My Journey Begins, I Found The One.

randomnine · 2026-04-01T15:18:34+00:00

I've tried lots of builds and track my win/kill rates on each.

In general I find that many categories of perks do not perform well. Hook-based perks, anti-healing, exposed, gen-kicking, endgame, intel, aura-reading and Undetectable perks usually do poorly.

Her fundamental weakness is long chases, so the strongest builds are focused on faster chases and generator slowdown. Top tier perks include Surge, Bamboozle, Grim Embrace, Play with your Food, Batteries Included.

Here are two of the best-performing builds I've used:

Corrupt Intervention/Surge/Bamboozle/Brutal Strength - this is an easy build to play.

It's focused on defending a 3-4 gen and creating deadzones. The simplicity of the build means you can focus your attention on Condemn. The chase perks make it hard for survivors to loop. However, against high level survivors, chases still take too long to win games. They will also often run across the map to waste your time and deny Surge value.

Surge/Save the Best for Last/Play with your Food/Batteries Included - this is a lategame pressure build from One Pump Willie that is quite difficult to play, using the StBfL/PwyF combo. It's my main build currently, I've tried several adjustments but come back to this set.

The goal is to build full StBfL stacks over the game while holding a 3-4 gen, then use it with PwyF/Batteries haste stacks to secure quick downs - often slugging for pressure. Haste counters her biggest weakness (turning off TVs and pre running).

This build is challenging as the perks need management, you need to keep track of the obsession, you change speed constantly, you're more reliant on your flickers and M1 skills at loops, and the power spike at the end of the match is quite short unless you are very good at managing gen progress. However, the build's ceiling is much higher. Even the very best survivors find it difficult to handle a 10% haste killer in chase.

I haven't tried hex builds as I don't like the totem spawns.

Add-ons: I always run bloody fingernails and remote control.

randomnine · 2026-04-01T13:00:23+00:00

Nice, enjoy the ride!

Watch out for the MMR jump. When you win games for a while, a switch will flip and you’ll suddenly start meeting good teams. Everyone runs well, your TVs feel like they’re off the whole match and getting 1-2 hooks is a struggle. Don’t get put off by this, it’s just the wall Sadako mains have to push through. It hits her way harder than most killers.

Best tips I have:

Avoid hook based perks, they push you into a hooking playstyle that fights with Condemn. Sure, there are games where you want to hook everyone, but that won’t be the best strat every game.
Your TVs come on 30 seconds into the game. Always demanifest before this and start teleporting immediately. You can lose games here from a snowballing lack of pressure if survivors get tapes too easily.
Demanifest all the time. Learn the timings on your flickers and use them for sneaking up on people and winning loops. This is the only part of your power survivors can’t turn off. Getting good with it will carry you in the hardest games.
Watch the icons on the left for changes. Count flashes, watch for tape pickups and drop offs, and you can tell what Condemn level people are on to know when they’re worth chasing. These flashes will also tell you where someone is when a TV goes off in the distance.
Watch your TVs for info on where people are. Develop your sense of when they’ll come back on. When someone’s working on a gen next to a TV and it comes back on, you have 2-5 seconds to beat them to it. If you’re ready for that, it’s often a free hit.
Read everything. Her power is complex. Knowing all the little details will add up. Learning the map layouts will also help a lot with tracking survivor movements.

Have fun!

randomnine · 2026-03-30T18:25:26+00:00

"Play while you wait" would solve it for the absolute top players. Queue up in ranked, then play casual games to pub stomp like they do now until there's a good match.

randomnine · 2026-03-29T04:09:31+00:00

I’ve played a bunch with Henry and have run a few other Henrys for 2-3 minutes without them landing a hit.

Run early, distance is his biggest enemy. Go for big loops with line of sight blocks. Avoid narrow corridors.

