Distraction Guide
WARNING BEFORE YOU START READING - I AM EXTREMELY BIASED
I'll try to keep it simple and get progressively more technical as I go through the guide so you don't get overwhelmed by WORDSWORDSWORDS right off the bat with information you wouldn't really need to know.
You should also check out that guide made by another anon that's made for the game overall instead of just distracting, it contains some nice information for distraction too.
Some Youtube links with footage of our runs will be provided every there and then to show how it's done sometimes because you can't embed videos here and the alternatives to Youtube sucks (Streamable deletes your shit after 3 or 90 days and Catbox is slow as fuck to load anything that isn't a png or gif).
Who the pick
There's a handful of toons that are fit for distracting, ideally you want low stealth, high speed and high stamina, but while speed is always mandatory, stealth and stamina are more flexible requirements.

- Goob
The easiest distractor and the one you should start off with for practicing is Goob.
4 speed, 4 stamina and 2 stealth, makes him piss easy to use for you new distractors since you won't have to use any brainpower to keep Twisteds away from the team mates and can solely focus on the red eyed monsters trying to hit you, and on top of that, you have 3 health to work with which is always great.
If you get into the elevator and there's still one person outside, you can grab them with your ability so they won't get attacked by the Twisted camping the front door, outside of niche situations that's how you'll be using it 95% of the time.

- Looey, formerly Doc
Once you've graduated from Goob academy and feel like you know what you're doing, you should naturally be moving onto Looey.
He starts off slower than the other distractors but the less health he has, the faster he moves. Think him as a main, 2 health. Pretend the 3rd heart doesn't even exist.
At two hearts he's slightly better than Goob in terms of mobility, and at one heart he's the uncontested fastest toon in the game except for a pissed off Twisted Dyle and can easily go around while keeping Twisted Pebble and other Twisteds while distracting.
Outside of being de-facto played at 2 health, he has no other real downside and can safely be called the best distractor in the game in most scenarios.
Just remember that while the lower his health is and the faster you go, all it takes is one mistake and you're out of the game.

Cupcake the PitbullPebble
If you've been putting off distracting for a while and got his research to 100% already, Pebble is an alternative pick to Looey once you've graduated from Goob.
He's a main, so you only have 2 hearts, but the upside is that he's the fastest Toon in the game outside of 1 HP Looey. Another downside is that he has 3 stealth, which is somewhat countered by his ability that's basically a air horn on command, but you'll still have to look out for idiots in your team that want to end their own life by running right into your twisted train even with itlike the retarded Vee that can't help but run out in the open instead of looking around before walking to then steal your entire pack with her fat ass 2 stealth.
Anyway IF you have a good team with little to no idiots, he's probably a better pick than Looey but it's really up to preference ultimately. Both are about on par in most situations.
Eclipse and Gourdy section at some point. Don't count on an Eclipse section any time soon I don't really feel like playing her I have been threatened and will write an Eclipse section at some point soon.
NICHE PICKS
This section you can ignore and skip straight to the trinket part by clicking here unless you feel like you're too good and too special to play these other 3 toons and you NEED to stand out and play a weird gimmick character to not feel like pic rel.

Before we get to the boring ones, let's start with the COOL ones.

- Blot and his son Blot Jr (not featured in this section)
The GREATEST OF ALL TIME, 10 time undefeated world champion in the CLOCKBLOCK category.
One of the hardest toons to learn to use right. 4 movement speed, 5 stamina, BUT three stealth. And he can summon Jr every now and then, who has the unique ability of having -999 stealth, meaning ANY twisted that is not considered stationary will immediately run to attack him, ignoring any other player (even Shrimpo and Brightney) in their path until Jr is destroyed.
Example of taking a Twisted off a Toon with less Stealth here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OClqErm2e6o
If you're good enough, he's a very good pick though slightly weaker than Looey and Pebble, but really not by much. Probably the best secondary distractor in the game though.
Is the uncontested best toon to have on your team when you reach Dyle's floor since Jr can take Dyle's attention and reset his speed back to zero to save some teammates from getting CLOCKED.

