Behaviour Interactive's own statistics posts name The Huntress as one of the Killers players reach for most across the broad player base. She is also free, nine years old, and described incorrectly by most of the guides ranking for her name: the wiki description block nearly every third-party page copies still says her perk Beast of Prey grants Undetectable "for as long as Bloodlust is active" and hands out bonus Bloodpoints. Behaviour deleted both effects in Patch 8.5.0 on 28 January 2025.
This guide is written against Patch 10.1.2a, released 17 September 2026, the newest live build. Patch 10.2.0 exists only as a Public Test Build and has no announced live date, so nothing here quotes PTB values.
Short on time? The Huntress moves at 4.4 m/s, carries 7 Hunting Hatchets, has the game's smallest base Terror Radius at 20 m, and broadcasts a 45 m Lullaby you hear long before that. Her hatchet takes 1 second to fully charge and flies at 25 m/s uncharged, 40 m/s charged. Best add-on: Iridescent Head (instant Dying State, one hatchet only). Her real weakness is the wind-up — she drops to 3.08 m/s while charging, slower than a survivor sprints.
Who is The Huntress in Dead by Daylight?
The Huntress is Anna, a Russian hunter raised alone in the northern woods after an elk killed her mother. She arrived in CHAPTER 5: A Lullaby for the Dark, a free chapter released on 27 July 2017, she is one of 44 Killers in the game, her home Realm is Red Forest, and her difficulty is rated Moderate.
The release history matters more than the lore. Because A Lullaby for the Dark was free DLC rather than a paid chapter, The Huntress has no Iridescent Shard or Auric Cell price at all — every account already owns her. She also predates most of the mechanics later Killers were built around, which is why her kit is so simple and her skill ceiling so high.
Her base statistics on 10.1.2a:
- Movement speed: 110%, or 4.4 m/s — the same band as The Spirit, The Blight and The Trickster.
- Terror Radius: 20 m, the smallest default Terror Radius of any Killer. The Shape drops to 16 m, but only inside Pursuer Mode, a power state rather than his default.
- Lullaby Radius: 45 m, a separate field from the Terror Radius. This is the humming.
How do Hunting Hatchets actually work on Patch 10.1.2a?
Hunting Hatchets are a Special Attack, not a basic attack, so anything that says "basic attack" does nothing for her power hits. The numbers that decide every chase:
- Starting hatchets: 7. Reload at any Locker.
- Wind-up time: 0.9 seconds. Full charge time: 1 second.
- Projectile speed: 25 m/s at minimum charge, 40 m/s at maximum charge.
- Movement while winding up: 3.08 m/s (77% of base, logged as a hidden -30% Hindered effect).
- Movement during the throw cool-down: 3.74 m/s, or 93.5%, over a 2-second window.
- Cancelling a throw: 2 seconds at 0.0 m/s. You stop dead.
- Out of hatchets, thrown hatchets' auras show within 36 m.
Those first and third bullets are the whole matchup. A survivor at full sprint moves at 4.0 m/s; a Huntress charging a hatchet moves at 3.08 m/s. Every frame she spends aiming, she loses ground — and cancelling costs two full seconds standing still. Good Huntress play is about deciding early, not holding the charge.
Two older buffs are worth knowing because plenty of guides predate them: Patch 7.3.0 cut her Locker reload from 4 seconds to 3, and Patch 7.6.0 raised capacity from 5 to 7 and shortened the wind-up from 1 second to 0.9. Anything still saying five hatchets is two years stale.
What actually changed on The Huntress recently?
Almost nothing — and that is the finding. Behaviour's Steam patch-note archive from July 2024 through September 2026 contains exactly one balance change to The Huntress or her perks; everything else is a bug fix. That change is Beast of Prey in Patch 8.5.0, 28 January 2025. Verbatim from those notes:
Beast of Prey: When you gain Bloodlust for the first time, gain Undetectable for 30/35/40 seconds (NEW) / Gain 30/40/50% more Bloodpoints for actions in the Hunter Category (REMOVED)
In the PTB the duration was 10/15/20 seconds. Behaviour raised it before release and said why in the accompanying dev update: "In its previous state, many players felt the benefits weren't worth the time commitment, so we felt comfortable increasing the duration."
