Dead by Daylight: Best Female Killers

Summary

• Dead by Daylight is the top asymmetrical horror multiplayer game with licensed and original killers and survivors.
• Killer characters like The Artist, Plague, and The Onryo have unique abilities that impact gameplay strategies.
• The Nurse, Skull Merchant, and Huntress killers offer distinct playstyles and challenges for both killer mains and survivors.

Dead by Daylight remains the strongest contender for best asymmetrical horror multiplayer, providing an extensive list of both licensed and original killers and survivors, from Halloween’s Michal Myers to famed actor Nicolas Cage. This is part of the reason it has held on so strongly to its crown, despite numerous competitors having entered and left the market since its release.

There are almost 40 killers to choose from in the game, and it provides an excellent mix of both male and female, all fearsome and brutal in their own ways. But not every killer can be made equally, and there are those killer women that stand out from the rest.

6 The Artist

An Effective Anti-Looping Power

Before she was an ink and crow-themed merciless killer, Carmina, better known as the Artist, devoted her time to creating paintings, until her younger brother’s death weighed on her conscience, depriving her of that creative spark she needed, until she found it again among the crows she would call friends, and allies. The entity found her before death could, and she entered the world of fog as a vengeful and vicious killer, a hand made of inky blackness to replace the one she had lost.

Her ability to fire crows across the map is one of the ways Artist can maintain pressure even from far distances, forcing players off of generators or away from hooked party members lest they too are downed and then at her mercy. Her playstyle can take a few trials to get to grips with, but when the killer mains finally learn the most effective ways to use her powers, they can cause games to snowball into their favor.

5 The Plague

Nullifies the Healing Mechanic

Once a young and beautiful priestess aiding in ceremonies amidst the outbreak of a plague, she became the embodiment of pestilence when taken by the entity, her beauty marred by partial decay to her skin, and her killer powers are quite literally just as sickening.

Rather than strike players with a weapon, she can spew her own wretched vomit on them, and should enough time pass, they become infected, rendering them vulnerable to attacks and unable to heal the way they would against any other killer. Instead, they must cleanse at pure fountains, which in turn corrupts them and allows the plague to tap into her deadly vomit power. Either way, survivors are vulnerable whenever the Plague draws near to them.

4 The Onryo

The Condemned Mechanic is a Death Sentence

Those who have seen the classic horror movieThe Ring know all about how deadly the videotape curse is. Those who behold it are given a seven-day deadline until their death, unless they show the tape to another person, who then inherits the curse. It is the world’s worst and most terrifying chain letter, and now it has found its way to Dead by Daylight.

Though small in stature, Sadako is terrifying to behold as she trails after the survivor, able to intermittently flicker in and out of appearance in her demanifested form. She can also teleport to TV’s, inflicting nearby survivors with condemned. If the condemned meter fully fills up, she is able to kill survivors with just one lingering glare, in homage to how her victims died in the movies. This makes her as deadly as she is frightening.

3 The Nurse

Teleport Through Objects to Hunt Down Survivors

The Nurse is one of the killers that comes with the vanilla game, but this doesn’t mean she should be underestimated by any means. Once a nurse at a Crotus Prenn Asylum, she has all but abandoned her hippocratic oath as she now seeks to harm others rather than heal. A spectral spirit that ominously floats, Sally has one of the main benefits that come with her lack of corporeality–the ability to phase through objects.

Her blink ability is the Nurse’s main power, and that is exactly how Nurse players can hunt down the players–teleporting straight through obstacles including walls and even floors and ceilings. Now, survivors are safe from nowhere, and their chosen loop path can be quickly cut off, leaving them vulnerable to her attacks. Though she is not regarded as highly among killer mains as she once was, the Nurse is still a highly skilled killer for those who can get to grips with her power.

2 The Skull Merchant

Unmatched Map Oppression

Adding a futuristic touch to the game with her deployment of drones to aid her during trials, the Skull Merchant proved to be a rather polarizing character because of this power. Killer mains found it all too easy to exploit this power to force survivors into a three gen, at which point defeat was inevitable.

The Skull Merchant has since then received tweaks to make her powers less oppressive, but skilled Skull Merchant players still excel at holding the line. Her drones were nerfed, not outright destroyed, so those players that know when and where to effectively deploy them are still fully capable of crippling even the most confident of SWFs. When a Skull Merchant is in play, survivors know they are in for a challenge.

1 The Huntress

Hatchets Guarantee Long-Distance Damage

The Huntress is one of the most popular killer picks, and it is clear to see why. Armed with a melee ability and a ranged attack, she is a great all-around killer perfect for sniping from a distance and cutting chases short. Her backstory marks her as a rather tragic villain who wasn’t all bad and evil, but survivors unlucky enough to meet her in a trial will only see her savage side.

Her unique killer perks aren’t really up to scratch, but she makes up for it with the rest of her kit. Starting each trial with seven hatchets, depending on any add-ons equipped, it is possible she could down three of the survivors with her thrown hatchets alone. There is even an add-on that makes each hatchet put the survivors into the dying state immediately, though it caps at one hatchet at a time. Whether armed with that add-on or not, the Huntress is one of the most deadly killers to come across.