Change my mind: Slugging is the most efficient way to win 2v8
In the past few days of playing 2v8 mode, my friend and I—both experienced killers with thousands of hours in DBD—have been experimenting with different strategies. Despite our skill and fast downs, we noticed something troubling: generators can still fly by too quickly, even when we're playing what we would consider optimally.
One discovery stood out: every time we cage a survivor, they receive a 2.5% repair bonus to generators. This essentially punishes us for "playing nice" and splitting hooks or cages among survivors. So, we decided to test an alternative: playing as Wraith and Nurse with a full slugging strategy.
The results were undeniable. Over five games, not one group of survivors came close to finishing all the gens. The efficiency of slugging was so overwhelming that the thought of hooking survivors became laughable—it felt like a waste of time compared to the control we gained by slugging.
Even with survivors’ special abilities to self-pickup occasionally, the cooldowns weren’t enough to keep up with how quickly we could down them again. By slugging, we forced them to prioritize healing instead of working on gens. With our ability to traverse the map quickly, survivors had no time to regroup or repair without being immediately pressured.
Here’s my question: Why should we hook survivors and give them buffs when slugging is far more effective? It feels like the current mechanics discourage a core gameplay loop (hooking), which seems counterintuitive to the spirit of DBD.
Have other killer players noticed this in 2v8? And is slugging the new meta for this mode?
(Also yes, this is my second time posting this, I had to verify my email).
Comments
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Wraith's mobility is alright his chase ehh and nurse's mobility is pretty meh even with power buffs. Blight + Billy (practically 0 cooldown mobility tool) is the way to go if you want to mass slug. You forget to mention that it also prevents survivor skill unlocks from activating so no insane guide gen pops will happen. I'm not so sure about the effectiveness of slugging if you were actually going against a group of smart players using medic to pick up large groups of players + heal them.
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Unbreakable Basekit and 2+ Medics say hi to you.
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Of course Killer view it as a punishment for Hooking while they get free slowdown as Survivor do their Objective. Those darn entitled Killer Mains. 🙄🙄🙄
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That's what happens when you make the gens SPEED UP from the killers caging. Nonsense mechanic.
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Can't we just agree that the orchestrated slowdown and speed-up for both sides doing their objective is a bad idea?
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The main problem is the numbers don't really make sense for the killer catch up since more than 1 gen is being worked on at a time. Them punishing killers for spreading hooks is just the cherry on top.
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fearmonger class on nurse is strong because nurse's chase is strong, whenever she hits a survivor, your ally gains 10% haste which for wraith's lunge is strong coupled with his windstorm, his swift hunt and his pallet break base-kit makes him a decent killer. they're playing a synergy comp.
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It needs something like Zombies. Killer can't patrol to push people off. These would chase Survivor off and damage Generators upon hitting Survivors like a Surge that has a form on the Map.
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Fearmonger is pretty meh on nurse. A better combination would be nurse w/ enforcer so she gets aura read then downs gives wraith mini coup for 15s + more aura after gen kicks. Having extra lunge is way more impactful at loops especially combining it with uncloak speed boost.
Wraith would run either brute for even faster break speed or shadow to create more confusion and setup nurse for free tags.
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fearmonger is better because nurse doesn't need help in the chase and plays like lone gunner killer. the bonus is near global as long you hit survivors further then 16 meters away from teammate which in practice is every hit if you are not together.
enforcer is what wraith should be selecting because of first bonus which is that your 3% faster when chasing injured survivors which for wraith is every chase because of stealth and first hits. combine, you get 13% haste for nurse hitting someone. almost instant bl3. enforcer is like… made for m1 killers.
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My friend and I have yet to lose with hooking (Billy/Nurse). We don't slug because we don't have to and it's not fun for the 8 other people in that game. Some close calls here and there, but we'd rather risk a few getting out the gate rather than make the game miserable for everyone.
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I think this is key though if the killers know each other and are able to communicate. The matches I have lost have been communicating killers and you can tell. The ones I win are either killers dropping chase to quickly or there is zero communication between them. I have only been slugged in a few matches and one was endgame so they could close all hatches, I got up like 6 times 😆. I have to Billy is strong in this mode.
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I was wondering why everyone was talking up wraith and it's pretty obvious his uncloak speed is bugged. It's 1.5s instead of the supposed 2.34s it's supposed to be. Also there seems to be some weird random input delay that isn't consistent after uncloak so sometimes you get broken m1 other times it eats up a lot of your lunge cloak speed.
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The thing is it just doesn't make a big impact if you are getting downs quickly like we are. Yes the survivors managed to pick themselves up multiple times, but by the time that a few slugs are up and running again, another pair of survivors are down, which doesn't really change much. It just keeps going like this until the survivors eventually bleed out. Of course if we were to face a strong swf, we would likely face some problems.
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It would work way better if it applied when someone is sacrificed, that way killers don't get punished for spreading hooks, but instead they get punished for tunneling.
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You can just hop in a locker if killers start to slug
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Yea I'm surprised people don't hop in lockers to begin with vs sluggers in 1v4 to waste more time it only really works because all the baby survs in 2v8.
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It's pretty hard to hop in a locker when a nurse pops out of thin air, but some people did do that, but it didn't really do much.
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3pm on a Saturday, 350% survivor bonus. Last three standing picking each other up multiple times just so the killers can get a mori. You hijacked the match and then complain about long queue times. I’m not supporting this toxic behavior.
