Cowboy

**Kevin Ayuso**, also known as the **Cowboy**, is an Assist/Contain Hybrid Type and Difficulty 2.5 Survivor available for purchase after completion of the prologue. He is one of **43** playable Survivors added to Identity V.

—Kevin Ayuso (Cowboy's Birthday 2019)

## Appearance

Kevin is an average height, sinewy doll with tanned skin, short black hair in locks braided with red beads, a matching mustache and beard, frowning, furrowed black eyebrows, and dark brown button eyes cross-stitched with white thread. Two streaks of white paint are painted across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks.

He wears a red tunic with black tribal patterns with a high black collar and white feathers decorating the cuffs, stiff leather chaps, a black-and-gold leather belt with a dark metal sheriff's star and a lasso attached on the right side, light grey socks, and black leather shoes with bronze spurs. A white rope necklace with two white-and-beige feathers hangs around his neck, and he wears leather gloves. A large leather cowboy hat adorned with a single fancy white-and-beige feather sits on his head.

## Gameplay

The Cowboy is an assist/contain-type Survivor who carries a Lasso which he can use a certain amount of times. When he uses it, he can aim to lasso a teammate towards him to be carried on his shoulders until either the teammate decides to get off, or he can lasso himself towards the Hunter to block a hit for a wounded teammate. He is initially 10% slower at decoding but will experience changes in his decoding speed depending on the gender of the Survivor decoding with him; females make him decode 10% faster, while males make him decode 30% slower. The Hunter will be stunned for 20% longer than normal with pallets.

### External Traits

Below is a list of Cowboy's intrinsic traits. For more in-depth information, please check the individual pages.

### Abilities in other Gamemodes

 Tarot | Normal

### Character Statistics

**Press "Expand" to see the character's statistics.**

Movements
* Running Speed: 3.8 m/s
* Walking Speed: 2.11 m/s
* Crouch Walking Speed: 1.14 m/s
* Crawling Speed: 0.44 m/s

Decoding
* Duration of decoding Cipher Machines: 90.0 sec
* Regressed decoding progress from electric shock: 1.0%
* Duration of inability to decode from electric shock: 2.0 sec
* Time spent opening Exit Gate: 18.0 sec

Interactions
* Time spent dropping pallets: 0.73 sec
* Time spent vaulting over pallets at high speed: 1.17 sec
* Time spent vaulting over pallets at medium speed: 1.63 sec
* Time spent vaulting over pallets at low speed: 2.07 sec
* Time spent vaulting over windows at high speed: 0.87 sec
* Time spent vaulting over windows at low speed: 1.27 sec
* Time spent going through chests: 10.0 sec

Healing
* Time spent healing injured Survivors: 15.0 sec
* Time spent being healed by others: 15.0 sec
* Self-healing time after knockdown: 30.0 sec

Others
* Duration of footprint: 4.0 sec
* Duration of speed boost after being hit: 2.0 sec
* Duration of struggle while being held up: 16.0 sec
* Rocket Chair countdown time: 60.0 sec
* Time spent being rescued from Rocket Chairs: 1.0 sec

### Gameplay Tips

**Please press "Expand" to see tips about playing as and against this Survivor.**

#### As Cowboy

* You don't have to lock the target to hook something. If you aim accurately, you'll hook the object in front of you.
	+ The exception is survivors tied to balloon. You have to lock the target to hook them.
	+ This is rather conditional for assisting and locking the target is a much safer option. Only do this if the situation really requires a quick hook or you're trying to hook immobile objects.
* When someone is injured, try to go and assist them as soon as you can. This is due to the fact that you lose much more lasso durability from rescuing survivors tied to balloon or chair than hooking active survivors. Stall the time as long as you can before the chased survivor gets knocked down.
	+ During the process of assisting, avoid getting injured yourself at all cost as doing so will very likely cause the hunter player to switch the target and go for you instead. This can be a problem especially if the already chased survivor decodes cipher machines slower than Cowboy.
* Despite cannot stun, Cowboy cannot rescue survivors tied to balloon with his lasso if the hunter uses Excitement trait. Take note of this while rescuing.
	+ You can still lock the target during this period however, allowing for an immediate hook right after the Excitement effect disappear but the hunter may drop the survivor before you doing so.
* Patience is key of mastering Cowboy as impatience can make you miss lasso hooks a lot, especially when attempting to rescue survivors tied to balloon.
* Depending on hunter player's playstyle, you either want to hook as fast as possible or try not to hook early.
* In Tarot Mode as Squire, you can trick the hunter, thinking that you'll hook to rescue the King by attempting to hook like usual but immediately switch to using Flare Gun when the hunter is tying the King on balloon.
	+ Most of the time, you can only do this once per match due to the amount of Flare Guns you can purchase is only 1. However it is possible that someone will leave a Flare Gun on the ground, allowing you to pick it up and repeat the trick.
	+ Make sure that the flare hits the hunter while they're tying the King on balloon so that the King will gain movement control immediately after the hunter getting stunned.
	+ If the hunter has Excitement, this strategy is rather ineffective as either of rescuing methods won't work.
		- Having another Squire being survivors with the ability to stun hunter such as Enchantress or Prospector can compensate this as the hunter has to use Excitement on them as well.
* Despite not losing a lot of durability when missed, missing a hook is rather a fatal mistake, especially when attempting to rescue survivors from balloon or chair as the cooldown will prevent you from re-attempting to rescue with lasso.
* Beware of chip hunters like Sculptor or Guard 26 when carrying a female survivor, as the double damage applies to chips as well. This means it only takes 1 well-placed statue, bomb, etc. to get put into a damaged state when carrying a female survivor.

