Golden Guide to Playing Prospector (Identity V)

I've been playing Prospector more than any other survivor I've picked up in this game. I've been told I'm kind of scary to go against by fellow Prospector mains, so I thought I'd breakdown my strategies for the most confrontational stunner at the Survivors' table.

Decoder mains, beware!

If you don't have experience with contain-type or assist-type survivors, Prospector is an aggressive harasser. Part of the container experience is interfering with the hunter's chase and playing a whole lot of keep-away.

You're going to have to lean into the instigative aspects of his playstyle and abandon that cipher for someone else to handle. If all you do is avoid the hunter and decode the entire game, this guide and character isn't for you.

Back to Basics: Magnetic Polarity.

Not much I can tell you, they work like real-life magnets.

Depending on your current polarity (represented by the blue or red color of the small aura in the center of your character), that is the polarity you will prepare to throw.

After you throw this magnet out and it is collected by another player (survivor or hunter), you can choose how they will react to your own polarity.

• If you want to repel a player, you don't need to change polarities.
• if you want to attract a player, hide behind a structure and change the polarities.

Whichever polarity you prepare with doesn't really matter, just pay attention to the color polarities people collect and yours accordingly.

Decoding As Norton: Fool's Debuff?

At the beginning of the match I choose to find a cipher and carry on with the match's objective. The moment I start supporting a kite is when a teammate (typically one whose presently kiting) turns half state (50% injured). If it's a good kite, hopefully I won't have to hop into support mode until 3 ciphers have been completed total. At minimum I will finish at least 1 cipher and spend the rest of the game kiting or supporting.

If you've read up on Norton's lore, you'd learn that his body's magnetic polarity was acquired through supernatural means from a mining accident he survived. Because of this, his electromagnetic field confuses the cipher machines. One of the written traits in his character profile is a decoding debuff (?) that increases the frequency in which you trigger the skillcheck QTE, and minimizes the yellow section for a perfect calibration from average.

... Is this really a decoding debuff though?

Comparison between the average survivor's skillcheck vs. Norton's skillcheck.

As long as you consistently hit "perfect calibrations", you can actually speed up the decoding process, only encouraged more by the frequent skillchecks triggered by nature of Norton's profile. I suppose you just have to be naturally good at rhythm games and this isn't much of a problem.

Bullymoding: Magnet Placement.

Norton's magnets are a double-edged sword. They're great for creating distance but can also easily screw over your team, be it you push yourself or your teammate into the hunter or cancel his attack recovery animation.

The safest calls you can make is placing magnets in narrow routes instead of open areas. Use windows and pallets as a reference point for where the hunter will next walk through (similar to how Norton's switch identity and some hunters work).
This time, you're doing the hunting.

Depicted is my teammate leading a Mary player out of the window, shortly followed with a wallstun.

I lingered outside of the building's structure for a bit since there are three exits, using the Prisoner's vault as the reference point as to where Mary would next walk out of.

After she vaults over the window, I wallstun and assume the rest of the kite after Prisoner evacuates to another cipher.

Depicted is Prospector "attract" wall-stunning the hunter to create distance between her and the survivor she's chasing.

Note that I also used the pallet and the hunter's field of vision (highlighted by the red) as a reference point for where I needed to place the magnet.

Depicted is a three-man circus kite during late game.

Note that I looked behind myself several times to assess the many routes that the hunter could've taken before deciding to place the magnet in a narrow passage where I knew the hunter would follow me through. From there I would wallstun her to take her off her original route, and catch up with Freddy.

Quit Wasting Your Magnets: Conservation Notes For Kiting.

