Jason Voorhees has been in Dead by Daylight for three and a half months, and almost every guide about him quotes numbers that are no longer live. His add-on values have moved three times: Behaviour Interactive retuned six of them, one perk and four parts of his power six days before release, then rebalanced seven more across two July patches.
So there are two ways to be wrong about Jason: a guide written off the Public Test Build quotes values that never shipped, and a launch-week guide quotes values that lasted twenty to thirty-five days. This one covers the live kit on Patch 10.1.2a, current as of 1 October 2026, and shows where every number came from.
Quick answer: Jason is called The Slasher in-game. He arrived in Patch 10.0.0 on 16 June 2026 as a Killer-only chapter (no new Survivor, no new map), sold as paid DLC on Steam. He moves at 110% / 4.4 m/s with a 32 m Terror Radius. His power is Omnipresent Evil, which turns him invisible and Undetectable at the cost of seeing Survivors at all, and it feeds two abilities: Jump Scare and Throwing Spikes. His perks are Hex: Scared to Death, Silent Shadow and Rampage. He has had two balance passes since launch — Patch 10.0.2 on 6 July 2026 and Patch 10.0.3 on 21 July 2026 — and the 10.2.0 Public Test Build brings him no balance changes at all.
Who is Jason in Dead by Daylight, and what is he called?
He is sold as Dead by Daylight: Jason and listed in-game as The Slasher. Both are correct, and the split matters: the Killer select, the Archives and the patch notes say The Slasher, while the store page and search queries say Jason.
He is one of 19 licensed Killers in a roster of 44, and one of only seven Killer-only chapters alongside Leatherface, Ghost Face, Hellraiser, Chucky, Tokyo Ghoul and Five Nights at Freddy's. That is what players most often get wrong: there is no Jason-chapter Survivor and no Crystal Lake map. Behaviour's launch announcement itemises the purchase in three lines — "New Killer: The Slasher", an exclusive Hockey Mask badge, and the Misty Cabin banner.
A quick way to date any Jason page: if it says the game has 41 Killers, it predates The First, The Slasher and The Judgment, and nothing on it is live.
His release was the biggest moment in the game's ten-year history by player count: SteamDB recorded 170,073 concurrent players on 25 June 2026, an all-time peak. One caveat on the pick-rate data that followed, from Behaviour's own warning: "these stats only take into account the first two weeks of The Slasher being available, while players were still figuring out counterplay, and the first 5 days of Shane being available." Any tier-list placement built on that sample measures novelty, not strength.
How does Omnipresent Evil work?
Press the Active Ability button and The Slasher turns invisible and gains Undetectable. The trade is the whole character: while it is active, he cannot see Survivors or their Scratch Marks at all. He gets two substitutes:
- Mist Clouds reveal the location of Survivors who are not moving.
- Footprints reveal the path of Survivors who are walking or running.
His information is inverted from every other stealth Killer: standing still does not hide you, it lights you up. The power ends when he uses Jump Scare.
A third element is missing from the power description entirely, which is why guides describe it inconsistently: a husk. Behaviour only explained it in the PTB-to-live post, by telling players to stop abusing it — "many of you were using the husk as a direct attack by spawning it on top of Survivors. While arguably funny, this was never an intended mechanic." It got a short activation delay before launch so it could no longer land as an instant hit.
What does Jump Scare do?
While Omnipresent Evil is active, look at a Pallet, Breakable Wall or Window and The Slasher moves to it and performs a special-break or special-vault. The Secondary Action button switches which side he faces on arrival, the heart of the ability: you choose where you end up relative to the loop, not just how fast you close. Jump Scare exits Omnipresent Evil, grants Haste, and reveals detected Survivors with Killer Instinct.
Because it is a special-break and special-vault, it does not satisfy anything requiring a basic break, including two of his own perks. Its Bamboozle interaction was broken at launch too, blocking windows for only 4 seconds, and was fixed in the launch patch itself.
How do Throwing Spikes work?
Spikes are a resource he picks up off the map, not a charge meter. Grab one from Scrap Piles or Hooks, hold Secondary Action to ready it, then tap Attack to throw. Spikes replenish while Omnipresent Evil is active, which forces him in and out of stealth rather than camping either state.
A Spike knocks a Survivor back and damages them for one health state, then escalates:
- Hit by a Hook Spike and the Survivor is Impaled — they cannot heal past the injured state, and the embedded Hook Spike shows an Aura to the Killer.
- An injured Survivor hit by a Spike and knocked into a wall is both Impaled and Immobilized.
That second state is worth learning as a Survivor: it is a full pin, not a stagger. Before launch Behaviour also stopped pinned rescues counting as healing actions, which had triggered perks and items that fire on healing.
All three Jason perks, at every tier
All three pay out on breaking things, which is deliberate: it pushes him to generate value at loops rather than only close distance.
Hex: Scared to Death. After you hook 3 different Survivors, a Dull Totem ignites. While chasing a Survivor, whenever you basic-break a Pallet, Survivors within 13 m scream and gain 11/12/13% Hindered for 3 seconds.
