Killers Returning to Hook Every Match

Okay... I’m trying to follow you here. But like — what exactly do I get out of a fresh hook then?
If I go into a chase with the unhooker right after the save, how does that give me any pressure on the team?

Because when I’m chasing someone right off a fresh hook, the rest of the team couldn’t care less — they go full laser-focus on gens instead.
So what pressure am I applying exactly? I'm down one hook trade, and the rest of them are zooming through gens like I don't even exist.

my matches. what should i do?

So I’m supposed to give up my early pressure, go off and draw some pretty little traps somewhere while they casually get a free gen, a free unhook, and reset for free?

So I’m just supposed to watch one of the survivors chase me around while having fun removing my traps? And then what? My next down is a totally fresh hook… with maybe one gen left?

Teach me how not to tunnel and still have a chance to win. Killers ready to learn.

(And keep in mind, this was during the event — with all the crazy stuff like instant pallet breaks and whatnot.)

Just curious — would love to know what Furtive Chase or Make Your Choice actually did for me in that match.

Just curious

I get it, there are lots of reasons to go back, and also plenty of situations where it’s tactically unwise. But if you keep going back for “many different” reasons, you’ll lose to strong groups.

When you do go back, you usually have a clear goal and clear target— and that’s usually not the fresh hook. Survivors gotta expect that. The unhooked survivor should expect to be the killer’s prime target now and avoid showing up near the hook if the killer has pulled away far enough.

The team has to be ready to cover if needed.

And:

Make Your Choice is kinda cute and all, but if it just gets you a fresh hook, you really gain nothing from it. You’re not stopping gens or putting any real pressure on the team. And the team knows you’re busy on that fresh hook — so the only things they’re focusing on right now are the gens.

If you go straight back to the hook to chase the fresh hook, you haven’t interrupted gens or applied any real pressure—you’re basically letting the unhooked surv escpe for free, you get nothing while 3 survivors get free gens. Sure, you can hope for a quick down on that fresh hook, but you can’t build your whole round on hope.

Good teams cover when you bring perks like Make Your Choice; they’ll double-team a critical hook in a dead zone and protect each other, so you won’t even get an easy down on the unhooker.

Anything else OP wants is just a wild fantasy from the “survivor main only” community— thinking the killer should never come back and just let a free reset happen under the hook. That only works in lobbies where the survivor team isn’t applying any pressure and just lets everything “happen.”

Against teams that actually fight back and work on gens, that just won’t work.

If you go straight back to the hook to chase the fresh hook, you haven’t interrupted gens or applied any real pressure—you’re basically letting the unhooked surv escpe for free, while survivors get free gens. Sure, you can hope for a quick down on that fresh hook, but you can’t build your whole round on hope.

Good teams cover when you bring perks like Make Your Choice; they’ll double-team a critical hook in a dead zone and protect each other, so you won’t even get an easy down on the unhooker.

You also have to expect that the killer will check the hook before the phase change — even if they’ve left earlier.

The hook is just as much a part of the game as anything else, and you have to expect the killer to use it to their advantage.

And the smartest counter, btw, isn’t giving the killer a quick down (because of gen greed) and handing them a hook in a zone that actually matters to them — but rather in one where they have almost no control over the rest of the map.

But most folks just straight up ignore that — they go down smack dab between 2-3 juicy gens, thinking “Gotta pressure those gens before the killer shows up,” and then get salty when you milk that hook value hard. Classic gen-greed move, and it’s handing you the advantage on a silver platter.

Most of the time, it’s really on the survivors. So there’s not much “sympathy” to be had.

And now.. I .. just try to not sound so harsh right now — because… to be honest… I’m so damn tired of this whole discussion:I’m genuinely sorry for always getting so involved in posts like this.But BHVR is planning future changes based on posts like yours.So many changes that, to be honest, I’m afraid of. Genuinely afraid.

I know it can be super frustrating to have the killer come back to the hook.But… please, please, if you’d do me one favor before making demands like in your post: please try playing killer yourself.And not just once or twice. Play for a while. Play against good teams.Teams who know exactly what they’re doing, who know your limits and how to exploit every single one of them.Not people hiding behind rocks in dead zones praying not to be found.Not teams afraid of you — but teams that actively fight you.

Then maybe you’ll understand what it is you’re asking killers to overlook.What you’re asking them to give up, all while good teams are using every single "goodie" BHVR gave them — thanks to posts like yours — against you.

Do you think good survivors are happy and grateful when you ignore the hook?Nope.They’ll just keep their OTR or DS in reserve — to “thank” you later by throwing themselves into your next chase full-health with two bodyblocks, basically saying:“Come on, chase me — I’ve got DS. And if you don’t want to, no worries, I’ve got Unbreakable ready and I’m lying in a pallet anyway.”

That’s the kind of “gratitude” you get for ignoring the hook.

They’ll still play super aggressively against you.The only time you’ll see a bit of respect from many players is when they’re on dead hook.Then, maybe, they won’t sprint into your next chase with DH and Unbreakable ready.

