A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO DEAD BY DAYLIGHT
The game
A deadly game of cat and mouse
Four survivors against one brutal killer
The killer must try and sacrifice as many survivors as possible before they escape.
The Survivors goal is to repair generators, power the exits and escape.
Every trail will spawn 7 generators and 2 exit gates on the map
Survivors need to avoid being caught by the killer.
Repair 5 gens to power the exit gates.
Open the exits gates and escape.
The Killer must defend the generators.
Prevent the survivors from opening the exits and escaping.
Hunt down survivors and place them on hooks to be sacrificed.
Main menu
News
Find out what's new in the game.
The News contains cosmetic collection releases, patch notes, special event promotions and chapter release information.
Survive with friends (SWF)
Play with friends against an unknown killer in ranked games.
Help & Tutorials
Handy place for information, created by the dbd devs and is more in depth.
Kill your friends (kyf)
Kill your friends is an unranked game mode.
Access to every Perk/item/offering/addon in the game.
Great place to read what everything does and try stuff out with friends.
Bloodpoints and experience points cannot be gained in kill your friends.
The Store
The store contains purchasable cosmetics, dlc survivors and killers.
Daily Rituals
You get 1 ritual per day, these are random challenges for survivor or killer and reward bloodpoints.
Rituals they can be re-rolled once per day.
Devotion & player level
Simply playing the game will grant experience points to level up.
Player level is shared between survivor and killer.
Reaching player level 100 will grant 1 devotion and reset back to 0.
Each level rewards Iridescent shards.
How to buy characters
Characters can be unlocked by purchasing the chapter dlc’s.
from the Steam store, Humble bundle or individually using iridescent shards or auric cells from the ingame store.
Chapter dlc usually come with 1 killer and 1 survivor.
The bloodweb
Spend bloodpoints to unlock items, perks, offerings and addons from bloodweb.
Completing a bloodweb will level up the character.
In higher level webs the Entity will start consuming nodes.
When 2 perks are on the web, buying one will cause the Entity to automatically consume the other.
Bloodwebs are not shared between characters.
Go for the nodes you want first.
Use the entity to complete webs faster.
Rarities
Everything comes in different rarities and will effect how expensive it is in the bloodweb.
Common being the lowest rarity and Ultra rare being the highest
Perks
Perks give Killers and survivors special abilities.
Once unlocked from the bloodweb perks can be used forever.
Every perk has 3 tiers, it must be purchased 3 times in the bloodweb to have the best stats.
Up to 4 perks can be equipped at one time.
There are Global perks and teachable perks.
Teachable Perks
Every character has 3 unique perks called teachable perks.
These perks can only be used by them until unlocked.
Teachables unlock at levels 30, 35 and 40 in the bloodweb.
Once unlocked other characters can find them in their bloodwebs.
Teachable perks can be purchased with shards from the shrine instead of leveling or buying the character they belong to.
Prestiging
Reaching level 50 on a character gives the option to prestige.
Prestiging grants 1 item of bloody clothing and will reset your bloodweb to level 1.
All items perks, items, addons and offerings will be lost after prestiging.
Prestiging increases chances of higher rarity things appearing on the bloodweb.
You can prestige a character 3 times.
Offerings
Offerings influence things in the game such as unlocking special abilities or rewards.
Burned at the start of the trail.
Some offerings are secret will be hidden when burned.
One use items.
Offerings are not shared between characters.
Shrine of secrets
The shrine has 4 random teachable perks which change out every week.
Iridescent shards are used to buy Shrine perks.
Able to obtain teachable perks without needing to level up or own the character they belong to.
Buying a perk off the shine which is already owned will reward bloodpoints.
Survivors
Basics of surviving
Awareness
Using the third person camera watch for the killer.
Know the killers location before they know yours.
Listen for the Heartbeat, the intensity indicates how close the killer is.
Plan your escape, look for pallets and vaults to use or lockers and large objects to hide.
Helping fellow survivors
Rescue them from hooks.
Healing each other when injured.
Working together, either on gens or healing is always faster.
Evading
Using the environment to your advantage to escape the killer.
Break line of sight.
Dropping pallets to block the killers path or vaulting windows to create distance.
Dropping pallets on a killer will stun them for a moment.
Watch for the killers red stain to track them through and around walls.
Repairing gens
As the main objective, powering them is key to survival.
Try to spread out where gens are completed on the map.
The killer has a harder time defending gens if they are spread out.
Skill check mini game
Actions such as healing, repairing gens, and sabotaging all have timing-based reactions where you need to tap a button at the right time.
