Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a violent game where you will be either killing your foes or trying to escape that fate.

I am going to focus on the Killing aspect more right now because that's why I bought this game. If you don't plan on playing killer you will still benefit by understanding the tools of the enemy. Eventually I will get around to playing some Victim but I'd rather be doing the killing.

• Victims start in the basement tied up and must escape.
  
  
• Leatherface is the only killer allowed in this area until : someone is killed, A door leading upstairs is opened, or the other two killers feed Grandpa 100 blood before either of those events happens.
  
  
• After leaving the basement there are 4 ways to escape : 1. A gate protected by a generator, 2. A gate protected by a battery, 3. A pressure gate, 4. A fuse operated door in the basement.
  
  
• When one victim is left in the match their health will begin to rapidly decrease.

• For some quick shorthand Leatherface is LF, SIssy is SS, Hitchhiker is HH.

You need to make that decision for yourself.

Overall this game feels a lot more fair as both Victim and Killer. Playing as Victim has real consequence as you can die in under 10 seconds. That level of tension always keeps the game exciting.

On the flip side it can be far easier and faster to escape as a Victim than repairing five generators.

Most of playing survivor involves holding mouse 1 on a generator - yay. Ok technically this game can have that same aspect but it's in a very different scale because generators take about 20 seconds to kick. Your pulse will likely be racing as Victim whenever you are kicking the generator at the front of the Family House map.

This game forces you to react to changing conditions in a way that DBD just doesn't. If you make one mistake then you might die.

If you or a member of your group have this error have everyone reset. It's annoying but they should have that issue fixed soon™.

At level 47 you can have 6 characters fully unlocked.




Note this guide is currently being revised so please bear with me for having some old information that might not have been updated.

Every map has 4 methods of escape.

-There are always two separate gate exits on opposite ends of the map.
-There is a door that can be opened by a pressure valve.
-There is a basement door that can opened on a timer with a fuse.

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• This gate is protected by either a Generator or Battery. Interact with it to disable the electricity. Failure to turn off the power will cause you to be shocked and knocked down. Follow the path of the cables to find where you can turn off the power.

• This is what the generator looks like on the Family House map. Unlike on the other two maps there is no gate at the front (which is why there are no cables leading to it). Unlike in the tech test the generator always starts "on." Victims can turn it off by repeatedly kicking it but that makes noise and takes time.
  
  -Note: the white "bone" thing is a Hitchhiker trap. It was placed here to delay access to the generator. The trap must be disarmed with a bone shard or triggered before the generator can be turned off.

• This is what the battery looks like. Be aware this is in the "off" position when the game starts. You must hold the interact button for about 10 seconds to turn it on.

• This is the pressure tank used to open the pressure door. You might notice the valve is missing. A victim needs to carry the valve (takes up an inventory space) and place it on the tank. Then they need to turn the valve to increase the pressure. After about 35 seconds the Door will be pressurized and the valve cannot be closed for about 30-40 seconds. If a Family member turns off the valve before that happens then the pressure will immediately reset before the door opens.

• Here we see the majestic valve hiding in the wild unplucked from its resting place. These can spawn in multiple locations for each map. Once the vale is placed on the pressure tank it cannot be removed. If you die while holding it then it will fall to the ground.

• This is where a victim can escape if the door is pressurized. Note that when the system is being turned off or it takes some time before the pressure goes down enough to close the door. Both the pressure tank and door emit a loud "whistle" as the system is being pressurized.

• This is the fuse box that can be opened with a tool to power the fuse door in the basement. Once opened a victim must place the fuse and then solve a simple math problem to power the door.

• This is where you grab the fuse to insert it in the box. Notice that Sissy can poison fuses (and valves) in their native location. The poison never expires unlike the poison cloud attack which has a duration.

• This is the door that will open when the box has been opened, the fuse inserted and the puzzle has been solved.

You might be wondering where all this stuff spawns.

• Pressure tank

1. The pressure tank (where you need to bring the valve) spawns on the Family House at either the side yard (go in the front door of the house and go "right ish" until you get to an unliked side area. The other spawn is on your right as you go out the main door. It will be against the wall before you get to the barn on the left.
   
2. On the Slaughter house the pressure tank can be downstairs and I am really not sure of the other spawn yet.
   
3. For the Gas station the pressure tank is usually located behind the main house. It can also be located in the "Front" side corner on the same wall as the Pressure Door itself.

• This is one of the spawns on Slaughter House. It's in the Leatherface room (you can tell by the Victim hooked in the background).

This is the Pressure tank in the Furnace Room on Slaughter House. The camera is turned 90° to the left in the second picture

1. The Pressure door spawns on the left as you go out the froont door of the Family house.
   
2. On the Slaughter house the Pressure door always spawns by the containers just past the raised central structure.
   
3. For the Gas Station the pressure door spawns on the side away from the main house in the middle. If you are on the Battery side (which I always call "back" - meaning generator is "front") then go through the right gate from the battery area and the Pressure Door will be on the right.

• Fuse Box

1. The Fuse Box always spawns upstairs in the Family House. It can be in the bathroom, Luggage room (room with 2 crawl entrances) or very close to one of the saircases.
   
2. On the Slaughter house the Fuse Box spawns near the Slaughterhouse on the Barn side or near the red door that leads to the Generator room on the opposite corner.
   
