Oh No, Myers is (NOT) OP

How to deal with The Shape as a survivor. Good for new players.

Proper Identification

So you have some trouble dealing with the Shape. That's understandable. He's really good at stomping on new players and the overconfident - as well as people who haven't figured out just how he works.

Step one of every match is to correctly identify which killer you're playing against.

Assume it's Myers until you've conclusively proven it's not Myers.

If you hear a heartbeat and no jingle - it's probably not Myers.

If you hear any other killer's specific audio (a chainsaw, a trap-snap, a ding-dong bell, a shriek), it's not Myers.

If your Premonition or Spine Chill goes off and you haven't heard his jingle - it's not Myers.

If you hear his jingle - it's Myers. Also one of your teammates has fed him to Evil Within 2.

And, of course, if you happen to spot his goofy neon white mask - it's Myers.

So, It's Myers

When playing against a Myers - or just playing with the assumption it IS Myers - you wanna keep line of sight on your immediate surroundings and pre-plan two exit routes (so you can use whichever one he's not coming through). Break line of sight as much as you can, and deny him his EW charge. He will get the drop on you. You have to acknowledge that that's basically going to happen at some point.

Don't jump in a locker unless you know for certain he's not within hearing distance, keep an eye on your surroundings, and for the love of your chosen deity, don't open up the match by sabotaging blindly.

Proper identification of your opponent will save your life.

Myers isn't that strong if you employ the correct counterplays at the correct stages. That said, the recent overall killer buffs have strengthened him in some significant ways, most notably during the initial stage of the game when he's in Evil Within 1. He has retained his position as (more or less) 'a stronger stealth killer than the Wraith ever was,' although the new lighting changes make it even easier to spot him (or any other killer) from a tremendous distance on certain maps.

Special note should be made of the new map: it has a lot of window vault points rather than pallets, and tight spaces with minimal visibility. While that seems ideal for you to slip away (and, it can be!) remember that Myers benefits from some of the same points you do. Window vaulting is faster for EW3 Myers than most killers, and he remains a powerful choice for stealth killing, arguably better than even the Wraith at that task.

With the most recent update, stealth play has become one of the most viable strategies to get out alive, and that remains true against Myers, if you know how to do it. Make sure to always break line of sight, and be more aware of your surroundings than he is. If there's any indication that someone's been in the area (a running generator, your teammate just ran past, someone dropped a hook nearby, someone's been hooked nearby), you'll want to take twice as much effort to leave no indication you're in the area, and gauge where he is so you can be on the other side of hard cover, yourself.

Evil Within 1

Other than what's already been stated, Shift+W can make a bad EW1 Myers cry.

He's not much faster than you until Bloodlust kicks in, and if you're running Sprint Burst he's actually slower than you for the duration. Use that. Use that a lot. Also his breathing is very loud in absence of a heartbeat - during a 1v1 match I heard it from the second story of a house in Haddonfield and thought the Myers was inside the house, so I jumped out the window ... onto his face, like a moron.

That generator didn't really have good vision of its surroundings, which made it a bad generator to even try for right then - which was entirely my mistake.

EW1 Myers is immune to Spine Chill and Premonition - but he's not immune to your eyes or ears, so look for the neon white mask and listen for his breathing. If your teammate is running or hiding nearby, but you haven't seen or heard any threats, they might actually have a reason for it. Keep your eyes peeled.

There IS an addon that gives him legitimate wallhacks and disables EW3 - if he's making a point of sticking to just EW1, it's possible he's using that addon. His enhanced stealth also makes EW1 Myers more entertaining for some players, especially with Bloodlust allowing him to actually chase.

Make use of his slower window vaulting, tiny lunge range, and base movement speed at this tier.

Evil Within 2

So you heard the jingle. Hopefully it wasn't within five seconds of the match starting, but it might have been - if it is, you're in for a rough match because your teammates most likely don't know how to deal with him either.

Congratulations, though, because the Evil Within 1 part of the guide is now mostly useless.

Once he's left ninja!Myers mode, he can't go back. From here on out, your Premonition and Spine Chill will work as normal, and he even has a terror radius, though it's smaller than normal.

This is in direct proportion to how big of a threat he is.

