Ultimate Huntress Guide

A comprehensive guide on how to play the Huntress, from a dude with way too many hours in Huntress.

VIDEO

I recommend watching the video for visual examples of what I'm talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQRDijaX5Io&t=1s

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• First and most importantly, she can damage survivors at any range
  
• Can down survivors almost instantly at melee range with a melee hatchet to melee swing
  
• Extremely strong basement game
  
• Can threaten hooks and totems from very far away
  
• Very strong against several pallet loops
  
• Can zone people just buy holding a hatchet. Zoning is pressuring them to go where you want them to go.
  
• Can counter hook divers
  
• Second smallest terror radius in the game
  
• Has some of the most rewarding gameplay in the game

Weaknesses

• She's slow, with 5% less speed than most killers.
  
• Has to reload her power at lockers
  
• Giant humming radius makes it easier to hide from her
  
• Her perks are terrible to mediocre
  
• Weak against pallet loops with high walls
  
• Weak on very large maps due to her slow speed with no movement-based power

Huntresses' strengths far outrank her weaknesses, which is why she is usually agreed to be the third best killer in the game. However, her weaknesses are among the most tilting of all killer weaknesses, so it takes dedication to get good at her.

Perks

Let's go over what perks to use. Sadly, you'll almost never be using the Huntresses' own perks because they range from Deja Vu tier to "worse Ruin." To me, the three unarguable perks Huntress must use are Barbecue and Chili, Whispers, and Nurse's Calling.

*Barbecue and Chili* not only gives you insane map awareness, but Huntress can actually immediately damage people across the map given enough practice with long range shots. Between the damage potential, map awareness, and double bloodpoints, there is no reason you should ever not have this perk on Huntress.

*Whispers* is immensely useful on Huntress because she has a hard time finding Survivors. Her humming radius is absolutely massive, so the more timid survivors will hide with plenty of warning. Whispers counters this by telling *you* where *they* are instead of the other way around. Learning to use Whispers can be tricky, but it is one of the best perks in the game if you use it correctly.

A Nurse's Calling is also immensely useful on Huntress because there are going to be a lot of injured Survivors during your matches. Because her Terror Radius is only 20m, A Nurse's Calling actually kicks in before they can even hear your heartbeat, giving you a sonar-like location ping before they panic to stop healing when you close in. Additionally, A Nurse's Calling let's you just straight up snipe people who are healing, and those that are self-caring are easier to hit, which is something I'll get into later.

The last perk slot is up to you. I would probably recommend Hex: Ruin, but depending on your luck with totem spawns, something like Remember Me or Blood Warden can work as well. The last slot should be either a game-delaying perk or an endgame perk, because Huntress has fairly bad map control.

Melee Hatchets

Next let's talk about actually using her power effectively. The ideal situation at the start of a match is you use Whispers to find a hiding survivor, who is in melee range. If you are ever within melee distance, you should almost *never* actually melee them if they are healthy. The first and possibly most important thing you need to master as Huntress is landing melee hatchets. Because hatchet throws have a much smaller cooldown than a melee swing with the blood wipe animation, landing a melee hatchet almost guarantees a melee swing seconds later because you are catching up with the Survivor as they speed boost from the damage. This means the survivor is almost instantly downed from full health.

These can be just as hard to hit as cross-map hatchets, due to your limited FOV and the survivor's rapid movement in front of you as they try to juke you. Most bad to average survivors will try to spin around you, gaining no distance but making them harder to hit. When you practice enough, you realize this strategy is terrible against Huntress because you are *going* to hit one of your five shots, and when you do, the Survivor has absolutely no distance and is usually going to be granted a speed burst in a direction they do not actually want to go because they are spinning. It is almost always better to just try to run to the safety of a jungle gym or anything with high walls and eat the ranged attack. Thankfully, most survivors want to just try to do fancy spins around you.

The trick to hitting survivors at close range is letting them come into your vision, not chasing them and trying to force them into your sights. I would recommend putting a piece of tape or some rough indicator of the center of your screen while you play Huntress, as this makes this tactic a lot easier. Instead of following the survivor as they rapidly move in and out of your field of view, keep the center of your screen on one general area, and simply wait for the Survivor to juke back into it. When they do, just release the hatchet. This is far easier than trying to quickly flick to the location of the Survivor, although this is something you can do when you get better at Huntress. Additionally, you almost always want to hold your hatchet until a full charge at melee range, as it moves faster, and generally causes the opponent to start trying to juke before you've even began thinking about letting the hatchet go. At Rank 1, this is how I hit the majority of my melee hatchets.