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Thanks for your response! I think there might be a bit of a misunderstanding here. My post isn't about long queue times or trying to hijack matches—it's about the current mechanics in 2v8 and why slugging feels like the most efficient strategy compared to hooking. The bonus survivors get from caging incentivizes killers to slug instead, which seems counterproductive to the game’s design.
As for the "toxic behavior" point, that’s not our intention at all. We’re not trying to ruin anyone’s experience—we’re simply testing different strategies to see what works best for killers in this mode. Slugging just happens to be the most effective one we’ve found so far.
If survivors are picking each other up multiple times during a match, that’s actually a part of what makes slugging work so well in 2v8—it wastes their time while we maintain map pressure. The issue I’m raising is that the game seems to reward slugging over hooking, and I think it’s worth discussing how the mechanics could be adjusted to make this mode more balanced for both sides.
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It definitely helps that the Unbreakable requires you to have your ability available - unless you have 4 escapists with 30 second cools downs you don't have to worry about Unbreakable for 60 seconds on scouts, 90 on guides, and 2 minutes for medics. While the cooldown makes sense for the actual abilities it doesn't make sense as the devs planned fix for the slugging issue from last time. If the Unbreakable was consistent like 45 second cool down for all classes then slugging wouldn't be as efficient.
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When survivors are potatoes, nothing works. When survivors are decent, expect them getting healed to full in a group range and gens fly like crazy.
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It quite literally is a punishment for hooking.
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I can hardly ever get a killer match because of the queue times but, when I do, my team does fine just playing normally. If you come into it with the idea that you need to kill all 8 of them, maybe you have to resort to something extreme, but I don't feel like that's what this game mode is for.
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I've beaten killers who try to slug everyone quite comfortably.
Ultimately you still need to catch survivors to down them, and if they're going down fast in chase, the you'd be just as hard winning if you hooked. The weak players would get knocked out fast and once you have a couple of survivors dead 2vs8 starts to really turn the killers direction. Survivors putting up resistance however will cramp your ability to slug everyone pretty hard.
If you are coming at me with both killer's, your pressure sucks, and I'm running to comp corner, and I'm still gonna make it hurt to slug. We eventually started to outpace their slugging and it's always quite the amusing moment they realised it wasn't gonna work and started trying to hook people too little too late.
So sure you can go ahead and slug, it's not a bad strategy, took me and my fellow soloQ survivors a few minutes to adjust. Of course survivors with a spine is becoming rarer and rarer in this modern "I quit because boo hoo killer is a threat" attitude they have now, so that may help your slug strategy...
However it ain't a free win, and all I can say is:
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The thing is, if you decide to make yourself a nuisance, the Killers may decide "screw the game, #### that Surv in particular" and you will STILL be slugged out, tunnelled out, and have a bad experience.
How do I know this?
Tried it. Had a bad experience. Killers told me they outright didn't care, they just hated me for being THIS SWEATY in the casual mode.
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Sure, but thats the game isn't it?
It's a team game playing for survivor. Your job as survivor is cost the killer as much time as you possibly can. If you manage to waste 90-120s of the killers time a game, that's a good innings isn't it?
If your team doesn't use it, then it counts for naught, which is usually my complaint playing survivor. I'm very rarely annoyed at killers, cause their goal is to kill me, I must avoid getting downed/hooked at all costs, or if I can't, then waste as much time as I possibly can for my team to use... if they don't use it that's on them, but you have to assume the killer is going to do everything in their power to win, so you in turn must make it as hard for them as you can.
I do feel like a lot of survivors in this game play with a "carry" mindset from League of Legends, aka the protagonist/main character. Them dying upsets them, they wanna go 12 - 0 and nuke the opposition, and anything short of that, they get upset, even if they are actually on the winning team.
I was always a support minded player. I'm happy to go 1-19 if it means my team can win, I have no issue throwing myself face first into a wall of ultimates and dying to grab their carry into the team if it means the other players in my team pull off the victory. I regularly played with a style of making it annoying and costly for players to deal with me, whether I personally win or lose doesn't matter, it's about whether my team wins or loses.
I carry the same attitude into DBD, where I always ensure I put the killer in a difficult choice. I may not be technically skilled, but I am good at being a pest, and to my mind, making a killer slug me, or tunnel me, and then costing them a lot for doing it is a victory to my mind. Even if I die, I don't care if the killer threw the rest of the game doing it... what annoys me is when survivors make all my efforts for naught... but it's almost never the result of what the killers do.
Punishing killers and wasting time is really easy to do in 2vs8... so I don't get the complaint.
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I know it's inevitable, but the last thing we need is for people to start trying to "optimize" strats to win in 2v8. Taking 1v4 seriously is silly, taking this mode seriously is absurd.
It's total chaos, and that is what makes it fun. Like some killer teams stick together all match and try to "combo" survs, which isn't effective at all when it comes to "winning" the game, but I bet it's fun as hell for a while. And I think that sort of thing is the intent here.
And as totally grab bag as the matchmaking is, getting all competitive in 2v8 just seems like an exercise in total futility.
Now it sucks that killers have to wait forever to get into one of these goofy-ass matches, and I hope they find some way to fix that, but if you're sweating in these matches you're doing it wrong.
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The problem is it's very easy to sweat in this mode. Both sides. :( It's already ruined for me because of that.
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The best way to alleviate the queue times is by increasing the rewards one earns playing as survivor. Give iri shards. That’ll attract people to the role.
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