Reverse Bear Trap - Attempts

This guide explains the new rework of Amanda Young's Reverse Bear Trap and how they're affected with add-ons.

Why did they rework the traps?

These two add-ons were responsible for the rework being triggered by Behavior in mid-2022.


It was known as "AFK Pig" and was widely abused back in early part of 2022.

The video above (from FarmerJohn) showcased why the Reverse Bear Traps triggered a rework. It was heavily being abused (alongside showcased) by many individuals in the community as a "fun and lazy" method to earn kills. This combination was a form of Russian Roulette and seeing how many head pops you can earn by simply body-blocking one of the boxes. If it fails, pigs would either sit AFK or resort to using end-game perks to secure kills. The gimmick was a silly, but exploitable way.

This gimmick was essentially remove in 6.0.0's Patch[deadbydaylight.fandom.com] and noted:

Originally posted by Developer Note:

Some Pig players have been camping out in front of the final Jigsaw Box, blocking a survivor from being able to get rid of their Reverse Beartrap. With these changes, this strategy will no longer work! We also tweaked the way box searches are determined to prevent extreme cases of very few searches / too many searches, as well as a small buff to the average number of searches required to escape the Reverse Beartrap. Overall, this should make the boxes more consistent and slightly more powerful for The Pig

Alongside with fixing the exploit, the developers also mentioned the "extreme cases" of too many and too little searches that various Pig players complained about. (Though, this was a complaint for a long time.) Instead of the traps being entirely based on RNG in the previous iteration, the new Reversed Bear Traps are semi-RNG and set to a fixed attempt amount. It's now easier to predict the combination of The Pig's Reversed Bear Traps.

How Does a Reversed Bear Trap Work?

In case you're new to The Pig, this is The Pig's special power (M2) of keeping the survivor locked into the realm and forced them into a secondary objective. This secondary objective requires the survivor to rush around the map, searching Jigsaw Boxes for a key, and removing the trap from their head. The trap must be removed or else the survivor will be condemned to a gruesome headpop or death on hook. (It all depends on the killer's motive.) As long the generators are not fully powered, The Pig can use these traps to their advantage.

What's the basic gist of the traps?

• Become active after a generator is powered.
  
  
• Zero-effect if they're applied onto a survivor at end-game.
  - Certain add-ons can give a secondary purpose.
  
  
• Default timer of 2 mins, 30 seconds.
  - Certain add-ons can extend or lower this.
  
  
• Survivors need to search 4 out of 5 boxes maximum.
  - Do not expect this to always happen.

What add-ons should I utilize?

Love or hate CMWinter? Don't care.

Despite being infamous in various Dead by Daylight circles, CM goes into a great in-depth video about add-ons with the Reversed Bear Trap and discusses great combinations. I've personally used some of these combinations for my own Pig gameplay. Even if you're a newbie or experienced player, this guide is great on utilizing the add-ons to your advantage.

In what scenarios can the traps be utilized the most?

• Locking a survivor in end-game when the final generator has been completed and exit-gates are ready.
  -Must be applied before generators' completion.
  
  
• Tunneling a trapped survivor and forcing a head-pop.
  - Can apply pressure in various ways.
  
  
• Slowing down the generators temporarily when multiple traps are applied to survivors.
  - Can be voided with high MMR and SWFs.
  
  
• Provide useful information or chase potential by add-ons.
  - Highly depends on YOUR play-style.

Yes. There are controversial ways to play The Pig, but this isn't the main focus of the guide. Individuals are allowed to play as "fair" or "scummy" as see they see fit. These are various ways where the Reversed Bear Trap can be utilized to apply pressure onto the survivor team, whether it's one individual or the whole team. There might be various other situations, not mentioned above, where The Pig might find usefulness. It all depends on how The Pig user constructs their play style, adapt to the environment, and utilizes their traps.

The Default - 12 Attempts

As long you don't remove or add traps with add-ons, survivors will have 12 attempts among 4 traps. The formula for traps overall is 3 average attempts per trap, resulting in 12 attempts. This will not change, unless you increase or remove traps with your add-ons. We'll save that discussion with the specific add-ons that affect the amount of traps.

If you have a fair amount of game sense, you'll be able to know if a survivor took off their trap early. Telling the difference between average and late traps will require more game sense and observation, but you'll be able to distinguish this over time as you keep searching for truffles. Don't always bank on the exact number, unless you exactly know how many boxes they've been searching.

The Numbers

These numbers are combinations based on the survivor team's first trap being removed. Each case represents if it was the first, second, third, or fourth attempt. The other numbers for the other survivors are a random combination of attempts on the other reverse bear traps. Here is a table of all potential cases that can happen, assuming if all traps are put on and active before the final generator.

