Dead by Daylight continues to demonstrate its enduring appeal. The game’s future is bright, fresh, and full of new perks, with additional chapters on the way. Currently, there are over 140 survivor perks in Dead by Daylight. While most rarely see regular play, there’s still plenty of very strong survivor perks.
While 2025 has greatly increased the content for Dead by Daylight, some killers and survivors have made a meta shake-up. There are plenty of ways to play as a Survivor, meaning plenty of niches that can be filled in with the right builds. So anyone wanting to mix up their perks or try new builds will have plenty of new options playing as Survivor.
So, today we’ll go over Dead by Daylight’s best survivor builds, helping you find the perfect combination of perks to suit your style of play.
Non-Teachable Survivor Build
This beginner-friendly build focuses on providing crucial information and enhancing generator efficiency to help new survivors in Dead by Daylight.
- Kindred (General Perk): Reveals the aura of all survivors when hooked, allowing for better coordination and awareness of the killer’s position when near the hook.
- Bond (Dwight Fairfield): Displays the auras of other survivors within a 36-meter range, helping in locating teammates for cooperation on objectives like generators or rescues.
- Sprint Burst (Meg Thomas): After standing still for 1 second, gain 150% movement speed for 3 seconds when starting to run, useful for evading the killer or quickly reaching objectives.
- Prove Thyself (Dwight Fairfield): Increases repair, healing, and sabotage speeds by 15% when within 4 meters of another survivor, promoting faster progress on tasks when working together.
This build is great for beginners due to its emphasis on information gathering (Kindred, Bond) and increased efficiency in completing objectives (Prove Thyself), paired with Sprint Burst for added escape potential, making it ideal for new players looking to escape and improve in matches.
Consistent All-Arounder Build
This build focuses on consistency and being versatile in various situations.
- Deja Vu (General Perk): Reveals the three closest generators and provides a 6% repair speed bonus on those generators. It helps avoid getting three-genned and ensures you always know where to find generators.
- Botany Knowledge (Claudette Morel): Increases healing speed by 50% and reduces item efficiency by 20%. With a medkit, you can heal yourself and others quickly, making it a reliable perk for survival.
- Bond (Dwight Fairfield): Reveals the auras of teammates within 36 meters. This helps you find teammates for healing, join them on generators, or locate chases to assist.
- Sprint Burst (Meg Thomas): Grants a 150% speed boost for 3 seconds when you start running. It provides an excellent escape mechanism when the killer approaches.
Consistent Survivor perks are such an important thing in Dead by Daylight. While perks like Decisive Strike and For the People are strong, I realized I prefer perks that provide consistent value and are always online.
This approach makes Survivor games more enjoyable because constant perk value, even if not the strongest or most game-changing, contributes significantly due to its reliability. This build is great at doing everything at all times, offering all-around consistency and making it a top S-tier steady build in Dead by Daylight.
Gen Rush Build
This build is perfect for those focusing on generators and objectives.
- Built to Last (Felix Richter): Allows you to refill your depleted item by entering a locker for 12 seconds, giving you multiple uses of your toolbox.
- Streetwise (Nea Karlsson): Reduces item consumption rates by 25%, extending the life of your toolbox.
- Hyperfocus (Rebecca Chambers): Increases skill check chances and speed with each great skill check, enhancing generator repair speed.
- Stake Out (David Tapp): Converts normal skill checks to great skill checks after being within the killer’s terror radius for 15 seconds, synergizing well with Hyperfocus.
The Gen Rush Build prioritizes speed and efficiency in completing generators. Bringing the Commodious Toolbox with add-ons for extended use and the Build to Last perk for refills, ensures sustained generator work.
Streetwise reduces item consumption, making the toolbox last longer, while Hyperfocus and Stake Out increase skill checks for quicker progress and consistency. Optional perks like Fogwise can help you locate the killer if you are good at skill checks.
Team Healing Build
This build focuses on healing efficiency and making sure your team stays healthy.
- Deja Vu (General Perk): Helps with generator efficiency and avoids getting three-gen’d.
- We’ll Make It (General Perk): Provides a 100% healing speed bonus for 90 seconds after unhooking a survivor, making it easy to heal multiple teammates quickly.
- Leader (Dwight Fairfield): Increases other survivors’ healing, sabotage, unhooking, cleansing, exit gate, and chest unlocking speeds by 25% when within 8 meters. The effect lingers for 15 seconds, ensuring faster heals and other interactions.
