Killers Why Do you Tunnel So much (Q&A/ Investigation)

Well in the few cases I play Killer from time to time I have the feeling that I have to tunnel to keep the pressure up right.

I play Clown, Chucky, Myers and Trapper because I am horrible with speedy Killers and trash without crosshair.

Normally I get a good chunk of Survivors, some who win and some who lose. So the MMR isn´t that much of a problem.

The problem accours when the air becomes toxic or sweaty if you want.

You know those games. You are running at the start of the game to the furthest gen and it´s nearly done. "Okay no problem that means the other gens are most likely at 0%" You go into your first chase. Predrop, tbag, running straight to the next pallet. "3 gens pop in your face when you caught the cocky survivor. But the moment you are looking at the the popped gens you realize well… none of these was the first gen you saw. So they are kinda down to the last gen.

So my only chance to get a Kill in that round is to tunnel that guy out. Because there is no way to get a 12 hook game.

Another reason why I tunnel in some games is when survivors body block doors when they are from hook. That is the reason why I was hyped for the ellusive status effect.

If survs go for an unhook when I'm still in the area, obviously I'm going to go for the weak link. Likewise if I get to a gen with two people and one is injured, I'm gonna go for them first.

I don't generally specifically try to eliminate someone from the game first, if it happens, it's because they are either unlucky or ######### up in some fashion.

I simply didn’t care. I was like this since starting DBD, and more likely it was some people in my company (specifically: survivor sfw I sometimes ended up with, who built an opinion that you never should do this). But I finding doing it conscious choice. I’m not some victim of circumstance of gen rush or creator bias.

I mained killers without mobility, so playing around hooks or gens was my usual play. I also main Executioner, so I’m just fitting to the stereotype of that nasty player.

I don’t hardtunnel every game, or can say no to tunneling by different reasons. For example, I want to practice my M2 and see players are struggling a lot. So, I just play chill if I’m in mood. Or when I got really sweaty team and hardtunnel will trade 4 gens, so I’m more likely gonna lose. I doing it for efficiency, after all.

I never hardtunnelled cause of ego, but liked doing it with actually strong members of the team, because found it interesting to interact with them. They also more chill about it because expecting it, having second chance perks or having fun. But I don’t do it every time.

If not trying to find pattern - because patterns doesn’t actually exist, I just do so, because this is meta and that’s all. Or because team allowed me to do so by healing under hook, bodyblocking with BT, or even accidentally ending up in front of my face.

There are too manny different matches, and I behave too different to find reason. The most rational answer just because it brings me benefits. I’m more likely gonna play meta on both sides, handicapping slightly by tier only

I almost never tunnel from first hook, even if it should cost me a game. I do it basically if survivors annoyed me…

I regularly do it at 1/2 gens left, simply because I have to kill someone at that point in order to win, not really difficult concept.
But my starting goal is always 8 hook and just see if I manage or not. Then I just start playing more seriously based on performance of survivors.

I didn´t ask for report. It is kinda amusing for me. You know me since you are in the most discussion that I am in and you know that I like to actually… discuss things. But it is hard to do this if the other side of discussion just votes you down without saying a single thing of "Why" they disagree with you.

The point of I disagree with you but I don´t know what I could say against you so I downvote you is funny to me. Because if you disagree you could just say your opinion or not?

True that but you could still write a post like:

If I play Killer I don´t see the reason to tunnel. Because…

This would be the counter point to the players which stated why they need to tunnel.

I remember the same but “flip flop” post from different person about perspective of quitting game after being tunneled. It was about 6 options for poll related to quit with emotional statements and 1 neutral.

When I asked why we building such weird polls to support sentiments, I got an answer “I asked specific people, because I interested in their opinion mainly”. Even tho this poll were used in pretty bad argumentation of “look, majority feels different”

No one cared about that, and suddenly this post becomes an echo chamber? Interesting

Then maybe it’s time for people stop using echo chamber argument on this forum completely. Looks picky every time

You know bigest mental tortue you can give to survivors is to ignore "chase me" types and chase (tunnel sometimes when its needed) the ones that would rather just hide and then hold m1 on gen then get into chase.

As you mention frustration is one of reasons, you can go for chill game get sweats that mock you then even the fact you could get them some slug or tunnel and had more better results but they are kinda blind to see it tbh (this kind of survivors are just predictible they mostly think you couldnt make it to the hook and they got the hatch by their skill then just see that you gave them hatch but their ego is blinding them).

Tunneling has many reasons like toxic survivor or some that is getting between you and other survivors often like some flashlight nea then its in your interest to hinder her in doing so (like flash saving,sabbo, constand bodyblocking etc. things that slow you down even if its not needed because you dont play sweaty just chill 12 hook game meaning you doesnt even tunnel just trying to go for chases and hooks), or when survivors do to many gens fast then its very important to kick someone out because even if you had fast chases and hooks if the whole team is alive they will still do all gens and get minimaly 2 escapes if they dont screw this up.

As for the original topic: it's a comeback mechanic. I play Pig and Legion, sometimes I just get handed a game I can't win through playing nice so I need to build momentum, best way to do that is take out a survivor.

As most killers? You can never truly be sure what progress the gens are at unless you physically went to each one or have a dedicated perk slot for it. If I do have the information that multiple gens are being worked on it would be said best play to tunnel someone as they are doing their objective efficiently so it would be stupid not to do mine efficiently unless I really want to rely on a hope that they make game altering mistakes.

I'll wait for the silent downvoters that never really have a good argument.

I play to win by any means necessary. That includes tunneling. If it were up to me, I would willingly only play against people who feel the same. However, it is not up to me, so instead I just play to win in hopes that BHVR’s MMR system will do its job and pair me against people who are trying just as hard as I am.

Stomps are not fun. Intentionally not punishing survivor mistakes to make an easy game close is also not fun for me. I understand a lot of people feel differently about that.

TBH if 3 gens pop before I get 1 hook, I'm liable to just basement myself because you aren't coming back from that as an M1 killer.

I try not to, to the best of my ability.

I'll only apply that kinda pressure if the survivors are applying equal amounts. For example; if 3-4 gens pop within 2-3 minutes, survivors attempting bodyblocks off hook, or it's endgame where all rules go out the window. Otherwise I try to spread hooks and make the match last longer for more BP.

I also try not to slug unless there's someone attempting a save nearby or I need to chase someone off a close by gen.

Agree. Survivors should never be mad if you’re “tunneling” in this type of situation. For anyone downvoting you on this, please tell us how you would try to come back to have a chance of winning (or even getting 2K) in this situation.

why Tunneling has Increased in this patch or even in past Patches

I mainly think the biggest reason/cause as to why tunneling has increased drastically over the past few months was from the August Dev update on August 29th 2025. When that dev update hit and the community seen what the devs og plans were to reduce tunneling and slugging, a lot of killer players panicked and started to mass tunnel since they thought it was their last chances to ever do it.

what added more fuel to the fire was the original post that announced the devs were postponing the changes due to negative feedback. that post was basically a “you can keep tunneling for now but we’ll be back soon to address this.” the cycle repeated when the 9.3 ptb was announced on the community stream in October.

now that the tunneling and slugging changes are supposedly cancelled with no mention of if or when they’ll be back for another round of testing, it seems tunneling is at an all time high because there’s no upcoming threat of it being removed/reduced.