Five bundles of bone sit somewhere on every Dead by Daylight map, and for most of the game's history the average Survivor walked past all five without a thought. That stopped being viable on 6 October 2026. Patch 10.2.0 reworked three totem perks outright, changed two more, and quietly handed every Survivor in the game a free totem detector — and Behaviour Interactive buried most of the explanation in a document that is three weeks older than the patch itself.
Everything below is pinned to Patch 10.2.0, the live build Behaviour shipped on 6 October 2026, and was verified against Behaviour's own patch notes on 12 October 2026.
Quick answer: how do totems work in Dead by Daylight?
- Every trial spawns 5 totems in random locations. They start as Dull Totems unless the Killer runs a Hex perk.
- There are four states: Dull, Hex (lit, powering a Killer perk), Boon (blessed by a Survivor), and Rekindled (a cleansed totem relit by Hex: Pentimento).
- Cleansing takes 14 seconds by default and works on Dull and Hex totems. Blessing takes 14 seconds on a Dull Totem and 28 seconds on a Hex Totem. Snuffing a Boon takes the Killer 1 second.
- Each Hex perk is tied to its own totem, and neither side can tell which Hex is on which totem until it matters.
- Patch 10.2.0 reworked Small Game, Hex: Thrill of the Hunt and Shattered Hope, changed Dominance, Hex: Blood Favor, Hex: Nothing but Misery and Boon: Illumination, and buffed the bless-and-cleanse speed on four more Survivor perks.
- The single biggest change: Small Game now reveals the aura of any totem within 10/11/12 metres, replacing the old directional beep.
- Behaviour has never published totem spawn locations or a totem spawn table. Anyone selling you a map of them is guessing.
What are totems in Dead by Daylight?
Totems are props — stacked skulls bound in twine, usually tucked against a wall, in long grass, or inside a building's dead corner. They have existed since Patch 1.3.0, and they are the only objective in the game that both sides can interact with and neither side is required to touch.
All trials spawn with 5 totems in random locations. Their state depends entirely on what both sides brought:
- Dull Totem — the default. Inert, worth nothing on its own, but it is the raw material for everything else.
- Hex Totem — a Dull Totem lit by a Killer's Hex perk, identifiable by the candles burning underneath. Each Hex perk claims its own totem.
- Boon Totem — a Dull or Hex Totem blessed by a Survivor, identifiable by a blue shimmer and an audible drone inside its 24-metre radius.
- Rekindled Totem — a cleansed totem relit by Hex: Pentimento. It behaves like a Hex Totem with two differences: it cannot be blessed, and cleansing it a second time removes the remains from the map permanently.
Three Hex perks are exceptions to the "lit from the start" rule: Hex: No One Escapes Death, Hex: Plaything and Hex: Face the Darkness do not light their totem until they activate. That is the whole reason the "cleanse everything before the gates are powered" habit exists — a trial with zero intact totems cannot receive a new Hex, because cleansed totems cannot be re-hexed.
Worth naming the gap honestly: Behaviour publishes no totem glossary. A search of Behaviour's own Player Support help centre for "totem" returns eight articles, every one of them a patch-note archive — there is no first-party page that defines a Dull Totem. The base interaction timings below are the community-maintained figures from the Dead by Daylight Wiki; every number in the Patch 10.2.0 sections after them comes straight from Behaviour's own notes.
How long does it take to cleanse, bless or snuff a totem?
Four interactions exist, and two of them require a specific perk.
| Interaction | Who | Target | Base time | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleanse | Survivor | Dull or Hex Totem | 14 seconds | Totem breaks apart permanently |
| Bless (Dull) | Survivor with a Boon perk | Dull Totem | 14 seconds | Becomes a Boon Totem |
| Bless (Hex) | Survivor with a Boon perk | Hex Totem | 28 seconds | Hex removed, becomes a Boon Totem |
| Snuff | Killer | Boon Totem | 1 second | Reverts to a Dull Totem |
| Rekindle | Killer with Hex: Pentimento | Cleansed totem | 1 second | Becomes a Rekindled Totem |
Two details decide more games than the raw numbers do. First, cleansing and blessing cannot be interrupted — let go of the button and the progress resets to zero, which is exactly why a Killer who walks past a totem Survivor at 90% progress still wins that exchange. Second, blessing a Hex Totem removes the Hex just as cleansing it would, except you keep the totem as a Boon instead of destroying it. The 28-second cost is a flat 50% action-speed penalty on the 14-second bless.
The one-second snuff is the most lopsided number in the game, and Behaviour knows it. In the 10.2.0 PTB patch notes the developers attached this note to the Shattered Hope rework:
"We are actively discussing how we want Boon Totem snuffing to work base-kit."