Silent Shadow. Whenever you hook a Survivor, you gain Undetectable for 11/12/13 seconds. When all Generators are completed, you gain Undetectable permanently.
Rampage. Whenever you basic-break a Pallet or Breakable Wall, you earn 1 Token, up to 13. Whenever you are blinded or Pallet-stunned, for the next 13 seconds you gain 1% Haste for each Token. Cooldown 30/25/20 seconds.
Yes, 13 is everywhere on purpose — scream radius and Hindered ceiling on Scared to Death, Undetectable ceiling on Silent Shadow, Token cap and Haste window on Rampage. It is a Friday the 13th joke baked into the balance sheet, and a useful memory aid: if a Jason value in a guide is not 11, 12, 13 or 3, check it.
The Silent Shadow value that is wrong on half the internet
In the PTB, Silent Shadow granted its Undetectable window at the start of the trial. Behaviour moved it to each hook before launch and added the all-generators-complete clause as the endgame payoff, reasoning verbatim: "We determined that this perk gave Killers too much of a stealth identity at the beginning of a match." Any build guide that opens a match with Silent Shadow stealth is describing the test build.
The basic-break trap
The most common mistake in Jason builds. Hex: Scared to Death and Rampage both require a basic-break; Jump Scare performs a special-break. Breaking a pallet with his power feeds neither perk — you have to break it by hand. Behaviour introduced that basic-versus-special vocabulary in Patch 9.5.0 in March 2026, and Jason is the clearest case of why it matters.
Jason add-ons: the eleven values that are not what guides say
Eleven of his add-ons have changed since the Public Test Build, across three dated passes: six before release in the 10 June 2026 PTB-to-live post, then Deputy's Badge in Patch 10.0.2 and six more in Patch 10.0.3, both in July. Toxic Waste was hit twice and has had three values. Below are the live numbers, with the stale figure you will find elsewhere and the build it came from.
| Add-on | Live value on 1 October 2026 | Stale value still quoted |
|---|---|---|
| Toxic Waste | Oblivious range 10 m | 8 m at launch, 6 m in the PTB |
| Sleeping Bag | Reveal range 10 m | 8 m at launch |
| Party Noisemaker | Reveals Survivors beyond 28 m | 32 m at launch |
| Sauna Rock | Exhausted 3 s | 13 s at launch |
| Two Nails | Aura 5 s | 6 s at launch |
| Mirror Shards | Broken 40 s | 30 s at launch |
| Deputy's Badge | Explodes within 2 m | 4 m at launch |
| Coroner's Coffee | Haste 8% | 13% in the PTB |
| Bloody Magazine | Detection range 8 m | 13 m in the PTB |
| Eye Goop | Undetectable 13 s | 9 s in the PTB |
| Iridescent Boat Motor | Window block 13 s | 5 s in the PTB |
The July pass was not a blanket nerf, which is the other thing guides get wrong. Two values went down — Sauna Rock lost ten seconds of Exhausted, Two Nails one second of Aura — while four went up: Toxic Waste and Sleeping Bag gained two metres each, Mirror Shards ten seconds of Broken, and Party Noisemaker's threshold dropped from 32 m to 28 m, widening the pool it lights up. Deputy's Badge in 10.0.2 was the only outright nerf. The top seven rows are all post-launch, so a launch-week guide is as wrong as a PTB guide, just elsewhere.
Deputy's Badge needed more than a number. It was rebuilt into a generator-damage effect: in Omnipresent Evil, passing near a generator makes it explode, losing 5% progress and beginning to regress; if Survivors are repairing it they get a special Skill Check instead. Behaviour reworked it because the original "information was too strong when combined with Omnipresent Evil's low cooldown and high mobility." It shipped at 4 m; 10.0.2 cut it to 2 m and stopped it firing on already-regressing generators. Any guide quoting 4 m describes a build that lived twenty days.
Two power tunings landed in the same pre-launch pass: the anti-camp slowdown while using his power went from twice to three times the normal rate, and the penalty for cancelling a charged projectile was increased, because "we felt like The Slasher's zoning effectiveness was too strong."
Has Jason been changed since launch?
Twice, both times in July, and not once since. Here is the ledger from Behaviour's own patch notes, every live build from release to now.
| Patch | Date | What changed for The Slasher |
|---|---|---|
| 10.0.0 | 16 June 2026 | Release build, plus launch-day fixes to Hex: Scared to Death icons, Bamboozle window-block duration and a Hook Spike pickup hitbox at Mount Ormond |
| 10.0.1 | 23 June 2026 | Bug fixes only, including pin misalignment, Mini Mori Spike alignment and Omnipresent Evil mist visibility |
| 10.0.2 | 6 July 2026 | Deputy's Badge cut from 4 m to 2 m and stopped triggering on already-regressing generators, plus Dirty Money and pin fixes |
| 10.0.3 | 21 July 2026 | Jump Scare anti-camp penalty no longer applies across multiple floors, plus six add-on rebalances |
| 10.1.0 | 25 August 2026 | Bug fix only, Mini Mori wall-impale Spike alignment |
| 10.1.1 | 1 September 2026 | Bug fix only, Pallet debris VFX timing |
| 10.1.2 | 8 September 2026 | Nothing |
| 10.1.2a | 17 September 2026 | Nothing |
| 10.2.0 PTB | 15 September 2026 | No balance changes, one map fix for spawning inside an object on Trickster Delusion |
Note what is in that table and what is not. His power has had exactly one balance change, the 10.0.3 anti-camp line, and it is a quiet buff: before 21 July, Jump Scare could trigger the anti-camp penalty even when the hooked Survivor was on a different floor, punishing the ability for nothing on vertical maps like Midwich and the Raccoon City Police Station. His perks have never been touched. Everything else lives in the add-ons — which is the distinction most tier lists miss. The base Killer is the one that shipped in June, so the counterplay below is stable. His add-on numbers are not.
