Dead By Daylight Survivor Guide: Top 50 DbD Survivor Tips To Outsmart Killers

Updated:

05 Feb 2019

Dead By Daylight Survivor Guide and Tips to Outsmart the Killer

As a beginner, most Survivors aren’t thinking of ways to make the Killer disconnect or Rage Quit, or how quickly gen rush without accidently three-genning themselves. They are mostly running around like a chicken with their heads cut off and running into everything and either don’t know how to slow vault or don’t know how to crouch. But, whether or not you’re a complete newbie or someone with hundreds of hours of experience, you might just gain some insights from the tips and tricks below that I think of often.

Good luck in the Fog!

FOV/LOS

A good way to outsmart the Killer is know how and what the Killer sees.

The Killer has a FOV (field of view) in first person of roughly about 65 degrees. This can expand or contract slightly due to certain perks, but this is a safe guesstimate.
The Red Stain that the Killers emit is a great indication of where the Killer is directly looking. Utilizing this can help you stay out of direct sight.
Playing as the Killer even a few times can help you get a grip onto what exactly the Killer sees. But, not all Killers are the same height.
And yes, camera positioning are different on larger and smaller Killers. While larger Killers like the Trapper may not see a Claudette crouching in tall grass, a small Killer like the Hag more than likely will, since they are closer to the ground.
Since Survivors view everything in a wide third-person FOV, you have a significant advantage when judging a Killer’s LOS (line of sight). As long as you keep looking around and remain vigilant, you will see the Killer before you see them.

Stealth

The first way that Survivors learn to avoid the Killer is through stealth. Stealth is always a good go-to when up against Killers, although the success rate will often decrease as you climb the ranks.

One of the meta stealth perks is Urban Evasion, which increases your crouching speed by 100%, the full walking speed, but crouching. Be the roomba.
If the Killer is approaching, crouch or walk behind something that covers you. All the way. I can’t tell you how many Survivor heads I see poking from behind a box. Keep in mind that taller Killers have a higher camera position.
Claudette in dark clothing is illegal but still very effective for hiding in dark corners or grass.
Slow vaulting is your friend for stealth. Don’t fast vault or rush actions unless the Killer has directly seen you and is coming directly for you. The perk Quick and Quiet, which makes fast vaulting completely silent once every 20, is good if you want to make a quick and silent getaway.
A lot of newbies panic when they hear the heartbeat. Don’t be like that. Calm down, relax and get a good look at your surroundings and try to spot the Killer to determine if they’re going elsewhere or towards you.
Hiding in lockers, while not always the brightest idea, can help save you if someone is being chased and is running through you area, and you just need to hide away for a few seconds. Or to get out of the static field of the Doctor. You just better hope the Killer doesn’t have Iron Maiden if you do!
Other Stealth perks that can help you in the game to either see the Killer coming or to help you hide away are Dark Sense, Kindred, Lightweight, Premonition, Spine Chill, Calm Spirit, Iron Will, Sole Survivor, Alert, Technician, Dance With Me, and Distortion.

And now, the section we’ve all been waiting for:

JUKING (BEGINNER)

A very good beginner juke is to just simply break LOS with the Killer, and couch and hide somewhere dark or concealing. Against lower rank Killers, this works very well, and they often will get very confused and lose chase. It’s your call after it works whether or not to remain hiding or to sneak off after the Killer passes by.
If you manage to break LOS with a Killer, you can also simply stop running, turn a corner or a new direction, and the start running again.
Also, another good tip is that lower rank Killer (Rank 20-14) often don’t remember your playstyle or the jukes you perform.
Finding out who the Killer is as soon as you can works greatly to your benefit. A Killer with a larger Terror Radius means that you have more of a warning.
If the Killer doesn’t have direct LOS with you, you can slow vault actions instead of fast vaulting them.
If a Killer is coming to kick your generator that you’re working on, if it’s in a dark corner, you can simply let go and crouch in your corner, and a lot of lower rank Killers will not notice you are there.
In more closed off/catacorner maps, turning corners and breaking LOS with the Killer can help to help throw them off your scent.
And one final, beginner trick is to sometimes, simply stand still. Sometimes they won’t see you, like a T-Rex.