Failing the skill check will regress your progress slightly and alert the
Killer
Entity blocker
Using a window vault 3 times while in chase will summon the Entity to block that window for the survivor for a short time.
Blood Lust
Chasing a survivor for an extended amount of time will give killers an increased movement speed called blood lust.
Blood lust has 3 levels of speed which tier up the longer a chase continues.
Blood lust is reset when - a survivor is hit - killer beaks a pallet - killer using their power or losing chase.
Survivor items & addons
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Survivors have items to help their odds of survival
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Items can be found in survivor blood webs or in chests around the map
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Items are lost on death
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All items have charges, a limit to how long they can be used
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Depleting the charges will destroy the item
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Items can be dropped and picked up by another survivor, or looted from their body after death
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Every Item has unique addons that enhances the items performance or abilities
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Only 2 addons can be equipped at one time
Med kits - Heal yourself or others faster
Toolboxes - Repair gens faster, sabotage hook and certain traps
Maps - Tracking generators
Flashlights - Blind the killer for a short moment
Keys - Used to unlock the Hatch (except broken keys)
Health states
Full health
Survivors start the game full health.
Injured
While injured, survivors leave blood trails and make loud
pained sounds which the killer can track.
Without perks or items a survivor cannot heal themselves.
Survivors can heal other survivors.
Crouching will muffle the cries of pain slightly.
Dying state
Being hit twice with a killers basic attack will down the survivor putting
hem into the drying state.
Survivors can recover to while downed, but cannot pick themselves up.
Killers can pick up downed survivors and them carry to hooks.
Deep wounds
Deep wounds is a status effect.
Deep wounds has a timer which will go down outside of the killers terror radius.
When the timer runs out the survivor goes into the dying state.
Survivors can mend themselves and others out of deep wounds and into
the injured state.
Broken state
While in the broken state a survivor cannot heal or be healed.
Killers
Basics of killing
Finding and tracking
Killers can see generator auras.
Survivors will be trying to repair the gens, and may be nearby them.
Running survivors leave temporary scratch marks which can be tracked.
Injured survivors leave blood trails and have loud pained sounds to track.
Survivors failing skill checks or rushed actions will give a visual and noise notification to their location.
Attacking
All killers have 2 basic attacks.
Tapping the attack button does a short fast swipe.
Holding the attack button performs a longer ranged lunge attack.
Hit or miss attacking will trigger a cool down.
Hitting a survivor twice will down them.
Downing a survivor puts them into the dying state.
Sacrificing
Meat hooks spawn around the maps.
After downing a survivor, carry them to a hook to be sacrificed.
While being carried the survivor can attempt to wiggle out.
Killers powers & addons
Each killer has a unique power to help them catch survivors.
Each killer has unique addons which affect the powers preform.
Only 2 addons can be equipped at one time.
Killer addons have a 1 time use.
Gen kicking
Kicking a gen will start regressing the repaired progress.
Interrupting actions
Certain survivor actions can be interrupted,
Instantly putting the survivor onto the killers shoulder.
To grab a survivor the killer only needs to stand close to a survivor preforming an action and tap the attack button.
Actions that can be interrupted from full health
Gens - Lockers - Unhooking animation - Totem cleansing
Actions that can only be interrupted from injured state
Pallet and window vaulting
Sacrificing
Feeding the Entity
Hooks Hooking and being hooked
On the hook survivors have a timer, in the first half they
can attempt to free themselves up to 3 times.
Failing escape attempts will shorten the sacrifice timer, giving less time for other survivors to rescue.
Once 50% of the timer is gone they enter the struggle phase, and must tap a button to prevent being sacrificed.
If the survivor is rescued before struggle phase, being rehooked will immediately enter the struggle phase.
When the timer runs out the survivor is sacrificed to the entity.
A completed sacrificed will break the hook and cannot be used again.
Survivors can sabotage hooks using toolboxes and the sabotage perk.
Broken and sabotaged hooks cannot have survivors placed on them.
Sabotaged hooks will repair automatically after 3 minutes.
Momento Mori
Moris are an offering which grant killers the ability to kill 1 or more survivor buy their own hand depending on the rarity of the offering.
Each killer has a unique killing animation.
A survivor must be hooked at least once before the killer can perform a mori on them.
Survivor must be put into the dying state before a mori can be performed.
Realms of the Entity
Different but the same
Map & themes
Each realm is created by the entity, a vague recreation of places from the real world
where terrible atrocities occurred.
Most killers have map locations themed around them.
Map are all procedurally generated, however landmark buildings will always spawn.