As you begin to master Huntress, you can start flicking shots. Flicking is basically when you have perfect knowledge of your mouse sensitivity so much so that you can instantly turn your camera to any point on demand. Even when I'm hitting flick shots, I'm still employing the "wait for the survivor to juke back into me" method, and I only flick it when I see that they refuse to juke back to the center spot. Flicking looks cool but is generally riskier and should only be done when its needed.

Mid-range Hatchets

Once a survivor is outside a roughly 10m radius, you can no longer hit a melee hatchet to melee swing combo. At this range, an element of prediction comes into play, but its a prediction you can influence with the environment. The strategy of keeping your center in one spot and waiting for the Survivor to juke back into it still works here most of the time, although very good Survivors no longer fall for it at this range.

At high rank most survivors are smart enough to not run in a straight line against a Huntress. This can still work in your favor, however, because you *know* they are going to try to juke you. Most of the time I am taking mid-range shots, I'm not even aiming at the Survivor, I'm aiming at where I know they're going to try to juke, at which point I just release the hatchet.

In the open, this works against most players. However, extremely good Survivors will go as far as to bait out your hatchets with probably the best type of mid-range juke they can do, which is the fake turn. A fake turn is where the Survivor, knowing that I want them to juke back into my shot, will turn as if to return to the center, only to immediately turn back and keep going their original direction. If Survivors alternate between this and actually running back to the center, you know they are good at dealing with Huntress. For these players, you need to be very smart. For example, a very good Survivor will know I am waiting for them to find cover, at which point I'll throw a hatchet right before they get there. Knowing this, good survivors will actually juke and run *away* from cover, but even this is something you can predict. If you've seen the Survivor is very good, basically do the opposite of what you think you'd do.

Most Survivors will want to get to some type of safe area as they are trying to dodge a hatchet. Bad to average survivors will run directly to the safe area, like a high wall, meaning you have a concrete idea of their path which means an easy shot.

Average to above average survivors will run to a safe area, but they know that you know they're about to be at a safe area, so they'll juke right before they leave your line of sight, expecting a hatchet throw. For these players, you need to be patient and guess that they're going to juke. Sometimes you might guess wrong, but it happens. Because you're still moving closer with a fully charged hatchet, they are under pressure and will most likely run to the safe area after one juke, which is when you'd throw the hatchet.

Very good survivors know all of this and might actually run the opposite direction, usually into a far more dangerous area, because they know its the least expected path. There is no way to predict these movements until you see how the survivor plays, or you know them from a previous game. The early stages of a match are very much downloading how each player dodges hatchets.

Long-range Hatchets

Cross-map Hatchet hits are what makes Huntress the most rewarding killer to play in the game. These shots require a perfect understanding of arc and travel time, but luckily survivors tend to not bother juking at such a large range because they don't even hear the hum at that point. This means the shots are usually consistent to hit, but it also means you need to really understand how hatchets travel. There is no real way to explain this in any cheat-sheet sort of way. You just eventually get a feel for how the hatchets travel as you throw them. I'd recommend practicing with Barbecue and Chili. Every time you hook someone, if you see someone in the open across the map with Barbecue and Chili, just go for it. By watching the arc of the hatchet and seeing where it lands in relation to the Survivor, you get a better understanding of how they travel through the air. I wish there was a better way to give tips on how to hit these shots, but it is literally just practice. There isn't much reading here anymore as most people will run in a straight line at massive distances, so its all on you.

In a Chase

Now you're not always going to have a clear shot at someone. In fact, the whole core design of Huntress is literally doing every thing you can to *get* a clear shot on someone. Just because you have a ranged attack doesn't mean you should whip a hatchet out every time you just barely see a Survivor. Sometimes you have to just get looped like every other killer until you are close enough to swing the chase in your favor.

First things first - unless the pallet loop has low walls or is narrow and straight, don't necessarily ready a hatchet every time a Survivor runs through a pallet. This is probably the biggest mistake most Huntresses do. Sure, bad survivors will throw it down and give you a free hit, but good Survivors will keep running and gain distance on you as you put your hatchet away. Being unpredictable is the best way to play pallets. Sometimes you throw a hatchet, sometimes you just randomly swing through it. Most people do not expect a Huntress to just go crazy and melee through pallets like the rest of the killers because she usually doesn't have to. Swinging through pallets as Huntress has gotten me hits on the best survivors I have ever seen, because its very unexpected until they know you are mixing things up. Then, once you've got it in their head you will melee through pallets, then you actually throw a hatchet instead. Its a guessing game that's controlled by you, and that's a good thing. As a quick note, some pallet loops like all of the rock loops on Shelter Woods have walls so close together that you should pretty much never attempt a hatchet throw at the pallet. Unfortunately, Shelter Woods is one of the worst Huntress maps in the game because you have to just get looped around every rock tile like a Hag.