How do you counter Jason as a Survivor?
The counterplay follows from the power's one real weakness. Omnipresent Evil is blind.
- Keep moving. Mist Clouds give him stationary Survivors for free, which inverts the instinct every other stealth Killer trains into you.
- Make him commit to a basic-break. If he Jump Scares a pallet, his Hex and Rampage tokens get nothing. If he breaks it by hand, that is time.
- Deny Hook Spikes. Being Impaled locks you out of healing past injured, so unhooking beside a Hook he can harvest from is a double gift.
- Avoid being injured near walls. The Impaled plus Immobilized pin needs you already injured and knocked into a wall. In an open loop the Spike is a health state; in a tight indoor tile it is a pin.
- Use visual tells, not audio. Omnipresent Evil makes him Undetectable, so his 32 m Terror Radius will not warn you while his power is up.
All of that compounds against a coordinated team, which is the honest ceiling on him. A squad that pre-runs the moment his power goes up never stands still for a Mist Cloud and never gives him a Spike angle, leaving him to play loops as a 4.4 m/s basic-attack Killer.
Where Jason sits now
Three and a half months in, he is a settled Killer: a blind-stealth power that rewards map knowledge over reflex, three perks that want him breaking things by hand, and an add-on list rebalanced twice while his power and perks stood still.
Our DBD killer tier list places all 44 Killers, and the best killer perks tier list covers where Hex: Scared to Death and Rampage land against the general pool. For the vertical maps the 10.0.3 fix affects, our full DBD maps list has the realm breakdown. The next Killer after him, The Judgment, arrived in 10.1.0 and has been patched far more aggressively, and DBD Patch Notes 10.2.0 has the 58 perk changes on the test build.
Jason had his own Twitch drops campaign at launch — a Camper's Shelter Badge at one hour of watch time, a Slasher's Mask Charm at three, a Red Omen Banner at six. That has ended, but the October 2026 rotation is live now.
FAQ
Is Jason Voorhees in Dead by Daylight? Yes. He was added in Patch 10.0.0 on 16 June 2026 and is listed in-game as The Slasher. The paid Steam DLC also unlocks an exclusive Hockey Mask badge and a Misty Cabin banner.
Does the Jason chapter include a Survivor or a Crystal Lake map? No. Dead by Daylight: Jason is a Killer-only chapter, one of seven, and Behaviour's launch announcement lists three items: the Killer, the badge and the banner.
What are Jason's perks in DBD? Hex: Scared to Death, Silent Shadow and Rampage. Scared to Death makes Survivors within 13 m scream and suffer 11/12/13% Hindered for 3 seconds. Silent Shadow grants 11/12/13 seconds of Undetectable per hook, then permanent Undetectable once all Generators are done. Rampage banks up to 13 Tokens, each worth 1% Haste for 13 seconds after a blind or Pallet stun.
Why do my Rampage tokens not go up when I break pallets with his power? Jump Scare is a special-break, and Rampage and Hex: Scared to Death both require a basic-break. Break the pallet by hand to feed them.
How fast is The Slasher? 110%, or 4.4 m/s, with a 32 m Terror Radius — slower than the 115% majority, alongside the Hag, Huntress, Spirit, Deathslinger, Blight, Trickster, Good Guy, Animatronic, The First and The Judgment.
Has Jason been buffed or nerfed? Both, in July 2026. Patch 10.0.2 on 6 July cut Deputy's Badge from a 4 m to a 2 m radius. Patch 10.0.3 on 21 July buffed his power by stopping the Jump Scare anti-camp penalty applying across multiple floors, and rebalanced six add-ons — four up, two down. Nothing has changed for him since, and the 10.2.0 Public Test Build contains no balance changes for him. His three perks have never been touched.
What is the best Jason add-on? Judge the set on live numbers, two patches past launch. Eye Goop at 13 seconds of Undetectable and Iridescent Boat Motor at 13 seconds of window blocking were both buffed hard before release and untouched since, which makes them the safest picks. Avoid building around Sauna Rock, cut from 13 seconds of Exhausted to 3, or Deputy's Badge at its old 4 m radius, now 2 m.
How do you counter Jason? Keep moving: Mist Clouds reveal stationary Survivors while his power is up, and he cannot see you otherwise. Avoid being injured next to walls, the condition for the Impaled and Immobilized pin. Deny him Hook Spikes, and remember Omnipresent Evil makes him Undetectable, so the Terror Radius will not warn you.
