Hello guys, Grizzly here

Many of experienced hunter players advocate for the use of Trump Card in the persona tree. This trait allows the hunter to changer their ability for something else in the middle of the game after a certain amount of time —usually going hand in hand with detention—. That in itself sounds great but, is this really the most effective use of your persona traits?

You may not need to read all of the post (and I also know it’s a pain to read long posts, I’m lazy too), so I’ll separate my points with titles to help you find information easier and read what you’re interested in :) I hope it helps.

• Why you don’t need it, specially when switching from blink to teleport or viceversa

Detention is almost always a must-have for hunters, which is a trait very useful late-game, as is Trump Card. Then what’s the problem? Well, you’re using too many points to change an ability and you only get minor boosts when putting survivors on balloons and chairs in order to reach it. Don’t get me wrong, those are also useful traits, but is that the best you can do? Pace speed isn’t the only important boosts you’ll need. What about pallet destroying? Vaulting? Attack recovery? All very important aspects of a hunter that you are sacrificing for a minor change in speed after ballooning and chair-placing. Sure, you can get to further chairs like the ones in the basement, but you don’t need these to win the game, and you can get to them too without a speed boost.

Also, some hunters change blink for teleport. Why would you change from one long-cool down ability to another? You’ll only use it once, and by that point if you really need to change it then it’s almost game over for you, because you prepared yourself only for late game, not the whole game, which brings me to my next point.

• If you only think end-game, you’ll have higher chance of losing

Trump Card and Detention are great late-game, but combining the two is only thinking late-game, which means you don’t have many useful traits you could get by saving yourself the Trump Card, and that can mess up your game. If you prepare for the future, then you are not prepared for most of the match. Survivors will vault you, they’ll kite you, drop pallets on you and you can do almost nothing about it. When you hit one, they’ll run away because you take too long to recover, all while the survivors are decoding.

Of course you’ll need to change your ability, you’re not preparing to play, you’re preparing for when you are on the verge of losing, which will take you to more likely-losing scenarios. So, if I say Trump Card is wasting points, then how can I spend them better?

• What you should be using your points on instead

Sure, balloon speed and chair speed are great, but you’re only getting stronger on one of your mechanics, which is pace. However, spending your points on pallet destruction is better, because it leaves survivors with less options to run away because you’ll be destroying all pallets with little impact on your distance between them. Also, outlining survivors healing within a certain range is a GREAT trait. If you don’t let the survivors heal, you’re more likely to get them down again, specially if you’re chasing two and they hide after you’ve hit one of them. They’ll most likely try to hide and heal, but you can frustrate their plans by getting the trait that outlines them. Also, window vaulting. Survivors will often vault windows because they know you are slower, and they’ll go in a loop, making you waste time. You are more likely to catch up and prevent this by simply getting that trait, as well as attack recovery speed, which is very helpful to prevent survivors from running away and losing you.

All of these traits are useful at any stage of the game and don’t need conditions to be active, which makes them more effective. This way you prepare for actual gameplay and not just late-game, and so you’ll notice you won’t even need to use detention on most of your games because the survivors will not even be able to open the gate. Also, the traits you’ll be choosing instead of Trump Card are also effective once the gate is opened.

• Conclusion

Trump Card is a useful trait, but it’s not the best and you can do better. Think more gameplay and less end-game. If you know how to use a hunter and their unique abilities, there’s NO NEED for Trump Card at all, and even less when you switch from one long-cooldown ability to another (like blink and teleport). This allows also for a better game experience, with more intense chases and a hunter that is slightly more agile in various aspects of its role, that ultimately make a difference.

I hope you all got something out of this post and hopefully I helped you a bit. Of course you might not necessarily agree with me and that’s fine, if you’re used to using Trump Card and you do well and you don’t want to change then that’s also fine :) I’m not here to scold you. I just think you can be a better hunter if you use abilities that are useful throughout the whole game and are mostly condition-free.

Thanks for reading, you’re the best!