How to Counter Tunneling in Solo Queue - Dead by Daylight 

All I want from my solo teammates is to stay on gens, but..... they don't. I would happily die for the 3 escape every time.

"Obviously be there in time before they go to second stage" The amount of times I've seen teammates leave others to go second for no reason is painful.

You just do gens, been like this since 2016, welcome newcomers.

Survivors when I'm tunneling as killer: Last second unhooks, hodl gens, everyone taking hits, DS/OTR on everyone Survivors getting tunneled when I'm in SoloQ: Everyone hiding next to the hook, unhooking then hiding, no one but me touching gens

Not unhooking the teammate getting tunneled is important forsure. Also if you're playing solo and haven't been hooked you should damn near let yourself get downed and hooked just to buy some time for everyone else

ngl, i was anticipating a 4 second vidio of scott saying "you cant" : end of vidio.

The problem with anti tunnelling perks is that it cramps creativity and thus fun. Further it doesn't really solve the problem. Is it effective at preventing tunnelling? No. It's effective at DELAYING it. Even with those perks existing tunnelling is still the best strategy in the game. Sure the killer will likely lose the other three if you are competent but you're still having a miserable time which is why people hate being tunneled and why some don't run the perks because it doesn't actually help you enjoy the game more. If anything it merely prolongs the suffering. There's a reason the whole 'die on hook go next' is a thing. It's not entirely related but it's connected. Winning is not equal to fun for many. If this happens to you with a team its less bad because at least friends get out but when you don't get out despite delaying the killer for 5 gens while your team mates do their tome/throw the game challenges, it's a bitter pill to swallow and there's no preventing it because of how crappy the game is designed. There's so many ways to potentially fix it and certain whiny people (on both sides) need to be ignored.

Solid video for newer players, the one thing that confuses me is why DS is run so much less than it was in the past. Used to be you'd see that perk all over the place, even with current DS being a 4 second stun it's still absolutely enough to buy a good amount of time against all but the strongest killers

This is the problem, people dont sit on the gens when someone is on the hook. They save too early, and when they do save they heal immediately under the hook. This allows for the killer to know where two survivors are and know that there isnt a gen being doubled. If anything, save, and run away to heal not directly under the hook.

Thank you for the video. This is exactly why I run Reassurance. A lot of killers stay close to the hook and then tunnel the person that gets saved. There's literally no reason to save someone instantly when the killer is close and not chasing anyone. I think people forgot that farming is bad thing, because now we have basekit BT, but that's not enough to make tunneling not viable. Just do gens and unhook at the last possible moment, unless the killer is far away from the hook.

The problem with anti tunneling builds is if you don't get tunneled your perks basically do nothing at that point. Personally I like to use resurgence adrenaline babysitter and maybe an exhaustion perk or using a gen perk like deja vu. Also if you show that you're a competent survivor they leave you and go for someone else and at that point I just hop on a gen if the killer is tunneling someone.

Important corollary to this: if for whatever reason the person goes second stage (you messed up and/or killer blocks your rescue), DO NOT unhook. Let them hang for another 60 seconds. If you unhook in the killers face immediately after someone goes second, you're gifting the killer an easy tunnel on a silver platter. Bonus to letting them hang: they probably already have some anti-camp from the first hook state, they might easily get enough for the self unhook during the second.

I think Scott is slightly missing the forest for the trees a little bit here. I agree that this works against the so-called "hard tunelling" crowd - a thing I see a lot more is so-called "soft" or "split" tunelling - a killer alternating between two survivors, hooking in a pattern of A B A B A (or even A B A A). It enables them to bypass some common anti tunnel perks (but not all) and allows them to exert some gen pressure by chasing survivor B even accepting A gets the rescue. Then after survivor A gets off the hook the killer puts work into getting them straight back there, ideally ignoring survivors C and D. I see this a lot of games and it is a very effective killer strategy toget a survivor killed by the time 2-3 generators are completed, after which a lot of teams tend to collapse rapidly. Do you have some tips for dealing with this?

One thing survivors need to also remember is the anti-camping meter: if the killer is staying very close to the survivor (roughly 12 meters on average) the the meter will fill up and the hooked survivor will be able to get off the hook by yourself. If that’s happening then DON’T go near the hook because then the meter won’t fill up fast enough

The issue with letting people be on hooks to avoid tunneling is they think no one is going to save them and, they just give up and go next. BHVR needs to add some way for communication in soloq so that I can tell the guy on hook that I will trade him in last sec and will not let them go 2nd stage.

