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what is the counter to sabo actually supposed to be?
assumptions we make for our discussion:
-we don't bring specific perks to enable counter sabo. the expectation that the killer brings a specific perk every single game is not reasonable.
-we do not play a killer that has power that reduces the effectiveness of sabo. for obvious reasons, this is immaterial to the balance of sabotaging
-the survivors do not make any errors in play. this is immaterial to the balance of the mechanic.
sabotaging a hook takes 1.625 seconds. picking up a survivor takes 3 seconds. the survivors have a 1.4~ second time advantage when it comes to reaching the hook. the survivors are faster than the killer during this race. there are 3 survivors and one killer. the survivor has decent input on where they end up going down, and can mostly freely pick a deadzone to go down in.
theres only really two possible responses:
-slug. bhvr have explicitly made it clear that they dont want slugging to be a playstyle and attempted to mitigate it with balance and perk changes. there are several perks that hard counter slugging, which will be used by a survivor team using sabo. slugging being the only realistic counter also just makes bringing a single sabo toolbox effectively end the game as soon as the last generator powered as the killer can no longer prevent a downed survivor escaping by hooking them
-exhaust the sabos. the survivor get over a dozen sabotages, and even after those are exhausted they can still sabotage slightly slower. there is no plausible scenario where the survivors can run out of sabotages before gens are done
it's been a very long time since bhvr has actually discussed the mechanic and its intended role in the game. it's in a very unhealthy place where it demands large amounts of communication and use of finite bloodweb resources by the survivor team but offers no interaction or counterplay for the killer when executed correctly, so pretty exclusively serves the role of being used by already advantaged premades.
Comments
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There are two answers to survivors going for sabotage if we assume no preparation through perks (which is reasonable!), and I'll go over the lesser answer first.
First, just walk to another hook. I bring this up mostly for the sake of being thorough, but honestly in my experience you can do that more often than you'd think, hook density is pretty solid overall these days. The survivor crouches by one hook, you veer off to another.
Second, and more pressing, is slugging. What BHVR have actually made clear, in my opinion, is that they don't want multiple people left on the ground for extended periods of time as a straight alternative to hooking.
What they do want, or at least accept is a legitimate part of the game, is limited situational slugging to answer specific scenarios; this is evident in how they designed the 9.2.0 and 9.3.0 PTB anti-slug to give the killer a lot of leeway to slug when someone's under a pallet with a teammate nearby or when the survivors are going for sabotage plays like we're discussing here.I think where a lot of people trip up here is that they assume the survivor you drop being picked up means the counterplay was ineffective, but you're still immobilising that one survivor and you're still occupying the one who got the sabotage; it only works out purely in the survivors' favour if that sabotage causes their teammate to wiggle off and both players run away to safety.
That's not to say I wouldn't like to see anything done with sabotaging, I think some of the options available are a little too strong + I think it'd be healthier if the killer could properly anticipate it via sabotage toolboxes being separate items with separate models to repair ones, but the counterplay works out in my opinion.
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I always have iron grip on, seems to help most of the time. But ive also had a team of no mither sabos, that took a lot of slugging and catching people eventually out of position. So i guess the only counter is patience lol
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I would disagree with you on the first part, idk if I'm going up against cheaters or what, but when I get a sabo team they're constantly 2 around me while I'm carrying with a wiggle speed perk and sabo perks or toolboxes and somehow they manage to be popping gens in my face while sabotaging every hook in sight and I rarely have time to walk to a next hook even in the instances where they don't have the increased wiggle speed perk. So honestly I don't think that point holds up, I've had numerous games with survivors like this and it's beyond frustrating.
I agree with the second point.
Third point, the counterplay was ineffective because you A) lost a hook state and B) are losing gen progress, I get your theory that well you pulled someone else off a gen and you're chasing someone else so therefore only one person is on gen and yet somehow, every single time, 3 gens pop immediately after the slugged survivor gets up due to sabo or pallet camping.
This is one of those things that might actually get fixed with diminishing returns thankfully.
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-we don't bring specific perks to enable counter sabo. the expectation that the killer brings a specific perk every single game is not reasonable.-we do not play a killer that has power that reduces the effectiveness of sabo. for obvious reasons, this is immaterial to the balance of sabotaging-the survivors do not make any errors in play. this is immaterial to the balance of the mechanic.The first two are reasonable, the third isn't - if we discuss things with no errors lots of game discussions would be different (example: Huntress would jump up tier lists if errors in play are not part of the discussion).