Barring the use of Dead Rabbit addon, Insidious, or Distressing, Myers has a rather short terror radius but it's far enough that you can hear him coming for you. Dead Rabbit makes his EW2 terror radius nearly as small as EW1, while Insidious lets him camp someplace more or less invisibly. Distressing just makes his terror radius larger at all times, not that impressive.

Other than his 'stalker' power he's pretty standard at this point, as killers go. Juke him as you normally would, but pay extra attention to completely breaking his line of sight. That means putting a wall or 2+ rows of corn between you; grass is irrelevant and palletbagging or otherwise taunting will just feed him. If he gets to EW2, he's going to be trying to go for EW3 - that's almost a guarantee, so it's extremely important that no one on your team lets him stalk them for very long.

If you can hear his heartbeat at this stage, assume he can hear you go into a locker.

Evil Within 2 is the stage that he spends the most time in, because once he leaves Evil Within 1 he can't return and Evil Within 3 has a very short duration and an actual cap on how many times he can use it (based on how much stalking he can do for a given survivor).

Being honest, the most difficult thing to deal with when facing off against The Shape is your own team and their confidence in their own immortality.

A common trick for Myers players is to charge Evil Within 2 to 99%, then hold it there until the next time they see someone who hasn't been injured yet. That lets them blink at their next victim and instantly down them - just understand that if this happens to you, it's because someone let him feed to this point.

Evil Within 3

At Evil Within 3, he has a standard issue terror radius unless he's running Dead Rabbit, Distressing, or Insidious - he's actually a bigger threat here, so it's proportional. Dead Rabbit gives him a wider terror radius, Distressing gives him an even wider radius still, and Insidious lets him go sneaky.

Thing is, most Myers in EW3 will not use Insidious for the duration of EW3. They've got a lot of time pressure to deal with, so sitting around somewhere is not ideal.

So, the second jingle hit, it's long, it's loud, it's scary, and people are falling on their face. What do you do about this?

For the roughly one minute duration of this ability, he's got NOED - so counter this like you'd counter old NOED, and be nowhere near him until it's over.

Don't even try for a hook rescue unless you're absolutely certain he's not camping or even tightly patrolling, because that will just result in you and your teammate going down together. Wait for him to either leave the area entirely or revert to EW2 before making the attempt.

Although machine gun is no longer viable in any way whatsoever, Myers still has access to Save the Best for Last, which reduces the cooldown on successful hits. If he's running it (he may not be, it's no longer nearly as good as it used to be), and his obsession is still alive, he'll be able to recover quickly from his attacks. This makes it even more dangerous to attempt a rescue during EW3, particularly since Borrowed Time doesn't always interact well with one hit KO mechanics such as the chainsaw or EW3's instant down.

Special mention goes to EW3 Myers habits:

1) Most don't check lockers unless they know for certain which locker you're in, because if they're wrong, they've wasted time.

2) Most don't spend a lot of time stalking in EW3 because it slows them down and wastes time. Remember that stalking only outlines you if you're currently (or have been recently, given the right add-ons) in his line of sight anyway (barring the addons that disable EW3). This means it's easier to juke an EW3 Myers with soft cover than it is an EW1 or EW2 Myers.

Evil Within Add-Ons

This section is gonna be of limited use to you, since you can't see what add-ons he's running. Still, it'll give you an idea of what he's got to work with.

First things first, I'd like to give a spcial mention to one of my favorite add-ons to run with The Shape: the Dead Rabbit. This thing brings me a lot of joy, because it tweaks his terror radius, making EW2 almost as stealthy as EW1, while making EW3 have an enormous terror radius. Fun for the whole family, if you enjoy playing mind games anyway.


Blond Hair, Hair Brush, Hair Bow, Lock of Hair, and Fragrant Tuft of Hair all adjust how long Evil Within 3 lasts, from 'a little bit' to 'indefinitely.' Just listen for the jingle that says he's out of Evil Within 3 - if it never comes, it's because he's running Fragrant Tuft. Otherwise, it might feel like eternity, but it isn't much more than a minute.

Tacky Earrings, Jewelry, Jewelry Box, and J. Myers Memorial all increase how fast stalking racks up Evil Within charge from anybody he can see.

Judith's Journal gives him an obsession, even if he's not running any of his own perks, and considerably increases the amount of charge he gets from stalking his obsession.

Reflective Fragment, Glass Fragment, Mirror Shard, Vanity Mirror, and Scratched Mirror all give him some ability to read auras.