New effect to solve tunneling: Instead of Endurance its now Intangibility No collision,walk through pallets, windows, and breakable walls, cant be hurt but cant body block. Until conspic action Endurance from hook perks other than Dead Hard will now have intangibility instead. Onryo will now have this in demanifest btw. Boom no tunnel anymore

ahhhh yes, 2 - 3 perks to stop tunnelling. Truly a perfectly designed game.

Found an area that specifically to OP with Hag. Downstairs at Gideon. Hag can Hook you, proxy camp and TP to any close trap (add on included). While proxy camping she"ll set traps at every tile, stairs and Window untill someone saves. Regular m1 at the hook then TP for the down. Not much counter play unless hag messes up. Or if your captain hindsight and brought DS. Indoor maps are insane with this since you cant see traps through walls. Think Hag is one of the best Killers for the Hard Tunnle playstyle.

I’ve been running Babysitter recently to help my teammates in solo queue to mixed results. Its effectiveness is predicated on the knowledge and skill of the unhooky. If they’re decent and know what the perk does, they get away like 9/10 times. If they (no offense) suck, they’ll run directly at the Killer or want a heal under the hook while the Killer is clearly coming back. What sucks is usually the guy getting tunneled is usually the weakest link.

Rule n1 for solo Q: bring kindred. It's the only chance you have for people to understand who has to go for the save, and who has to stay on gens, EXPECIALLY in a tunnel situation. Rule n2: bring at least one healing perk. ANY, REALLY. ONE. Rule n3: bring either Off the Record or Decisive Strike, depending on your playstyle and preference. Rule n4: accept you can't communicate, don't take it personally. Rule n5: if you can take the 3 people out, do it. Don't risk giving free kills to this playstyle.

To emphasize, do genwork for most of the time. Don't stand around near the hook waiting 69 seconds, lol. All this being said, it's still good to unhook somebody "early" if the Killer is confirmably far away. You DO want as many teammates on the game floor as possible. But just expect the Killer to most likely return to the hook. Stop healing on hooks and going Pikachu Face when the Killer comes right back and interrupts it. (Babysitter is an INSANELY good perk. Best perk in the game for Hook Returners.)

You're so right. I had a game today against a tunneling chucky and my soloq teammates miraculously knew to leave me on hook until the last second. I did end up dying, which was frustrating, but at least all 3 of my teammates made it out. Thing is, this chucky wasn't bad by any means and I've had much worse games against killers who didn't tunnel. Tunneling me genuinely lost him the game. There's a reason reassurance is quite strong, but I will say that this kind of tunneling where the killer almost completely ignores everyone else is quite rare in my games luckily so reassurance isn't really worth the perk slot for me. I do always make sure to have at least 1 anti tunnel perk in all of my builds just in case

You can keep the killer busy as long as you want, doesn't matter if teammates aren't doing gens EFFICIENTLY.

I have 2k hours in dbd and it has all been solo, my best advice is use windows of opportunity and lithe so you can get the best out of your looping. You can also use DS and OTR but that only helps you so much

Is using reassurance a good idea? I feel like it’s unnecessary but I like the effect

Totally right, this is the counter for getting tunneled. The problem comes when you have teammates that don’t understand this and unhook you immediately after you get hooked, or 2 or 3 of them just watch the killer camp you and do nothing, hide instead of doing gens, heal every time they get hit at 0 hook stages, etc etc. this is the stressing part, watching you teammates not knowing how to counter this.

A lot of people in solo queu CLEARLY don't know how to communicate (or what it means) to not rescue. If you see someone doing jack ups on the hook DO NOT UNHOOK.

Hey Scott, guys here

Just stay on the hook..... Sounds like fun gameplay

Always assume you’re getting tunneled in every game and just bring 4 anti tunnel perks

Part of it is randoms can’t identify, why kindred is so important for them. But what I noticed, which is a bigger issue, no just dive bomb the hook because it’s free 1000 (safety) plus points. If they know properly might be tunneling or it’s gonna be a very difficult match, they know they’re not gonna get that many points so they unhook to get their points for that match. There well aware they won’t survive chases and not get many points in other categories. Biggest amount of points plus opportunities killer will not go for them.

