Most Dead by Daylight build lists are copies of copies: perk values from two patches ago, perks that have since been renamed, and no word on which half of the build is doing the work. This one is written against the live build, Patch 10.1.2a, and every number in it was read from the perk itself.
There is also a Public Test Build on top of all this. The 10.2.0 PTB opened on 15 September 2026 with 58 perk changes, and it does something unusual: of the 30 most-run meta perks, exactly zero appear in its update list. What it touches is the bottom of the perk pool — which matters for builds far more than it sounds like it does.
Quick answer. The strongest Killer build on Patch 10.1.2a is Corrupt Intervention, Pop Goes the Weasel, Grim Embrace and No Holds Barred — three blocking effects and one regression multiplier, which is how you dodge the Diminishing Returns tax. The strongest solo-queue Survivor build is Off the Record, Will to Live, Sprint Burst and Kindred. None of those eight perks are changed by the 10.2.0 PTB. The builds that do break are Hyperfocus plus Stake Out, and anything built on Windows of Opportunity.
What patch do these DBD builds apply to?
Every value below is from Patch 10.1.2a, the live build on 19 September 2026 — a hotfix that reverted The Judgment's Divine Light curve window to 0.6 seconds while Zealous, because "The Judgment's performance skyrocketed following HF2."
The 10.2.0 Public Test Build is a separate, non-live branch, opened 15 September 2026. Per the game's documented cadence a PTB runs six days before closing on a Monday evening ET, roughly three weeks ahead of the live patch. BHVR has published no release date for 10.2.0, so treat any date you see elsewhere as a guess. Where a perk below is scheduled to change, it is flagged in that build's verdict line, never folded silently into the numbers.
What are the best Killer builds in DBD right now?
Gen control: the build that actually survives Diminishing Returns
| Perk | Source | What it does on 10.1.2a |
|---|---|---|
| Corrupt Intervention | The Plague | Blocks the 3 furthest Generators for 80 / 100 / 120 seconds at match start |
| Pop Goes the Weasel | The Clown | For 35 / 40 / 45 seconds after a hook, a manual Generator damage regresses 20% instead of 5% |
| Grim Embrace | The Artist | Blocks all Generators for 6 / 8 / 10 seconds per first hook, then 40 seconds at 4 Tokens |
| No Holds Barred | General Killer Perk | Blocks the most-progressed Generator for 15 / 20 / 25 seconds every time a Generator completes |
The highest-ceiling Killer loadout in the game, and the reason is structural rather than numerical. Since Patch 9.6.0 the game applies Diminishing Returns to repeated modifiers, paying them highest-first at 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5% and 5%. Three of these four perks do not modify a regression value at all — they block Generators outright — so only Pop Goes the Weasel pays the tax.
10.2.0 verdict: untouched. No Holds Barred is also a General Perk now, so the build no longer needs the DLC it used to.
Chase and anti-loop: shorten every loop instead of every Generator
| Perk | Source | What it does on 10.1.2a |
|---|---|---|
| Enduring | The Hillbilly | Reduces Pallet Stun duration by 40 / 45 / 50% |
| Bamboozle | The Clown | +5 / 10 / 15% Vaulting speed and blocks the vaulted Window for 8 / 12 / 16 seconds |
| Keep Them Waiting | General Killer Perk | Up to 6 / 7 / 8 Tokens, each cutting successful Basic Attack cooldown by 5%, to a cap of 30 / 35 / 40% |
| Coup de Grâce | The Twins | +2 Tokens per Generator completed, each spending one for a 70 / 75 / 80% longer lunge |
Run this on any M1 Killer that loses time to pallets rather than Generators. Keep Them Waiting is the sleeper: it became a General Perk, so the strongest snowball perk in the game is free to everyone now and most build lists have not caught up.
10.2.0 verdict: untouched, but Unrelenting goes from a 20 / 25 / 30% missed-attack cooldown reduction to 30 / 35 / 40%, plus a new 10% reduction on successful hits. BHVR's note: "Diminishing Returns allows us to return the long since removed successful basic-attack cooldown." A real contender for the fourth slot after the patch.
Information: find them, hit them, snowball
Lethal Pursuer (The Nemesis) reveals all Survivor Auras for 7 / 8 / 9 seconds at match start and extends every other Aura reveal by +2 seconds. Nowhere to Hide (The Knight) reads Auras within 24 metres for 3 / 4 / 5 seconds on every Generator kick. A Nurse's Calling (The Nurse) shows anyone healing within 28 / 30 / 32 metres. Surge (The Demogorgon) regresses every Generator within 32 metres by 6 / 7 / 8% on a Basic Attack down.
Lethal Pursuer multiplies the other three rather than adding to them: Nowhere to Hide becomes a 5 / 6 / 7 second read.
10.2.0 verdict: untouched, though free information improves around it — Bitter Murmur moves to a fixed 20 metres and 8 seconds, from 16 metres and 5 seconds.
