ignore their power typically hates facing Alien but as they say, you can lead a Meg to water but you can't make her drink
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A terrible design, in my opinion.
But generally speaking this is not the kind of killer design I enjoy playing against. And it doesn't seem to be an unpopular opinion.
At least now I have a better idea of what to do against it.
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What's bad about it, though? Against good survivors they just refuse to interact with you, do gens, call you out and leave.
The existence of Alien adds a new dynamic to the game without outright putting a gun to survivors heads. The biggest downside though would be for solo play, as you never know what you'll get team wise but even for solo Alien can be nice by setting up giant neon signs saying "COME LOOP HERE" it's like a basekit Windows but with the power to reset chase
I'm biased though, I think Alien and Pinhead are 2 of the most fun killers we have i admit it
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Alien and Pinhead the 2 most fun?
Hehe, VERY different from mine. I think the two most fun we have are Freddy and Myers.
To play against, of course. If we're talking about playing killer, then I like Freddy and Knight.
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Am I weird for preferring to be in the Dream World? I feel like I have a hard time tracking Fredster while awake
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Nope, the Dream World looks pretty good.
Though it is an advantage for the Freddy player if survivors stay asleep the whole match.
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You tranquilize the beast and Freddy will finish the rest :)
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There's none, really. Besides praying he somehow misses his lose-lose-situation-creating tail attack. That and stacking 2 turrets together, which takes time and, once again, all while praying that your mates do the same. Xeno is up there among the worst designed killers in the game.
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After the xenomorph comes out of the tunnel, turrets will be desactivated for 3 seconds.
Simply place the turrets far enough that xeno will be forced to use it's Tail rather than it's basic attack
Once turrets is depleted, treat it like némesis' tentacle and go for the stun without ever predroping
Honestly I enjoy going against xeno because of the turrets, but I understand people who don't
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Hahaha, that would be helpful.
I agree with Xeno being poorly designed, yes.
I think, generally speaking, most anti-loop killers aren't good designed.
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I dislike facing Knight and personally would rather face a Xeno or a Cenobite. Knight frustrates me by creating 2v1 situations. Xeno and Cenobite games absolutely have some woes but the Knight is just worse for me. I don’t mind Krueger.
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I too enjoy facing xenomorph a lot.
It's a killer that can be countered differently in chase and who requires way less reaction time to deal with and instead can be dealt with by setting up smart traps and making them work.
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I love Knight.
He is the most fun I've had with a killer since Old Freddy. And I like playing against him, though sadly I don't see him very often.
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Don't even drop pallets
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lmao
Ahhh…thanks.
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Keep in mind that Xeno can see your footsteps while they're in tunnels unless you're crouching. It's not Lethal that gives you away at the start of games. You don't necessarily want to immediately go for a turret, because you're in a really bad spot if they see your footsteps and come out of that tunnel while you're holding a turret.
For chases, the main priority is getting to a turret. Remember that turrets are on a brief cooldown when Xeno emerges from a tunnel, but they can still break them, so you want the turrets to be ~3 seconds away from the tunnels.
Try to run from turret to turret in chase. Pre-drop safe pallets if you have enough distance to avoid being hit on the animation lock. Be super greedy at unsafe pallets because they're going try to hit the tail every time. You can also test how good the Xeno is by crouching under windows and pallets. A skilled Xeno will be able to hit you. A less-skilled one won't.
Also be very mindful of the tail attack geometry. It's not like a Nemesis whip. It arcs downwards in a curve and the hit registers at the end of the extension, like a Deathslinger chain.
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Actually I've seen that happening from time to time. It must look weird from Xeno's perspective.
Well, the specific match I played before asking this question actually included Lethal Pursuer. The two games I played after this post didn't, but then the suggested counterplay seems to have worked.
And honestly, I am not sure how to do this crouch tech against Xeno's attack. It just never seems to work.
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For me I play Xeno similar to Huntress in that I will fake a pallet drop and then choose a direction and pray 🙏
But with Xeno I kind of get obsessed with setting up turrets. I like to create a detector field with them. 😅
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You will not kick Xeno out of his crawler mode most of the time, if the Xeno player is experienced. Survivors thinking turrets will hard counter Xeno is the biggest mistake most survivors seem to have when playing against Xenomorph.
I am a Xeno main and I have a very fast reaction time to the presence of turrets at this point. I will tail attack it long before it gets close to breaking me out of my crawler mode. Sometimes, very rarely, I will intentionally let it kick me out of crawler mode if I think I can just run through the fire to M1 and get my tail back after I hook. Otherwise I need to be genuinely surprised by it, or multiple need to be in the same spot.
Think of turrets like an ally running in to body block for you. When you're setting them up, think about where you would most want a survivor to run in and take a hit for you if you were to be in chase at that location. Then put the turret there.
When a turret is present, the xenomorph must deal with it before it can continue chasing you. Most often it will do so with a tail attack, partially because using a basic attack on turrets is kind of buggy and sometimes just doesn't work.
Destroying a turret with a tail attack counts as a missed tail attack. Missing a tail attack puts the xenomorph in cooldown for 3 seconds, during which time they can't vault or attack or break pallets. They're also slowed significantly.
Xenomorph is very much the epitome of the fact this game is a 1v4. You will not "beat" Xeno in chase. But you can delay your inevitable demise long enough that the Xenomorph will lose because your allies do gens faster than it can get downs.
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I tried doing that from time to time, but to me it just seems like Xeno doesn't give you the same opportunity for counterplay that Huntress does.
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Yeah Xeno is easier to get hits with I think. After seeing what everyone has written I can see how Xeno is a pre-run set-up Killer. Not your cup of tea I see lol
But please tell me you don’t think she’s worse than Wesker.
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But please tell me you don’t think she’s worse than Wesker.
No, my friend, I think that is pretty much impossible.
I would rather face OG Prayer Beads Spirit than Wesker. And that was extremely overpowered.
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https://imgur.com/a/aE5CPtT
like this (i couldve dodged the window hit too, but i ######### up pathing and ran into it)
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You do what you do against most killers, man. If you go for a vault with enough distance between you and him, he won't be able to hit you, and will have to do another go-around. If not, he's spent the time to chase you, and you didn't make it anywhere safe enough. It stands to reason that he should* get a hit on you. Oftentimes he still doesn't.
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