A Smiler wins by converting humans before they lock the fortress. Your head tracks the nearest living human, which works as a rough compass. You cannot sprint on command, but your walk speed is already faster than a human run.
How infection sticks
Grab with empty hands, then either drain the human or walk them into white Infecting Light. Other humans can strike you to break the hold. A Knife, Handgun, Shotgun, or Hatchet can free the victim from your side of the animation as well. Iron Potion is the counter to Knife and Hatchet escapes. Endangered status, when Smilers are about 20 percent or less of the server, is also described as immune to Knife escapes, with a red aura and about 200 health.
Health numbers in public writeups do not fully agree. The Iron Potion description treats an unbuffed Smiler as 100 health and the potion as 110. A controls guide says Smilers have about 10 percent more base health than humans, and a Bat guide cites 110. Trust the bar on your screen if it is visible.
Mutations you can actually use
- Speedy: a Speed Potion on infection, or picked up on a map. Drinking it adds about 50 percent walkspeed, a yellow glow, and cuts 30 maximum health. The buff lasts that life. A human who drinks Speed or Jump becomes a Smiler first.
- Jumpy: Jump Potion, green glow, about 60 percent more jump power, same 30 health cut.
- Overseer: a large head and markers for humans and Smilers. The big head remains if Swamp water cures you.
- Taser: a chance on infection. One use, stuns a human and deals some damage. It is not a human weapon.
- Endangered: automatic when your team is small. Red aura, more health, Knife immunity. Invisibility does not remove the aura.
These mutations can stack. An Overseer who also drank Speed is a different problem from a normal grabber.
Cure and death
Dying sends you back to spawn as a human. Swamp of Sadness water cures you in the main mode, restores the human weapons you had, and removes Smiler tools such as the Taser. A Giant who touches that water dies instead of being cured. Elimination does not spawn the swamp or Crossriver, so an infection there lasts the round.
Practical loop
- Grab isolated humans near white light so a failed drain still converts them.
- Drink Iron before you grab someone holding a Knife or Hatchet. The effect lasts about five minutes, drops speed from 18 to 17.5, and raises the health value used in that writeup from 100 to 110.
- Do not chase a Katana user across open ground unless you have Speed or a shortcut.
- If humans own the fortress, look for the interior button rather than beating on orange light.
- Save Giant Potion for a moment when curing water is not on the route. The Halloween update reworked the transformation and stomp, so older cooldown numbers are not repeated here.