JUKING (MID-TIER)

Once you learn the art of looking behind you while you’re being chased, your chances of predicting their moves are much higher.
But make sure you also keep looking in front of you, because you can easily get yourself hit if you run into a wall or obstacle.
Pallets are your friends, so don’t drop them down at the drop of a hat.
So here’s the start of a long list of pallet and window jukes: keep in mind where they are and where the nearest one is.
The perk, Windows of Opportunity, a Kate Denson teachable, is a great perk for those who are just learning maps or tiles.
If you’re running up to a window, and you see the Killer run around the wall or the tile the window is attached to, you can fake vault it, and then turn around and leave them on the other side.
If you have the perk Iron Will, this is a great perk to use when your injured. This perk completely silences your groans of pain, and can trick Killers who don’t expect it and lose you when you gain a short burst of speed when you are hit.
Calm Spirit is also a good perk to mess with the Killers with. It silences your scream of pain when you are hit, and many Killers use that scream to get a sense of direction of where you’ve gone.
It can also be really effective against the Doctor and the Clown, as both of their powers cause you to scream when hit with their secondary.
Around this stage of your development, you will start to notice that you can run around and around a pallet or window to lengthen a chase. Doing this is smart, but it will anger the Killer and make them more likely to tunnel you.
With that in mind, if you can even loop a pallet or window just once, it will prolong your life and give your teammates more time to get gens.
If you’re just starting out on looping, the Killer shack, a feature on nearly every map, is a good place to practice on, since it has one window and one pallet every time.
Ducking when the Huntress charges up her hatchets behind objects is a good way to avoid getting hit, and crouching actually lowers your hitbox along with it.
If you fast vault a window and see the Killer lunging for it, you can keep running past it and buy yourself time with a whiff.
When the Killer is breaking the pallet, their FOV is forced to look down at the pallet. This is a good chance to make a quick getaway!

JUKING (ADVANCED)

Flashlight blinding at pallets makes Killers very angry, but if done right, can help you get a good head start while they’re blind.
You can blind them, then run to the next pallet or window, but making sure to obscure yourself so the Killer has to look around to find you, making them waste precious seconds.
Or, you can blind them and either walk away or walk around them, aiming to get behind the Killer, a move not many of them expect.
Fast Vaulting a window, you can watch behind you to see if the Killer is going to vault behind you. If they are, you can run away but then run back and crouch at the window frame to quietly hop back in. But I wouldn’t do this against a Killer with an insta-down or the Legion in Frenzy mode.
Doing a 360 may seem easy against lower skilled Killer, but gets increasingly harder to pull against more skilled Killers. A key to doing a proper one is timing.
A good time to pull a 360 is just about when the Killer is going to lunge or in the first frame when they do so. But act fast! You must WASD and move your mouse to the right or WDSA and move your mouse to the left very quickly, almost as if you’re throwing your mouse across your desk.
But don’t fret if the Killer is too advanced to fall for your tricks! Sometimes, it just takes more spins. Upgrade from a 360 to a 710 or perhaps even a 1080 and you must just live to spin another day.
If a Killer is about to hit you or you’re about to be chainsawed, you can hop in a locker to protect yourself, and then jump out straight afterwards- but beware of Iron Maiden!
If you decide to commit to hard-core looping, be prepared to be tunneled and camp. Run those loops like you’re going to be, and make sure to hug the walls for maximum efficiency.
But don’t run to the next pallet just because you drop it! If you can bait the Killer to keep running around it, do so until the pallet is broken.
Running at the Killer the quickly twisting the opposite direction is a good way to bait the Killer into whiffing a swing, but this doesn’t work on all Killers.
Chain-blinding is the simple term for blinding the Killer over and over again. It pisses off the Killer to no end, but it’s a good way to completely disorient them. But good Killers will quickly learn to look up.
If you know your aura will be revealed by BBQ, you can either hide in a locker for 4 seconds, or keeping going one direction until the 4 seconds are up, then turn and run the other way.
If the Hillbilly is revving his chainsaw up behind you and there’s nothing you can use as a buffer, you can run at him and around him in tight circles, and maybe even ducking.
If you have the perk Dead Hard, you can run back at the Killer and activate the perk, and many Killers will swing at you and miss. But most Killers will wise up to your Dead Hard after the first use, so be careful!
Dead Hard can also be used to nyoom over bear traps or to even gain that little extra distance to safely vault a window or get to a pallet.