• If there's a point you should take from this list, it's this one. The only times you should be instant-dropping magnets is if you're defenseless in an open space and can't get to a pallet on time, or dropping them directly under a window you're about to vault. Otherwise, you should always hold them before throwing.
• You can easily turn the area around a wasted magnet into a loop if the hunter avoids walking through it. There were instances where I would decode right next to a chaired survivor and primed a cipher in front of them just because I treated the magnet on top of it like a forcefield. It's basically a recycled wall.
• Half the time if you just throw a magnet between yourself, another survivor, and the hunter, it will land on the survivor. Better a guaranteed magnet than a 50/50 chance that it'll land on the hunter, so utilize the structures around you and learn to manipulate them into your map (See: Magnet Placement).

Polarity Extended: Disabling Hunter Abilties.

Attraction doesn't just stun hunters, but can even disable their abilities with the right predictions. This is a little more advanced.

An anticipated magnet turned blink prevention.

Right after triggering Borrowed Time and retreating into geometric clutter, I drop a magnet into a narrow route. I attracted him into the wall between us to cancel his tentacle and made it out with a 3-man victory.

Balloon rescuing is circumstantial.

Before you rescue someone from balloons, you have to either be full state, or in your early chair stages (not dead in chair).

When stunning the hunter into a wall, you're expected to run inbetween the hunter and the dropped survivor and absorb the hit since the stun (3 seconds including the drop animation) is too short for the survivor to run away.

Rescue Plan Using Magnets.

Just because your magnets easily regenerate doesn't mean they're always the answer. There's been more times than I can count where Prospector players will drop a magnet before or during a rescue, which only cancels both the hunter's attack recovery animation and their rescue.

Instead, save the magnet for after you rescue.

What I did here was absorb the attack, briefly bodyblock my teammate, threw a magnet at the hunter while he was in the middle of his attack recovery, and then hid behind the pillar structure (any type of wall works as long as you can quickly navigate around it).

I do this for every rescue so I can prepare an "attract" wallstun in case the hunter persists on chasing the survivor I just rescued.

There's two ways this can go.

1. The hunter keeps chasing after your teammate or ignores you. Hit that wallstun and keep instigating. It won't matter if your teammate ultimately gets caught as long as you waste time.
2. The hunter starts chasing you. You pretty much got what you're actually here for! When the hunter starts chasing you, try to lead them away from the rescued survivor.

Assuming you haven't been chaired yet or that your teammates are on their last chair, prepare to trade or bodyblock so the rescued survivor has time to retreat or find a cipher.

In this match, I did in fact keep Freddy safe and we made it out alive with a survivor's victory.

How To Support At The Gate.

Ideally if two people [including you] are headed for the same gate, you should let the other person open the gate while you guard from a distance.

If there are any structures directly at the gate that you can stand by, you've got yourself a free "attract" wallstun to work with if you land it correctly. This is only to prevent hunters who bring "Teleport," so check your surroundings while your teammate opens the gate because not all of them bring Teleport.

Fell for it. Hook, line, and stinker. Thanks to Memory's page pushing the hunter back, the stun lasted longer and we made it out with a 3-man win.

This provides an opportunity for either your teammates to evacuate to the other gate, or for you to lead the hunter away from the gate with progress.

Hunters to watch out for as Prospector.

It's not impossible to win against these hunters, but you'd have to depend on other factors like team comp and hunter incompetence just for a tie.

Feaster, Ripper, and about any long-ranged hunter can counter or disable Norton's magnets. Smiley Face can dash at a Prospector before the magnet polarity sets in.

You're also pretty much dead weight against Breaking Wheel since Norton's Polarity can't affect him within his wheel form. At that point, stick to decoding for the entire match.

Conclusion.

Survivor Norton actually takes quite a lot of confidence to play. Don't let his perks and "disguised buff" fool you though because even though he's easy to learn, he's hard to master. When you do master him though, you can be just as much of an annoying pain in the arsenic as his playerbase is fabled to be.

Sometimes you get caught in geometry, but a whole lot of Prospector's gameplay is acclimating yourself to steady camera control and some spatial awareness since you're going to be looking behind yourself a lot. You can practice this habit just by rotating the camera more often when you move between ciphers.

Happy surviving.

Norton-oriented teamwork in practice. Thanks to my online friends for the footage.