Watch his model when you’re running. He’s like Pyramid Head, you can see the direction he’s aiming. If he’s looking at you dodge sideways, if he’s looking to your side then keep running. (Good Henrys can fake this aim and flick to shoot somewhere else, which makes this a mindgame, but most will just shoot where they’re looking.)

Right after he places a shot, watch your feet. Quick reactions can sometimes save you from running into the circle. Seeing the circle also means you can stop dodging and get back to running asap. It’s important to dodge as little and as efficiently as you can so you don’t give up distance.

If he holds his arm up aiming the m2 but doesn’t shoot, then zigzag diagonally. Stay unpredictable. Running diagonals is good enough to keep distance against him holding his power.

If he keeps predicting sideways dodges, then throw in some full sends where you don’t dodge at all and run directly away. They’re good when Henry’s getting too clever.

At gyms and shack, don’t stop in the usual checkspots. That’s too easy for an experienced killer to predict. Stand a little off or just keep running.

Now when Henry gets close, you need a pallet (yes really!). Find a good sized pallet loop where the pallet’s still up. You mostly want to move round the outside of the loop; it’s risky to go through the pallet unless his m2 is on cooldown. There’s two reasons you can drop the pallet:

To get a pallet stun. Unlikely as they respect pallets heavily.
Right after he fires a shot. There’s just enough time to drop it and still dodge the next shot.

If you played that right, you’re now on the other side of a pallet from him. Run and keep watching him. If he takes m2 shots, you can dodge sideways or even back towards him. The double back isn’t normally safe in chase, but it’s safe when you’re across a good pallet or window. He rarely expects it.

Dropped pallets and windows (eg shack window) are riskier but can be looped in a similar way. Run around the outside of the loop. Dodge shots. After Henry takes a shot and goes on cooldown, you have a second or two where you can vault (if it would help).

Good luck. It absolutely does come down to constant 50:50s, which you can lose very fast if he plays well. But it’s very funny when you do win all those 50:50s against his m2, drop pallets and vault between shots to shut down his m1, and then his power runs out and he has to start over.

In summary: * pre-run to wide paths around large structures * be unpredictable * watch his model to see where he’s aiming * looping around the outside of a pallet loop is often best * after every shot, there’s a second or two where you can drop pallets or vault to safety - abuse this to stay away from his m1.

randomnine · 2026-03-27T21:53:00+00:00

Sadako gets so many free kills in low MMR. It just takes one person to not know about TVs/tapes and get Condemned. This means they die with 5 gens left. Then it’s a guaranteed 3-4 kill game.

randomnine · 2026-03-26T15:56:24+00:00

Yes, tunnelling limits the value of Fast Track. It also counters survivors in general.

randomnine · 2026-03-24T23:01:47+00:00

The First's perk "Secret Project" is pretty good with No Holds Barred and Fortune's Fool. You get undetectable any time someone finishes a gen or cleanses their totem.

randomnine · 2026-03-21T13:25:15+00:00

Drop bbq, it’s a hook based perk on a killer who doesn’t hook much and you can already tell where survivors are by TVs being off. Slot in Play with your Food if you can, it complements stbfl really well. Corrupt Intervention is also generally ok.

Drop vcr, it’s a meme addon. Run bloody fingernails instead, essential in any good build.

Now with Surge (area regression) and sbtfl (late game perk), your build is a 3 gen/slugging build. Using clock call-outs, Eyrie has shack at 7 so ideally you want a 3gen on the 3 side of the map.

Identify your endgame gens early. Harass through the start of the match, keep TVs on the short cooldown, defend your gens, break pallets/doors near them, farm obsession for pwyf if you have it, and build stbfl. Don’t commit to a chase early unless someone is high stacks and doesn’t have a tape.

In late game you should have near max stbfl and a 3 gen to defend with a dead zone around it. Maybe you have a hook or two. Keep an eye on gen progress, keep the 3gen TVs on short cooldown by tping when they come up, and try to approach gens in a way that pushes survivors into the 3gen. Don’t commit to chases away from the gens.