The no-DLC Killer build that 10.2.0 quietly makes good
| Perk | Source | 10.1.2a | After 10.2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agitation | The Trapper | 6 / 12 / 18% Haste while carrying | 14 / 16 / 18% Haste |
| Iron Grasp | General Killer Perk | Wiggle 4 / 8 / 12% slower | Wiggle 10 / 11 / 12% slower |
| Whispers | General Killer Perk | Detection within 48 / 40 / 32 metres | Detection within 28 / 26 / 24 metres, plus 5% Haste outside it |
| Brutal Strength | The Trapper | Break and damage actions 10 / 15 / 20% faster | Unchanged |
Nothing in this build costs money. Three of the four get better in 10.2.0, and two of them get better specifically at Tier I and Tier II, which is the whole story of this patch.
What are the best Survivor builds in DBD right now?
Solo-queue survival: the four slots that stop a tunnel
| Perk | Source | What it does on 10.1.2a |
|---|---|---|
| Off the Record | Zarina Kassir | 30 / 35 / 40 seconds of Endurance, no Aura, no Scratch Marks, no Grunts of Pain after unhook |
| Will to Live | General Survivor Perk | For 40 / 50 / 60 seconds after unhook, a Skill Check escapes the Killer's grasp and stuns them 4 seconds |
| Sprint Burst | Meg Thomas | +50% Haste for 2 seconds, Exhausted 60 / 50 / 40 seconds |
| Kindred | General Survivor Perk | Everyone sees everyone while a Survivor is hooked, plus the Killer within 8 / 12 / 16 metres |
Two of these are General Perks now — the most underrated fact about Survivor building in 2026, because it means the two strongest anti-tunnel perks cost nothing but Bloodpoints. Kindred is the one solo-queue players undervalue: it is the only perk that tells your teammates whether anyone is already walking to the hook.
10.2.0 verdict: only Kindred changes, and it is a buff — Killer-Aura range goes to 14 / 15 / 16 metres, up from 8 / 12 / 16.
Generator efficiency: finish the match before the Killer finds a rhythm
Déjà Vu (General) shows the three closest Generators and adds 4 / 5 / 6% repair speed on them. Prove Thyself (Dwight Fairfield) grants a stacking 6 / 8 / 10% per other Survivor within 4 metres, capped at 18 / 24 / 30%, shared with everyone in range. Resilience (General) adds 3 / 6 / 9% to repairs while injured. Adrenaline (Meg Thomas) heals a full state and gives 50% Haste for 4 seconds the moment the Exit Gates power.
10.2.0 verdict: Resilience Tier I more than doubles, from 3% to 7%. If your gen build is the Hyperfocus plus Stake Out variant, read the next section first — that pairing is what the patch kills.
Altruism and healing: the build 10.2.0 creates out of nothing
| Perk | Source | 10.1.2a | After 10.2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| We'll Make It | General Survivor Perk | +100% altruistic healing for 30 / 60 / 90 seconds | Same bonus, 70 / 80 / 90 seconds |
| Better than New | Rebecca Chambers | Target heals and cleanses 12 / 14 / 16% faster | 40 / 45 / 50% faster |
| Empathic Connection | Yoichi Asakawa | You heal others 25 / 30 / 35% faster | 40 / 45 / 50% faster |
| Resurgence | Jill Valentine | 50 / 60 / 70% healing progress after unhook | Unchanged |
Right now this is a niche loadout. After 10.2.0, Better than New roughly triples and Empathic Connection jumps 15 percentage points at every tier, turning a meme build into a genuine four-slot identity — the clearest example of the patch adding a build instead of adjusting one.
The no-DLC Survivor build
Resilience, Kindred, We'll Make It and Dark Sense are all General Perks, on every Survivor in the Bloodweb with no purchase. Three get buffed in 10.2.0 and the fourth gets reworked: Dark Sense goes to 8 / 9 / 10 seconds (from 5 / 7 / 10) and gains two new effects — Pallet and Window Auras within 24 metres, and the Auras of other Survivors. BHVR's stated intent is "to give new players a tool to learn maps and teach them to position themselves near resources as the Killer approaches."
Which DBD builds does the 10.2.0 PTB actually break?
Four.
Hyperfocus plus Stake Out. Stake Out is reworked: instead of converting Good Skill Checks into Great ones, it replaces your basic Skill Checks with special ones worth +4% progress, where a miss costs -4%. BHVR's note is blunt — "Previously Stake Out put a limitation on design space, removing any difficulty from great Skill Checks." Critically, the special Skill Check "no longer activates other Skill Check perks." Hyperfocus is untouched, but the combo is dead.
