She might not have a hockey mask or a chainsaw, but the Hag can be absolutely deadly in a round of Dead By Daylight. Originally included with the Of Flesh And Mud DLC for the PC version, The Hag is now coming to the Special Edition of Dead By Daylight for consoles.
There have been numerous tweaks and fixes since the game first launched on PC a year ago, reducing window juking and other issues that were common causes of frustration. But if you’re just jumping into the game on PS4, you’ll still need to know how to play each killer.
Without some knowledge ahead of time, you’ll be left in the dust with a group of survivors laughing at your inept attempts to eviscerate them. Below we cover everything you need to know to either play as (or survive against) the Hag.
Basics for Playing The Hag
Once a benign witch who drew charms for safety and good fortune, Lisa Sherwood became the Hag after being tortured near to death by cannibals and only escaping by turning towards dark magic centered around vengeance.
The Hag is essentially a combo class, combining the teleporting feature of the Nurse with the bear traps feature of the Trapper.
Most killers feature a primary and secondary weapon, in addition to a special power unique to each killer. The Hag breaks out of that standard style, with only one attack and one special ability.
Besides the ability to swipe with one arm to break obstacles or injure survivors, her main powers instead are placing Phantasm Traps, as well as utilizing Hex Totem perks that make it much harder for survivors to escape.
Starting a match as the Hag
Killer Basics
For those console players who didn’t already play the PC edition, you need to know some basics. Playing a killer like the Hag switches the view to first person from third for a different layout and viewpoint. You detect survivors by looking for scratches on the ground, listening for heartbeats, and seeing flashes of light when a survivor fixes or turns on a generator.
Besides knowing how to use your special ability, learning individual map layouts is absolutely critical so you don’t end up chasing your tail. Survivors who know how to efficiently use windows and doors to get away from you can be elusive. A direct chase from point A to point B is usually the worst way to go about chasing a survivor, as they will be able to jump out a window and run around the building, or drop a wood pallet to block your path.
Here’s where you’ve got an advantage — the Hag can destroy wood obstacles with two swipes of her arm. But make sure you are close enough to the pallet to trigger the correct action! Many Hag players have accidentally teleported when they meant to break a pallet. When you finally catch up to a survivor and knock one down after two swipes, take ’em to any of the map’s meat hooks to hang!
During the course of a map you earn blood points by completing various tasks, which can be used to unlock new perks and upgrade the Hag for future matches. Points are primarily earned for placing traps, triggering traps, finding/chasing/attacking/hooking survivors, breaking objects, and evading flashlights.
The scratches means someone’s been running or is injured
Hag Power: Blackened Catalyst
Other than a simple swipe with her claw, these triangle traps drawn on the ground are the primary ability for the Hag. When a survivor stumbles over a trap, a ghostly replica of the Hag jumps out and scares them. So long as you are within range, you can teleport directly to that location to try to kill or chase the survivor.
Keep an eye and ear out — the replica Hag appearing causes the heartbeat and scratches to come into play so you know where to go. There’s only a brief window to teleport, though. So if you are out of range right after the trap is triggered, you’ll have to run.
The main strategy to think about here is trap placement. Just plopping them anywhere is a waste and will ensure a quick defeat. Instead, place traps in locations where foot traffic is going to be heavy, like near the map’s escape door or next to generators and building windows.
Setting a trap outside a window and then chasing a survivor into a building is an excellent strategy, since they will make a beeline for the window for a quick escape.
If you are hooking survivors and think their friends will try to rescue them, hook locations are also decent spots to lay down traps — but wait to set the trap until after you’ve hooked someone, as you may end up wasting a trap on a hook location that never gets used.
Don’t forget: you can equip add-ons to to make this ability more useful. Bloodied Water, for instance, increases the range of the traps set with Blackened Catalyst, so survivors don’t have to actually walk right over them.
Placing a trap on the ground
Teleporting
This is a somewhat controversial power addition to the killer lineup, since it radically alters the basic structure of the game.
When a trap is triggered, you can teleport directly to that location to go after the survivor who triggered the charm. But keep in mind there’s a brief cooldown period where you can’t attack after teleporting to prevent teleportation from being an instant win.
Just stay on the survivor — who will probably go run screaming the opposite direction when they see fake decoy Hag — and getting in a swipe shouldn’t be too hard.
You can also teleport directly to any unused trap you’ve set, but this immediately removes the trap and should only be used to travel across the map as a last resort.
Attacking a survivor with your claw
Hex Totem Perks
These perks are how you can really screw over the survivors as the Hag. They are only active once you’ve actually unlocked the individual perks, and are tied to the hex totems (the pile of skulls) randomly scattered across any given map. The perks available are:
- Ruin: A survivor affected by Ruin will be unable to effectively repair the generator. A good skill check will actually regress the generator’s repair level (as though you had failed), while a great skill check won’t progress its level at all.
- Devour Hope: This perk is based around survivors saving each other from hooks, so its useless unless you are actively grabbing survivors and hooking them. When this perk is active and a survivor rescues someone from a hook within range, you get a major bonus to damage.
- Third Seal: While this perk is active, any survivor you hit is cursed, reducing their abilities and making them easier prey.
How to Survive The Hag
Now you know how to kill effectively, so let’s look at the other side of the equation: surviving the Hag!
Like with the Trapper, you can actually disable the Hag’s traps. Just aim your flashlight directly at the triangle charm sigil to cause it to erode. Think backwards to avoid traps altogether. Check the ground before rushing forward to unhook a fellow survivor, running through a door, or repairing a generator, as those are the locations most likely to be trapped.
Any map where the killer is the Hag will feature totems with skulls and candles. Taking the time to cleanse these totems (using the same mechanics as fixing a generator or pulling a survivor off a meat hook) removes one of the Hag’s perks, and you don’t need a toolbox to destroy the totem. You should be focusing on doing this as often as possible to make the Hag less deadly before trying to escape.
Disabling a hex totem
Now you know everything you need to play as or against the Hag. The Dead By Daylight PS4 release is set for June 20th. We’ll see you all in-game, and hopefully we’ll take down more than a few of you survivors as the Hag!
Looking for more help killing those pesky survivors or staying ahead of the killers and making a grand escape? Check out the rest of our Dead By Daylight guides here on GameSkinny.