3. For the Gas station the Fuse Box spawns in the main house or near one of the small wooden structures near the middle zone of the map.

• Fuse Exits

1. See map for Family House
   
2. Fuse Exit is behind the "opening cutscene" room for Slaughter House. If you go down the holding pen stairs there is a crawl space straight ahead and then you can go left out the exit.
   
3. Fuse exit on Gas staion : go down the main house stairs and go right.

At first glance it can be very clunky to spend your hard earned XP. First thing: press Tab on the keyboard to give you a better view of the tree. Press X to zoom out but you probably want to stay zoomed "in" after pressing Tab.

• Be aware that everyone has the exact same trees for all characters but you might not make all the same choices (until meta builds are found). Largely speaking the developers have made it so you cannot have all the best perks at once - this is a good thing (as it prevents Dead Hard, Unbreakable, Decisive Strike combinations - if you are familiar with DBD).

• There are multiple Extra Attribute nodes in the skill tree. Each one gives you a stat perk you can use to increase an attribute of your choice.

• Until the most recent patch the trees had "random perk nodes" but now there is zero randomness in each character's tree. There were only about 6 options these perks can be per character but some of them are completely terrible. In the old system I sometimes had to reroll for 20 minutes to get both of the Random perks I wanted for my characters.

• Every character had a different random perk Pool. Essentially if a perk did not appear on their tree then it is in the random pool (reminder this is not the case anymore). Johnny has Scout (faster movement but gives you a stamina penalty) and Universal Donor (increased bucket blood collection) as random perks. Sissy gets the perk : special blend as a random perk. Note :Sometimes you got the same perk 5 times in a row when you reset.

• You can reset at any time and get all your points back. In other words : resetting costs you nothing (the game will keep track of your resets - for some reason). You can play Victim for a while and then switch to killer. You can take all your points out of Leatherface and put them into a new Victim.

• If you have never skilled up a character before the trees are somewhat "hidden". Once you have bought all the options before you do not lose vision of available options at the end of skill trees.

• This is and old skilltree with Sissy. I have put a purple rectangle around the "old" random perk nodes. The top right random perk is a "chicken" perk which I feel is largely useless. But the bottom right perk is a perk that gives the owner a stamina regeneration boost and poison enhanced hits when they walk into a poison cloud.

• Not all paths are equal. Take a good look at the tree above with Sissy. After you move three spaces right from the start you can either choose left to take "Dinner Bell" (icon of an ankle) or the "Scout" perk. Buying the complete tree with the Dinner Bell perk will give you one less attribute than if you buy the Scout perk. Luckily Scout is a much better perk for Sissy but why not have +1 extra attribute point even if you have no plans to use that perk.
  
  You can find a 54 point build with Sissy and a 49 point build with cook for example.

You will notice that when you unlock a perk it is level 1 and must be leveled with experience to get to level 2/3 of that perk. Several strong perks give you a penalty at the first tier and a bonus at max tier or have less harsh penalties.

• Experience gained from leveling up perks is never lost even when you Respec. This means if you earn 1000 points in a perk you will still have that 1000 points when you come back to that character. The same goes for main character abilities.

• If you get 2,000 Experience then you will earn that much towards leveling up any of your perks or character ability. Note you won't suddenly get 2,000 toward those perks/ main ability. You get something like 2/3 of your points per game to your perks.

• When picking options for your ability power it is important to know that picking two different values for the same column do not stack. For example Cook's Seek ability has a 33% recharge rate for the "right side" tier 1 and a 60% recharge rate for the tier 2 option. You do not get 93% recharge rate if you go right both times. You only get the higher value. Note : if there is a different value or power modifier in the middle or top portion of an ability tree then those are fine to pick.

All the victims in this game move at the same speed but The Family members do not.

• Victims sprint at 3.55 m/s. This increases to 4.46 m/s when dashing. Sprinting with Slippery can get you to 4.08 m/s and dashing with Sippery can get you to 5.19 m/s.
  
  [*Cook sprints at 3.5 m/s. This increases to 4 m/s with Scout. Cooks slow movement speed combined with low endurance make him a poor chaser overall.
  
  
• Johnny/HH/LF sprint at 4.25 m/s. That increases to 4.9 m/s with scout.
  LF revving the chainsaw sprints at 4.8 m/s and if he has scout he revs at 5.5 m/s.
  
  
• Sissy/Hands/Nancy sprint at 3.9 m/s. This increases to 4.5 m/s with Scout.
  
  
• This means that victims without movement speed perks are just dead against HH/Sissy with Scout or Wireframe or both unless they have a perk like Slippery. This is "fine" because there are several chances for a door stun or for the Killer to lose them during the chase to get about 7 hits. When a killer loses a victim they have a chance to find the blood trails, or hear their cries of pain. If they use their family active ability they can sometimes hear special voice lines to spot the victims location.
  
  
• When we look at the big picture we can conclude : the movement speed in this game is actually pretty well balanced.

You often might wonder what's the difference between 50 savagery and 35 savagery. Until things change we have a nice list of breakpoints for each family member. The short version is that more Savagery deals more damage - but some points are more relevant to others depending on how much Toughness the victims have.

