10 EXTREMELY Useful Tips & Mechanics Every Player Should Know! | Hunt: Showdown 1896

Hi guys, rex here! Are you new to Hunt: Showdown? Here are 10 extremely useful tips and mechanics that I wish I knew about when I started playing! Let’s dive into it!

Number 1: Waxed Dynamite Utility

Waxed dynamite sticks and regular dynamites may seem very similar at first glance, but did you know that one is far more useful than the other? If you throw a regular dynamite stick into a choke cloud, it will not blow up. Waxed dynamites on the other hand will not be impacted by the choke cloud and are therefore far more reliable in a lot of cases. Likewise, if you throw a regular dynamite into water it won’t blow up, while the waxed does, making it a lot easier to use and more reliable in most scenarios. Since a regular dynamite stick can be purchased for 18 hunt dollars and the waxed variant costs 24, your best bet is to always go with the waxed variant for the best overall performance.

Number 2: Looting Weapons For Ammo

Finding ammunition when you’re running low can often be problematic. You won’t always find ammo boxes when you need them, or you end up finding the wrong ammo type. Luckily, there are more ways to replenish your ammo pool! If you find any weapon that shares your exact ammo type, including special ammo, you can take any spare ammo left on that weapon. For instance, if you’re carrying a long ammo rifle and you find any long ammo weapon on the ground, picking the weapon up or swapping back and forth will take any unloaded ammo from that weapon and add it to your ammo pool. Keep in mind, the ammo type must be a perfect match. For example, spitzer ammo can only be replenished if the looted weapon has spitzer ammo as well. This method can be extremely useful to replenish your ammo in a hectic combat scenario if you’re unable to find the ammo you need.

Number 3: Instinct Effect & Dark Sight Range

You’re probably familiar with the dark sight mechanic in the game, and as you probably know by now, once you are carrying a bounty, you have the ability to scan for enemies for a certain amount of seconds, which is typically 5 seconds if you’re in a team or up to 10 seconds if you are a solo player with the magpie trait. The special dark sight scan range is 150 meters, and beyond that range you will not be able to see enemy hunters. What you might not know is that there is another special ability tied to carrying a bounty token, and this ability is called instinct. Whenever you enter dark sight whilst carrying a bounty token, instinct will automatically scan for nearby enemies and if any enemy is within 75 meters distance, the outlines of your screen will glow orange. This ability has no limitations in usage, meaning you can keep on scanning even after you spent your precious dark sight boost. This is a great mechanic to limit the chance of running into an ambush or dying to campers as you’re trying to extract.

Number 4: Looting Hunters For Money

Making money in Hunt: Showdown can be tricky, but did you know that there are a couple of easy ways to greatly improve your income with minimal effort? First off, if you max out your tool and consumable charges before looting a dead hunter, you are guaranteed to get between 50 and 1000 hunt dollars when you loot them. If you want to further amplify this strategy, take the pack mule trait for 4 trait points to more easily fill up your tool and consumable charges, ensuring you loot money more frequently. Similar to the first method, the vulture trait can be assigned for 2 trait points in the menus, and with this trait assigned you gain an additional guaranteed 50 to 1000 hunt dollars whenever you loot a hunter. While both methods have the same effect, each can be used separately, or you can use both to gain two instances of hunt dollars when you loot dead hunters. On a final note, the witness trait is extremely valuable when combined with the two methods I mentioned, as it allows you to locate dead hunters in dark sight, ensuring you don’t miss out on any extra cash!

Number 5: The Dauntless Trait

One of the most underrated traits in Hunt: Showdown is dauntless. This trait allows you to defuse any fused item by interacting with it, for example most throwable explosives, flares and even choke bombs. The trait can be assigned for just 1 trait point in the menus and offers extreme value once mastered. This trait can be used to defuse dynamites or frags before they go off, even in situations where you wouldn’t have time to move out of the blast radius. If you’re quick, you can even defuse the explosives mid-air, especially if you enable the auto interact feature covered in my settings guide, which I’ll link to in the description. While defusing explosives is very satisfying, there is no better feeling than defusing the choke bombs thrown by enemy players to put out the fire on burning teammates. If you aren’t already, start using the dauntless trait every game and thank me later!