- Bassie
Literal basket case. In theory can kite every single twisted combination in the game by using her passive ability combined with the Bone and Feather Duster trinkets, but the entire team needs to be aware of the distractor at all times, probably the hardest toon to play in the game if you're distracting and will likely fry your neurons if you aren't using some sort of macro and you got even one or two idiots in the team due to her 4 stealth.
Here's what it looks like when you play her right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b7v4jGQFnA
- Tisha, Yatta, Cocoa
All three of them are what I like to call emergency distractors. They're not there to distract and shouldn't be picked to distract, but if you're the only distractor in the lobby and you get some annoying combinations of twisted, these toons can come help you thanks to their high movement speed and can distract twisteds excellently, even if they have some bad points (Yatta has low stamina, Cocoa has extremely high stealth for example and Tisha is overall average). - Brightney
Extremely niche. Can only work as a distractor if you go with a Clown Horn & Ribbon Spool and falls apart as soon as any dangerous combination of twisted appears, but a good player can hold on with this toon for some time. The upside is her slightly high stamina and 0 stealth that makes every twisted immediately go to her. - Flutter
Not a bad choice, but has an ability that's almost worthless for a distractor (only real use would be against Goob and Scrap, or Vee if you were to not use Train Whistle) combined with 3 stealth... just why would you use her? - Razzle & Dazzle
Niche. When they work they work, but you're going to be exclusively there as a backup distractor and you're basically at the mercy of RNG, because you could get 6 commons when you have 5 speed and then 5 mains blackout + Gigi as soon as you're stuck in 1 speed. - Coal
Goob but worse. Do not use. - Rudie
Could work thanks to low cooldown on ability, but requires both ability cooldown reduction cards and a very specific build, 3 stealth is also detrimental. No real reason to use this toon, which is why you never see him in anon runs. - Bobette
Extremely niche. Same situation as Brightney but 2 stealth instead of 0, on the upside she has an ability that can be used while distracting but it can get her hit just as easily as it can save her from being hit.
What trinkets you should use
Here's the only trinkets you should look at if you're distracting, nothing else should be looked at unless you're doing some gimmickshit, I will give simple explanations on the ups and downs now and get into more details later on them.
Always remember this : Taking a trinket to deal with one or multiple annoying twisted means you may leave yourself more vulnerable to another, choose your trinkets carefully and according to how you plan on distracting.
From left to right, we have the Train Whistle, the Clown Horn, the Dog Plush, the Ribbon Spool and the Speedy Shoes.
- Starting from most important to least, we have the Dog Plush, if you are distracting, you will have it equipped 90% of the time. It provides you with a +10% WALK SPEED boost, which is the most important statistic to a distractor. This trinket alone allows you to outwalk every twisted in the game outside of a select few.
- Next is the Speedy Shoes, which give you +5% WALK SPEED and +5% RUN SPEED. Not as good as the Dog Plush on its own, but combined with the Dog Plush, you can (mostly) outwalk the remaining few Twisteds that you could not before.
- The Train Whistle does not provide you with ANY form of speed unlike the other trinkets, but it does make you immune to the effect of Slowness, meaning Twisted Vee and Twisted Finn CANNOT slow you down, this trinket is an automatic equip if you play Looey or Pebble.
- The Clown Horn and Ribbon Spool have the same gimmick of giving you +10% WALK SPEED and +10% RUN SPEED, with the downside of the former only activating on ODD NUMBERED floors and the latter on EVEN SIDED floors. Meaning you can't equip both and have a constant +20% in both stats, though you can equip both and get a permanent +10% to both stats as they would take turns activating and deactivating. It is a valid strategy for toons of 3 movement speed, but not needed for 4 speed and above. If you have two distractors in your run, you could talk it out so both of you take one and distract when your individual trinket activates. The downside is that if you get a dangerous floor where both distractors are needed, one will be left with a useless trinket slot, though it can be mitigated with enough skill.
Best combination of trinkets, their upsides and downsides.
Basically a TL;DR of the stuff right above
-Upside : You outwalk and outrun every Twisted in the game outside of a few exceptions, take this if you're new to distracting, slap it on Goob and you're good to go.
-Downside : Twisted Vee will be a nightmare to you and will constantly drain your stamina, every floor she is on will be a race against time.
