With 146 Survivor perks to choose from in Dead by Daylight, it can be overwhelming to decide which ones will give you the best chance of survival. Whether you’re running for your life, working on generators, or rescuing teammates, having the right set of perks can dramatically shift the balance in your favor. In this post, we’ll explore the 10 best survivor perks in Dead by Daylight for 2024. Breaking down how they work, why they’re effective, and when to use them.
1. Decisive Strike
It is no secret that the strongest strategy for a killer is to tunnel a single survivor out of the game. Decisive Strike is the most unavoidable obstacle a killer faces when attempting to tunnel. Once a survivor is unhooked, if the killer picks them up within 60 seconds, Decisive Strike allows them to stun the killer and escape. This stun only happens once per match, but it can completely disrupt the killer’s momentum.
What makes Decisive Strike so strong is how well it synergizes with other perks. For example, you can combine it with Off the Record to tank a hit, and then immediately use Decisive Strike, which frees you from the deep wound. After that, you can activate an exhaustion perk like Dead Hard or Smash Hit to put even more distance between you and the killer. This combination creates a lot of opportunities for survivors that might come in handy.
Although the perk is wasted if the killer doesn’t tunnel, this forces the killer into a situation where tunneling becomes much riskier.
2. Off the Record
Off the Record is another incredibly strong anti-tunneling perk for survivors. It functions almost like two perks in one, with two distinct effects. The first, which is a status effect provides 80 seconds of endurance after being unhooked, which allows the survivor to take a hit without going down. This effect can be activated twice—once after your first hook and again after your second hook. The endurance effect makes tunneling much harder for the killer, as they need to hit the survivor twice in a short period to down them.
One particularly strong use of Off the Record is tanking hits for other survivors. After you’ve been unhooked, you can take hits for teammates, as the endurance gives you extra time to escape or reposition.
The second effect of the perk is that it makes the survivor completely silent. This means no grunts of pain, even when injured, which is useful against killers who rely on sound to track survivors, such as Spirit.
3. Resurgence
While Decisive Strike and Off the Record are essential if you’re being tunneled, Resurgence is a powerful Plan B for when you’re not. After being unhooked, Resurgence instantly gives you 70% progress on your heal progress bar. This means that you only need to heal the remaining 30%, significantly reducing the time it takes to get fully reset. This is especially effective with medkits, which can allow you to heal in just a few seconds.
If you have Resurgence and a medkit with skill check add-ons, you can heal yourself incredibly quickly—sometimes in just two or three seconds. This is a drastic reduction from the usual 16 seconds it takes for two survivors to heal each other. Which makes the time-saving aspect of Resurgence remarkable.
4. Unbreakable
Unbreakable is one of the most impactful survivor perks in Dead by Daylight, even though it’s not always visible in every game. What makes Unbreakable so strong is the psychological effect it has on the killer. The perk allows you to pick yourself up from the dying state once per match, which makes slugging—a common killer tactic—much riskier. Without Unbreakable, a killer could down one survivor and leave them on the ground to focus on another, gaining momentum.
Even after using the perk to stand up, the passive effect of recovering faster from the dying state remains active throughout the match. This forces killers to constantly consider whether it’s worth leaving a survivor on the ground, as the risk of them picking themselves up becomes much higher. Additionally, the perk pairs very well with Decisive Strike. If a killer leaves you down to avoid DS, Unbreakable can catch them off guard and allow you to get back into the game.
5. Deliverance
Deliverance is another perk that holds immense power, despite not being extremely common. The ability to unhook yourself is powerful because it essentially adds a “fifth survivor” to the team. Normally, when one survivor is being chased, another is on a generator, one is on the hook, and someone has to go for the unhook. This leaves gaps for the killer to interrupt the rescuer and create a lot of pressure. However, with Deliverance, everyone can stay hidden or on generators, and the hooked survivor can unhook themselves without needing help.
