Every Perk Type In Dead By Daylight, Explained

Summary

• Dead by Daylight offers general, unique, boon, hex, invocation, obsession, scourge hook, teamwork, exhaustion, healing, repairing, and aura-reading perks.
• General perks are accessible to all characters, while unique perks are character-specific and require unlocking.
• Boon perks bless totems, hex perks offer killer debuffs, and invocation perks provide permanent buffs with ritual completion.

Dead by Daylight is the most popular and enduring asymmetrical multiplayer horror game out there, despite many competitors rising in attempts to dethrone it over the years. Behavior continues to work tirelessly on the game since its initial release in 2016, consistently adding new content such as game modes, special events, and characters.

With these new characters comes a whole slew of new perks to choose from, falling into one of the few perk types in the game. This helps classify what the perk will aid within the game on both the killer and survivor sides of the game, from a means for the survivor to escape the killer’s grasp to a potential bonus the killer gets from hooking a downed survivor.

General Perks

Not Locked to Any Specific Character

General perks are just exactly what they sound like–perks not locked to any specific killer or survivor. This means they are available to the player regardless of how many characters they have unlocked or bought for the game, coming with the base game just as the base characters do. These perks will appear randomly in bloodwebs until they have been unlocked at tier 3 and can be used on any character.

The usefulness of these perks can vary, and even those that seem strong do have drawbacks to balance them out, such as resilience, which increases all the survivors’ action speed, but only while they are injured, and NoeD, which allows killers to down survivors with one hit, but only after the exit gates are powered, and the ability is tied to a totem.

Unique Perks

Requires a Specific Character

In opposition to the general perks are the unique ones, which, rather than being orphans, belong to a specific character. Players will be able to use the perks on other characters with some hard work and grinding to reach the required level, but once they do, they become unlocked for every survivor or killer.

These characters can be bought with iridescent shards unless they are another company’s property. For example, Jill Valentine from Resident Evil, will require auric cells or purchasing the DLC from the game’s store page. Like general perks, these perks can cover a variety of types, such as exhaustion, boon, or invocation.

Boon Perks

Bless a Totem to Benefit

The boon perks were a category introduced with the release of Mikaela Reid, the witch-themed survivor that came with magic and mystique. If a survivor approaches a dull totem with at least one boon equipped, they can hold the necessary button to apply the boon to the totem so long as they are not interrupted, in which case they will need to start from the beginning.

If the survivor has more than one boon equipped, each boon will be applied to the totem, so survivors can benefit from each and everyone, so long as they are in the radius as specified in the perk description. Killers can snuff out boons very quickly and easily, but thankfully, survivors can use these perks as often as they like, even placing them on a new totem in a different area of the map, but this will cancel out the prior boon.

Hex Perks

Killer’s Version of Boons

The hex perks are the killer’s answer to boons. Like boons, they are applied to totems, but the only difference is the killer doesn’t have to take the time to apply them, as each hex will be bound to a randomly selected totem. Survivors don’t snuff out hexes, but rather disassemble the totems to cleanse the hex, which other than, Pentimento, removes the hex from play altogether.

Hexes tend to work by applying various debuffs to the survivors, such as the exposed status effect with hexes such as devour hope and no one escapes death, making them more vulnerable to the killer, as only one hit is needed to down them.

Invocation Perks

Cast a Ritual to Reap Rewards

Introduced with Sable Ward, the second magically inclined Dead by Daylight character, invocations are the newest type of perk, and as such have fewer perks than other categories. So far there are only two in the game, Sable’s Weaving Spiders and Taurie’s Treacherous Crows.

Invocations must be carried out in the map’s basement, arguably the most dangerous location of all, as there is one exit and entrance. The ritual can be lengthy to complete, but other characters with the same equipped perk can join in to hasten up the invocation. Once complete, the survivors gain a permanent effect or buff for the duration of the game, but disables the perk for every character who has it equipped, meaning it cannot be stacked for extra benefit.

Obsession Perks

Plays Around a Specific Survivor

At the start of every trial, one random survivor is nominated to be the obsession, which alone does nothing more than put a fancy border around their in-game portrait. But, if a survivor or killer has an obsession perk equipped, this can have some interesting effects on that character.

Certain survivor perks can guarantee the survivor with those perks equipped will become the obsession (and if another survivor has the same perks, it will be a figurative toss of the coin), and the killer has perks that can help the hunt or kill the obsession, such as rancor, or even benefit them while hindering the rest of the team, such as dying light.

Scourge Hook Perks

Take Survivors to a Specific Hook to Benefit

Scourge hook plays around one of the main mechanics in the game for killers, which is hooking survivors. Survivors have a total of two hook states, and once they are hooked for a third time, or a second time if left on the hook for too long, it is game over for them, and the entity claims their body.

Scourge hooks add some additional play around hooking. The Killer will see certain hooks highlighted in white, which are the randomly selected scourge hooks, so long as they have one of the perks equipped. If they can get the carried survivor to the hook and hoist them on it, it will apply certain drawbacks for the survivors, for example sacrificing them faster, or interrupting generator progress.

Teamwork Perks

Collaborate with Fellow Survivors with Greater Efficiency

Teamwork perks were introduced with the inclusion of the sibling survivors, Thalita and Renato, given one perk each for a total of two in the game thus far. In order to benefit from the perks, the survivors with them equipped must remain in the same vicinity, with the perks specifying a maximum of 16 meters, depending on the rarity.

Collective stealth works to hide scratch marks, while the power of two grants additional movement speed, which can aid in the survival of the survivors, as it hides where the survivors have gone from the killer, and allows them to potentially outmaneuver them with haste status effect.

Exhaustion Perks

A Temporary Benefit with One Drawback

There are a variety of exhaustion perks available in Dead by Daylight, with some revolving around movement speed such as sprint burst and lithe, and others having a more unique effect like head-on, that allows survivors to stun killers when fast-exiting a locker.

These perks grant a very brief effect, and once used, they give survivors the exhaustion status effect. Only when not running does the exhaustion reduce, and while active they cannot use the exhaustion perk again. This drawback prevents them from being too overpowered, as certain exhaustion perks would make survivors unstoppable with spam-use.

Healing Perks

Help or Hinder Healing

Healing is one of the main mechanics in Dead by Daylight, as it can be the difference between a survivor escaping or being sacrificed. As such, survivors should heal when possible, and killer should do their utmost to interrupt it.

As such a key mechanic, there are perks on both sides that revolve around healing. Survivor perks such as botany knowledge and no one left behind increase healing speeds, while killer pearls such as coulrophobia and leverage reduce it, which could be the difference between the healing being completed or interrupted.

Repairing Perks

Revolves Around the Core Gameplay

Repairing the generators is the core of the gameplay in Dead by Daylight, as that is what every trial hinges on. Players need to complete the generators before the killer gets too many hooks and sacrifices, as the game gets progressively harder for every survivor with the more that die.

Being the beating heart and soul of the game, the repairing game mechanic has many perks that revolve around it, with those aimed to aid survivors, such as prove thyself and killer perks to slow down their efforts, such as thanatophobia.

Aura-Reading Perks

Keep Track of the Opposition

Aura-reading is a useful benefit for both sides of the game, as it allows them to see a highlighted outline of their opponent even through multiple obstacles, though each perk has range limitations to prevent total map-reading, as this would be too busted for killers and survivors.

Aura-reading perks can involve doing exactly what it says, revealing the auras of others, or it can revolve around the opposite, such as distortion, which aims to hide the survivors’ aura from being read by the killer, which is great counter-play against killer aura perks such as barbecue and chilli.