-Upside : You outwalk and outrun most Twisteds in the game outside of a handful of them. Twisted Vee will not be the bane of your existence. Easy "default" pick for Pebble and Looey and any experienced distractor should take this.
-Downside : Twisted Toodles and Twisted Shelly will be annoying you but should still be manageable as long as you conserve your stamina.
-Upside : Offers the best speed possible if you can consistently switch out with another distractor, meaning you will have little to no struggle whatsoever no matter what Twisted combination is thrown at you.
-Downside : If an extremely dangerous combo happens that requires both distractors in peak condition or the one currently subbed out to tag in, you can potentially go through a heavy struggle.
-Upside : You can actually KINDA distract thanks to the guaranteed +10% in speed every floor even on a shitty toon not meant for distraction.
-Downside : Twisted Vee, Twisted Pebble or Twisted Astro accompanied by other above average speed Twisteds will spell your immediate doom if you do not have assistance and you will require a constant supply of items and stamina.
Best Toons to have on your team
If you're distracting, you're playing a constant contest of endurance and making correct decisions, if you make a bad choice, you lose and your entire team follows you down the grave.
Some toons can help mitigate that and exponentially increase your survival rate.
- Astro is going to be your best friend as a Distractor.
Many consider him to be the worst non-seasonal main, but he's probably the best or second best. He can immediately refill the stamina of EVERYONE in a massive radius around him to full.
When you're distracting, sometimes you're up against an invisible clock and all you can do is try to lose as little stamina as possible while other tooners complete machines, use and run out of items as these DUMBASS ANONS decide to chat up and crack jokes while you're slowly approaching death. Astro can prevent that extremely easily. - Vee is tied with Astro as your best ally.
Every single floor start will give you X-ray, allowing you to always know the location and the combination of twisteds you'll face on the floor.
That means you won't run blindly and get sniped by a Goob or Scraps coming from behind a corner or a Pebble running at you full speed. - Gourdy
Great to have around, he provides you with speed when the floor starts and when panic mode begins, that means you get to cover more ground and can find and gather twisteds up more efficiently, and when panic mode begins, you won't take a hit when a dumbass decides to clear the last machine without saying a thing as you're busy dealing with a fast twisted like Pebble. - Cocoa
Extremely underrated as a helper for distractors, if one of them provides you with constant Bonbons, even a distractor with terrible stamina management can handle a tough floor by using the bonbons as a breather to recover stamina thanks to the speed boost. You sadly won't see them around often enough to make use of them.
A smart Cocoa player will lay Bonbons around from the start of the floor, meaning you shouldn't run out too easily unless you have GREEDY Yattas and Sprouts vacuuming them off the floor as soon as they see them. - Tisha
Like Cocoa, the speed boost provided by Tisha is extremely useful, and the cooldown is short enough to provide you with some nice help every now and then. - The healers
They heal. It's nice to have.
Stealth and passing
Kind of important but depends on your skill level and the average IQ of your team.
It's mostly covered in the aforementioned guide by another anon here.
Twisteds decide who they attack based on two factors, the first is automatically chasing whoever they see first, and the second comes into play when they have two or more players in their field of view.
If two toons have the same stealth level, the twisted will prioritize the toon closest to them, if the one initially being chased has stealth level of 4 and a toon with 3 stealth comes into view, they will entirely ignore the 4 stealth toon to go after the 3 stealth one, making you essentially invisible, and obviously if you got 3 stealth and a 4 stealth toon comes into view he will be ignored, even if he were to hug the twisted and go up in his face, so long as the 3 stealth one remains in view of course.
This is why being low stealth as a distractor is nicer (even if it's not a necessity); your team can safely walk around you as long as you don't cut corners near them.
Baton passing is taking attention of a twisted and then bringing him to another player then cutting a corner to lose the twisted's attention so they go to that player instead, usually done by toons that have higher stealth than their target player, you're mostly going to be doing this if you're the secondary distractor in a team though or other players will do this to lob their twisteds onto you.
Here's an example that combines both. Twisted Cosmo came in the room, I have the exact same Stealth as the other Boxten, but since I came into view and he was hidden, Cosmo went for me, I used a Stealth Candy to increase my Stealth then made the other Boxten show up in Cosmo's field of view, so he ignored me and went for the other Boxten despite being the initial target.

