Among Us: Beginner Imposter Tips

So, the thug life chose you. Welcome to the dark side. It’s a bit cold and challenging out here, so let’s ease you in. Firstly, let’s look at the tools at your disposal.

An Imposter can:

1) Use vents.
The vents provide a big mobility advantage for an Imposter. The regular crew cannot use these. Don’t enter or exit vents within sight of anyone – unless of course you’re going to kill them the next second.

2) Sabotage O2, Reactor and Lights
Clicking on “Sabotage” will bring up the Map, where you can see what you’re able to interfere with. You can Sabotage from anywhere, so it’s not doing to give away your location. Sabotaging the O2 or Reactor will be an instant win for you, if the crew don’t fix it in time. Lights will dramatically reduce everyone’s cone of vision – except yours.

3) Block doors
Also accessed from the Sabotage screen, you can lock doors. The doors have to be manually unlocked by anyone seeking to pass through them. This allows an Imposter to trap a victim in a room long enough to land the kill. Being too obvious with locking the doors may just alarm your quarry however.

4) Kill people (obviously)
Murdering the crew is your job. Keep an eye on your Kill cooldown. You cannot murder immediately at the start of the game. Nor can you simply bump off a witness to your murder, because your Kill meter will still be in cooldown. This makes it important to avoid witnesses.

5) Interfere with attempts to undo sabotage
When the crew are attempting to fix the Lights you sabotaged, you can slow them down by going to the same panel and flicking buttons. This is a highly suspicious thing to do, which the other players can easily see. Better do this only if you’re in a stack of four people.

6) Help undo sabotage
An Imposter can undo sabotage like a normal crew member can. This is a good way to reduce suspicion.

An Imposter cannot:

1) Complete tasks
A good Imposter will stand at workstations and attempt to look busy. But you cannot actually do any tasks, so you will not contribute to the green completed task bar. Crewmembers can notice that despite you looking busy, nothing you do is actually contributing.

Don’t fret over your rookie mistakes. We’ve all been there. Here are some learning exercises:

1) Vent out, don’t walk out
Probably the number one way to get caught, is to be seen leaving the room where you left that fresh corpse. Leaving via the door is generally a bad idea, compared to leaving via the vent. You don’t have to leave the vent until you can see the coast is clear. Whereas just skipping out the door is likely to have you walking right into a curious crewmember.

2) Don’t get caught using vents
A very rookie way to expose yourself. Venting in to catch a kill can be risky, unless you’re certain you won’t miss your kill. Blocking the room’s door before attempting this is wise.

3) Don’t go after people with a cooling down Kill meter
Gung-ho rookies will chase after crew, even though they aren’t able to score a Kill. Don’t do this. While your Kill meter is in cooldown, your job is to act absolutely casual. Attach yourself to a few crewmembers, keeping your distance and appearing interested in tasks. Use cooldown time to establish yourself as a Good Boy. Then kill ’em when their guard is down.

4) Don’t walk so close
Crewmembers get spooked by people who ride on their backs. It makes you look like a murderer. Instead, act like you’re watching out for them. Wait for them at a workstation, or doorway. Let them go into dead ends, then catch them on the way out.

1) Work together!!
Being a lone Imposter is tough. If there’s two of you, you can vouch for each other and do double kills. It’s a team game, so put aside your lone wolf tendencies.

2) Avoid “He says, she says”
The most dangerous situation for an Imposter, is if the crew can reliably rule out everyone but you and that pesky witness. This is a simple 50/50 choice for the crew, which is poor odds for you and good odds for them. Even if you survive this round, they can still vote you out the next.

3) Learn the less-frequented areas
Whilst you can leave bodies in the middle of the walkway, it’s usually a better idea to leave corpses where they won’t be found for a while. Workstations in distant corners are the best hunting grounds. Double your chances of not being caught by sabotaging something vital on the opposite end of the map. By the time the crew get back to the remote corner, the body and trail will be cold.

4) Avoid aggressive lies
If you accuse a crewmate with a whole bunch of lies, you might persuade the general audience, but you will have outed yourself to that crewman. Strong accusations without strong evidence can backfire – on the innocent as well as the guilty. Staying silent is advantageous, as is asking apparently pertinent questions, which actually only serve to waste time or distract.

5) Break them up.
Travelling in a group is the best way for crew to stay safe. A lone Imposter can’t take on a group. One way to break them up, is through good use of Sabotage. Knocking out the lights makes it very hard for the crew to see each other. Stragglers may get lost, or you may be able to make a brazen kill if there are enough people around to make a confused scene.

Poor teamwork from the crew is your best friend. Buddies often get impatient with each other when one has a long or distant task to do. If you follow a group long enough, someone is going to drop the ball and leave their mate exposed.

6) Utilise Stack Kills
A stack kill is when there are a bunch of people on top of each other, and you kill one. It won’t be clear who did the deed, since there’s no actual animation for it. This makes for a very cheap kill if the crew have been foolish enough to stand in a five person stack.

7) Take the final kill
Team Imposter wins when there are more Imposters than Crew. That means if you just need to make one more Kill, make it! You will have trained yourself not to confront groups, but in this scenario, you can and should be completely brazen.