- Empathy (Claudette Morel): Reveals the auras of injured teammates within a 128-meter range. Combined with We’ll Make It, you can find and heal injured teammates quickly.
This build centers on healing efficiency and team support, featuring Deja Vu for generator awareness and We’ll Make It to double healing speed post-unhooking, securing rapid recovery even during Borrowed Time activations.
Utilizing Gel Dressing with Bandages provides two self-heals, crucial for survival. Leader increases all survivor actions within its radius by 25%, facilitating quicker healing, sabotage, and objective completions, making it beneficial for both team support and personal survivability. Empathy extends the visibility of injured teammates across the map, maximizing healing opportunities with We’ll Make It, securing quick team resets and efficient objective progression.
Survivor Looping Build
This build is optimized to evade the killer and prolong chases effectively.
- Adrenaline (Meg Thomas): Despite recent nerfs, remains one of the top perks for surviving chases.
- Balanced Landing (Nea Karlsson): Provides an exhaustion perk that helps in managing loops around windows and pallets.
- Windows of Opportunity (Kate Denson): Reveals nearby pallets and windows’ auras, helping in loop planning and navigation.
- Quick Gambit (Vittorio Toscano): Increases generator repair speed by 8% for any generators being worked on within a 36-meter range while being chased, helping in team objective progress and efficiency during chases.
This is in my opinion the best build for being chased.
The first perk we have is Adrenaline, which did recently receive a Nerf but is still easily one of the best Survivor perks for looping. We also have Balanced Landing for our exhaustion perk, Windows of Opportunity, which allows us to see the auras of nearby pallets and windows, and the final perk is Quick Gambit, which increases the generator speed by 8% for any generators currently being worked on near us whilst we’re being chased.
Solo Escape Build
This build is designed to maximize survival and evasion, perfect for outlasting the Killer and escaping solo.
- Clairvoyance (Mikaela Reid): Reveals important objectives like Exit Gate Switches, Generators, Hooks, Chests, and the Hatch within 64 meters for 10 seconds after cleansing or blessing a Totem.
- Inner Strength (Nancy Wheeler): Automatically heals one Health State when hiding inside a Locker for 8 seconds, triggered each time you cleanse a Totem.
- Sole Survivor (Laurie Strode): Increases your immunity radius to the Killer’s Aura-reading abilities by up to 72 meters and provides significant bonuses when you’re the last Survivor alive, including increased Repair, Gate, and Hatch opening speeds, and increased odds of becoming the Killer’s initial Obsession by 100%.
- Kindred (General Perk): Reveals all Survivors’ Auras to each other while you’re hooked and reveals the Killer’s Aura within 16 meters of your Hook. When another Survivor is hooked, reveal all other Survivors’ Auras to you.
This build is designed for solo survivors aiming to escape by maximizing awareness and survivability. Clairvoyance provides crucial information about objective locations, while Inner Strength allows for stealthy recoveries.
Sole Survivor increases your safety zone against Aura-reading abilities and grants powerful bonuses when you’re the last Survivor standing. Kindred ensures team coordination and safety awareness during hook phases.
Anti-tunnel Build
This build is designed to give survivors a fighting chance against tunneling and to punish killers for wasting lots of time focusing on one survivor.
- Adrenaline (Meg Thomas): Activates upon powering the Exit Gates, instantly healing one Health State and providing a burst of speed for 3 seconds.
- Off the Record (Zarina Kassir): After being unhooked or unhooking yourself, prevents your Aura from being read by the Killer, suppresses Grunts of Pain, and grants the Endurance Status Effect for 80 seconds.
- Decisive Strike (Laurie Strode): After being unhooked or unhooking yourself, activates for 60 seconds. Allows you to stun the Killer for 4 seconds by succeeding a Skill Check when grabbed or picked up. Causes you to become the Killer’s Obsession.
- Dead Hard (David King): When injured, activates by pressing the Ability button while running to dash forward and avoid damage, granting the Endurance Status Effect for 0.5 seconds. Causes the Exhausted Status Effect for 40 seconds.
Dealing with tunneling killers in Dead by Daylight can be frustrating for survivors, but there are ways to counter it. This build is designed to help you with that. By using these perks, you can make it more difficult for the killer to focus solely on you, giving you a better chance of surviving and punishing their single-minded pursuit.
