Kill or be killed, learn how to setup good escapes and how to hunt down those pesky survivors. Our guide covers everything from basic tips to advanced strats.
Tired of dying in Dead by Daylight? This asymetrical action horror game has been a fan-favorite for those looking for a quick thrill. As we celebrate horror week with Game On, let's see if we can improve that escape rate for you. Conversely, maybe we can also turn you into a more effective killer, too.
Survivor Tips
Loadout: Items
There are many items in the game that the survivors can equip, the most useful being the Toolbox, Flashlight, Med-kit, and Keys. Out of all those, the most popular and probably the most useful is the Med-Kit.
Success in Dead by Daylight really comes from good time management. The Med-Kit is particularly helpful in this regard because of a couple of reasons:
- The obvious benefit is healing yourself which you can't normally do
- Healing yourself takes about 16 seconds at normal speed, which is the same speed as someone else healing you
- Someone else healing you means you're standing still doing nothing, so it's two people wasting time. That time can be used to repair generators.
Toolbox is great for time-saving as well, as it can speed up repairing generators. But you really need a good toolbox for it to be worth your slot. It takes 90 seconds to repair a generator, and you need 5 out of 7 to win.
Other items are more situational. The Flashlight is used to mess with a killer. This is more of an advanced move, since the Flashlight has limited use and needs to be aimed. If you flash it right at the killer's face for about 3 seconds, it blinds and stuns them. If you time this precisely when they're picking up one of your survivor friends, you'll save them and make the killer drop his victim!
Keys are also pretty situational. One of the keys can read Auras (which makes important objects visible from a distance and through walls). Keys are mainly used to open the hatch, which shows up when you're the last survivor. The killer can lock the hatch, but with the key, you can open it and escape.
The Map might be good for newer players who aren't as familiar with the stages yet. They can only be used up to 20 seconds, getting used up while active.
Loadout: Survivor Perks
Here are some useful and popular perks for survivors:
- Bond: shows you where your teammates are within a certain range, increasing with tiers (20/28/36 meters)
- Empathy: know where your friends are if they're injured or dying (64/96/128 meters)
- Kindred: this one is probably even more popular than Bond. This one shows you when a friend is hooked, and also highlight the killer if they happen to be near the hook.
- Prove Thyself: speeds up the repair of generators when there are other survivors nearby, can be increased with more survivors. Good to have when finishing up that last generator.
- Windows of Opportunity: Great for new players. Reveals the locations of breakable walls, pallets, and windows within 24/28/32 meters.
- Sprint Burst: Greatly increases your movement speed (to 150%) for 3 seconds. Use it right when the killer is almost on top of you. Incurs an exhaust state that gets shorter with higher tiers.
Survivor Tips and Tricks
Let's go over a few strategy tips to make sure you have better games.
- There are 7 generators, and 5 need to be repaired to win. They take 90 seconds to fix by default.
- Survivors, in general, want a quick game, while the killer wants to slow it down as much as possible.
- Generally, it's best for the survivors to split up, because the killer is at the most powerful when the victims are together, because they can chase more than one person and damage more people in fast succession.
- Therefore, 3 people can work on generators while one person is getting chased.
- Try not to waste time by "being afraid" that the killer might be nearby. Just keep working on the generator, especially if you know the killer is chasing someone else. Some new players may think that the killer is lurking around every corner and lose precious time.
- When getting chased, divert the killer away from your teammates, as far as possible, which makes it even less worth it to chase you and gives them more time to work.
- When escaping, split up and go for different gates, because the killer can only really guard one of them.
- Lockers are situationally useful. If you're injured, the killer might hear your character, but it's not that loud. They're good to hide in if you're injured or on your last life.
- You can use lockers to dodge certain abilities from the killers. With the Head On perk, you can stun the killer for 3 seconds on your way out.
How to Counter Albert Wesker
Wesker is currently a very popular killer. You can identify Wesker by the chests that spawn and background, black splotches on the character portraits.
Make sure to cleanse yourself when you reach Critical Infection, or else you will get the Hindered status effect, which reduces your movement speed by 8%. Additionally, Wesker will be able to instantly pick you up.
Open areas are better for when he is trying to dash, because he will just keep throwing you back without injuring you. When you're in closed areas, try to move unpredictably and be ready to jump behind interactable items in the environment. When running around in a circle around something, make sure to hug the wall and not stick out past the edges.
When it comes to pallets, don't drop them too early, but try to drop them right in front of Wesker. Getting that stun is best on him, otherwise he can vault over pallets.
Killer Tips
Loadout: Killer Perks
When it comes to the killer, of course you want the perks that will slow down the game. There are some that can regress the generators or slowdown their progress. You can come up and kick the generators, which makes it lose 2.5% Progression right away, and then begin Regression (it starts decreasing until it reaches 0).
Kicking them is best when you have some perks for them, such as Overcharge, Eruption, or Call of Brine.
Once you prestige the perks, the perks that are unique to certain killers will become available across all of them, so commit a bit to playing one until you start switching more.
Killer Tips and Tricks
Want to close out the rounds successfully and claim some victims? Here are our Dead by Daylight killer tips.
- Try to avoid tunnel vision. Unfortunately, as a killer, you have to pay attention to many elements simultaneously. Which generators are being repaired? Where are they? Which ones are you willing to lose? Pick generators that you want to defend and which ones you're willing to omit because they are far.
- If you can, remember where you destroyed the pallets, which creates "deadzones" of sort. Try to chase people into those! It will make it much easier to catch them.
- Remember that Flashlight trick? If they have Flashlights and you're picking up one of their friends, try to pick up the victim while looking at a wall, then you can't be stunned.
- Know when to commit to a chase and when to stop. If you down someone but you can hear another person working on a generator nearby, it's better to stop the fixer before hooking the victim you just downed, or at least scare them off.
- "Slugging" is leaving victims in a downed state and not hooking them. This can be situationally useful depending on your type of killer and the circumstances. It can generate some advantage for you.
- Don't be too afraid of pallets. Survivors can fake you out and not use them on you, so while you wait on them to drop it as you pursue, they can just keep going. It's better to break the pallet.
- Focus on the weakest link on the survivor team if you can identify it.
- The current meta is to have 3 gen kicking perks and running close by 3 different gens, preventing the survivors from using them.
- Keep in mind the killer terror radius. It's huge for Wesker, and it varies by killer.
Hopefully, you've found some useful tips for Dead by Daylight here. Whether you favor survivor or killer play, we have advice for both kinds of players.
Remember, we still have lots of ongoing Game On giveaways! The Horror week is rapidly ending, so grab your codes while you can, and peruse the previous weeks while they last. For Glory!