So assuming every VIctim has 50 toughness (pro tip: they usually dont) that means they have essentially 139 health. An overhead swing from Leatherface deals 80 damage and a follow up hit will deal 30 damage (assuming 50 savagery - note the overhead swing is not affected by savagery but is affected by damage perks). You would then need one more 30 damage hit to kill the victim.

Leatherface is the ideal candidate to run 50 Savagery because he does so much damage. But what about everyone else? Note if you really want to min/max and want to consider 20% bonuses and more then refer to the google document.

Note: we will assume the victim always has 50 toughness. We want to consider the "worst case scenario" for our builds without considering extremes like what if they have damage reduction perks. It will be the happy accident when we kill our victim faster than we expect.

When family members are paired together it means they have the same damage scaling. Note that the weaker of the two family members might not be able to hit the maximum damage breakpoint.

• 24 Savagery is 9 hits. This is the absolute minimum you should consider for a Sissy build.
  
• 30 Savagery is 8 hits.
  
• 37 Savagery is 7 hits.
  
• 48 Savagery is 6 hits.

What if we have Serrated? Noting Serrated deals 5 ticking damage that stacks and does not get reduced (ever as far as I am aware).

• 22 Savagery is 7 hits with Serrated.
  
• 32 Savagery is 6 hits with Serrated.
  
• 47 Savagery is 5 hits with Serrated.

• 29 Savagery is 8 hits.
  
• 35 Savagery is 7 hits.
  
• 43 Savagery is 6 hits.

Serrated Cook/Nancy list

• 35 Savagery is 6 hits with Serrated.
  
• 42 Savagery is 5 hits with Serrated.

Note the extreme value for cook with 35 Savagery + Serrated deals as much damage as 43 Savagery (which is a massive point investment when compared to one perk to give us effectively 8 points of Savagery).

• 31 Savagery is 7 hits.
  
• 42 Savagery is 6 hits.
  
• 42 Savagery with a 20% dmg boost is 5 hits (example : Vial-Ent).

Johnny Serrated list

• 30 Savagery is 6 hits with Serrated.
  
• 40 Savagery is 5 hits with Serrated.
  
• 50 Savagery is 4 hits with Serrated and a 15% damage bonus.

This last entry is probably one of the things that make people think oh wow Johnny is good. You're the baddest baddie if Johnny kills you because he can't do anything vs gaps. Johnny is good at stomping noobs but is bad vs good players.

• 38 Savagery is 6 hits.
  
• 47 Savagery is 5 hits.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rgpbVd8Qt_lSP5MLiuuB2Fx-_rPKXOLvWJCvAUIMSTc/edit?gid=283344632#gid=283344632

Why do family members always seem to lose the Minigame?

The minigame gives you 3 points per tap and you need to reach 100 points to win. The catch is that family members start at zero points and Savagery has no effect on the minigame.

Victims get a headstart advantage based on their strength. If you have 25 strength then you start at 25/100; every point above or below will change the starting point by 0.6 points.

Connie Danny and Julie for example have a minimium of 19/100 points.

Anna has a minimum of 28/100 points.
Sonny has a minimum of 31/100 points.
Leland has a minimum of 34/100 points.

The advantage caps at a maxium of 40 points with 50 strength.

Note: Higher strength stuns the family member for longer. If you have 25 strength you will stun for 6.25 seconds while 50 strength will stun for 14.6 seconds.

• So how does the Family ever win?

Victims get 3 points per tap at full health. As their health goes down they get fewer points per tap in the minigame.

Grappler will give you 4.5 points per tap.

I'm no artist but I understand the floor plans for these levels (other than the basement). Here are some very quick and dirty maps to help you understand where to go once you get out of the basement.



7876 made this amazing map that shows the basement. The basement is a maze so let's start by understanding that area first.

• How does this link to the top?
  
• As you might guess the Side garden tunnel takes you up to the side garden area.
  
• The blood batch room leads to the gore room (what I call the "kitchen") via a ladder.

Hhere's a few pictures. The path around to the right leads to the barn where the generator can spawn (and did for this match).

The path to the left leads to the main house (the closest room will be the "back porch area").

• If you keep running in the direction I am facing (ignoring for a moment that you can't go through the tower) you would get to here:

• Notice on Sissy's left you can see the alternate Pressure Tank spawn Location (the more obvious spawn location is in the Side Yard of the house that has a single doorframe with no door). Straight ahead in this picture you can once again see the Tower. Want to know how to get here from the front door of the house?

• To get your bearings straight the Bone room leads up to the Holding pen (what I call "the barn" sometimes).

• Tool storage leads up to be under where Grandpa normally spawns.

• The most simple path to the fuse is from the Holding pen staircase. Go through the gap and then turn left.

• For simplicity sake my team always calls the Battery "back" (back/battery makes for an easy mnemonic). Note that on the Family House map the Generator can spawn in the front of the house or at the back.
  
• The "Red" section has 2 doors that lead to the generator "front" side that are very close together. This side is very easy to guard with one roaming family member. If you guard these doors then you can force another escape.
  
• Fun Fact : Sissy will always spawn at the battery on every map. On this map the Hitchhiker will spawn at the Front.

• The Thicket Tunnel exit and the Car Parts Storage exits from the Basement will put you on the generator side.