I know my posts tend to provoke a lot of people and usually end up farming downvotes.

(Ye, I know — the evil killer is just trying to provoke people by showing how hard he tunnels, right?)

But honestly? I don’t care.

I still feel like… I need to speak up.To fight back, in a way.Against all these changes that are supposedly coming — anti-slug, anti-tunnel, anti-this, anti-that.Basically: anti-killer.

And even though I understand the frustration survivors feel with certain things,I genuinely don’t believe we need even more “anti-killer” mechanics.

I strongly suspect you’re not playing in high MMR,and what you experienced in your match isn’t some meta strategy used to stomp survivors —it’s often what weaker killers in high MMR have to do just to stay in the game.Especially when they’re not playing strong killers or are missing key slowdown.

In your example, things might already look much less frustrating if survivors simply didn’t run directly to the hook after a person beeing hoked,or didn’t heal right under the hook(seriously, just take the time to run 30 meters into a safer area with better structures —suddenly the killer controls nothing there, and coming back to the hook is just wasted time).

Once you expect the killer to maybe come backand prepare accordingly instead of healing under the hook and praying —it often stops being such a big issue.

And in the lobbies you’re likely in, the killer often comes back to the hook just because they didn’t find anyone else.That’s not "proxy camping” or “tunneling” — it’s the result of failed info or pathing.You’ll notice all this the moment you start playing killer yourself.

So please, please, I’m asking genuinely —before you go asking for more changes, try playing killer.Try it for a while.Try it against good players — the kind that make you feel powerless.Then you might see why killers do what they do, and what kind of pressure they’re under just to survive a match.

well killers will stop returning to hooks and proxying when not doing that will at least stop being punished by having unhook insta reset with various perks or getting hit by full value from StB and so on

What I really don’t understand is:
What’s so bad about accepting that in some matches, the killer… does killer things — comes back to the hook… and sometimes that results in a hard tunnel?
What’s so wrong with accepting that at a certain point in the match, someone has to die?

I have a hard time understanding the point here. Where exactly is the supposed balance problem?

I absolutely get that certain situations in the game can feel frustrating. But just because something didn’t go your way in a specific match doesn’t automatically mean it’s a systemic balance issue — and just because it bothers you doesn’t mean it’s objectively a problem.

If we start labeling every subjectively frustrating experience as a balance problem, those terms start to lose their meaning. Not every (maybe for you) uncomfortable situation in the game is a design flaw — sometimes it’s just part of the core mechanics, part of the dynamic between two opposing roles.

No, I genuinely don’t understand why it’s considered “gross.” Yes, sure.. when you’re up against a top-tier killer, you do need your team. And you need to trust your team. A good Blight will take you out quickly — that’s just what Blight does. He does Blight stuff. A short chase is to be expected. That’s something you simply have to know and accept.

Decent players know that short chases are to be expected against Blight, and they position themselves on a gen near the chase in case cover is needed or the person in chase runs out of resources.

If a killer successfully sneaks up on a survivor, or successfully makes a read on their pathing to cut them off, they get similar value and that's great, it's their skill being rewarded. Just returning to the hook gives them equal-or-greater value for free, and that's suspect as hell on its face.

Cutting off paths, mindgaming, knowing how you deal with certain structures, beating people on specific tiles — that’s exactly what’s happening during a tunneling process by the killer (which, in my opinion, requires more skill than trying to sneak up on people). But a killer who tries to achieve that with “random stealth”? In most matches: nice try, sorry, you lose. In solo queue, maybe… (honestly, that annoys me even more than direct tunneling — constantly switching targets and hoping for an easy dead-zone snack where you don’t have to win a chase against me - and that just goes to show that different people find different things frustrating — personally, I find a full-on tunnel on me way less frustrating.)

so y.. "sneaks up on a survivor?" On some maps you might get lucky, soloq, y maybe, but as soon as you’re in a team, that attempt is completely denied.

Similarly, what exactly can a survivor do about it? Setting aside specific perk choices, which is its own can of worms, the answer is… not much. They do have ten seconds of Haste and Endurance, which is definitely better than it used to be! But, at the same time…

I often manage to reach some decent structures with my free BT. If not? Team? Hello? Where are you? Bodyblock, please?
If that doesn’t happen... I might die. Maybe even early.
Maybe I’ll just be a useless insta-down if I’m not running any 'anti-tunnel' stuff like OTR or DS. Sorry team, I tried.

Killer’s fault? I’m more wondering: where was my team?
Especially on certain maps where you barely have any filler to connect structures (hi Coldwind, hi Haddonfield), you just know that the person in chase might need someone to cover them. Gens still fly anyway, usually.

And then there’s the whole 'the survivor usually has a harder chase with no advantage' thing…
Well… I am the only target.
I know exactly where I’ve been.
I know what resources I’ve used.
I know what’s still up.
I know which pallets are gone.