That is the clearest signal yet that base-kit boon interaction is on Behaviour's table. It is not a promise and it carries no date — treat it as a direction, not a patch note.
What changed for totems in Patch 10.2.0?
A lot, and it was easy to miss because it was spread across 58 perk changes in a mid-chapter. The word "totem" appears 27 times in Behaviour's live 10.2.0 Mid-Chapter patch notes. Here is every totem-relevant entry.
Killer side:
| Perk | Patch 10.2.0 state | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| Hex: Thrill of the Hunt (rework) | First hook ignites a Dull Totem. Each hook blocks all Hex Totems for 4/5/6s per lit Hex Totem | A flat cleansing-speed penalty, no hook requirement |
| Shattered Hope (rework) | Snuffing destroys the Boon. Any totem blessed, cleansed or destroyed blocks Dull and Hex Totems for 16/18/20s and shows Boon auras for 16/18/20s | Snuff-destroys-boon only |
| Dominance | First time each Totem is blessed or cleansed it is blocked for 25s, that Survivor screams, and you see their aura for 3/4/5s | Totems and Chests, blocked 8/12/16s, no scream, no aura |
| Hex: Nothing but Misery | Ignites after 4 basic-attack damages, adds 10% slower vaulting for 10/12.5/15s | Ignited after 8 damages, no vault penalty |
| Hex: Blood Favor | Basic-attack only, blocks pallets within a flat 32m for 13/14/15s | Any damage, 24/28/32m, 15s |
Survivor side:
| Perk | Patch 10.2.0 state | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| Small Game (rework) | See the aura of any totem within 10/11/12m | 45-degree audio cone at 8/10/12m on a 14/12/10s cooldown |
| Boon: Illumination | Combined Boon showing chest and generator auras. While you have a Boon Totem you bless 150/175/200% faster | Bless and cleanse 6/8/10% faster |
| Calm Spirit | Bless and cleanse silently and 8/9/10% faster | Bless and cleanse 40/35/30% SLOWER |
| Resilience | While injured, bless and cleanse 7/8/9% faster | Cleanse 3/6/9% faster |
| Flow State | Per token, up to 5, bless and cleanse 13/14/15% faster | 8/9/10% per token |
| Bound by Obsession | While the Killer sees your aura, bless and cleanse 8/9/10% faster | Cleanse only, 2/4/6% |
Note what the Survivor table has in common: four separate perks that used to affect cleansing only now affect blessing as well. Behaviour did not announce that as a theme. It is visible only by reading the list.
One number moved between the Public Test Build and the live release: Hex: Thrill of the Hunt blocks for 4/5/6 seconds per lit Hex Totem on live, down from 6/7/8 seconds on the PTB. Behaviour's live note on the cut reads: "A little snowball went a long way on the PTB." Our full breakdown of the test-build deltas is in the 10.2.0 PTB-to-live changes guide, and the wider perk pass is covered in the 10.2.0 perk changes guide.
A reading tip that will save you arguments: the live patch notes contain 22 developer notes, the PTB notes contain 44. Behaviour's reasoning for Small Game, Dominance, Shattered Hope and Boon: Illumination exists only in the 15 September PTB document. If you want to know why a totem perk changed, the live notes will not tell you.
Why is Small Game suddenly the best totem perk?
Because it stopped being a puzzle. The pre-10.2.0 version gave an audio warning when you looked at a totem inside a 45-degree cone within 8/10/12 metres, on a 14/12/10 second cooldown, with tokens that narrowed the cone as totems were cleansed. You had to sweep a room with an invisible flashlight and interpret a beep.
The 10.2.0 version is one line: within 10/11/12 metres of a totem, you see its aura. No cone, no cooldown, no tokens. Behaviour's PTB note is unusually blunt about why:
"We found trying to aim an invisible cone was confusing, especially for newer players. We want the new effect to be a very simple one, aimed at helping new players learn Totem locations."
The practical consequence is that totem defence got measurably harder for Killers at the same moment Behaviour handed Killers two new blocking tools. That is not an accident — Shattered Hope and Dominance both now block totems precisely because finding them became trivial.
If you want the maximum-speed version, Counterforce is still the specialist. It sets your base cleansing speed to 125%, which turns the 14-second cleanse into 11.2 seconds, then stacks a further +25% for every totem you cleanse: 9.33 seconds at one, 8 seconds at two, 7 seconds at three, 5.6 seconds at five. Run it with the reworked Small Game and the five-totem sweep stops being a side quest.
Should you bless a Hex Totem instead of cleansing it?