I would also like to add to try using Made For This with OTR. If the killer just eats through your endurance and doesn’t care, you’ll be even harder to catch because of the haste. It works quite well. I even went against a tunneling blight one time with this combo and they couldn’t catch me. And try running perks to help out your teammates getting tunneled, the best one by far being Babysitter. They’ll be faster than the killer for the first 10 seconds and then have Hope MFT speed for another 20. It’s pretty nuts.

Side note: if you are the one left on hook due to a camping tunneling killer, DO NOT TRY TO 4%! You lose time on your failed attempts, which means less time for your team to finish gens and possibly grab you in end game. Also reassurance and camaraderie are good for buying time on hook. Camaraderie literally gives 34 seconds, and that is per hook state.

This video NEEDED to be made. Spread it far and wide.

If you save at the last second, it's a GUARANTEED trade because the killer is 100% going to check the hook when he sees it getting to the end of the timer. Better to wait until sometime in the middle. OTR is a waste. Killers proxy camp and hit you immediately off hook. Might as well just run Iron Will. Even if you manage to waste an entire 10s of their time, somehow... You're running Deja Vu (because solo queue can't share gen locations over chat), Kindred (because we can't call out campers via chat), OTR/IW, and DS, so there's no room for any perk variety and every match is the same and miserable anyway. Plus, you can't run WOO so you unknowingly ran into a deadzone and are dead anyway. This needs to be fixed at the basekit level.

A big problem i experience is players not recognizing or -Unhooking right away essentially farming the tunneled survivor -Not spending their time on gens, instead standing around waiting for someone to be in chase(to then work on gens) -Trading hooks just for the survivor to still be tunneled out anyway

There's a very good reason why DS + Unbreakable was the meta for the longest time.

the reason for the gap between solo queue and full swf is not communication but the fact that most solo queue games are effectively a 2V1 whereas the swf games are actual 1v4s. You only need 1 bad teammate to ruin the entire game which is very likely in solo queue.

When there is no one on comms? You don't know what their perks are and they don't know what yours are. So a healing or take aggro build may not come into play. It would suck to accidentally fight with the Feng with babysitter/we're gonna make it to do the unhook. Or resources might have been used up, which partly explains why WOO is so popular. You know where the dead zones are and how to avoid em better. The only suggestion I have is to make kindred basekit. That way everyone gets information and the team can see if the killer is camping/proxy camping. And it's DbD some players are extremely petty. Certain killers will eat the OTR and DS to just continue tunneling. Yes they are wasting time but it's likely annoying for the survivor being tunneled (especially if they are trying to do a challenge) or for the rest if the survivors who want to interact with the killer and get some chases themselves. I do acknowledge that like with slugging? Tunneling can be an effective tactic but when a killer does so at 4 or 5 gens remaining? It's just unfun and it really needs to change. Before anyone says anything? I play killer more than survivor and I have tunneled when the it was the best play. Such as say 2 or 3 gens popped and I only hooked Sable. She gets unhooked and then a minute later I see her STILL INJURED on a gen with a Ace. Sure I can play "honorable" and go after Ace. But it would be the better play to go after Sable and get her to 2nd stage. Especially since she touched a gen I wouldn't have to worry about DS. Now Sable is on death hook and she can't make aggressive plays such as body blocking lest she gets knocked out the game and with gens left but now it's a 1v3. Tunneling/Slugging will probably always exist in some form in DbD but there hasn't to be a way to make it less painful to go against while giving killers other options to not feel pressured in doing so. Killers tunneled more in chaos shuffle then regular mode for a reason.

1:58 is exactly why Sprint Burst is ass. Walk around forever just to use SB to go forward 4 feet and retreat.

Another great peice of advice i have for solo players is run left behind the bill perk, because as a solo que player 90% of my matches my teammates either kill themselves and dc or the killer just takes them out before we can finish all the gens. Left behind is the best solo perk i get the hatch everytime the match goes wrong

conclusion: great altruistic perk against tunnel: reassurance, no cap, Mish also mentioned it

If you are solo and leave someone on the hook: 1) The guy suicide because he is not having fun.... 2) Someone else comes thinking you don't know how to play; The advice is good but it is not an option in solo because it is not ACTIVE. Every passive strategy, if not communicate, appears from the other end of the spectrum like a NON STRATEGY and the people acts accordingly.