If they were to have more options available, if it were closer to a regular chase with only one of those three bullet points being true, then it'd be different- they'd have agency and it'd be down to who the better player is and/or who plays this particular chase better. When they're tunnelled, the degree to which they have to be better than their opponent is pretty exponential, and that's not exactly fair or balanced.

No options available? uuw?

Having the map to myself is a massive advantage – I don’t have to guess whether randoms have already created dead zones.The trade-off is: one less health state going into chase and being a bit out of position.(For the first part, I’ve got DH. For the second, ye… sometimes I just need my team.)

and yupp… sometimes, you just don’t get away.Things fall apart really fast, no matter how hard you try. It happens.Sometimes you die at 3 gens the moment the killer wants you dead.Sometimes it's just because I completely mess up my chase. (Sorry again, team.)

But come on? I expect escaping to be hard. I expect the killer to be a real threat.And I expect every single mistake I make to be brutally expensive.

So, to recap: The killer gets a much easier chase, and the survivor gets a much harder chase, for zero effort or skill on the killer's part and with the survivor's only defence to be significantly better than their opponent in chase. That's a pretty clear balance problem.

y? I’m not buying that.
Killer gets a slightly easier chase? Sure. But hey.. I mean… why not?

But look at what survivors can bring to make "things easier for them": DS, OTR, Shoulder of Burden, Unbreakable, Dead Hard, (other exhaustion perks) Vigil, For the People + Buckle Up, Soul Guard + WGLF, Hope, Background Player with flashy or sabo box, red syringes...
Survivors are loaded with tools to make things easier.
So nah, nope. nope, nope, big NOPE. I’m not buying that argument.

And yes… I play survivor enough too (super important to play both sides ):

(in case you don’t believe me)

And y, still: as a killer, I still go back to the hook. I proxy camp if I think it makes sense, I slug if needed, and I tunnel hard when necessary or simple just when survivors make it easy for me.

I play my role as best as I can.

And as a survivor, I fight back and don’t make tunneling easy for the killer.

defence to be significantly better than their opponent in chase.

DbD isn’t rocket science. There’s a point in most matches where everyone is roughly equally stacked and has a decent understanding of the game. Sure, there are players who master their ability to the max — but DbD isn’t really a game that consistently rewards high-skill plays.
Like, what’s the point of pulling off something really hard and impressive with your power if most of the time things like DS happen at a distance where the survivor just gets away again anyway? It´s fun, its meme. But nothin more.

If, however, the same thing can be engineered to not go your way across multiple matches in the same way every time

kay… but at that point, it’s really not the killer’s fault anymore.
If players are consistently dying without being able to do anything, or feel completely helpless, then that’s not just a killer issue — that’s a matchmaking issue.
It’s on BHVR to finally improve the MMR system and create fairer matchups, instead of putting all the blame on the killer.

Because if going straight back to the hook/tunneling consistently feels that strong, the problem isn’t just that it happens — it’s who it happens to.

But it can't always be the killer player's responsibility to compensate for or balance out every single in-game situation — at some point, the game itself needs to provide a fair foundation.

The killer already has enough stress during the match. Even after a quick down, they have no idea how strong the rest of the team is (even the best players can have a bad first chase). They don’t know what second-chance perks the survivors are running or how coordinated the team really is.

He doesn’t know what’s coming once he gives up the pressure he could have had. It’s not the killer’s job to make sure everyone else can keep up — that's simply not how competitive pressure works in an pvp game.

Perks alone won’t save you once I start tunneling; they only help you reach certain structures. In the end, it comes down to your map knowledge, how well you use your camera, how cleverly you connect structures, and how strong you perform in the chase.

Team coordination? Y... and on some maps it’s absolutely crucial.

skill?

Talking about skill in DBD is always tricky. It’s just... not a super hardcore game. At some point, the skill cap is basically reached by both sides, and everyone understands everything the game has to offer.

You don’t have to argue with me — but I’ll keep doing it anyway. I won’t just sit back and watch while only one opinion gets to define what balance in this game should look like, and I’ll continue to share mine. I hope that’s still allowed.

And as for so-called “unbalanced” mechanics… I don’t think it’s unbalanced for the killer to play around the hook. um.. , there are quite a few things on the survivor side that I personally find way more unbalanced.

and.. Just like you’re sharing your perspective, I’ll keep trying to defend the killer side with everything I’ve got — to make sure things don’t get taken away that, in my personal opinion, are necessary and a legitimate part of the game. What BHVR decides to do with all these voices is ultimately up to them — not up to us.

And what will I do if BHVR starts listening mostly to takes I personally don’t agree with?

I’m willing to adapt.
Uh… you’ll probably be seeing a lot of “Nurse only” from my side, with a heavy dose of “I don’t care about anyone else’s fun in this match.” idk.

”Abuse of the UI”? Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure killers have had a way to know that someone was unhooked since the inception of the game with noise/visual notifications.

Also, can we assume that since you’re criticizing the way other killers play that you yourself can easily win without ever playing this way? Would love to see some video and stats to back this up.