In Patch 10.2.0, often yes — and the arithmetic is Behaviour's own. Blessing a Hex Totem normally costs 28 seconds against a 14-second cleanse, which is why almost nobody did it. Boon: Illumination now grants 150/175/200% faster blessing while you already have a Boon Totem up. At tier three that is 28 divided by 3, or roughly 9.3 seconds to bless a Hex Totem — faster than cleansing it, and you keep the totem as a Boon.
Behaviour spelled the intent out in the PTB notes:
"We want Boon: Illumination to feel more like a support boon you can bring to more easily transfer your boon around as the trial progresses. It also makes blessing a Hex Totem faster than cleansing it (equivalent to approx. 35% increased cleanse speed)"
The catch is the one every Boon user already knows: a Boon survives exactly as long as the Killer ignores it, and snuffing costs one second. Against a Killer running the reworked Shattered Hope, the Boon is destroyed outright rather than reverted — and the act of blessing now blocks every other totem on the map for up to 20 seconds, handing the Killer free information.
Two structural rules that have not changed: Boon Totems cannot be cleansed, only snuffed, and Rekindled Totems cannot be blessed at all.
Where do totems spawn in Dead by Daylight?
Randomly, in spots the level generator considers hidden — against environmental objects, in corners, in tall grass, inside shacks and basements. That is the honest answer, and it is also the complete one.
Behaviour has never published a totem spawn table, a per-map spawn list, or spawn weightings. There is no first-party document to cite because none exists. Community players have mapped common spots for years, but totem placement is re-rolled per trial, so a memorised location is a probability, not a guarantee — which is the real reason totem RNG dominates every discussion about Hex balance. As one r/deadbydaylight player put it in a thread about hex builds: "Totem spawns are notoriously fickle. There are more really bad ones than there are really good ones."
So the reliable answer to "where is the totem" is a perk, not a map: Small Game at 10/11/12 metres, Detective's Hunch for a wider sweep, or Counterforce, which reveals the aura of the furthest remaining totem for 10/12/14 seconds each time you finish cleansing one.
Should Killers still run Hex builds in Patch 10.2.0?
The honest read is that 10.2.0 made Hex builds more active rather than stronger. Thrill of the Hunt's old passive cleansing penalty is gone — you now have to hook someone to light the totem in the first place, and then keep hooking to keep totems blocked. Behaviour's live note on the rework says the goal was "requiring a little more input from the Killer to benefit from the totem defense powerhouse."
The ceiling is real, though. At tier three, Thrill blocks all Hex Totems for 6 seconds per lit Hex Totem: with one Hex that is 6 seconds per hook, with a full five-Hex board it is 30 seconds. Add Dominance, which now blocks a totem for a flat 25 seconds the first time any Survivor touches it, plus a scream and a 3/4/5-second aura read, and a dedicated totem-defence Killer has more tools than at any point in the last two years.
What they do not have is time. Our best Killer perks tier list and best Survivor perks tier list both reflect the same post-10.2.0 reality: a Hex build that does not include defence is a build that donates a perk slot the moment a Survivor with Small Game walks past the right wall.
FAQ
How many totems are there in a Dead by Daylight match? Five, spawned in random locations. Rare bugs on the largest maps have produced a sixth, but five is the designed number.
How long does it take to cleanse a totem in DBD? 14 seconds at base speed. Counterforce sets that to 125% for 11.2 seconds, and each additional totem you cleanse with it adds another 25%.
Does blessing a Hex Totem get rid of the Hex? Yes. Blessing a Hex Totem has the same effect as cleansing it — the Hex perk is disabled — except the totem survives as your Boon instead of breaking apart. It takes 28 seconds instead of 14 unless you are running Boon: Illumination.
Can the Killer tell which totem has which Hex on it? No, and neither can Survivors. Each Hex perk is tied to its own totem, and the game gives no indication of which Hex sits on which. The only clue is the debuff itself once the perk starts doing something.
Does cleansing every totem stop No One Escapes Death? Yes. Cleansed totems cannot be re-hexed, so a map with zero intact totems cannot receive a new Hex when NOED, Plaything or Face the Darkness tries to activate.
Is Small Game worth running after the 10.2.0 rework? For totem-focused play, it is the strongest it has ever been — the old 45-degree audio cone was replaced with a flat aura reveal within 10/11/12 metres, no cooldown and no tokens. It is a general perk, so it costs nothing to try.
What happens if the Killer snuffs my Boon Totem? It reverts to a Dull Totem and can be blessed again. The exception is Shattered Hope, which destroys the totem outright — and in 10.2.0 also blocks every other totem on the map for 16/18/20 seconds.
More Dead by Daylight guides
Playing on the current build? Every number on this page is pinned to Patch 10.2.0, live since 6 October 2026. These guides cover the rest of that update.