Every map has a Killer Basement with 4 unsabotagable hooks, 4 lockers and a chest.
Crows
Crows perch around the map, and will startle if a killer or survivor walks near them.
Crouch walking will not startle crows, but they will startle if stepped on.
Crows will alert the killer to a survivors location if they do not move for an extended amount of time.
Lockers
Lockers are found around the maps.
Survivors inside lockers are immune to aura reading perks and addons.
Lockers muffle injured survivor sounds slightly.
Killers can grab survivors from lockers
Chests
Maps all spawn with 3 chests, 1 can always be found in the basement.
Offerings can be used to increase or decrease. the number of chests that spawn.
Chests contain 1 item of a varying rarities.
The hatch
The hatch is a secret escape that only spawns under certain conditions.
The Hatch will open if there is 1 survivor left alive.
Can be opened using a Key.
It emits a unique sound when open.
Killers can close the hatch.
Closing the hatch triggers End game collapse.
Opening the hatch with a key will leave it open for a short time.
Totems
5 dull totems will always spawn on the map.
Totems can be cleansed, breaking the totem.
Cleansing a totem rewards bloodpoints.
Killer Hex perks are connected to one totem and will be Lit.
Cleansing a Hex totem will remove the killers perk connected to it and its effects.
Cleansing a totem makes distinct snapping sounds which the killer can hear if they are close enough.
Cleansing a Hex totem will make a loud map wide sound alerting the killer.
The Obsession
One random survivor may become the obsession if someone in the trail is using an obsession perk or addon.
The current obsession will have entity claw marks around their name.
When the obsession is being chased the claws around their name will twitch.
Status effects
Some perks and addons can have negative or positive effects.
Status effects appear as icons on the hud to show what the affliction is.
End game collapse
Leave or Die
End game is triggered when exit gates are opened, or the hatch is closed by the killer.
Survivors have 2 minutes to escape.
Downed or hooked survivors will slow the timer.
When it ends all remaining survivors in the trail will be consumed by the entity.
Counts as a sacrifice for the killer.
Scoring events
Ranks and Emblem system
Used for matchmaking to place players in games with similar ranked players.
Start at level 20, and performing well in trials will score you a pip.
The more pips you earn the higher you will rank up, with rank 1 being the highest.
2 pips is the most you can earn from a trail.
Ranks reset every month.
Emblems
4 category's which Killers and Survivors are judged on their performance in the trails.
Emblems have 4 qualities - Bronze, Silver, Gold & Iridescent.
Killer emblems
Gatekeeper
Preventing gen completion
Devout
Sacrificing or killing survivors
Malicious
Hurting and downing survivors
Chaser
Finding survivors and winning chases
Survivor emblems
Light bringer
Completing gens and opening exits
Unbroken
Escaping alive and not being downed
Benevolent
Altruist actions
Evader
Extending chases without being downed or hit
where to start
Who to Level/Play first
From the base game the best characters are.
Survivor
Based on their ability to hide and teachable perks, and free with base game.
Claudette - Self care - Botany knowledge - Empathy
Ability to heal herself without a medkit - heal faster - See injured survivor auras
Meg - Sprint Burst - Quick and quiet - Adrenaline
A burst of speed for 3 seconds - Vault silently - Heal 1 health state + speed boost when gates are powered
Nea - Balanced landing - Urban evasion - Streetwise
Dropping for height gives a speed burst and no stun - crouch walk faster - Item usage consumption is slowed
Killer
Purely based on learning the mechanics of the game not perks or ability to sacrifice survivors (also free with base game)
Wraith
A pure M1 killer with an easy to understand power
His cloaking is very helpful to travel the map to find survivors who hide at the first sound of a heartbeat
Hillbilly
His chainsaw gives him the ability to travel the map fast and get the jump on survivors + down survivors in 1 hit
Trapper
A M1 killer but his traps can teach new killers the importance of trap placement, and blocking long window loops
Play both sides to understand the game better.
Don't be afraid to go against better players, its a good way to improve your own skills by learning from people you encounter.
Play what’s fun for you!
See you in the fog
Created by Venamin24
Currency
There are 3 main currencies
Bloodpoints
Earned buy doing certain actions or objectives while playing the game
as either survivor or killer.
Used to purchase things in the bloodweb.
Iridescent shards
Earnable currency from experience.
Used to buy teachable perks from the shrine of secrets or unlock.
dlc characters or item customisations from the in game store.
Auric Cells
Purchased using real money to buy Auric cell only cosmetics,
and dlc characters from the ingame store.