Dead By Daylight: Best Healer Builds

Key Takeaways

• Healing perks in Dead by Daylight are crucial for increasing survival chances in chases.
• Different healer builds cater to various playstyles, from team players to solo-focused strategies.
• Hybrid healer builds offer perks for use while ensuring all survivors are healed.

Staying healed in Dead by Daylight is essential to increase the survival chance of every chase. Healing perks boost the odds of all survivors being healthy, as many speed up healing or make it easier to spot injured survivors.

Healer perks differ, and each build is tailored to a particular playstyle for survivors. While some survivors would play it safe, others might risk all to save their teammates. Hybrid healer builds are a common choice in Dead by Daylight as they provide the player with perks for use while all survivors are healed.

Updated November 12, 2024 by Aly Azmy: Healing builds are a must-have in any team. There are several types of healing builds and this list was updated to add even more unique builds. One of the builds revolves around having perks heal the player without the need to get healed, while the other involves using chests to heal.

One of the builds uses a newer survivor perk, giving a newer healer playstyle for players to try out. Both builds focus more on keeping the player healed, but this does save time that can be spent saving other survivors or repairing generators.

1 The Classic Healer

Playstyle: Team Player

The following perks are a staple for healer builds as it is heavily focused on healing other players but still provide the players with an exhaustion perk. Most of the perks here are among the best survivor perks, and they give players a definitive healer build.

• Botany Knowledge (Claudette Morel): Increases base healing speed by 50% at the cost of 20% efficiency when using a med kit.
• Boon Circle of Healing (Mikaela Reid): When inside the boon’s 24-meter radius and not using a med kit, healing speed increases by 100%.
• Empathy (Claudette Morel): Passive ability to see an injured survivor’s aura within a 128-meter radius.
• Sprint Burst (Meg Thomas): Allows players to sprint at 150% running speed for 3 seconds and has a 40-second exhausted cooldown effect.

2 High Stakes Healer

Playstyle: Investment Healer

Although this healer build differs slightly from the standard ones, it offers high-risk and high-reward gameplay. Autodidact and For The People are unconventional healing perks, but once players get used to them they are both fun perks to use.

• Autodidact (Adam Francis): Succeeding in skill checks while healing rewards one token for a maximum of 5, and each token increases the heal bonus given by skill checks. Players start at a 25% progression penalty and gain +15 per token for a total of +50%.
• Bond (Dwight Fairfield): Players with this perk can see the aura of other survivors within a 36-meter radius around them.
• Lucky Break (Yui Kimura): 60 seconds of suppressed scratch marks and pools of blood when injured. Lucky Break gains one second of use for every second spent treating other survivors.
• For The People (Zarina Kassir): Instantly heal a survivor from the injured or dying state at the cost of 1 health state from the healer. Players must be healthy before using the perk and become broken for 60 seconds after use.

3 Stealthy Healer

Playstyle: Ninja Healer

The idea of a stealthy healer role may seem bizarre, but the four perks unite to create a seamless stealth build dedicated to healing. This build works best with any of the quietest survivors in Dead by Daylight. The Diversion perk will temporarily distract the killer if needed to provide enough time to heal a survivor.

• Diversion (Adam Francis): Hide within the killer’s terror radius for 30 seconds and gain the ability to throw a distraction pebble. The pebble will land 20 meters away from the survivor, cause a loud noise notification for the killer, and create fake scratch marks.
• Bite The Bullet (Leon Kennedy): Self-healing and healing others become muted, and failed skill checks no longer generate noise notifications.
• Boon Shadow Step (Mikaela Ried): Bless a boon totem that suppresses all scratch marks and auras in a 24-meter radius.
• We’ll Make It (General): Healing speed increases by 100% for 90 seconds after unhooking a survivor.

4 The Solo Healer

Playstyle: End Game Healer

Survivors playing solo should consider this build as it does not rely on others. Hope and Adrenaline give solo survivors an advantage to escape to the exit gates if the other survivors open the gates early. The other two perks allow survivors the option to heal themselves.

• Hope (General): Once the exit gates are opened, survivors gain a 7% speed boost. The haste effect vastly helps survivors loop killers during the end game.
• Adrenaline (Meg Thomas): When the exit gates are powered, the player is instantly healed and receives a 150% speed boost for 5 seconds. This perk causes an exhaustion status effect that lasts for 40 seconds.
• Inner Healing (General): After cleansing a totem, players can heal inside a locker after an 8-second countdown.
• Self Care (Claudette Morel): Survivors can heal themselves without a med kit but heal at 35% of regular healing speed.

5 Up & At Em

Play Style: Risky & Rewarding

This build requires lots of game knowledge to know when rescuing a player is viable. Staying at full health at all times is essential to ensuring players are always ready to use For The People. Players can easily guarantee a medkit from a chest and heal themselves. Using For The People with Buckle Up gives both players 10 seconds of endurance and can rescue a survivor who is being tunneled.