1st Case	2nd Case	3rd Case	4th Case	Survivor
1 Attempts	2 Attempts	3 Attempts	4 Attempts	First Survivor
3 / 4 / 4	2 / 4 / 4	3 / 3 / 3	1 / 3 / 4	Other Survivors
N/A	3 / 3 / 4	2 / 3 / 4	2 / 2 / 4	...
N/A	N/A	1 / 4 / 4	2 / 3 / 3	...
N/A	N/A	N/A	3 / 1 / 4	...

Random Combinations?

Yes. There isn't any peculiar way to predict the traps, unless you know how the first trap came off. Even then, you may need to evaluate a second trap before truly setting on a specific combination, because there could be too much variance. Based on the evaluation earlier with our table, if the reverse bear trap is removed early, then the combination can be determined faster. This can also punish the survivors who received a trap later on, especially if add-ons like Tempered Timer and Crate of Gears are introduced.

Remember, your trap attempts will always equal 12, unless add-ons are introduced to change the trap amount. No matter what, it's the default number.

Let's take the simple case of Attempt #1 and how I determined the combination:

12 - 1 = 11

11 / 3 = 3.75

We know the remaining traps will have an average of 3.75 attempts. Unfortunately, we need to reconsider our math, because based on programming--these numbers must be whole numbers. (Also, how can Behavior program 3/4 of a box?) From what we know and assume...

• Must equal to eleven attempts.
  - Not twelve, since the first trap came off first try.
  
• Three survivors will have a trap on their head.
  - This can be the same survivor again, but with a different number on their head.

Let's revert back to the first part of the calculation and consider how we can split that number equally among the other three traps. We'll remove the maximum amount of attempts for now:

11 - 4 = 7

7 - 4 = 3

And we're left remaining with three attempts. Given we taken two maximum attempts out, a fixed attempt of one (from the first trap), and our remainder, the combination is tight-knitted and cannot sway. Thus, we're left with the combination variance of:

1/3/4/4 ... 1/4/3/4 ... 1/4/4/3

From this, we know the other three traps will be 2 4-attempts and 1 3-attempt. This is why if you ever watch a Pig Main's stream or video and hear them get excited over early removals, it's because the earlier traps affects the outcomes of the later traps. Assuming if this situation occurred and traps were applied, the other survivors are left with 3/4/4 in a random order. Knowing the combination of The Pigs traps can be useful from both perspectives.

Jigsaw's Sketch - 15 Attempts

This is where we start deviating away from normality with specific add-ons.

Five traps, but fifteen attempts in play.

We aren't worried about the Surveillance portion of the add-on, but only the additional trap to determine the math. Using the Jigsaw's Sketch add-on, we have 15 attempts across 5 reverse bear traps. It still follows the magic rule of the Reverse Bear Trap. Yet, we will need to recalculate the combination of attempts, since the maximum amount of traps were altered.

The Numbers with Jigsaw's Sketch

1st Case	2nd Case	3rd Case	4th Case	Survivor
1 Attempts	2 Attempts	3 Attempts	4 Attempts	First Survivor
2 / 4 / 4 / 4	1 / 4 / 4 / 4	1 / 3 / 4 / 4	1 / 2 / 4 / 4	Other Survivors
3 / 3 / 4 / 4	2 / 3 / 4 / 4	2 / 2 / 4 / 4	1 / 3 / 3 / 4	...
N/A	3 / 3 / 3 / 4	2 / 3 / 3 / 4	2 / 2 / 3 / 4	...
N/A	N/A	3 / 3 / 3 / 3	2 / 3 / 3 / 3	...

What hasn't changed?

• The randomness of the combination order
  
• The first survivor's attempt.
  
• How the other survivors get punished
  - This is based on how fast or slow the first trap is removed.

What has changed?

• The other survivor's attempts.
  
• The combinations have either increased or decreased, based on the first trap's attempts.
  
• The other survivors are more likely to have 3 box searches or high-low box searches.
  - This highly depends on the first two survivors having short or long searches.

Amanda's Letter - 6 Attempts

Two traps, but six attempts to search boxes.

As we're still following the magic rule of 3 boxes per trap, there isn't much wiggle room here on the combinations. We only have two survivors and six boxes need to be searched between the two. So, there's going to be some obvious issues coming out of this.

The Numbers - Amanda's Letter

1st Case	2nd Case	3rd Case	4th Case	Survivor
1 Attempt	2 Attempts	3 Attempts	4 Attempts	First Survivor
Impossible	4 Attempts	3 Attempts	2 Attempts	Other Survivor

What hasn't changed?

• How the other survivor get punished.

What has changed?

• There is never a first-attempt removal.
  
• The combination is almost predictable and certain.
  
• The combination is almost pure to the magic rule of 3 attempts per trap.