• The Shed basement room will put you in the shed that is "connected" to the main building by a narrow gap (two oil drum barrels). This is a strong position to come up because there are two close by gaps you can chain together if chased.

• The Thicket Tunnel exit and Tool Shed exit are ladders which means they are almost certainly going to be blocked off if you have a HH in the match.
  
  When playing as the family if you have a HH you can have one player guard the shed/ car parts exit and another watch the house basement exit. Until those ladder traps trigger it can be very difficult for Victims to even reach the top safely.

Every map has one way that is much easier to escape than the others.

• Family Map : if the generator is in the front of the house then that's a pretty easy escape if someone picks the left side front door in stealth. Kick the generator and walk/run out. The Fuse Escape is also very popular on this map.

• Slaughter House : Most family members don't know how to get to the pressure tank in the basement. Even if they close the valve this usually shifts 2 family members away from the other sides. The chain stun/backstab technique makes this almost a guarantee.
  
  The fuse can spawn literally 1m away from the Fuse box on this map. Surprise surprise the Fuse is also meta here too.

• Gas Station : the fuse escape is way too easy here. The fuse and the box can be in the main room. There is a second spawn on the corner of a nearby building.

Family House

• The "red" room downstairs matches the "red" at the top of the stairs. One killer standing here about half way upprevents access to the rest of the house

Gas Station

• This is initially the "strongest" basement because there are multiple barricades Once they are gone however this basement becomes quite weak for victims.

Here are some quick notes about area linkage.

• Tool Storage in the basement becomes the tool shed via ladder.

• Car parts storage leads to the workshop staircase (this puts you at the "generator side") in a little barn.

This is by far the strongest barrier on the whole Map... In this game I could have easily killed a Sonny if our LF had known he needed to destroy it.

• The Family loses if you don't communicate. You probably shouldn't queue as family alone (unless you are willing to tolerate randoms). The Family also loses if nobody plays LF or Hands (assuming they have the perk to break barriers equipped)

• Turn the Brightness all the way up so you can actually see people in shadows.

• Did you know you can reset lock pick progress by opening/closing/locking a door?

• Please do all the family mains a favor and don't play Family unless you use voice chat.

• Keep the blue doors leading up from the basement closed even if they have been picked. You will know when people come and go without needing to guess. There is a max listening range for these but it's somewhat far. Also if they are closed then "Exterior Alarms" will make the doors show up as yellow from across the entire map when a Victim opens them.

Leatherface should pressure as much as possible in the basement. If you know where the Victims spawn you can harass them immediately. Saw the barriers you need to get hits or continue a chase but don't just run around breaking random things like a bot. Usually around the 1-2 minute mark depending on what is happening Leatherface should leave the basement. If you get a kill you might take 20-30 seconds to destroy a few barriers to help other family members in future chases.

The other two killers have ~45-90 seconds to setup and collect some blood. It's often possible to wake grandpa by feeding before the survivors open door. Cook's listen ability can be incredibly clutch for getting massive early pressure in the basement.


Once the doors to the basement open the non Leatherface Killers should focus on zone defense unless they happen to be able to pressure a victim who opened a door directly below them.

If you keep survivors away from "exterior" zones they are much easier to chase.

As the match progresses you should not leave your "station" unless you can get a kill or prevent a critical objective. Call for a team member to rotate to your position. Leatherface should rotate eventually to break the most troublesome barriers for that location. Leatherface should guard that area for a while to let the relived family member turn in some blood and maybe do some "fun" things like chasing. Sissy also needs to rotate to get more poison from various stations.

• On Family House one killer guards the main house/upstairs and the front generator (assuming it is there). One Family Member guards the kitchen area and the gate leading to the back as well as monitor the side yard. This forces the victims to use the fuse or pressure valve.

• For Slaughter House one killer guards the two red doors leading to the generator and Grandpa. The other family member needs to bounce between the Slaughter House doors and pressure near the barn area. This side is about 4 times as hard to defend.

• At the Gas Station one family member guards the two interior door that lead to the battery area and one family member guards the area leading to the generator. The third killer guards the house or fuse.

If the Victims rush toolboxes and bones to wake grandpa immediately then fast family members should rush the basement. Cook is slow and should not attempt this - but if you have an insanely speedy build with Scout you can go for it after you place a few padlocks. Just don't stay too long or everything is undefended.

Most rushers are not prepared for the pressure of 3 killers in the basement very early on. You should get 1-2 kills and that will swing the match. Do NOT stay down after 1-2 have been killed as the rest will likely get an easy escape. Leave LF to pressure and have the rest go back to "normal duty"


Bring HH+Cook. Have cook padlock both front doors (you did know there were two right) as well as the screen door that is normally not locked. HH will trap the Gore room ladder up as well as the ladder from the side Garden OR the doorway to the Side Garden (or both). If the generator is out front you can trap the front window. Otherwise I like to put a sneaky trap somewhere survivors are likely to use a crawl space.

Note : they nerfed trapping ladders because there was no defense for it. In all honesty it was kinda fair since there was no defense against Victim rushing but whatever.

This gives you a "whack a mole" situation where you see a survivor try to come up and then you hit them. The snare warnings from HH give you time to wail on the weaker characters who have very low strength like Connie. Even high strength characters take a few seconds to get out.

