Dead by Daylight - Top Survivor Tips and Tricks

If you need some tips to help you survive, here’s my advice.

Useful Tips & Tricks

Note: Credit goes to isador

I won’t claim I’m the best survivor out there, but here’s a few tips and tricks I picked up along the way.

Generators

Outdoor generators are attached to long pole with lights attached. These are really easy to spot at practically any distance which makes it easy to find them.
The lights attached to these poles also indicate the status of the generator. If the lights are off no one has repaired the generator, if they blink slowly, the generator has been repaired a little, if they blink fast the generator is almost fully repaired, and if they’re on the generator has been fully repaired. Use that to figure out which generator your friends are currently working on.
If you blow up a generator (fail a skill check) it’s usually better to just leave the generator. Unless the killer is preoccupied he is practically guaranteed to come check out your generator.

Anti-Killer Tips

If you’re being chased, never lead the killer to unrepaired generators. Your friends are probably there working on repairs and if you lead the killer there the least that’ll do is interrupt them, if not get them killed. Same goes for hooked survivors, never lead the killer there/loop the killer there because then no one can save the survivor. Lure the killer to parts of the map that have no generators or hooked survivors and try to keep him there for as long as you can.
You leave scratch marks everywhere you run (run being when you hold Shift). These aren’t visible to you, but extremely easy to see for the killer. Therefore, never run towards allies or towards any hiding spot you aim to use. You don’t want to get your buddies killed and if you leave a trail of scratch marks to a closet, the first thing the killer will do is check the closet.
If you’re going to unhook survivors, never do it when the killer is nearby. 9/10 times the killer will focus the guy you just saved, down them again, and it’ll cost that survivor 1 hook without gaining you anything.
If you see the killer camping someone, 9/10 times it’s better to just abandon that survivor. You can (in theory) work together to free a survivor that is being camped by having one or two people bodyblock the killer while someone else goes to unhook the survivor, but this requires a lot of coordination that’s very hard to pull off (if you’re not on voice chat anyway). It’s usually way better to just punish the killer by doing generators while he camps his one kill.
If you get unhooked, don’t stay near the hook. That’s the first place the killer looks when you get unhooked.
If you get unhooked and the guy who unhooked you is walking away rather than running, chances are they want you to follow so they can heal you without leaving scratch marks to your healing spot. If you don’t want to heal or just want to get away as fast as possible, run away from your ally, do not run after them while they’re walking because that beats the point of them walking instead of running.
If you get downed but the killer starts chasing other people instead of hooking you, it’s usually better to crawl away than to try and recover on the spot. It’s not easy to spot a dying survivor in the dark or in tall grass, especially if someone increased the Dark Mist.
As a survivor you will always want to increase the Dark Mist, not lessen it. The killer is reliant on sight (and to a lesser extent, sound) to find you and your buddies, you are not due to his Terror Radius. The only exceptions to this rule are (arguably) against the Wraith, the Pig and Ghostface due to their stealth modes which have no Terror Radius, but even that is arguable due to the Dark Mist impacting your sight as much as the Killer.
If you’ve just spawned at the start of the match, move! Many experienced Killers intuitively know where the survivors will spawn and make a beeline for those locations. Spending at least 30 seconds to a minute hiding or moving stealthily will make it much harder for the killer to find you at the start of a match.
Holding Shift while vaulting a window/entering a closet makes the action takes less time, but also gives a visual + audio notification to the killer. Don’t do this if you’re trying to be stealthy.
If you haven’t already, look up some videos about how each killer’s power works. Understanding how a killer’s power works makes it possible to counter those powers.

Misc

If you’re going to play a survivor, play Claudette. Claudette is the best camouflaged survivor and once you have all the teachable perks unlocked/achievements earned there isn’t a lot of reason to play other survivors. Plus, Self-Care is a great perk to start with.
Don’t be stingy with items. Once you get good at the game you’ll start earning more than you will ever use in items, addons and offerings, and most importantly, once you hit level 50 with any character you can prestige that character, which resets that character to level 1 and deletes their inventory in exchange for some minor rewards and bragging rights. Therefore, not using your items before you hit level 50 is a big waste.
Do not ragequit a match. You get zero bloodpoints if you disconnect, automatically lose rank progress, automatically lose items and offerings you took on this match, miss out on the extra bloodpoints from struggling on the hook and to top it off you screw over your team, who may be relying on your sacrifice to escape.
Unless you have a daily quest for it, there’s almost no point in sabotaging hooks. This is because it gives the Killer a notification when the hook breaks, it only stays broken for like 2 minutes before it autorepairs and the vast majority of the time it won’t actually stop the killer from hooking someone.
When you’re in a lobby as a survivor by Dead by Daylight, a connection bar appears just above and to the right of your chat bar. This indicates your connection to the killer / host. I recommend not playing if you have around 150 ping or higher to a killer as lag will definitely not work in your favor.