Here is why guides still get it wrong. The Huntress's character page carries a Change Log that ends at Patch 8.4.1, 9 December 2024 — one patch before the rework. The rendered description block on both her page and the Beast of Prey page still prints the pre-8.5.0 text, while the perk's own change log on that same page records the 8.5.0 correction. The page contradicts itself, and the half that ranks in search is the wrong half. Several of her add-on descriptions still carry uncleared "upcoming Patch 7.6.0" banners from 2024.
Same failure mode as our Michael Myers guide, where Evil Within I/II/III are still listed for a Killer who no longer has them.
The Huntress's three perks on 10.1.2a
Beast of Prey. When you gain Bloodlust for the first time, you gain Undetectable for 30/35/40 seconds. No Bloodpoint bonus. One caveat the wiki flags and it is a real one: never pair it with Rapid Brutality, which disables Bloodlust entirely and therefore disables this perk entirely.
Hex: Huntress Lullaby. A survivor who fails a Repair or Healing Skill Check instantly loses an extra 2/4/6% of that action's maximum progression, on top of the default penalty. Separately, the perk gains a Token each time you hook a survivor, up to 5, and Tokens shorten the gap between the Skill Check warning cue and the Skill Check itself by 14/28/42/56% — at 5 Tokens the warning cue is suppressed entirely. That second half is the reason the perk is feared, and it needs five hooks to come online, which is a long investment for a Hex that any survivor can cleanse.
Territorial Imperative. Whenever you are farther than 24 metres from the Basement and a survivor enters it, their aura is revealed for 4/5/6 seconds, on a 45-second cool-down. Niche, and not part of any competitive build.
For the perks that actually belong in a Huntress loadout rather than the ones she ships with, our best Killer perks tier list ranks the current 10.1.2a values.
Which Huntress add-ons are worth running?
Top tier. Iridescent Head puts survivors hit by a hatchet straight into the Dying State, but reduces carried hatchets to 1 — a number no other add-on can modify. Soldier's Puttee raises her speed to 4.6 m/s while out of hatchets, turning the worst moment in her kit into a 115% chase, which is exactly why it pairs with Iridescent Head.
Strong and low-risk. Oak Haft cuts the cool-down between throws by 20%, Bandaged Haft by 10%. Manna Grass Braid cuts wind-up by 8% and Flower Babushka by 0.1 seconds, which against a 0.9-second base is roughly the same value.
Projectile speed. Rose Root gives +20%, taking a max-charge hatchet to 48 m/s; Yellowed Cloth gives +10%, so 44 m/s. Less lead on a moving target makes these the best add-ons for learning her.
Status effect heads. Venomous Concoction is the sleeper — Exhausted for 5 seconds strips Sprint Burst, Lithe and Dead Hard out of the follow-up. Also: Begrimed Head (Haemorrhage and Mangled, 80s), Rusty Head (Mangled, 70s), Weighted Head (Incapacitated, 10s), Amanita Toxin (Blindness, 60s), Coarse Stone (+50% louder Grunts of Pain).
Information and utility. Glowing Concoction reveals a hit survivor's aura for 5s; Wooden Fox grants Undetectable for 30s after a Locker reload; Deerskin Gloves cuts the reload to 80% of default; Shiny Pin raises wind-up movement to 3.3 m/s; Leather Loop and Infantry Belt grant +2% and +3% Haste for 5s after a hit.
Best Huntress builds on Patch 10.1.2a
The one-shot snowball. Iridescent Head plus Soldier's Puttee. One hatchet, one down, sprint at 4.6 m/s to a Locker, repeat. Highest-pressure Huntress loadout in the game, and it collapses if you miss, because a miss costs the whole round trip.
The chase grinder. Oak Haft plus Manna Grass Braid. Faster wind-up, faster recovery, no gimmick. This is the build to learn on.
The anti-loop punish. Venomous Concoction plus Rose Root. Fast projectiles that strip exhaustion perks, so a hatchet that clips someone at a pallet also removes their escape button. Pair it with regression perks from our Killer tier list.
How do you counter The Huntress as a survivor?
Her weaknesses are all audible or geometric.