How to actually PLAY as a Distractor
Now that we're finally past the boring stuff, you finally get to learn how to distract.
To keep it simple, it's always a game of two things :
- Managing your stamina
If you can't do that and fall apart by letting your stamina get close to 0 and you will die or be forced to let go of your pack, then the Twisteds will go for your teammates, causing chaos and potentially deaths. - Knowledge check
You gotta know or at least have a rough idea of the speed, vision range and gimmick of every single Twisted, knowing is half the battle.
I can give you all the advice in the world on nerdy stats stuff but the better way is to play a lot or scour the wiki for all the stats and remember the information.
There's a lot of text here so feel free to skim through and only read the parts that you feel are more important, I'll just be going over general things.
- To begin with, every time a floor begins, run toward the middle of the map to locate the most twisteds then gather them up, the faster you can do it, the less likely it is for your teammates to be in danger. If possible take research capsules whenever you see one as they will provide you with knowledge of what Twisteds are on the floor if you do not have a Vee on your team.
- When you have your conga line ready, you can simply walk around in an empty area, preferably one far from common paths so your extractors don't have to make large strides to get to machines. In latter floors, you can mostly distract wherever you want, but once more machines fill up, move elsewhere so your teammates can fill up the machines you were blocking off.
If you have the Dog Plush, most of the Twisteds cannot catch up to your walk speed, meaning you won't really ever have to sprint until Panic Mode happens. - After floor 5, Main Twisteds can spawn, meaning you should also pay attention to the distinct sound cues they make when they walk. They are all different from one another so you should be easily be able to tell which Main is on the floor (Twisted Vee and Twisted Shelly give you pop ups and Confused immediately so they're the easiest to notice). Main Twisteds are a priority and you should take them before other twisteds, the only exception are the Craft siblings and Gigi due to their ranged attacks, if you let them roam it's much more likely for them to hit your friends than a main, which they can just run away from.
- Twisteds have a different speed when roaming and chasing players, keep that in mind, it's usually not relevant but is extremely important to remember for a handful of them. They also ALL gain a speed boost when Panic mode begins, which you should especially remember when dealing with Twisted Pebble, who will run faster than most Toons. The best way to deal with him is to make him lose sight of you and then have the extractors pop the last machine.
-
You won't really need items on early floors unless you have terrible luck, simply pick up tapes you come across to afford bandaids and medkits from Dandy's shop, or Air Horns if you're playing a distractor with 3 or more Stealth to get your aggro back whenever a dumbass decides to steal it from you.
On latter floors, the items you'll want the most are the Chocolate Bar, it gives you some stamina and provides you with +10% WALK SPEED for 10 seconds.
That's the equivalent of an extra Dog Plush, most people don't talk about it but if you have even one of these, you can easily extend your lifeline by 20 or even 30 seconds if you're on a floor where you struggle due to combinations that will force you to expand stamina by sprinting occasionally, if you lose more stamina than you regenerate while distracting, eating a Chocolate Bar will allow you to outwalk Twisteds that normally require you to sprint, meaning you not only gain +20 stamina from the chocolate, you also get to regenerate stamina for 10 whole seconds by walking.
Next is the Protein Bar, it gives you +150% stamina regeneration for 15 seconds, sprint to get a small gap and eat one of these and you can easily recover most of your stamina in just a few seconds.Lastly, you have the Bottle 'o Pop and Box of Chocolates, the former gives you a full stamina heal, and the latter is the same as Chocolate Bar, but instead of giving you walk speed, it provides you with RUN SPEED. Bottle 'o Pop is great to have, but in my personal opinion I'm not a big fan of Box of Chocolate because it wants you to use up the very stamina you're trying to recover. It's still great if you're trying to escape from Twisted Dyle while kiting on his floor, moving Twisted Pebble around or Twisted Glisten but maybe that's just me.
You might want to tell your teammates to leave stamina items on the floor when things start to get more dicey so you don't have to survive off just the 3 items you bring on the floor when you get deeper into a run, but that's really not needed 9 times out of 10.