There are a few pallets that give a guaranteed hatchet regardless of whether or not they drop the actual pallet. Pretty much anything with a straight, narrow chokepoint are free hatchets regardless of what the survivor does.

If there is a Survivor camping a pallet because you are too close to be looped again, you have a few options. First, just melee through it. Its extremely fast and almost has to be predicted to stun you before the swing connects. Additionally, you can ready a hatchet and move right up to the pallet, and immediately back up. This baits the Survivor to drop the pallet while you back out of the stun range, giving you a free hit. Again, these are two options that you control - the survivor basically has to just guess which you are going to choose. If they delay too long, you simply throw the readied hatchet at them while they are deciding what to do.

Also a huge tip for actually going *against* Huntress - forget about stun points. Drop the pallet early before she has a shot on you if you want to live. Don't even entertain the possibility of her playing any mind games on you.

For example, if you loop very efficiently as if Huntress were a normal killer, you'd be at about this distance. However, at this distance, you no longer have any options. I'm so close that if I ready and throw a hatchet, you can't line of sight me fast enough, and if you drop the pallet, its another free hit. Never be this close, or you will absolutely go down.

Various tips

This part is kind of a random list of things you should know but are too vague to fit into any one topic.

- First, Self Care extends your hitbox. If you see a Survivor Self Caring, their hitbox extends upwards as if they were standing up, meaning you can hit the air above their head and down them. Additionally, they also get wider, meaning you can aim at the air to the left or right of their feet and still get the hit. Why is it like this? Behavior, that's why. So if you see a Survivor Self Caring with A Nurse's Calling, chances are you can telepathically damage them because the game is stupid.

- Always reload hatchets before picking someone up if you can. This way, instead of hooking them, getting Barbecue Chili, and then reloading while the auras fade, you can immediately begin chasing and/or start chucking hatchets while they're still highlighted.

- If you know a Survivor you are chasing is good, occasionally mix it up between full charge and just immediately throwing a hatchet at close range. They might predict a full charge and start juking too late.

- Big maps suck for Huntress. If you get Torment Creek, Shelter Woods, Pale Rose, etc, don't feel bad if you do poorly. Its more on the map than anything.

- If you aren't able to get to a survivor before he is in a pallet loop and you have no hatchets, give up the chase. Huntress doesn't do chases without hatchets unless they're in the open and nearby. You don't even have to hit the hatchets. The threat of simply having them changes how the survivor operates.

- If people start to know you as a good Huntress, you can actually mindgame them by making them think you are out of hatchets. Just run up and melee them and continue chasing them as if you have none. If you convince them, they might take a window vault or drop a pallet for a free hit. Again this really only works if they know you as a good Huntress, because it preys on their knowledge of you wanting to throw a melee hatchet first instead of just melee swinging.

[Dr. Jebediah Christoff]

great guide and for us huntress mains I found a video by Mintskull explaining the hatchets hit box and hit range as well as other huntress tips I learned that the hit box is vary small but the hit range is pretty big allowing hatchets go through small gaps (ps I would rate this guide a 10/10 truly remarkable.)

[fairuzagail]

good guide. i am now ranked as #1 huntress in my town

[gomachiclete]

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[homeboy]

Thanks for the guide

[kkittell150]

i play huntress and pretty much never win

[Endlings]

I love how these people think they can question you when you explained literal 2000 IQ plays so easily.

[Xlomme2k]

the back and forth mind games dont work, just because a survivor even if he is high rank, does one certain "juke" to counter your mid range axe throws, you cant predict his next movement will be the exact same, you can keep doing reverse and reverse-reverse psychology, until the end of times..

[Alexiel_Avadonia]

i would actually say tinkerer is also a good perk to use with huntress, her wind up addons, reload, and cooldown addons get very strong with tinkerer, the deerskin gloves that reduce locker reload time with tinkerer on is almost instant

[chimichenghai]

You are right on man. I hate the damn huntress dude.


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[Onryō]

A Very Good Guide Well Done. +Rep