I have found that sprint burst, blood rush, resurgence, and a medkit has been pretty good for stopping tunneling. Sure it gets countered by sloppy butcher effects or being hit off hook but most of the time i get pretty far and can get a heal off.

Just let reassurance work per person per instance of hook or actively refresh up to 3 times per hook. So effectively you get 3 uses if 3 folks are up still. and 90 seconds of time. Will kill hook camping when you have near 3 minutes of time per hook state.

Sprint burst and off the record is a fun anti tunnel combo and kinda my favorite, but otz got me interested in ds and lithe, but to maximize that combo you gotta go down next to a window. Please if you honestly feel like youre getting tunneled "every game" then try one of these combos.

as a soloq, I get this and this has always been the strat for tunneling, but for some reason every SWF needs to immediately unhook their friend in front of the killer or get slugged without unbreakable to try to stop the tunneling, then they all die. Rinse, repeat.

so right off the bat here scott, the answer to yourself being tunneled is NOT 'just put on the anti tunnel perk' bc you can't swap perks mid match lmao and going into solo queue while dedicateing 1-2 perk slots to anti tunnel is not fun nor good game design. off-hook endurance should be extended either based on the killer being close to the unhook (like how old BT worked) or extended when entering a chase.

It kinda sucks to play survivor when you are forced to run an anti tunneling build just to prevent a playstyle that is very common nowadays because it's the meta. I love playing with underpowered perks, but everytime I get tunneled and I'm not using DS/OTR, I ask myself why do I even play survivor anymore. It got to a point where I started playing only killer, from a full survivor main and I enjoy the game a lot more 😅

I like to bring Babysitter+BT for others getting tunneled, its worked out quite well, even had a killer dc when they couldnt find their tunnel survivor.

The first hook is never gonna be 70 seconds, because every tunneling killer will pretend they arent tunnelers and proceed to immediately drop the chase or whatever they are doing when the person is unhooked. Survivors dont assume killers are tunneleres from the beginning and if they did, and the killer isnt, then they are just playing 3v1 for 70 seconds of the guys first hook. Why tunneling mostly works is simply survivors not being great at chases and going down too quick

Teammates struggle to do gens in the best case scenario with nothing distracting them. When the killer proxy camp me, I fully expect the whole team to stop everything they are doing to crouch around my hook and slowly watch me die as gens remain untouched.

I got f'd over by 2 randoms while being tunneled. In the time I got chased they easily could have done gens (like my friend did that match). Instead they hovered around me while I was on the ground, initially making my ds useless since the killer was chasing them off. They did that twice. It was obnoxious Considering the perks I am running, I know I will likely be tunneled out, which is fine. That gives the other survivors time to do gens (if they don't try to hover around with a flashlight just to not get the save anyway). For a while now I have run Decisive Strike, Object of Obsession, Windows of Opportunity and Iron Will.

The problem again with this, is the killer who starts tunneling immediately doesn't care if they "lose". Tgey tunnel because they want too. It's to ruin someone elses game. All they say afterwards is "I got you. That's all that matters."

It is weird that survivors stopped running the strongest perks. In the past survivors used to run the strongest perks. Anti tunneling perks are there at the top. DS or Off the record and everything is good.

tldw: don't unhook after 3 seconds

Idea: Every time your team gets 3 or more out and you didn’t DC, you get a token that can be used for 20% progress on any challenge in any tome.

Ill gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today

Wouldn't another good tip if you are being tunneled be to play defensively like predrop safe pallets and such. Yes, you could burn through resources, but if you're the only one being chased, that time adds up

I once got tunneled, everyone was body blocking so much to try and save me that they all eventually were downed and I was the only one left like how does that happen???

It’s crazy to me that people still complain about tunneling when there’s so many perks and methods to counter it

with 70 second hooks, tunneling and camping are both very risky strategies today but the solo teammates always make it a fruitful tactic for the killer by crouching near the hook and healing instead of doing gens when the killer is tunneling

I just bring reassurance so tunneling and camping is countered pretty successfully. With 100 seconds on hook the anti facecamp mechanic almost always gets the person off themselves

If you are somewhat good or better at looping, the 80% of killers cant and wont try to tunnel you if every chase is like almost 2 mins. And this is without ds oft. But being good at the game requires 2k plus hrs beacuse of the somany maps and killers and their addons.