The downside to Deliverance is that if you are hooked first, it has no value, as it only activates after you have performed a safe unhook on someone else. It also leaves you with the broken status effect for 60 seconds.
6. Windows of Opportunity
Windows of Opportunity consistently ranks as the number one most used perk in both official and unofficial data, and it’s for a very good reason. In some ways, you could argue that this is the most useful perk in the entire game for the average survivor. Windows of Opportunity shows you the points of safety around you, meaning you can see the pallet auras around you. It helps when you’re playing with solo teammates and don’t know what resources they’ve used.
Without this perk, you might assume there’s a pallet at Shack, turn the corner, and realize it’s gone, leading to your death. With Windows, you’ll always know if a pallet is dropped, gone, or never there to begin with. Importantly allowing you to improvise and avoid dead zones. You shouldn’t let the perk do the hard work for you though—learning maps is still important.
7. Deja Vu
Deja Vu is also quite popular, though it should be even more so. This perk highlights the three closest generators to each other and gives you a small repair speed boost while working on them. When there are only three gens left in the game, all the remaining gens are highlighted, and you get the speed boost no matter which one you choose to work on. The speed boost is nice, but the information it provides is what makes this perk shine.
For beginners who don’t know the maps or where generators are located, this perk is incredibly useful. Even advanced players benefit from Deja Vu on confusing maps like Midwich or Lery’s, where finding gens can be tricky. Deja Vu eliminates this inefficiency, helping survivors pressure gens consistently. If all survivors ran Deja Vu, games would immediately become harder for killers.
It’s especially useful in preventing a 3 gen strat, where the killer has an easier time defending a cluster of gens. As you complete the closest gens, the remaining ones become further apart, making it harder for the killer to defend them in the late game.
8. Wicked
Wicked is possibly one of the most underrated perks in the game. You rarely see it, but it is unbelievably powerful. Wicked is like Deliverance but without the prerequisite of needing to unhook someone first. It also has the secondary effect of revealing the killer’s aura for 20 seconds after you’re unhooked. Which is a very long time and can be extended with certain perks. Wicked doesn’t break you like Deliverance, but it only works in the basement.
What makes Wicked truly powerful is its ability to force the killer into lose-lose situations. If multiple survivors on your team are running Wicked, it becomes incredibly hard for the killer to control the game. Survivors can go into the basement, take a hit, and jump into a locker, preventing the killer from slugging them. The killer is then forced to hook them in the basement, at which point they can unhook themselves.
Even if the basement isn’t a factor in the match, you can still see the aura of the killer for 20 seconds which is still valuable.
9. Lithe
Lithe is probably the most balanced exhaustion perk in the game, making it useful for everyone. It’s easy to use, even for beginners, though they sometimes trigger it in odd ways like immediately vaulting a pallet. It’s also great for advanced and intermediate players, working well on any map, even if there aren’t many windows.
Lithe can be used on drop pallets and pairs nicely with some of the best perks in the game, like Decisive Strike. For example, after using Decisive Strike, you can perform a rushed vault on a pallet or window and immediately trigger Lithe, creating distance. Even against fast killers like Blight or Nurse, Lithe combined with Decisive Strike can delay a tunnel for as long as possible, making it a solid exhaustion perk.
10. Sprint Burst
Sprint Burst is the simplest and often the first exhaustion perk that most people use. It offers more flexibility than Lithe since you can use it anywhere, but it does require managing when to walk to preserve it. For beginners, it might not always be the ideal perk, as managing it takes practice. However, for survivors who know how to use it, Sprint Burst is incredible. It allows you to safely work on generators in the open, and if a killer shows up unexpectedly, you can still escape. You can also 99% it, then bait the killer into chasing you before using it at the perfect moment.
Survivors who use Sprint Burst well are extremely difficult to catch, making it very frustrating for killers. Even though it requires some management and can be tricky for newer players, its complete versatility makes it a fantastic perk, particularly for more skilled players.
Source: Otzdarva/ Youtube