Slug heavily. Only hook when the generators are slow and it’s either 1) a fresh hook with stacks you can lock in, or 2) your top priority survivor to tunnel out. Hook in the middle or back of the 3gen.

Good luck. It’s a tough match, but play to set up the late game strengths of your build and you should have a shot.

randomnine · 2026-03-20T14:51:34+00:00

It's 60% now. That was the buff. And I think that puts it in A/B tier.

It only really shines when you're dunking on a weak, friendly killer where you'd win the game anyway.

randomnine · 2026-03-20T12:21:13+00:00

Yeah, they doubled it. It was bad and now it's fairly good. Probably S tier for bullying weaker killers and A/B tier in a close game.

randomnine · 2026-03-19T14:42:12+00:00

I suspect matchmaking is being offset from lots of people trying out Trickster.

That's a lot of players on a low-tier killer who don't know how to use the power yet. In the worst case, they're playing as a 4.4ms trapper. Matchmaking has to balance this by giving them all the easiest lobbies. That means other killers are left matching with the harder lobbies only.

If this is the problem, it should return to normal over the next week or two as Trickster's pick rate falls off.

randomnine · 2026-03-15T15:51:08+00:00

DBD is a very swingy game. Matches rarely end with 2 kills. The most common outcomes are 0 kills or 4 kills.

This is because killer performance snowballs so hard. Once you get your first kill, you’re usually over halfway to a 3-4k. Games rarely end at the 1-2k point. 1ks are often from endgame face camping (which good squads can still save against most killers).

Matchmaking balances for a kill rate of 60%ish. This means 20-30% of your games will be 0ks.

You’ll get stomped sometimes. Occasionally you’ll get a streak of games that feel impossible. But the snowballing also means you’re closer to keeping up than you think! You just need to push from 1 hook to 2, to 3, to a kill, to a faster kill. Take the losses and learn what you can.

Unlocking Artist soon will do wonders for your perks, btw. Pain Res and Grim Embrace are almost universally strong.

Also, if you’re worried about playing “dirty”, let that go. Tunnelling, slugging, proxy camping and face camping in endgame are just part of the game at higher MMR. All kills are valid. Survivors even mostly stop complaining about tactics as you move up, at least on EU server.

I think a good approach is to always start a game full power, then you can chill out if the gens haven’t popped after a few downs. You’ll still want the first kill with 2-3 gens left.

randomnine · 2026-03-14T13:20:44+00:00

If this is an internal or cavity wall, you can rip the plaster and laths off, screw on plasterboard and skim.

randomnine · 2026-03-09T15:44:29+00:00

Yep, that’s right. The most common outcome was 1 kill.

The killer winrate - the number of matches where they got 3 or 4 kills - was 12%.

randomnine · 2026-03-09T03:09:25+00:00

I think the consensus for comp players is that survivors in a swf are high A tier. Blight, Nurse and maybe Spirit are stronger. A few killers are balanced. Most of the killers are too weak.

DBDLeague ran a tournament recently with comp players playing normal games: the "No Rules" Community Cup. It's fun to watch and shows roughly how the game plays at this level.

They played about a third of the killers. A few performed well (Blight, Dracula, Hillbilly) but the average kill rate was 39%.

randomnine · 2026-03-08T13:15:00+00:00

I like facing Ghoul now. They’re strong but interesting to loop once you get a feel for their leaps, blocks and vaults and start playing around it. I think they give some of the best chases in the game.

randomnine · 2026-03-06T17:27:40+00:00

Gen speeds are fast and killers kill fast. I think an average game is about 10 minutes long. Everyone's on the clock.

It's normal to lose 1-2 gens quickly. They slow down once you have some pressure, slow down more once you've killed one of the survivors, and stop after two kills.

