Dead By Daylight is a free-to-play horror game developed by Artificial Mind and Movement. Players can choose to play as either the Survivors or the Killers.
There are 27 killers in total and 30 survivor characters that all have their own special characteristics and backstory.
We ranked the top 13 Dead By Daylight Killers according to their effectiveness, stealthiness, and lethality. Some killers are also better suited for killing multiple people at once while others prefer to take out one person at a time.
We have tried to order our list from the most to least effective, but all the Killers on our list are some of the best in the game. Depending on how you like to play, you may prefer one over the others.
We hope you enjoy this list!
Nurse
The Nurse, for many Dead By Daylight players, is definitely the most effective killer in the game. She has the highest damage output per second, which allows her to easily dispatch the survivors with just one hit.
Her main drawback is that she requires line of sight to work effectively. If the survivor manages to get away from the nurse, she will be unable to perform any attacks until she gets back into range.
Because of her blink ability, the Nurse is a hard killer for beginners to master. If used incorrectly, this can cause the player to become incapacitated, which will let the survivors she’s chasing escape.
If you’re willing enough to practice and learn how to use The Nurse properly you’ll soon see the advantages. She lets you teleport long distances, allowing you to ambush players and attack unexpectedly.
The Hag
The Hag is the next best killer in Dead By Daylight. While not quite as strong as the Nurse, she does have her own set of strengths and weaknesses.
The Hag can place up to 10 traps across the map. Each time the limit of 10 traps is reached, the trap that was placed first is removed.
The traps are really quick to place, and once a survivor gets close, this triggers a phantasm. Once this occurs, The Hag can instantly teleport to the trap and attack!
When using The Hag, you will need good map awareness and know all the hotspots for good placements of the traps.
Once you get the hang of placing traps in unsuspecting and deceptive areas across the map, you will easily be able to lock down generators, allowing you to hunt down all the survivors methodically.
Apart from the use of traps, The Hag can feel a little under powered in comparison to the other Killers featured on this list.
Hillbilly
One more top-shelf killer is The Hillbilly. He can quickly run around the map with the chainsaw attack, which works a treat for putting the survivors under a lot of pressure so that they can’t stop moving.
This is helpful for keeping the survivors clear from the generators.
The downside of using the chainsaw is its slow rate of fire. You may find yourself having to wait for too long between chain swings, making it difficult to land multiple hits on the same target.
There are a couple of other ways to kill the survivors using the chainsaw. One way is to swing the chainsaw over head and then immediately follow up with another swing.
Another is to swing the chainsaws back and forth rapidly, causing a series of cuts that would leave the survivors injured.
If you can get the hang of The Hillbilly’s tool set, he is among the most effective Dead By Daylight Killers.
The Plague
The Plague Killer has two very highly powered abilities that are as effective as they are grotesque. The first of these abilities is called Vile Purge, which lets the character unleash a horrible stream of dangerous vomit that can injure survivors.
This kind of attack can also function as a trap, also, allowing you to coat generators and other unavoidable obstacles in this infectious vomit.
The Plague is a great all-rounder. While she doesn’t exactly excel at a single strategy in particular, her skills are abilities are balanced across the board.
Experienced, skilled players should be able to consistently win playing with this Killer without too much trouble.
The second ability is called Plague Burst, where the character unleashes an explosion of blood that deals damage to every survivor nearby.
It does not matter how many survivors there are, or what direction they’re facing, Plague Burst will always deal damage to everyone within range.
While Plague is one of the best killers in Dead By Daylight, she isn’t necessarily the easiest to play. She requires quite a bit of practice before you feel comfortable using her effectively. However, once you do learn how to play Plague, she becomes incredibly powerful.
Huntress
Huntress is a favorite of many Dead By Daylight players because of the long-ranged weapon, the throwing axe that she uses. This lethal axe can deal a lot of damage very efficiently. Not only is she a powerful Killer, but also a very fun character to play in the game.
Huntress can take down survivors in style, and even hit survivors trying to hide behind pallets or windows. Huntress’ main weakness is that she lacks mobility, so she can easily become trapped herself.
When played well, Huntress can be deadly. Her throwing axe is a versatile weapon that can be used to hit survivors from afar, or to knock them back into a wall for easy kills.
However, if you don’t know how to play Huntress right, she can quickly turn into a liability. A poorly timed throw could end up putting yourself in danger, and if you get caught in a choke point, you may find yourself unable to escape.
Huntress boasts some fantastic unique perks too, which provide the player with a good awareness of the territory.
She can also unnerve the survivors effectively and deal even more drastic and devastating kills, and she is a very unpredictable Killer, particularly when running.
Spirit
Spirit can sometimes be a little hit and miss. Her Yamaoka’s Haunting ability allows you to phase-walk, meaning you can move through walls, windows and pallets to dash quickly after survivors.
She has no cooldowns, so you can keep attacking survivors consistently. However, where she does not excel is when it comes to controlling bigger groups of survivors.