The Cook can stand in a way to watch the back porch lock, both front locks, the side garden door way, one staircase up from the basement and one staircase that leads to the second floor. Use your ear power and spot for your team. Until you get the highlight at level 3 you have to use voice coms.

Leatherface should start looking for damage or kills early on. Saw a few wooden doors near the most important Basement doors if you have no other obvious pressure. There is a strategy where he can prevent access to three doors except from Connie (and if she does that then SS or HH can chase them down for an easy kill).

If you think they're about to go up to the main floor then go up yourself. Saw a few key doors in the house to prevent door slams (these are basically infinite pallets). Saw the barricade upstairs so your team can defend the fuse box. If the fuse is safe then saw the rest of the wooden doors in the main house first.

• For Gas Station Cook padlocks the easy out in the Gas Station and both gates guarding the generator. HH traps any ladders up or can use obvious traps in front of gates to force people to bring bone shards if doors are compromised and you are dedicated to watching them.

• It's a bad idea to bring Cook and Johnny on Cook on Gas Station as they both start on the same side away from the battery. It's a bad idea to bring Hitchhiker and Cook on Slaughterhouse as neither of them will be anywhere near the battery. It's a bad idea to really every bring Johnny or Nancy as they suck.

• Did you know that you can find Victims with your focus ability active? When victim speak voice lines and says things like "thank goodness they're gone" the killer will hear that if they have their focus ability active. These may be tied to stealth values as I have noticed that my character tends to say them less often with a high stealth value (might be coincidence).

• The most meta escape by far right now is the fuse box. It's a joke because it opens much faster than a door and can be triggered in ~20 seconds. All the maps have an exit that gives you a straight shot right from a basement door to the fuse if you know the right path.

Sissy is not a "support" character. With Scout and Wire Frame she actually chases better than HH.

Her biggest limitations are:

• Leatherface players that don't clear the barricades well enough
  
• Her poison attack does no damage at all without going to the top middle. When yo
  
• Family members that refuse to talk at all. This last one might not seem like a problem but consider Hands or HH or cook who all have an ability that directly slows down a victim or tells you : hey someone just interacted with one of my things.
  
• She doesn't have non timed duration trap or slowdown.

The Iconic chainsaw wielding fanatic deals very high damage but has trouble traversing the map compared to Sissy/Hitchhiker. Leatherface starts the chase alone in the basement near victims who just got untied. His role throughout the match is to pressure victims and destroy escape paths (in the form of barbwire barricades that even Sissy/Hitchhikeer cannot cross as well as destroying the metal crawlspace ducts).





Leatherface can rev his chainsaw into the red to start a sprint; when he does this will make him move much faster and deal more damage if he hits. Unfortunately this maneuver has a high likelihood of stalling the chainsaw if you miss or overheat. If you stall then you will have to restart it before you can attack. When Leatherface is in a sprint he holds his arms above his head so if he's chasing you - watch out.

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This is how I am building my Leatherface at the moment (note I am using the left path):

• This Perk is what separates a noob leatherface from the true artist. You basically have Infinite Stamina with this perk if you can fan your Chainsaw well. Until this perk changes it means that the only S Tier Leatherface builds are left or up because you cannot use it on the right path (let's just call it the "wrong" path).

For my attributes I maxed out damage and put the rest into Blood Harvesting. Note: as you level up Feral you need fewer points to get to 50 strength [you might be able to go over 50 strength but that might not be intended so let's ignore that].

By having a high harvesting ability you get more blood from victims and buckets. The universal donor perk increases the amount from buckets by 40% which means you can fill up with about 4 harvests.

Usually what happens is I either kill someone and get full blood or I get most of the way from a victim who narrowly got away and then harvest from one to two buckets.

You could use the Big Swings perk for 15% more damage if you like that "one hit kill". The drawback on Big Swings is pretty costly when you first start playing Leatherface so you probably want to use Feral first and change to Big Swings later when you have maxed out 2 cycle charge.

• This is mostly likely the best way to use specialize the Chainsaw due to the fact that the 30% less overheat is so good and the design of powers so that a diagonal line is usually optimal.

• Leatherface moves faster than any other character in the game when in a chainsaw sprint. You can learn to "fan" the saw by letting it stay in the red without letting it get too high so it never overheats.

• Note: Vial-Ent is a "random" perk you get from one of the nodes with Leatherface. I spent around 20 minutes resetting my LF to get both that perk and Hysterical Strength at the same time (perk that deals extra damage if you have low stamina - alternate plan in case I have friends focusing on harvesting). It's an interesting idea to combine those two perks with Big swings if you want to mess around with max damage but honestly Leatherface is usually killing people almost instantly or not hitting.

• Random perks for LF include: Activated, Special Blend, Vial-Ent, and Hysterical Strength.

• On Family House it's very important to destroy wooden doors in the main house so they can't be slammed. You can saw a few in the early game downstairs and watch 3 doors. When you think they are about to go upstairs you can go destroy a few upstairs.

• If you want to build LF for speed you can either go with 2 Cycle charge (left and middle paths) or you can do something like Scout+Slow and Steady on the right path. Note : the Right path is faster due to scout but you don't need that as LF is already fast. But you need Slow and Steady to have some kind of stamina sustain to continually use the sprint.
  