• Buckle Up (Ash Williams): Activates when another survivor is down and reveals the aura of the killer to the downed player and the survivor with Buckle Up. After healing a dying survivor, both players receive endurance for 10 seconds.
• For The People (Zarina Kassir): Instantly heal a survivor from the injured or dying state at the cost of 1 health state from the healer. Players must be healthy before using the perk and become broken for 60 seconds after use.
• Pharmacy (Quentin Smith): When injured, increases chest unlocking speed by 80% while reducing the audio cue for chest unlock by 8 meters. Gives survivors a guaranteed emergency med-kit. Emergency med-kits have enough charges for a self heal.
• Plunderer’s Instinct (General Perk): Reveals aura of nearby chests within a 32-meter radius. Increases chances of finding higher rarity items but this effect does not stack with Pharmacy.
• Medkit:Add-ons to increase healing speed. Butterfly tape & Medical scissors.

6 Basement Lurker

Playstyle: Solo Focused

This build gives players an advantage in playing around tricky areas such as Basement and Killer Shack. Wiretapping a generator gives a massive aid in looping the killer near Killer Shack. Players can self-heal in the Basement and can unhook themselves if they are caught by the killer.

• Strength In Shadows (Sable Ward): Allows players to self-heal in the Basement without needing a med-kit. Heal speed is reduced by 70% and is faster than using a regular med-kit. After completing a self heal in the basement, the aura of the killer is revealed to the survivor for 10 seconds.
• Wicked (Sable Ward): Gives a guaranteed unhook to players hooked on a Basement hook. Aura of the killer is revealed for 20 seconds after a successful unhook in the Basement, whether from another player or a self-unhook.
• Head On (Jane Romero): Activates after standing inside a locker for 3 seconds. Once active, dashing out of the locker stuns killers in range for 3 seconds. It causes 40 seconds of exhaustion when performed successfully.
• Wiretap (Ada Wong): After repairing a generator to 50%, players can press the ability button to install a trap onto a generator. The trap stays active for 120 seconds. While the trap is active, the killer’s aura is revealed to all survivors when they are 14 meters near the trapped generator. The generator is highlighted in yellow to all other survivors. Wiretap deactivates if the killer damages the generator.

7 Med-Kit Healer

Playstyle: Team Healer

These perks will help survivors get the most out of their med-kits, and their teammates will love them for it.

• Built To Last (Felix Richter): After 12 seconds of hiding inside a locker, carried items will replenish 99% of their durability. Each use reduces the total recharge by 33%.
• Streetwise (Nea Karlsson): Increases item efficiency by 25% and applies the effect to survivors within 8 meters. The effect also lingers for 15 seconds once other survivors exit the 8-meter radius.
• Empathic Connection (Yoichi Asakawa): Injured survivors see the aura of survivors running this perk if they are within 96 meters of one another. The perk also provides a 10% heal speed buff to other survivors.
• We’re Gonna Live Forever (David King): Heal survivors in the dying state 100% faster. Safe unhooks, taking protection hits, and stunning killers carrying other survivors grant one token. When saving survivors from the dying state, a token is used, giving them endurance for 10 seconds.

8 Chest Healer & Utility

Utility & Heals

Items in Dead by Daylight give a significant advantage, especially if they have add-ons. This build uses aura reading perks to locate nearby chests and has a perk that guarantees improved items. With a risky opportunity to heal after 2 chests, players will utilize the Ace perk to attain high-grade items and use them to influence their match. Flashlights to blind killers, medkits to heal others faster, and toolboxes to speed up generators or sabotage hooks.

• Moment of Glory (Trevor Belmont): Activates after opening two chests. While active and injured, survivors will become broken for 60 seconds, after which they will be healed. Deactivates if survivors enter the dying state.
• Clairvoyance (Mikaela Reid): Activates after cleaning a totem. Gives 10 seconds of aura reading within a 64-meter radius. During aura readings, chests, generators, exit gates, hatch, and hooks are visible objects.
• Detective’s Hunch (David Tapp): Immediately activate once a generator is finished. For 10 seconds, generators, chests, and totems will be revealed in a 64-meter radius.
• Ace in the Hole (Ace Visconti): Gives a 100% chance for chest items to have an add-on of very rare or lower. 50% chance for a second add-on with an uncommon or lower rarity.

9 Magic Heal

Self Heal

Healing can be a waste of time and having some perks that do it themselves is worth the saved energy. Three of these perks will heal a survivor and save precious seconds that can be spent working on a generator. Self-healing magically will throw off other survivors and even the killer. Iron will helps survivors get closer to active chases to receive a passive healing bonus if a survivor is injured nearby. Healing other survivors will also heal the player if they have some healing progress.

• Reactive Healing (Ada Wong): While injured, gain 50% of healing progress if a survivor gets injured in a 32-meter radius.
• Iron Will (Jake Park): Suppresses grunts of pain while injured by 100%. Does not work while exhausted.
• Resurgence (Jill Valentine): Gain 70% healing progress after becoming unhooked through any means.
• Solidarity (Jane Romero): Receive 70% of the healing progress done to others.