About this site

Methodology, sources, and contact

Last updated 2026-06-18

DBD Perk Combos is a community-built wiki of hand-tested perk combinations for Behaviour Interactive's Dead by Daylight. We focus on builds that work in real trials - not theoretical max-synergy stacks that fall apart against an experienced Survivor team.

How we pick a build

A combo earns a slot on this site if it passes at least two of the following three gates:

Meta verification. The build appears in the top 30 most-played combinations on NightLight, or is listed in Otzdarva's recommended builds for the relevant Killer.
Community validation. The build is discussed positively on r/deadbydaylight, the BHVR forum, or by a recognised content creator (GameRant, GladiatorBoost, DBD Wiki).
In-house playtest. At least one of our contributors has run the build in 10+ live matches at MMR 12+ and confirms the synergy claim in "Why it works" matches their experience.

Rating scale

Difficulty (1-5): how much positioning, timing, and game sense the build demands. Beginner builds sit at 1-2; high-skill chase or hex builds at 4-5.

Fun (1-5): how enjoyable the build feels in a real match. Subjective, based on community feedback and our own playtests. A "boring but effective" build scores 3; a high-skill chase build that deletes Survivors scores 5.

Patch & freshness

We target the current DBD live patch - currently 10.0.0 (released 16 June 2026), which introduced The Slasher (Jason Voorhees) and his three launch perks. When a balance patch drops, we re-test the affected builds, update the "Why it works" paragraph, and bump the lastUpdated date. Builds that are no longer optimal stay on the site but get a "patched" tag.

Sources

Our primary sources, in order of how much we trust them:

NightLight.gg - DBD stat tracker, the single best source for "what are people actually playing" data.
Otzdarva's recommended builds - the most respected community build guide for killers.
Dead by Daylight Wiki (Fandom) - perk and Killer reference.
GladiatorBoost, GameRant, and the BHVR Forum - secondary, used to cross-check community sentiment.
r/deadbydaylight - qualitative source for niche synergies and "this build counters X" claims.

Image & asset credits

Perk icons and character portraits are sourced from the official Dead by Daylight Wiki on Fandom and used under fair use. See the assets/manifest.json file in the source repository for the full list of assets, source URLs, and license details.

Dead by Daylight is a trademark of Behaviour Interactive. This site is unofficial and not affiliated with Behaviour Interactive.

Contact & corrections

Spotted a stale build or a synergy claim that doesn't hold up? We accept corrections via the following channels:

Email: hello@dbdperkcombos.com
Reddit: DM u/dbdperkcombos

We aim to respond within 48 hours. Build updates after a balance patch typically take 3-5 days.

Editorial standards

We publish DBD build content under a consistent set of rules so you can trust what you read:

Original writing only. Every post is written or commissioned by our editorial team. We do not re-paste content from other sites, AI-generated spam, or press-release copy. Quoted stats cite the source inline (NightLight, Otzdarva, Reddit threads).
Patch-current. Each post lists the DBD live patch it was written against and the date it was last verified. If a build breaks in a later patch, we update the post within 5 days or mark it "patched" with the new context.
Named author + reviewer. Every blog post has a byline (the writer) and a reviewer credit (a separate person who play-tested the build). Both are real people reachable via the contact channels above.
No undisclosed sponsorship. Amazon links on this site are tagged with our US Amazon Associates ID (111111702-20) and we earn a small commission on qualifying purchases - you pay the same price. Ko-fi and similar tips are disclosed on each post that benefited from them. Full disclosure on the disclosure page.
Corrections are public. If we get something wrong, the post is updated with a "Correction" note at the top showing the original claim, the corrected claim, and the date. No silent edits on factual claims.
No AI-generated images of real DBD characters. All perk icons and character portraits on this site are sourced from the official Fandom / wiki.gg image libraries under fair use, or are our own original screenshots with editor's-note credit.
Reader-first framing. We write for the casual player trying a new build on a Saturday night, not for the 0.1% chase god. Difficulty ratings are honest, fun ratings reflect our own playtests, and we say "this build is bad" when one is.

These standards apply to every page on this site, including future content. They are reviewed annually and updated when we change tooling or ownership.

About the author

Kevin Palmer - founder, DBD Perk Combos

Solo-run site. I've been playing Dead by Daylight since 2017 (around the time the Hag dropped) and have put about 4,000 hours into both sides - mostly Killer at MMR 12-15, with the occasional Survivor grind to test "anti-tunnel" builds honestly. I built this site because every existing DBD build guide I found was either (a) a 3-year-old blog post that nobody maintained, (b) a YouTube video without timestamps, or (c) an Otzdarva page that assumed you already knew the synergy. I wanted a fast, searchable, patch-current reference - and that turned into what you're using now.

Reach me at hello@dbdperkcombos.com or via Reddit DM at u/dbdperkcombos. Corrections welcome, balance suggestions welcome, balance complaints also welcome.

Transparency note: this site uses Amazon Associates and Ko-fi for revenue. See the disclosure page. I do not accept payment from Behaviour Interactive, perk-DLC creators, or any third party in exchange for build coverage.

AI-assisted writing disclosure

This site uses AI tools (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT-4) to help with research summarisation, draft editing, and code generation. Every blog post is reviewed, fact-checked against the cited primary sources, and either accepted or rewritten by a human editor before publication. AI is not a substitute for playtesting - we still run every published build in real matches before recommending it.

Roadmap

Future plans (in no particular order):

Perk glossary pages (one URL per perk) - long-tail SEO plays like "Dead Hard - how it works"
Per-Killer hub pages (one URL per Killer character)
Build comparison tool - pick two combos side-by-side
Community voting (logged-in) so the fun-rating becomes more than one team's opinion
Patch-roundup emails - "5 builds to try this patch"

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