Everytime i put on ds or off the record i never use it, but the second i take it off

Getting tunneled still kinda sucks. DS is an one-time use, and only most effective when you've already kept the killer busy for a minute. Problem is, a good chase on most maps is reliant on a number of 50-50s on regular tiles, but if you're getting tunneled, you're gonna be injured.. so the first one you fail is back to the hook. And if you used DS on that first chase? Good luck, now you're gonna be deep wounded for the next, with no more grace period. It's a losing battle, even if you're straight up better than the killer player. Getting chased might feel like forever and you might get frustrated at your teammates for not repairing gens quick enough, but the truth is time being chased feels like a lot longer than the time on a generator. And if the tunneled player fails? Welp, 3 gens left in a 3v1, may as well give up, because it's not happening.

Tunneling is not a huge problem in solo queue, it's survivor's that don't progress the match. Imo, if most survivor's focus on gens then Killers will have a tough time. The majority of loss matches for me as Killer is survivor's continuously doing gens

reasurance counters people who wants to tunnel so 70 sec plus this is very nice

There should be game chat for just survivors. If somebody is trolling (Be loud, not taking it serious) then you can simply mute them.

simple, give survs tasers that stun the killer for 90 seconds

The problem with leaving random teammates on hook for too long is that they just kill themself more than half the time because they think that u are just ignoring them.

Recently had a game where I hard tunneled a Leon with a sabo build. The other 3 survivors fell like dominos trying to keep him alive.

Use DS, its must have. Even back in the days it was mandatory to use alongside BT, nothing has changed until they will give basekit anti tunnel

as killer i normally go by game logic where you arent being tunneled if you heal or touch gens so if i see u on a gen right off getting unhooked then i can chase u otherwise i go for someone else

Another tip: even if the killer gets close and you gain the power to unhook yourself: don't do it. Wait until the last second.

How do I deal with other people unhooking me in the Killer's face when I'm new, don't really know how to loop very well, don't have most of these perks, and I'm usually hooked/mori'd out of the game more than 10 minutes before anyone else due to someone else deciding to unhook me with the killer close enough to be poking my forehead? I really don't know how to stop them? Is there a way of communicating I'm unaware of because I'm new? Like flapping to say no leave me alone or something? LOL I'm only huffy that after she got the other three of us splatted the Killer carried her around the map until giving up when he couldn't find hatch and opened the door for her. She even got lost trying to find the door he opened for her and almost got smacked by end game collapse. The person causing all the problems was the only one to escape, that was the insult, not the tunneling me because that I can at least understand it made sense to chase me down when you have a mori XD Need to show this to the person I play with so we can learn, he's usually either too late or too early still we got so much to learn/unlock o.O

I think the game is currently in his worst patch yet, they say is currently balanced but they just give the mandatory tools to survivors (off the record+ decisive strike+ unbreakable) to make enough time to counter an already toxic game style. If you ask a veteran DBD old timer they would definitely agree with that statement just by playing one match in the highest MMR level of this game

Hey Scott! I would like to make a comment on your previous video to say: as a singularity main who slugs for pressure: a few things are definitely true. 1. Slugging for slowdown (not as the end goal) is much more stressful and needs you to be mindful much more. 2. Losing the snowball is much easier, and with much worse consequences than simply taking chases. 3. One survivor with tools to counteract it will absolutely ruin your day. 4. IMO the strategy is very high risk for mediocre reward if you don’t intend to slug everyone.

In conclusion, you cant.

Considering this has been happening to me a lot I've been running decisive strike camaraderie resurgence and overcome because I haven't mastered 99 a sprint burst

I had a guy tell me that if the killer comes back to hook the person who unhooked is supposed to hide cuz they couldnt heal them in time. While then also bitching about the hooked player getting chased again after unhooking damn immediately

Scott was raised in a middle class family, and has been unburdened by what has been

the real ways to counter tunneling: 1. do 3:21 GENS while the killer camps - it is a guaranteed 3-man escape 2. do 3:03 NOT unhook anyone in face of the killer

Pro tip: you can’t

My teammates always get tunneled and I usually escape or die at first hook because my teammates are bad