  The problem: If you're not using both Scout+ Slow and Steady then you cannot chainsaw sprint around endlessly (note : faster mobility increases the chance you will spot or interrupt victims). These perks together somewhat cancel each other out so you end up with : -10% melee damage (penalty) and -50% stamina usage while sprinting (bonus).
  
  Leveling those two perks up is painful as you will start with a -10% movement penalty, -30% melee damage but you get the -30% stamina usage bonus.
  
  If there were any rational debate about this it could be ended quickly; 2 cycle charge gives you speed and stamina with one perk when you use chainsaw sprints and the other path uses two perks. Therefore 2 cycle charge is better. To beat that dead horse a little more : you end up with garbage family perks when going down the Scout+ Slow and Steady path.

• Combine Big Swings, Feral and 2 cycle Charge if you want "max damage". Raise your Savagery to 43 (you will get +7), then bump your Blood Harvesting to 35 so you collect lots of blood on kill. Endurance is almost completely unnecessary with 2 cycle charge. Set your chainsaw skill to : right, middle, left.

• Carrying a survivor to gallows shows all family members your aura
  
• Barge through a door on the first try (but you already have a chainsaw)
  
• LF does 30% more damage after executing a victim at the gallows (because that happens often).

• When playing leatherface for the first time you will need to press the left mouse button to start the chainsaw. This will start a "mini game" where you need to left click while the moving cursor is inside the grey zone.
  
  There is a similar mini game for the Generator to turn it back on. Instead of pressing left click you are pressing "E". The second pull for the generator is particularly difficult until you've done this event several times. When done correctly you can almost instantly turn on the generator - sometimes knocking the grin off someone's face who was dancing by a "free" escape door.

As you might have guessed Sissy is my favorite character in this game. Why? Well I am the type to love poisons. She can chase victims almost without end and mark them with poisons; note any item Sissy poisons will mark survivors (but only if they have it in their hand and if she or someone else has the Dinner Bell perk).

You can place a gas cloud on an objective like a battery generator to mark any survivor that wants to interact with it.

• On release Sissy had poison on hit by default but this was removed. Sissy's poison makes you run "drunk" so the controls don't exactly respond perfectly when moving as victim. They changed something with the poison cloud and it's not hitting survivors like it used to next to gaps (I think the poison doesn't fill the space instantly like it used to and now has slow movement speed when it starts).

Be aware Sissy has limited charges for her poison. Her strongest unique perk is likely Efficient Herbalist as it allows her to poison objects 75% of the time without using up a poison charge. Without that perk you will likely not have enough poison when you want to be aggressive with her power.



Sissy can blow poison when a survivor vaults a barricade to poison and mark them. This is where the damage and marking become very valuable as the Victims do not know they are highlighted in red.

She has very low damage but you can offset that by putting the majority of her free points into Savagery. Looking at the breakpoint chart we probably want to use 30 Savagery for a minimum 8 hit kill.

Why play Sissy?

• Sissy is S tier because she can T-bag victims.
  
• For always is always forever...

• This is how I have setup Sissy's poison ability. For tier 1 I chose faster poison reloading and that feels much better than +5 second cloud duration. For tier 2 I wanted the duration to mark/damage targets longer. At tier 3 I chose the top center option to make the poison deal damage to survivors. Otherwise I believe it just hurts their stamina.
  
  
  
• The other tier 3 options are poison Toolboxes/Bonepiles or Poison Generator/Battery. If that were combined into one power that would be cool but I prefer what I have for now.

• Why are you playing Sissy if not using this perk? Poison literally everything. It is a good idea to poison Large health potions even if you're not using this perk (assuming you have picked the damage option for her ability).

• This power may not be "optimal" but it is fun. It is now also the only way she can have access to poison attacks.

• Combined with Sissy's high harvesting stat and superior mobility she is an incredibly effective Blood collector.

• This is my favorite Grandpa Perk. Forcing the Victims to stop and hide more often is really powerful. Did I mention I love speed running Grandpa to level 5 for wallhacks.

• Did you know Sissy can poison Hitchhiker traps?
  
• I hope you're not staring at her feet

• Sissy can blow poison when Victims vault right in front of her that are animation locked (going over a barricade, crawl space or Metal vent. This will mark them and if you have ticking damage it will hurt them.
  
  
• A survivor marked by your poison attack is marked for the whole family team.
  
  
• If you are close enough to poison mist someone who goes down a well you can often race downstairs and finish them if you have the extended mark timer.

• Sissy's random perks include : Dracula, Confusing Mechanic, Special Blend, Chicken Whisperer, Activated, Down the Rabbit Hole and Tenderizer..

• Did you know you can poison items from dead victim's bodies? They now should fall to the ground when someone dies. In the past you could just poison the body if they had items.

• You can use the Bane modifier to poison the Battery/Generator Note : someone touching a poisoned Battery/Generator will not be highlighted but the object will be red while they are touching it and for about 5 seconds after. This requires Dinner Bell and it's not worth it unless someone else brings the perk.

• If your ally is in a struggle or is in a killing animation you can blow poison on them to get extra points. In case of a struggle you can step in and murder the victim. Once you get the 75% chance to not use up poisons it feels like you have all the poison you will need scattered around the map.

• Down the Rabbit Hole (reveals survivors who "well" for 7-17 seconds) is a very strong perk on Sissy as she can quickly reach those victims and kill them.