Reflective Fragment allows him to see the auras of survivors he's recently stalked (within the last two seconds), allowing him to track you for a brief time after you've broken line of sight. It requires him to have obtained Evil Within 2.

Glass Fragment allows him to see the auras of survivors he's recently stalked in Evil Within 1. Otherwise, same rules as Reflective Fragment.

Mirror Shard: Same as Reflective Fragment, but five seconds instead.

Vanity Mirror: Stalking in EW2 lets him see your aura within 16m. Which is, conveniently, his terror radius by default. If you can hear him with this addon, he can see you. HOWEVER, he cannot progress past EW2.

Scratched Mirror: Stalking lets him see your aura at 32m - but he cannot progress past EW1.

--

Many of The Shape's addons specifically change the game up at Evil Within 3.

Fragrant Tuft of Hair takes a very long time to charge, but once it is charged, he will remain in EW3 the entire match. This is often paired with ...

Judith's Tombstone or the Tombstone Piece:

The Tombstone Piece allows The Shape to kill healthy or injured survivors with EW3 but completely disables stalking with EW3. It also depletes Evil Within 3 when used.

Judith's Tombstone does the same, but does not deplete Evil Within 3. It also moderately decreases his overall movement speed.

Final Thoughts

Michael Myers is one of the most balanced killers in the game right now - even a little bit underpowered in higher ranked play.

That said, playing carelessly will allow him to feed off of you.

New players do play carelessly, because they don't know any better - long term players can feed him either because they want to be able to detect him (Spine Chill and Premonition don't work against EW1 Myers) or because they're overconfident in their own skills.

I hope this helps you do better against the Shape - see you in the Fog!

[Nice]

OHHOH YA THAT MIKEHAIL MAYORS GUY,,, ISNT' HE A IN'TH THAT MOVIE UHHH WATTS IS CALLED, NIGHTMEAL ON ELM STRUET

[Nekhs]

Oh wow, people still commenting on this thing I wrote when I was playing more regularly.

Anyway, regarding Whispers / Scratched mirror: Any of the mirrors let you FIND people. 's a hell of a lot harder to DOWN them, since they prevent T3 and I doubt they've managed to tip the rest of the game balance that far into the killers' favor.

This has not been updated since ... whenever I last updated this actually.

It's out of date, most likely, but some of the key tips are still useful - and help against Ghostface, too! Keep your eyes open, don't play like you're blind and deaf. If you're paying attention you can hear Myers breathing from the second story with him on the ground floor.

(I know; I was in a 1v1 against a friend and yeeted myself out the window on hearing T1 Myers breathing outside ... directly onto his face.)

I maintain that his kit is flat average. esp having faced off against some of the new killers.

We good? Arright.

[Kittenpox]

Whispers perk + Scratched Mirror addon = Can easily find you if you're within thirty-two metres.
[quote]Michael Myers is one of the most balanced killers in the game right now[/quote]
Okay.

[Nekhs]

"♥♥♥♥ guide, you're clearly biased."

-checks profile-

9 hours.

Ok. :| Did you actually try to use the guide or just pick out one sentence you didn't like?

Billy oneshots any time he damn well pleases. Leatherface now oneshots, I guess (haven't tried him). NOED oneshots. Charged Devour Hope II oneshots.

Trust me, having played both sides relatively equally - I know what I'm talking about.

Myers is a noob stomper and falls flat when playing against experienced opponents.

[Daichi]

"Michael Myers is one of the most balanced killers in the game right now - even a little bit underpowered in higher ranked play."
Surely this is some form of trolling.
Anyway, ♥♥♥♥ guide, you're clearly biased. All of this would be acceptable if he did not OS, but he does, so all your arguments are invalid.

[Nekhs]

Updated for the recent changes. I'll admit I'm not entirely certain if they fixed Borrowed Time's interactions with one-hit KO mechanics (or if that's working as intended), but other than that, it's done.

[Nekhs]

I really didn't have any intention of updating it, but I can, yeah.

[FrenziedRoach]

This guide is out of date. Machine Gun build was nerfed into oblivion and Save The Best For Last is a trash-tier perk.

[Mr. Muscles]

i hop it is good

[randomfatk1d]

"So, the second jingle hit, it's long, it's loud, it's scary, and people are falling on their face. What do you do about this?"

beautiful