I know its so often said but tunnelling is 99% survivor induced they farm someone off hook, then play selfishly, refusing to present themselves as a target So many people dont realise the value of intentionally being found after an unhook, if you offer the killer an "easier" chase than potentially eating DS, off the record, dead hard 9/10 of them will take it. If you play killer you will often realise, sometimes you dont want to tunnel but you need to keep your momentum going so you kinda get forced into chasing them since the alternative is try to find someone hiding or walk half way across the map to maybe interrupt a gen

How to prevent tunneling as a solo q player. Use as many perks that help u against that so that u have no unique perks and people complain that nobody uses different perks

The problem i have with anti tunnel perks is I'm forced to use them when killers r being toxic and i dont get to play how i want to play. I shouldnt have to make a build dependent on the toxicity of killers, anti-tunnel should be basekit. Ex. Basekit DS if the killer tries to hook you within 30 sec of being unhooked.

Use babysitter. It's really good against tunnelling killers, makes them waste so much time trying to go for the unhooked person

At this point, I cannot ask for too much for 7/10 of my solo Queue teammates. If I ask them to think, they will implode.😂

The game in it's current state literally encourages tunneling. Because every time I try to play the game "normally", gens go by extremely quick, leaving me with no choice. And most others

Yes, Please ... leave me on the hook thill the last second, if you need to leave it till the end of second stage, please do. I'd far prefer that you all get out than you let that tunelling camping killer win! This happened to me a little while ago, I had a tunnelling camping huntress and the team left me till the end of second stage in order to finish the last gens undisturbed, I was delighted! The huntress was furious and flamed them in end game!

Off the record, ds, made for this, dead hard. If you see someone getting tunneled just do gens. I get tunneled a decent amount for some reason (ttv in name is my only guess as I’m pretty anti toxic behavior) but I have people try to unhook me in the face of the killer 2 seconds after I’m hooked and take downs for me. I appreciate it but if I just ran the killer for 2 gens I’m good. Milk the time it takes for me to die so you can 3 out. I don’t care about living in dbd. I care about the team getting out. I’ve had a couple people have reassurance and use it to keep me on the hook for the longest time possible and we almost 4 outed. Those plays feel amazing. I love this game when in solo que teams organize and make swf plays without coms. From the other angle. If you are getting tunneled and you can loop a little, the map is yours. Throw every pallet, run the killer into me etc etc. the killer made you their solo objective. I’ll make do at end game with just windows if you can buy us enough time to get to 2-1 gen with your dead. I feel most people agree.

Vast assumption that the person getting tunneled didn’t just go next on hook 🤔

The counter: do the gens. Stop running after the killer and stop trying to take hits. You're never going to stop a killer from tunneling if they want to tunnel

Leave them on hook so then they just game end on hook and tunnel themselves out, AWESOME. SOLOQ IS PAIN (currently in queue)

Sad part is ppl get mad when you leave them on hook where they are safe...

i dont expect anyone on a gen to count 55 seconds in there head or get a stopwatch out before they go for a save in reality, but it sounds easy just sitting there saying it i suppose

There is a MAJOR flaw with your reasoning. People are just selfish. Already saying a bad chase will last 20 seconds is so damn generous lol I've seen so many solo que teammates go down in like not even 8 seconds xDD But jokes aside, while I completely agree with everything said on how you deal with this but unfortunately people are just far too selfish. Too many times have I've gotten to end game and one survivor has taken no aggro whereas everyone else is on death hook or dying. Too many times have I've seen survivors immediately start killing themselves or giving up because they are being tunneled. Too many times have I watched people snatch survivors off the hook 0.5 seconds after the killer hooks and then HIDES immediately afterwards basically forcing the killer to tunnel. These survivors out here are selfish as hell man xD Too often I die to save someone only to watch them stealth waiting for the rest of the team to die xD Honestly if people just started prioritizing TEAMWORK over points, escapes, or any of that shit solo que would become soo much better. I have a decent bit of success in my survivor games and I do nothing but solo. I also tailor all my builds around picking up the slack for bad teammates and selfish 2-3 mans who are ready to farm that solo into the ground.

How to counter tunneling as solo-q: Don't sabo Don't teabag Dont flashlight stun Don't bring Weaving Spiders Don't run DS Don't body-block