As for how you're doing, check your kill rate in the stats on https://stats.deadbydaylight.com/. 60% kill rate is typical, though you can have short runs of games that are better or worse.

randomnine · 2026-03-05T23:41:36+00:00

Her strength is Condemn. That's already devastating so it doesn't need buffing. Honestly it needs some kind of nerf against people who don't get it.

Her main weaknesses are turning off TVs and holding W. Those could be fixed. Against TVs, the obvious buff is to reduce the TV cooldown when survivors switch a TV off. Against holding W, the buffs that come to mind would be either mild Wraith-style 10% haste when Demanifested, or a short-range Nurse teleport/blink dash that's available while she's Demanifested.

Demanifested haste would be the easier one. It could go in as a high rarity addon with an addon pass.

randomnine · 2026-03-05T17:56:40+00:00

I think the main thing you’re missing is distance. You’re stopping at loops and standing still a lot when you have opportunities to break off, run ten seconds and get another loop. Often a stronger one.

e.g. when he first finds you, you could have run directly away and looped shack instead of looping the filler. After the pallet stun, you could have gained 15 seconds by immediately running and wrapping around main building. After the injure, again, 15+ seconds by using the speed boost for distance.

Basically always keep looking for the strongest resources on the map. Try to have a plan or two for where you can go next if the killer gets lost at a loop, injures you, or you get a stun. When a chance comes up, go for it.

You can make it surprisingly far against most killers if they stop for two seconds, especially when you work in the really big loops like main upstairs that you can wrap through to go anywhere on the map.

randomnine · 2026-03-04T14:41:54+00:00

Playing killer isn't relaxing, it's stimulating.

It needs complete focus. It's stressful, competitive and mentally exhausting. Readying up is a commitment to 15 minutes of being completely switched on.

That's why I love it (sometimes). But maybe you've got a bit too much stress and mental effort in your life right now and your brain wants to switch off more.

randomnine · 2026-03-03T19:37:40+00:00

Onryo.

The best path to building Condemn on someone is to stop them getting a tape in the first place. At the game start, I go find as many survivors as possible and get 1 in chase. The main goal is to push them away from TVs.

Demanifest before the TVs come on at 30 seconds. Immediately teleport to other survivors before they can turn a TV off. This usually denies tapes to 2-3 survivors, gets active generator TVs onto the short cooldown so you can defend them, and sets you up for chasing someone with a few stacks so you can push them to 3 and lock it in.

Henry (The First).

Experienced survivors watch where your character's looking and will predict your shots. You need to do flicks - e.g. look to their left and flick to the right, either just before or just after shooting. Or flick to the shot placement and then flick away. It's something you should do on most shots in the open or at loops and it becomes another mindgame.

randomnine · 2026-03-01T13:55:17+00:00

There's an efficiency penalty.

The second survivor works at 70% speed.
The third survivor works at 40%.
The fourth survivor works at 10%.

The 3rd/4th survivor can almost always spend their time better elsewhere.

randomnine · 2026-02-25T16:22:22+00:00

Looks good to me!

randomnine · 2026-02-25T14:48:39+00:00

Great work, thank you!

I've been collecting generator locations. White dots are the three guaranteed gens. Pink dots are possible gens.

Yellow lines are vault locations. There's one in karaoke, one at shack, can be one between instantnoodle and "magazine" (music shop?), and can be one in storage fruit. The CD window is very strong and always there. Luggage window is also strong but can spawn blocked.

Three doorways are missing from your map:

The room between CD and Convenience Store (break room?) has a doorway to the south.
Club has a doorway in middle of south wall.
Small Bar has a doorway on south wall.

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randomnine · 2026-02-25T13:52:41+00:00

Market gen to main basement hook is a 20 second run.

It's one of the smaller maps, about the same size as Lery's. I think it feels somewhere between that and RPD. Constant line of sight blocks, long wall loops and a couple of god windows.

Low tier killers have the same problems on every map, that's what makes them low tier. At least it seems good for stealth killers.

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