Listen for the lullaby, not the heartbeat. Her Lullaby Radius is 45 m against a 20 m Terror Radius, so you hear the humming from more than twice the distance at which the heartbeat starts. Every second of humming without a heartbeat is a second to spend getting behind something solid.
Break line of sight, do not outrun it. A max-charge hatchet travels 40 m/s against your 4.0 m/s. You cannot dodge a well-led hatchet in the open, only deny the shot — hug walls, run tile to tile, and treat long corridors and open map edges as no-go zones.
Punish the wind-up. The instant she charges she is at 3.08 m/s, slower than your sprint. Strafe unpredictably, change direction after she commits, and force a cancel: that is two seconds of her standing completely still.
Count her hatchets, and watch for one. She has seven; once they are gone she has to walk to a Locker, and without Soldier's Puttee she is a 4.4 m/s Killer with a basic attack until she gets there. If she is carrying a single hatchet, that is Iridescent Head and every hit is a down — play the first chase as though it is one-shot until you have seen her throw twice.
Respect Huntress Lullaby. If your Skill Check warning cue disappears, the Hex is at or near five Tokens. Find the totem and cleanse it; at that point it is the highest-value action on the map.
Is The Huntress worth learning right now?
She shows up repeatedly in Behaviour's own statistics posts. The March 2026 update noted "Ghoul taking the spot for high MMR and Huntress remaining an oldie but a goldie amongst broad MMR," and defined its terms: "'High MMR' in these stats refers to those with an MMR rating of 1800 or higher, which counts for approximately 18% of the playerbase at the time of pulling these numbers." The July 2026 global stats post said of Latin American players that "their go-to gals were The Huntress and Meg, proving that sometimes you really can't beat the classics."
There is a mode reason to pick her up this week too. She is on the 16-Killer roster for 2v8, and the current iteration — 2v8 (V9 - Alien), 8 September to 29 September 2026 — is live right now. See our 2v8 guide before it rotates out.
She is also the cheapest Killer in the game to learn, in the only sense that matters: she costs nothing to own, her power has no resource to mismanage, and every mistake is legible. You either led the shot correctly or you did not. That is a far faster feedback loop than the positional guesswork most high-tier Killers demand, which is why she is still the standard recommendation for a first ranged Killer nine years after release.
FAQ
Is The Huntress free in Dead by Daylight? Yes. A Lullaby for the Dark was a free chapter, so she has no Iridescent Shard or Auric Cell price. Every account owns her already, along with The Trapper, The Wraith, The Hillbilly and The Nurse.
How many hatchets does The Huntress carry? Seven on Patch 10.1.2a. It was five before Patch 7.6.0. Iridescent Head reduces the number to one and that cannot be changed by other add-ons.
How fast is The Huntress? 4.4 m/s at 110% base, dropping to 3.08 m/s while winding up, 3.74 m/s during the throw cool-down, and 0.0 m/s for 2 seconds if she cancels. Soldier's Puttee raises her to 4.6 m/s while out of hatchets.
Does Beast of Prey still give bonus Bloodpoints? No. Patch 8.5.0 on 28 January 2025 removed the Bloodpoint bonus and replaced the effect with Undetectable for 30/35/40 seconds after you gain Bloodlust for the first time. Wiki description blocks that still promise bonus Bloodpoints have not been updated.
How do you dodge Huntress hatchets? Mostly you do not — a max-charge hatchet flies at 40 m/s against your 4.0 m/s sprint. Deny the shot instead: break line of sight, stay on tiles with cover, strafe once she commits, and avoid open ground.
Was The Huntress changed in Patch 10.2.0? Her three perks are untouched in the 10.2.0 PTB — its Hex reworks are Blood Favor, Nothing but Misery and Thrill of the Hunt. The PTB does list a known issue where her axe functionality can break if thrown out of bounds. Behaviour has published no live date for 10.2.0; our 10.2.0 perk breakdown tracks what is coming.
Playing more Dead by Daylight this season? We keep a full set of current-patch guides for every Killer, perk and mode in the game.
- All DBD Killers 2026 — every Killer, power and speed in one list
- DBD Killer tier list — where The Huntress sits right now
- Best Killer perks tier list — live 10.1.2a values
- All timesaver.gg services — see everything we cover