Dealing with the dangerous Twisteds and specific combinations
-
Twisted Pebble
Moves quickly, you'll need to be sprinting to outpace him, unless you play Pebble or Looey at 1 heart, you cannot take him while also distracting the slower twisteds, you can try but you will burn through your stamina extremely fast (you will be forced to sprint into wide angles to avoid the slower twisteds that will act like walls instead of being able to do efficient loops).
Ideally, have a secondary distractor or any toon with 4 movement speed deal with him while you deal with the others. Can also technically be left alone as long as he doesn't walk right back into you while you're busy with your train, that's a valid strategy.
As long as he's being handled, he's a non-threat. Dog Plush is recommended but not necessary.Here are a few examples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OhjFCMBcA8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1dObv5LjY8Always loop him around isles, preferably ones with LOTS of corners for him to "latch" onto. Think of him as a big bus trying to take many tight corners on a road, the more turns he has to make, the more breaks you can take to recover your stamina and the less you have to sprint. As you can see in the first video I looped him for 4 minutes straight without any mobility trinkets and could have probably been at a constant max stamina if I was better at managing it. In the second one my stamina was basically constantly full.
Keep in mind that if other players walk near your looping spot, they can take his attention since you'll be often out of his line of sight.
Try to stay in his line of sight very often so that he doesn't go back to roaming too, all it takes is slowing down before taking a corner for a second or two to make sure he sees you directly and then you can go back to looping him. - Twisted Vee
If you have Train Whistle, it's just a Common with annoying pop-ups. If you don't use it, forget about it and let someone else deal with her. The Slowness II she applies will be even more deadly than the Tired that Twisted Astro applies. You can technically still take her without the trinket, but only if the other twisteds you have on the floor are extremely slow. -
Twisted Dyle
Cannot be distracted (unless you're Bassie, and even then...), avoid him at all cost, the one true lethal toon. If you play Pebble, it is MANDATORY to remember to NEVER use your barking ability, as it will immediately put him at full speed toward your direction. Same thing with Air Horns.
If you're playing Blot however, he's a piece of cake to handle. You still can't distract him, but if one of your teammates fucks up a machine, you can just sacrifice Jr to calm him down and reset his speed back to 0.Here's an example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwASzhPe1pg
Keep in mind that if you decide to try to do the same, you should always stalk him and stay very close to be able to react to a melty at any time and easily block his path, and once he spots you, WAIT until he's very close to use Jr, because his shitty coding can make him "run away" from you and walk in another direction altogether if he's not close enough, meaning you'd have wasted your ability and now he could potentially kill another toon.
- Twisted Dandy
Joke of a "lethal", visualize him as a regular slow common and deal with him as such for the most part. Just look out for is his disgustingly big hitbox. If you don't respect it, you will take a hit and die, so preferably, take him in a wide open area and avoid taking tight turns near him. When the floor starts and he's there, you should tell your Veemoters to sit down and wait until you have his attention, because he always goes to check completed machines.
This gimmick can also be a problem if you loop him around furniture, if he loses sight of you for even a split second and someone does a machine, he will forget about you and go check it out. If you were to try to get him back after he leaves your room, you can easily take a hit and die instantly. - Trinity (aka) Twisted Vee + Twisted Shelly + Twisted Astro
If you get this combination and you don't use Train Whistle, you will die. Simple as that. Twisted Astro will constantly drain your stamina, Twisted Vee will force you to sprint every time she slows you down, and Twisted Shelly will be on your toes at all times even when Twisted Vee doesn't slow you, forcing you to sprint anyway. It's still an annoying combination even with Train Whistle. -
Firing Squad, or Twisted Goob / Twisted Scraps / Twisted Gigi
They're not a big deal but will spread terror in the heart of beginner distractors. The siblings move slowly but their ranged attack will damage you, Twisted Scraps simply hurts you while Twisted Goob is arguably more dangerous since he pulls you toward him, and more often than not right into your conga line forcing you to run out of it. Twisted Gigi on the other hand moves very fast and will steal your items.