• If I had to guess the strongest "farming" build I have used with Sissy is : Universal Donor, Scout and Efficient Herbalist. This path gives you both Excited Grandpa as well as Exterior Alarms. Poison everything for points and farm blood to rush Grandpa. Is this build strong? Not really but sometimes you need to grind out some points right?

• After collecting your poison at a station swing once.This perform an animation cancel and gets you out of the animation faster. Do not use if you are refilling another token after.

• Anna's power will make her immune to poison effects from Sissy.

• Depending on RNG Sissy can hide near the bathroom in a box and guard the Fuse Box in the Bathroom on Family House. Just like hiding next to the car battery this a complete meme unless one survivor is left.

• Stats: 30 Savagery / 38 Blood Harvesting / 27 Endurance
  
• Perk Loadout #1 : Scout / Wireframe / Unrelenting (Which means 34 Endurance)
  
• Perk Loadout #2 : Scout Wireframe / Efficient Herbalist. (you can choose to not bring poison for damage and instead posion the battery/generator only if someone on the team is bringing Dinner Bell).
  
• Perk Loadout #3 : Scout/ Wireframe / Universal Donor

Note : taking the right path gets you Exterior Alarms which is the strongest and most important family perk.

An alternative to Unrelenting is Fired up. This changes the stamina regeneration delay from 2.5 seconds to 0.625 seconds.

You can go Up to get Serrated and Feral. From there go Up again and then either Right towards Efficient Herbalist and Wireframe or Left to get Slippery.

The left path has down the Rabbit Hole / Rubber Legs (which can slow victims while they are poisoned) / Special Blend / Spore Loser. You can't actually equip Slippery.

Spore Loser is interesting because it doesn't cost any powder - the description doesn't really tell you that.This is a very unique option that is "fun" but not very effective. Rubber legs will slow them for the short duration of poison - or you could spec into Scout+Wireframe.

Note : if Sissy had Efficient Herbalist always available as an option then "left" might actually be amazing to slow victims by 20% when they carry poisoned items.

I'm going to refer to this character as HH. Overall he's just not as good as Sissy because Victims have perks that can disable his traps without needing shards. HH really shines in chase with the Wire Frame perk (see below) that lets him go through gaps and crawl space faster.

HH's trap deals 15 damage at base. So increasing that by 33% is pitiful. This is why we go for the "harder to escape" modifier instead of extra damage.

Note: HH got nerfed and can no longer put traps at the top of ladders. This was "fine" but it made people mad I guess.

• Note: Before the most recent tree reowrk HH could combine Scout with his unique perk Wife Frame that lets him traverse gaps/crawl spaces faster. He can't do that anymore but Sissy can. You might need both if Victims have movement perks like Jump Start/Slippery.

Hitchhiker was be meta on Family House with Cook because together they could massively limit where the Victims can go in the house. RP that strategy. You can still trap cross paths but it's just nowhere near as effective.

He is also very decent on Gas Station when you trap the ladders. The only problem is that everyone knows you will trap the ladders. And the only other problem is that you cant trap ladders anymore (/cry).

But in the current meta HH is best when paired with Hands. You put traps on the things he traps and then victims are forced to have bomb squad to be able to deactivate the traps while still having a "tool slot" to interact with an objective.

• Hitchhiker feels very weak on Slaughter House.

• Once upon a time the "Dinner Bell" perk was "random" meaning you could always have it available (imagine if he had it at the first node like Hands has the barrier break thing). Currently you can only get by going for the left path first.

• Why do you need this? Without it you get a notification that a trap went off but you will not know where. You need his level three ability "All Family See Noise" in order for family members to see trapped victims.

• The optimal build for HH's power is: right, middle. And then left or right. This will give you 13% more damage from traps, 28% more escape difficulty from traps, and any victim caught in a trap is highlighted for family members (left). If you go right for the top line then you add +30 seconds from the bleed. You can stack another 30 damage from the Venom perk. If you want to take the right top tier option you should really consider using Dinner Bell. You should not consider using the top middle option.

• This perk is probably meta for HH as it prevents him from being "looped" between two crawl spaces without placing a trap.

• The Hitchhiker had a strong selection of perks from the "random" pool : Universal Donor, Scout , Down the Rabbit Hole and Dinner Bell. This made him more annoying to get the right perks in his tree however.
  
  The random perks you probably don't want to use are: Special Blend, Vial-Ent, Tuckered Out and Confusing Mechanic.

• You can get exterior alarms with Wire frame as HH. This goes very well with a detect and stop strategy.

• Largely speaking you are not going to get a lot of kills with this character - you're setting up your team to get them. Your traps are literally hit or miss so this character often doesn't have the chance for much secondary point gain.

• Be strategic where you place your traps. It's possible that a single trap could cover two paths.

To get the ultimate meme video equip the Rubber boots perk as HH. Wait for someone to try turning off a car/battery by standing behind the electricity. Open the gate and kill them.


Overall if you want an active chaser playstyle then you want Scout+Serrated. Why does Scout matter? Assuming you skipped the movement speed section it's important to note that without Scout HH is slower than a victim dashing. If you have scout you can grind them down.