-slug. bhvr have explicitly made it clear that they dont want slugging to be a playstyle@jesterkind touched on this, but I'll add that we're discussing the game that exists right now, which means go ahead and slug.
there are several perks that hard counter slugging, which will be used by a survivor team using sabo.And you know they have these perks, you know they are off gens to sabo, you have more time than you would against a different game.
slugging being the only realistic counter also just makes bringing a single sabo toolbox effectivelyIf there's a single toolbox, the survivors are going to have to constantly drag you to a corner, anywhere else in the map you can change directions.
offers no interaction or counterplay for the killer when executed correctly, so pretty exclusively serves the role of being used by already advantaged premades.Sure there's counterplay, especially once they do it a single time. The survivors are going to have to get in position for the sabos. They are going to try and lead the chase in certain directions. This gives you a few options, find the person lurking for sabos, try and zone the runner away from the direction they are going so you have multiple hooks, or switch target to those on gens.
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Maybe some perks may help you to make sabbo plays less oppressive but in reality if they are coordinated than there isnt much to do just slug into tactical tunnel in my opinion meaning you will want to hinder their team as much as possible with slugs and target one or two particular survivors to get faster kill which will increase the tunneling hinder effectiveness and reduce their ability to denny hooks and get saves.
Some killers have powers that help alot with this where others dont like some are great at injuring mamy people in short time or catching up fast to saved survivor or even dont need hook like pyramidhead but even withthese killers if its full swf that has like builds to denny hooks and runs in places like main of asylum or plague map with boil over while having boon near and buddy with sabbo and perk from yui to make wiggle faster while others crack gens than it can be very hard even if you know what to do.
Sabbo is probably most annoying thing you can face as killer and even when they loose in general (I believe) they are pain to deal with especialy when that team is well coordinated and build from good survivors that dont go down in 20 seconds of chase than even very good killers will play long game slugging to be able to afford to hook.
From my experience one of hardest matched I had were against very good survivors that run sabbo builds and did gens and looped well they eventualy died two or three of them but not because they were bad but because they were greedy in endgame and wanted escape all and failed to do it.
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You have a couple of options:
- Use your eyes and hook at one of the 3 other hooks within a 1 tile distance, this game has an abundance of hooks.
- If you see a sabo survivor running in one direction, turn around and hook in the other direction. There will be hooks over there.
- Drop the survivor early. You will have at least 8 seconds if you drop within 4 seconds of picking them up. Push off the sabo survivors and repick the dropped survivor.
- Sometimes you have to slug. That's just the way it is.
Please note that if you have 2 or 3 survivors going for sabos, you have won the game. Nobody is doing gens and it is infinitely better than any slowdown you could possibly run. It will be annoying, but you will win. The above list is extremely effective for just one sabo survivor.
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depends on the severity of the sabo; just a couple years ago survivors could abuse certain things like map offerings and vacuum tech to have a corner where it's physically impossible to hook, which meant your only option was to bleed them all to death. sometimes these people aren't sabotage squads but bully squads they aren't in it to win.
I don't believe sabotage is anything like that anymore.
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sabo is rare but is there a counter to sabo? since hangmans only notifies and unless you have mad grit agitation iron grasp starstruck
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Few perks can help to counter it or make it not so good and some killers are good in slugging or have power to counter it like pyramidhead who is rare exsample in this counter with power.
The most obvious counter is slugging with tunneling and being aware of your surroundings like if theres only 1-2 sabbo players and other two arent than you can go for them because guess is theres no anitunnel deffence just sabbo perks with antislug so killing them asap helps a lot like one time some feng tried to play sabbo and was alone so my first reaction "ok you will go out first" and with tunnel as bubba that gave me even some hits on others and down from bodyblocking teammates that tried to save someone who just casualy puthimself into danger and was thinking I wouldnt use it against him was woth it, just some salt in chatt but I have even met full swf saboo or flashlight teams that werent toxic just normal its rare but they exist but most of them are entitled to think they can do it and the opposite side wont react and adjust their gameplay against it which is very naive.
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Against a coordinated sabo squad? Slugging. Sucks, but if the team makes it their primary mission to keep you from hooking, the answer is to stop trying to hook.
I'll give hooking a few tries even when I know they're sabo'ing, but I'm not going to just keep pissing into the wind for long.Now you can certainly run anti-sabo builds, but these squads aren't common enough to justify it, imo.
Or you can just main Executioner.1 -
The hooks are so close together that saboing is not even viable. The killer will be able make it to a new hook most of the time. Honestly unless you've got a full swf with sabo builds then saboing is pointless.
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