Number 6: Dark Sight Boost Visuals

With a recent update, a new mechanic was introduced to Hunt: Showdown, where any source of gained dark sight boost creates a mark on the map. This can give you a lot of information if you are paying attention. For example, you can see where the bounty team has passed through and regained dark sight boost from taking clues or show you the location of players they have looted whilst carrying the bounty. This information is useful to narrow down how many players are remaining in the match, as there can be a maximum of 12. If you see 3 dots close to each other on the map, that is a clear indicator that a team of three got wiped out, which narrows down the possible remaining players in the match to 9, including yourself and your teammates. Secondly, knowing where dead players are located could be useful if you are trying to make money, as you could head over there and loot them, taking full advantage of the money-making strategies I covered in tip number 4. A final thing to note is that during events there are often additional ways to acquire dark sight boost that doesn’t require you to carry a bounty. When this is the case, keeping track of the map and paying attention to dark sigh boost gained by other players can give you a lot of information and allow you to track them more easily.

Number 7: Choke Bolts Utility

The hand crossbow is probably the best utility weapon in Hunt: Showdown. It can run a variety of useful ammo types, including one of my personal favorites – the choke bolt. Choke bolts create a cloud on impact that can be used to put out fires, for example to stop a teammate from burning, or even yourself if needed without having to slow down to stop the burn. The choke clouds created by these bolts will penetrate surfaces, for example walls or floors, and when a hunter is impacted by it, they will start coughing which can easily be heard from a distance. This allows you to track their movement and gain valuable information, such as where enemies are hiding inside of a building or in which direction they are going. I often use this ammo type to check for enemies inside of buildings by firing choke bolts at the walls or into the building itself through doors and windows. Another thing you may not know about the choke effect is that it causes heavy aim punch for as long as you are coughing, meaning it is a lot harder to aim accurately. This can be used tactically in a firefight to turn the fight in your favor.

Number 8: Use Sound Traps To Your Advantage!

Sound traps are everywhere in Hunt: Showdown, for example ducks, crows, horses, cows, dog pens and chicken coops. When triggered, these sound traps can easily give away your position, and some of them are even visible from far away, for example ducks or crows as they fly off. Listening for sound traps being triggered is an important part of tracking other players, and this can be used to your advantage. If you are carrying a silent weapon, you can for example fire a shot, bolt or arrow near a sound trap to trigger it from a distance and throw enemy teams off, allowing you to either make an escape or set up an ambush.

Number 9: Masking Explosives

Explosives are extremely powerful in Hunt: Showdown, but not easy to use effectively if you are a new player. The sound of the fuse is quite loud, giving enemy hunters plenty of time to run to cover if they are paying attention. One of the most useful tricks I’ve learned is to mask the sound of the fuse with another explosive or other audio sources such as a gunshot or a boss being banished. For example, if another hunter is cooking a dynamite, simply move out of the blast radius and wait for it to blow up. As it blows up, immediately start cooking your own explosive and throw it right back at them. Chances are, the initial explosion was loud enough to cover up the fuse, which means they won’t have much time to react when you return the favor.

Number 10: Aim Helper Mechanics

Hunt: Showdown has an aim helper mechanic for throwable tools and consumables. The aim helper is displayed as a stapled line and shows you exactly where the throwable will land. The indicator line is white when you’re out of harm’s way and will turn red if an explosive would land close enough to damage you. One extremely useful feature that took me a long time to notice, is that the line moves closer as you cook an explosive, indicating that increased cooking time will detonate the explosive sooner. This means you can accurately cook your explosives to airburst them where you want, which for example allows you to blow up explosives mid-air instead of having them be defused when in contact with water, or accurately land an air burst above an extraction point to more effectively damage the enemy players taking cover near it.

That’s it for this video! Did you learn something new, and what is your favorite tip covered in this guide? Let me know in the comments, and until next time I’ll see you in the Bayou!