Anything built on Windows of Opportunity. It becomes Windows-only inside 24 metres, adds 10% Window vault speed, and the post-vault cooldown goes to 40 / 35 / 30 seconds. Today it reads Pallets, Windows and Breakable Walls at 24 / 28 / 32 metres on a 30 / 25 / 20 second cooldown. BHVR points at the new Dark Sense as the replacement; full before-and-after in our Windows of Opportunity rework breakdown.
Shoulder the Burden builds. The downside goes from Exposed for 60 / 50 / 40 seconds to Broken for 160 / 140 / 120, and using it deactivates the perk for every Survivor in the lobby.
Self-Preservation stacking. Elusive duration drops from 20 / 25 / 30 seconds to 13 / 14 / 15, explicitly because multiple copies in one lobby were pushing Killers back to hook.
Everything else in the current meta is untouched. Our full 58-perk change list has the rest.
Why are old perks suddenly worth running at Tier I?
This is the most useful thing in the patch for anyone who builds on a budget, and almost nobody is writing about it.
Of the 58 perk changes in the 10.2.0 PTB — 27 Killer and 31 Survivor — 40 are numeric tier-value changes, and 17 of those leave Tier III completely untouched. They raise only Tier I and Tier II. Resilience goes from 3 / 6 / 9% to 7 / 8 / 9% across all eight of its effects. Agitation from 6 / 12 / 18% to 14 / 16 / 18%. Iron Grasp from 4 / 8 / 12% to 10 / 11 / 12%. We'll Make It from 30 / 60 / 90 seconds to 70 / 80 / 90.
BHVR's dev note, repeated twice in the patch notes, states the goal in one line: "We want to modernize the lower tier values of a few older perks to make them feel closer to what new players can expect long term."
Practically, a Tier I Resilience is about to be worth 78% of a Tier III one instead of 33%. If you have been hoarding Bloodpoints to push starter perks to Tier III before you build, spread the Bloodweb instead.
Which perk names changed, and why is your copied build missing one?
If you paste a build from a 2024 video into the in-game search bar and get nothing, this is why — several long-standing perks were renamed when their licences changed:
- Deadlock is now No Holds Barred
- Save the Best for Last is now Keep Them Waiting
- Decisive Strike is now Will to Live
- Object of Obsession is now Bound by Obsession
- Sole Survivor is now Down to the Last
- Coup de Grace is now spelled Coup de Grâce
- Jolt is now Surge
The last one runs in the direction most guides get backwards: Jolt was the temporary unlicensed name, and Surge is the original.
How do you build around Diminishing Returns?
Diminishing Returns has applied to repeated modifiers since Patch 9.6.0. When several perks or add-ons modify the same value, the game sorts them highest-first and pays 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5% and 5%. Killer Powers and Survivor Item Add-ons are excluded.
The practical rule: do not run four perks that do the same arithmetic. Four regression perks means the fourth is worth an eighth of the first. Mix categories — block plus regression, Haste plus Aura, Endurance plus Exhaustion — and every slot keeps full value. Our Killer perk tier list and Survivor perk tier list both rank with this tax applied, which is why they disagree with most lists on the fourth slot.
FAQ
Is the new Whispers Haste worth a perk slot? Do the arithmetic. A 4.6 m/s Killer with 5% Haste moves at 4.83 m/s, so 100 metres takes 20.7 seconds instead of 21.74 — about one second saved. PTB testers landed in the same place, calling 5% "not as good for global map rotations as it is for looping." Real on M1 Killers with no mobility power, near-nothing on Blight or Billy.
Do I need a Generator slowdown perk on every Killer build? In practice yes, and skipping it is the most common build mistake in the game. Even players on power-focused loadouts report that going without means "you miss out on true gen defense". One regression or blocking perk is the floor; two is normal.
Can I run these builds without buying any DLC? Two of the eight are fully DLC-free. Beyond those, No Holds Barred, Keep Them Waiting, Will to Live, Kindred, Resilience, We'll Make It, Dark Sense, Déjà Vu and Iron Grasp are all General Perks, so a large slice of the meta costs Bloodpoints only.
Should I switch builds now because of the PTB? No. It is not live, and BHVR changes values between PTB and release regularly. The only early move is not sinking Bloodpoints into Stake Out or a Windows of Opportunity playstyle.
Which single perk should a new Killer buy first? Corrupt Intervention from The Plague — 80 to 120 seconds at the start of every match regardless of how the chase goes, which is the one thing a new Killer cannot create alone. Our Generator regression perk ranking covers what to buy second.
Does perk Tier matter for these builds? Less than it used to, and much less after 10.2.0: 17 of the patch's tier-value changes raise Tier I and Tier II without touching Tier III.
Want more Dead by Daylight guides? Every build here is kept in sync with the live patch, and the patch coverage is updated the day BHVR publishes.
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Sources: the 10.2.0 PTB patch notes and Patch 10.1.2 notes published by Behaviour Interactive, plus current in-game perk values as documented on the official Dead by Daylight community wiki. Last verified 19 September 2026 against live Patch 10.1.2a.