Spirit’s Yamaoka’s Haunting ability also renders Spirit completely invisible to survivors, but similarly when she is phase-walking, she can’t see the survivors.
You can, however, learn to locate survivors through environmental indicators such as scratch marks and sounds such as creaking floors.
The Blight
Although The Blight’s abilities have a fairly steep learning curve, once mastered he is almost unbeatable. His speed is virtually unmatched in the game.
His special ability, called Blighted Corruption, allows him to quickly dash toward survivors and vaulting off obstacles to catch them off guard.
Although he can’t attack whilst rushing towards them, it’s a good way to surprise survivors by closing in on them quickly.
The Doctor
There’s no denying that The Doctor isn’t the strongest killer in the game, but there’s no doubt that he can be very effective when used properly.
The main advantage of The Doctor is his ability to find survivors. His attacks, on the other hand, are relatively weak.
The Doctor thrives on increasing the survivors’ madness levels. When this madness tier gets full, Survivors will have to pass a skill check.
If they fail the said skill check, then The Doctor will be alerted of the survivor’s location, making it really easy for The Doctor to find them and attack.
The Executioner
Although The Executioner has a wealth of strong and useful abilities, where he lacks is in his mobility. Because of this, he isn’t the best Killer for getting around the map quickly, but this drawback is balanced out by his Rites of Judgement ability. This perk allows him to place trails that crawl along the ground which torment the survivors if they are stepped on. This reveals their location, making it easy for The Executioner to move in for the attack.
The Executioner’s lunge attack is very powerful, but it requires a high degree of accuracy to be effective. Another attack he has is Punishment of the Damned, which is a ranged attack that can also go through walls, albeit at a short distance.
The Oni
The Oni is a Killer that becomes more and more powerful with the more blood he is able to consume. Once he has consumed enough of the blood of his victims, he can power up his main ability, called Yamaoka’s Wrath.
Once this ability is active, he can easily perform a one-shot kill on survivors for a short period of time.
Once The Oni injures a survivor, they leave behind a trail of blood orbs which are easy to see, allowing him to track his victims easily. The main drawback of this Killer is his mobility, which isn’t so great. This means that survivors can evade The Oni by turning corners sharply.
The Artist
The Artist is a Killer that was introduced to the game in the Portrait of a Murder DLC. Her abilities range from ranged attacks to tracking and recon using her Birds of Torment ability.
These are crows that can be spawned by the character that chase down the survivors and cause them damage.
These crows can also be fired through walls at a high speed and infinite distance, which gives The Artist a tremendous advantage over the survivors.
Additionally, The Artist has a perk called Grim Embrace which is useful for blocking generators.
Another useful perk is named The Scourge Hook, which causes the generator with the highest level of progression to explode once a survivor is hooked upon this special hook.
While The Artist does take some getting used to, once mastered she can be a very powerful killer.
The Nightmare
The Nightmare is based upon the famous Freddy Kruger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. In Dead By Daylight, he is also an effective and fun Killer to play.
His teleportation and stealth abilities whilst in the dream state are great for isolating the survivors, making it so that their allies cannot wake them up.
The Nightmare is a good character for beginners to play, as he is quite easy to get the hang of. There is not as steep a learning curve with The Nightmare compared to the other Killers towards the start of this list.
The Nightmare’s main power is called Dream Demon, which renders the Killer invisible for all survivors further away than 32 meters.
The Nightmare’s presence causes the survivors to sleep for a minute and enter the Dream World, where they are subjected to Oblivious, and they will hear a lullaby when The Nightmare approaches them.
Making it difficult for them to discern the direction from which you are coming from.
The Cenobite
The Cenobite is a killer who is based on the iconic Pinhead from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser franchise. The Cenobite can really raise hell for the survivors in Dead by Daylight, that’s for certain!
The Cenobite is quite a tricky Killer to master, as his powers are quite complex. His main power is his ability to open gateways. These gateways allow you to shift your view to a new location, and shoot a chain that can attach to survivors and hold them in place.
The Cenobite has a passive ability called Chain Hunt, which when activated bombards the survivors with chains that are not summoned by the player, which further restricts the survivors without the player having to do anything.
Finally, The Cenobite has a special ability called “The Lament Configuration”, which is an item that spawns throughout the trial and can either be interacted with by the Killer or by the survivors.
When the Killer finds this item, which is a box, it starts a Chain Hunt earlier than normal. If the survivors find it, on the other hand, the Chain Hunt timer resets.
However, when a survivor finds the box, The Cenobite can teleport to their location and launch an attack.
Conclusion
That concludes our list of the 13 best Killers in Dead by Daylight. Many top Killer lists agree that The Nurse is the best Killer in the entire game.
A lot of players favor The Nurse because of her powers of moving around the map quickly and moving through pallets and windows with ease. Which Dead by Daylight Killer is your favorite? We hope you enjoyed our list.
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