#### Against Cowboy

Cowboy is rather an annoying survivor to deal with. Without Excitement, you're forced to learn what is the Cowboy player's playstyle is like to counter him. There's also the fact that almost no hunter counters him in term of rescuing. Even so, there are ways to go around this method and there are a lot of hunters countering him in term of kiting capability.

* Soul Weaver's hitbox is very low, this forces the Cowboy player to aim all the way down the hook and jump over you. Use this to your advantage by quickly chasing up Cowboy so that he cannot hook and jump over you.
* Excitement is your best bet against Cowboy as he cannot hook survivors tied to balloon while Excitement is active.
* When Cowboy is around while you're trying to tie a survivor on balloon, don't rush try to put the survivor on chair unless if the chair is very close to you. Doing so is rather risky.
* Even if Cowboy can only rescue survivors tied to balloon or chair 3 times at most per match, it is not worth the time to catch up the priority survivor over and over as this leaves the opportunity for other survivors to decode cipher machines and eventually prime the cipher machine.
* "Undead" can heavily pressure Cowboy's assisting capability as Cowboy cannot rescue knocked down survivor with his lasso.
	+ "Undead" can also quickly catch up Cowboy, this renders Cowboy having very lack amount of power against "Undead".
* Evil Reptilian can partly counter him in term of chasing as while he is in the air, Cowboy cannot hook him or lock the target on him at all, banishes the chance of jumping over the hunter.
	+ However Cowboy can hook you right before you jump to counter this back.
* Guard 26 can partly counter Cowboy as when he is damaged by the bomb, he cannot use his lasso for a brief moment.
	+ Cowboy can counter this by creating a huge distance to give himself more time to react to the bomb and to avoid the situation of required the usage of lasso while being bombarded.
* Gamekeeper can partly counter Cowboy as he can drag Cowboy back after Cowboy hooking the pallet.
	+ Gamekeeper can also counter Cowboy by preplacing traps at pallets, this banishes the opportunity for Cowboy to use the pallet after hooking the pallet.
* Naiad can counter Cowboy by throwing the harpoon to the direction Cowboy hooks to, giving Naiad the advantage of quickly catching Cowboy up.
* Geisha can counter Cowboy by dashing to the direction where the Cowboy hooks to.
* The Breaking Wheel can counter Cowboy as the wheel form can catch Cowboy up in no time, however this is a two-edged sword tactic as the hunter itself is rather hard to play as and the trick to counter The Breaking Wheel is easy to pull off.
* Using accessories that change the balloon holding animation can heavily aid in preventing Cowboy from lassoing the survivor off the balloon.

## Concept / Design Notes

### Design Notes

Everyone is familiar with the western cowboy: wearing a wide hat, wearing a cape, holding a gun in one hand, a riding whip in the other, and whistling. Therefore, the fixed elements such as hats and cloaks must be indispensable. Since he is set here as a person who once lived in Indian territory, there are some Indian elements on his body, such as the white tattoos on his face, the eagle feathers sewn on the cape and the feathers on his head. But we don't want these things to spoil the denim feel, so we only control the Indian elements within 20%.

## Change Log

4th January 2024
* Buff: Added a crosshair for the lasso when not charged.
* Buff: Shortened the animation time of Cowboy throwing the lasso, misses, and sweeping past the Hunter after hitting.
* Adjustment: Optimized the logic of Cowboy's lasso target selection.
* Adjustment: Cowboy can hit a teammate on the balloon with the lasso even when it is not fully charged, which will increase the teammate's Struggle progress by 10%. The teammate will remain in the knocked-down state on Cowboy's back without increasing the knocked-down progress and is unable to self-heal. When Cowboy is carrying a knocked-down teammate, he will not be affected by his External Trait, Protective.
* Adjustment: Cowboy's lasso can now hit survivors synchronized with the "Little Girl's" memory, and synchronized Cowboy can also use the lasso to hit other Survivors.
* Nerf: Cowboy will expose his location to the Hunter when he carries a teammate onto his back.
* Nerf: Cowboy cannot grab teammates with his lasso if there's a large altitude difference.

## Trivia

* Previously, only in the global version, his name was Kevin Alonso. This was later corrected to Kevin Ayuso.
* His emoticon used by the Identity V JP twitter while speaking in character is this one: (``⊗ ෴⊗ ´)
* He appears in all three episodes of the stage play series produced in Japan. He was played by Tanaka Kouhei. He is one of the featured characters in the second episode, which features Blackjack mode. Side C focuses on the team consisting of Kevin and Michiko.
* When Cowboy was first released to the game, he didn't have his target locking mechanic.
	+ He also could not hook pallets and ciphers.
	+ Hooking the hunter would drag him to them instead of jumping over them.
	+ The target lock mechanic was added to make Cowboy easier to play.
* Cowboy's lasso used to be able to rescue survivors tied to balloon through Excitement.
	+ This was changed due to Cowboy being too annoying for hunter players as there was absolutely no way to prevent it other than dropping survivors down right when he's about to hook.
		- There's also the fact that the target lock mechanic also exists at one point with this special ability, making Cowboy a lot more popular at that time.

## References

1. ↑ He used to be called Kevin Alonso in some official material but this has since been changed.
2. ↑ Age from the official Art Reference Book
3. ↑ In-Game Voice. Chinese wiki confirms voice actor. https://wiki.biligame.com/dwrg/%E7%89%9B%E4%BB%94
4. ↑ Design notes of characters are from the first volume of the Official Art Reference Book