Hook

The Hook allows you to maneuver around maps. It is always available and essential to almost every map. With it, you can:

Hook certain blocks to swing around
Hook other tees to pull them towards you and yourself towards them

Use the hook by holding down secondary fire. Release it by letting go of secondary fire.

How it functions:

The hook moves in a straight line until it collides with either a tee or a wall
If the hook collides with nothing, it will stop at its maximum range
Hooking is not instant, it does have a travel time
Hooks do not nullify the former velocity of a tee, it's just another factor that influences it
Thanks to how thin it is, it can fit through diagonal gaps between blocks

Block Types

There are 3 types of solid blocks:

unhookable blocks, which will cancel your hook when hooked
hookable blocks, which, when hooked, will anchor your hook into place until you release it
hook-through blocks, which will not affect your hook (the hook will pass right through them)

When your hook is active (anchored to a hookable block), your tee will be pulled towards the anchor point.

There is no timer when hooking a block, so you can hold it for as long as you wish.

Hooking Tees

Hooking another tee will pull the tee towards you.

Your tee will also be slightly pulled towards the other tee.

Keep in mind that, due to friction, pulling tees is way slower while they are standing on the floor. In contrast to hooking a block, a hook on another tee only lasts 1.25 sec. Once the timer runs out, the hook will be reset.

Pull limit of the hook

You will not be pulled all the way to the anchor point. Instead, when your tee enters a specific radius to the anchor point you will not be affected by the hook until you get out of it again. This is especially significant when trying to move along the ceiling. Try to rehook the ceiling when your tee is directly below it, to stick tighter to it.

Hook Hit box of Tees

The hit box of tees for the hook is actually larger than it is visually represented. While a tee looks about the same size as a block and mostly also interacts that way, its hit box for the hook is much more generous. Due to this large hit box it is possible to hook a tee through a gap between blocks without having to do a hook with surgical precision. To see how big the actual hit box of tees are, you can turn on ‘fat skins’ in Settings -> Tee -> Fat Skins(DDFat).

Weak Hook - Strong Hook

When hooking other tees, you won’t always pull them with the same strength. There are 2 different strength modes your hook can have, called ‘weak hook’ and ‘strong hook’. With every tee on the server you individually have either weak, or strong hook on them. Who of you 2 has strong hook on the other is determined by who spawned last. The tee that spawned last has weak hook and the one who already lived longer has strong hook.

Weak and Strong hook are especially noticeable in parts where you hook the other tee along the floor and during hammer fly.

Most parts are easier or only possible with strong hook. There are very few parts on older maps, where weak is an advantage or only possible with weak.

Known list of parts with weak as advantage (not complete):

On Insane 3 at tele 6: this part is only possible with weak. This is due to the speedups not being strong enough to push the tee up when using the strong hook.
On 2Long at position x = 380, y = 33: you have to do an edge hook with strong. With weak it is enough if the other tee holds d.
On Fucktastic at tele 30: Similar to the 2Long part, but three times in a row and the edge is to high to jump on it.

Advanced Behavior

The hook has a maximum range. Once the hook expanded to its maximum range, it will reset. Note that if you move away from the hook, that maximum range is reached faster, and you won’t hook as far. However, you can’t hook further by moving in the same direction
The hook does not start directly at the border of your tee you see. Instead, it starts a bit further out, which is why it's easier to hook through a gap between blocks when you are near the gap yourself