They're actually quite simple to deal with individually, what you should keep in mind is that the siblings have a cooldown of 10 seconds between each attack, so you will have to loop them around cover and constantly keep a timer in your head. Always count down to 10, and when you approach it get ready to break line of sight, if they can't see you after initiating their attack (which is easy to tell), it will fail and they will chase you again.The gachapon on the other hand has a cooldown of 12 seconds between ranged attacks. You can sort of deal with her by "sorting" your inventory smartly, that means you make sure your healing items are always on your 2nd or 3rd slot and not on your 1st, that way even if you slip up, she doesn't take away good items from you. She will never use her ranged attack if you don't have any items and will instead only chase you down, so if you have a dangerous floor or no items worth saving, you can use all your items up or let her steal them and just remove her from the equation. You can also use your item right before she steals it if you only have one.
If there's two or more of them together on a floor, I recommend letting them roam and then allowing them to spot you at the same time so they both have a near identical attack cycle. If you can't due to bad factors, I heavily recommend you let another player take one of them, anyone can do it and it's less dangerous than having you getting hurt or dying from bad timings.
When they show up on a blackout, it's probably better to also leave them to someone else.
- Random annoyances to keep in mind
- Twisted Toodles
Slightly faster than a 4 movement speed Toon, even with Dog Plush. She's basically just Twisted Shelly but more annoying, she's an uncommon so you will see her very often, and combined with Twisted Astro you might end up in a scenario where your stamina gets whittled away down to dangerous levels. Even without him, her speed will force you to have to sprint every now and then to avoid taking hits. - Twisted Finn
Not that big of a deal but his small height can result in you taking hits sometimes when you don't spot him popping out from behind random furniture. If you're the secondary distractor and rush ahead with a Veemote, you may sometimes take hits because of his stupid Slowness 3 effect followed by a Twisted showing up out of nowhere. - Twisted Brusha
Has the same vision range as Twisted Pebble, but has an average speed, that vision will be the bane of your existence. Cut any corner and out of nowhere Brusha will disappear and go for another one of your teammates, meaning you'll have to chase after her to get her back on your train. - Twisted Shrimpo
Same problem as Brusha, he doesn't see as far as her but still has an above average sight, and the worst part is that he's extremely slow, so you will have to take big loops to keep his attention so he doesn't decide to wander off somewhere else. Becomes a #1 danger if you're playing Looey or Pebble and you're one of those big boys that feel like they can take all the commons + Twisted Pebble and other similar dangers because he's so slow you're going to waste stamina going around him when looping. - Twisted Glisten
Not a problem until someone forgets to take care of him, but if he shatters early, you can see him as Twisted Pebble but slightly slower. He can be dangerous when Panic mode begins, so you better keep an eye out if you don't have a Gourdy or a decent team. - Twisted Sprout
Not a big deal if you have a map that's a nice open area, easy if you don't have many fast Twisteds either, but if he's combined with the Firing Squad or you're stuck on a small map, he can become dangerous. You can bump him up to an actual threat if it's a blackout because his tendrils will be very hard to see.
He spawns tendrils on a 10 second timer, they're not as dangerous as the ranged twisted attacks so you don't need to keep a constant timer in mind, but pay attention and vaguely feel out when it is he'll spawn another and move to a location that won't impede your looping so the tentacle can spawn there.
Other than that, put him in the same bag as Shrimpo of being slow and roaming often, especially since he'll stop moving for a solid 3 seconds to spawn tendrils, meaning you should make sure that he can stare at you very often.
- Twisted Toodles
Extractor Entitlement
Last (?) part, and a bit of a joke section but probably the most important still.
You as the distractor are the single most important player in the group. If you die the rest of your team will soon follow if nobody's there to pick up the slack.
As a result, you can't afford to die or take hits due to the mistakes of other players. That means no chasing down stupidly the one common twisted that got out of your train because a Brightney decided to walk out in the open, you can do it but not in a way that will put your HP at risk.
What it also means is if you want to distract somewhere but there's someone there already, THEY should be the ones moving, not you. Don't concede a great spot just because Vee doesn't feel like walking 10 seconds to go into another room to do machines even though there's 17 left to be done. It's something you should especially keep in mind in latter floors where you get dangerous twisteds.
Here is an example of what I'm talking about : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvN_bYGyoow
Now I'm not saying you can't take hits altogether and should ditch other toons as soon as they do something stupid, but don't end up dying because one guy was sightseeing and didn't go to the elevator before panic mode and now he's the only one left outside with 6 twisteds at the entrance.