Are perks important in Dead By Daylight?
In the universe of Dead By Daylight the perks you use, very much make the difference between life and death. Or rather, between victory or defeat. Both for the killer and for the survivors alike, the perks represent their most important ally.
The game has changed in recent years. Some perks have been reworked (for example HEX: Ruin). Those changes were largely done to try to balance the game, something that beHaviour does very badly anyway.
This, however, does not change how important selecting the proper perks is. Survivors have advanced perks to give the speed bust (Dead Hard Perk), to stab and thus escape the killer’s grasp (Decisive Strike brought to us by Stabby, a.k.a. Laurie Strode), and even perks that outright won’t allow you to down the survivor they’ve just unhooked for a few seconds (looking at you, Borrowed Time).
This may sound bad for the killer but fear not. We have our own set of OP perks to torment those snot survivors. Here are the best perks to bring with you as a killer. Where it applies, we mention the killer they are best used with, but we try to keep this list as general as possible so feel free to use these on any killer you main, as long as you get them from the teachable bloodweeb.
Hex: No One Escapes Death
Ah yes. The classic HEX: NOED. Using HEXes anymore in this game is controversial at best, though they do have their significant advantages, while they last that is. Hex perks are high risk – high reward perks. Survivors can literally stumble upon your HEX totem (which looks different compared to dull totems because it has a fire lit underneath) and they can just break it, thus ruining your HEX.
If the survivors cannot find it or won’t look for it, HEX: NOED gives an important advantage. They have very little time to find your HEX though. HEX: NOED only activates when the gates are opening, and only if at least one dull totem remains standing on the map. By this time it’s likely the survivors are either running for their lives, trying to help the random who was hooked in the first minute of the game or are trying to open the gates.
Once active, HEX: NOED makes all survivors have the EXPOSED status effect. This allows you to down them in one strike. You also gain a speed boost from this hex. This allows you to get at least one more kill if you are smart about it. Here’s how HEX: No One Escapes Death changes your speed:
- Tier I – 4,000 Bloodpoints and movement speed increased by 2%.
- Tier II – 5,000 Bloodpoints and movement speed increased by 3%.
- Tier III – 6,000 Bloodpoints and movement speed increased by 4%.
This can ensure at least one additional kill, but if you combine HEX: NOED with the next one below, you can down even more because the gates will be blocked for 40 seconds!
Blood Warden
Blood Warden is a teachable perk that can be unlocked once you pass level 40 in the bloodweb of The Nightmare (Freddy Krueger). This perk is amazing if combined with HEX: No One Escape Death.
Once at least one gate is open, if you down and hook one survivor, the gates will be blocked for an amount of time. Combine this with HEX: NOED which gives all survivors EXPOSED status which means you can down them in one strike, and you might just get a victory.
Think about it. One is already hooked, gates are blocked for almost a minute, and survivors will go down in one single strike. You have enough time to down all of them and bring them further away from the gate one by one then start hooking.
To add insult to injury, the auras of all survivors standing at the gate is revealed to you once Blood Warden activates, and you also have 2% – 4% Speed Boost because of HEX: NOED. GG. When you grab the last survivor, tell them “No hatch for you. Just hook”.
IMPORTANT: If you activate Blood Warden during the last quarter of the Endgame Collapse (by hooking a survivor) this will guarantee that any remaining Survivors will not be able to leave the game before Nea… I mean… the entity comes and gets them all, even if a survivor is bleeding out or hooked which slows the timer.
Lightborn
This just has to be the best perk one can bring, and I don’t regret AT ALL the perk slot I occupy with this. Yes, it’s not a magical perk that lets you Mori all those wankers in one strike, but it does something you DO need.
Lightborn makes you completely immune to flashlights, firecrackers, flashbangs, Blast Mines, exploding generators, and any other thing that may cause the killer to get blinded. No more clicky clicky. You should see the survivor’s reactions when they try to blind me and it dawns in them that it doesn’t work as I slowly get closer and closer while they keep trying to adjust their angle to better blind me.
Lightborn is a teachable perk for Hillbilly once you reach Level 35 in his bloodweb. Do yourself a favor and get it if you got enough of flashlights and explosions.
By the time the survivor fully realizes I am immune to their clicky-clicky flashlight and they attempt to run, I lungle an attack and they are either down or start running for their lives only to get down a few feet later. Do not bring clicky-clicky unless you are ready for campy-campy.
Survivors tend to be pretty toxic with that flashlight, and for some reason, some flashlights seem to last forever thanks to the addons. With LightBorn you literally piss on their toxicity and give them hook.
As Samination did in an episode:
Wraith: How’s the hook? 😏
Nea: Meh! 😐
Barbecue and Chilli
Another perk survivors absolutely hate. To put it quick and easy, every time you hook a survivor, the aura of all survivors, including downed ones who are at least 40 meters away, is revealed to you for 4 seconds. The exception here is anyone who is in a locker (probably Dwight).
Barbecue and Chilli is a teachable perk for The Cannibal. You get it starting Level 35 onwards. Each time a Survivor is hooked for the first time, you gain a stackable 25% bonus to all Bloodpoint rewards, up to a maximum of 50/75/100 %.
- Tier I – 4,000 Bloodpoints for 25% Stackable bonus up to 50%.
- Tier II – 5,000 Bloodpoints for 25% Stackable bonus up to 75%.
- Tier III – 6,000 Bloodpoints for 25% Stackable bonus up to 100%.
The simple fact that every time you hook a survivor, all the rest are revealed allows you to do an aggressive gameplay style because you can keep hunting them down one by one. In combination with Make Your Choice, this is quite good.
Make Your Choice
This is a nice perk to have if you hook survivors a lot. This is a teachable perk for The Pig. A survivor that unhooks another survivor, will immediately get the EXPOSED status effect which allows you to get them down in one strike. This often results in two down in a very short period of time.
Combined with Barbecue and Chilli, this allows you to keep hooking and revealing them putting a lot of pressure and delaying gen rush as much as possible.
The effect of the perk depends on the level of the perk as follows:
- Tier I – 4,000 Bloodpoints and 40 seconds.
- Tier II – 5,000 Bloodpoints and 50 seconds.
- Tier III – 6,000 Bloodpoints and 60 seconds.
Cruel Limits
This one is another interesting perk that helps you grab those pesky gen rushers. Once a generator is done, all windows and vault spots in a 24 meters radius get blocked with spikes and won’t allow the survivor to vault it. This way you can easily get them down and corner them since many survivor mains rely a lot on looping and vaulting.
This perk has, however, a major disadvantage, and that is the fact that it only activates when a generator is done, so the survivors get to make progress towards escaping too.
This is a perk from the Demogorgon, so it may no longer be obtainable nowadays if you do not have the Demogorgon already as this killer is no longer purchasable in-game.
Discordance
Now, this is a great gen rush deterrent. The Discordance perk gives the Killer the ability to see any generators that are currently being worked on by 2 or more survivors. This immediately tells you where the gen rushers are, and forces them to do gens separately which takes an eternity to do.
It also forces the survivors to spread on the map making it harder for them to heal and protect each other. It also makes the game longer thus giving you more points towards the Gatekeeper emblem.
The range of the generators depends on the level of the perk, as follows:
- Tier I – 4,000 Bloodpoints and 64 meters.
- Tier II – 5,000 Bloodpoints and 96 meters.
- Tier III – 6,000 Bloodpoints and 128 meters.
This is a teachable perk of the Legion available as teachable after Level 30, and he comes with it by default.
Those are just some perks we highly recommend if you are a killer main. Be sure to check them out and tell us in the comments below what you think.
Other Dead By Daylight tutorials