HH with serrated has a 6 hit kill with 32 Savagery. That's a pretty steep Savagery investment except that the same tree has Feral for +7 savagery. Note : If you had big swings you could kill in 5 swings with Serrated and 37 Savagery (but that's almost all of your stat points).

• If you want a more trap centered playstyle then take Dinner Bell, Venom and Scout. This makes your traps hit for 30+30+20 damage. A victim at most can have 139 damage so that's really painful. Taking Dinner bell opens the door for other family members to bring a different build (sissy could poison the battery and it will show your team their location). It should also reveal any Victim that gets stunned by Hand's trap.

So everyone thinks Cook is trash right? Wrong. You will want a cook on every game until something changes.

Cook is an S tier pick on Every map for being able to padlock three doors. Until you get the level 3 listen ability to mark survivors for your team he is not great without voice coms. But once you get that listen ability he can tell your Leatherface exactly where to go and get quick kills. Cook with Listen level 3 is S+ on every map.

You know how everyone loves to rush at the start of the match? Well that just marks you in red for Leatherface over and over again.


This is kind of a hard ability to use. Victims need to be making noise or you can't lock onto them. You have a circle and need to aim for the "spikes" in noise. You can't be around generators or loud things when using this power or it will get disrupted.

Victims can't be directly over or below either. Be aware other family members or a nearby chainsaw can also disrupt your listening.

• This ability starts as a perfect circle and when you hear "disruptions" around that circle you want to move your focus toward the spiky lines around the circle.

The cook has a perk that can make his padlocks 50% harder to pick. The problem is that Connie exists; her power should not be able to pick padlocks for that to be "interesting".

Overall you can pick a lock in under 20 seconds if you build for it. Normally I build my Leland with 40 proficiency and 30+ stealth. He picks like a Connie not using her power. Most people don't realize how much proficiency and stealth matter.

• Probably the "best" build for cook is to go up for the Unrelenting Perk. Prey Drive, Scout and Universal Donor make for a very strong combo. Once you have level 3 on your "bucket" perk (Universal Donor) then you can get 101 blood from three harvests with 35 Blood Harvesting.
  
  You might be tempted to go all in on Blood but you will be severely punished by the good teams running Agitator. For that reason I have found better results overall with as high a Stamina build as you can muster while keeping Harvesting at the 35 threshold. If I remember correctly you need 40 harvesting with level 2 bucket.
  
  This path also comes with the Exterior Alarm family perk. The information this reveals along with grandpa and your ears is an incredible asset.

• Largely speaking once again you're not going to get a lot of kills with Cook. You're setting up team members for kills. With Prey Drive and Scout you do have some unsuspecting speed if you put enough points into stamina so that you can sometimes get a kill or severely maim someone.

• You're also pushing the survivors to have to unlock a lot more doors if they want to escape. The down side with this is that Victims are far more likely to just go for a fuse escape.

• Any family member can use their focus power to check from extremely far away to see if the cook's locks have been removed or not. So for example on Slaughter House if you move to the middle of the map you can basically become an "ear turret". When an outer lock gets popped then you know you need to react.

• You can open a door, go through a door and then put a padlock on the door to lock it. This is useful when playing on Slaughterhouse and you go in there to get the blood or when you leave the gates near the generator on Gas Station.

Stand in this doorway as Cook and use your listen ability. From this point you can easily observe Victims coming from 3 directions. Take 5 steps and you can look to see if someone is on your front locks. Turn around and you can check the padlock on the porch.

• A very solid team build for Cook is : Scout, Down the Rabbit Hole, Dinner Bell. This gives you speed to chase and lets you spot for allies. You can get the exterior alarms with this path.

• Cook has a 56 point build if you go left for the "angry" path that includes Serrated and the unique padlock perk. Sadly Connie completely counters his locks atm...

Sorry if he's your main but he has the least to offer for a family team. Play him if you like "hard mode".

• The only thing good about this character is that he has "lunge tech." This refers to the fact that he increases momentum when he swings and can aggressively swing to make lots of distance. It was nerfed in a previous update and then reverted because it left this character with nothing.

• On Release Johnny's tracking ability was decent. But now you can just crouch to cancel it. Lol. The only reason to use this power is to get the "search" for bonus points then turn the power off.

His power is detection but if you have sharp eyes/ears and make use of the family focus ability you already have enough to track survivors with every other killer. Plus you should always have a cook on your team to help find targets for the chasers.

Johnny has no secondary power so he's basically afk waiting for the chase to start out of the basement. For this reason smart Victims against Johnny will pick multiple doors before trying to open one. Then you get a new second item and then have the team go up from two to three different doors at the same time.

To make matters worse Julie can completely counter your ability and she knows when you have found her footprints. Oh well.

What''s good about Johnny? In the past he could have Serrated and Scout in every build as they were Random perks but that's not a thing anymore.

He has a unique perk for +40% power recharge if you are stationary - do you want to be stationary?

He has a unique perk for +40% power recharge if you win a close encounter. Is this forever?

My friend who loves playing Johnny says he really never needs the recharge anyway.

• This character is literally some kind of "hard mode" against anyone who is relatively competent as Victim unless an ally pushed them into you. Victims are immune to you at any crawlspace or gap.

Am I saying Hey this character sucks? No - this character needs to get reworked and buffed because there is never a time Johnny is an S tier pick.

• Johnny has high damage and if you build for damage he can kill in 4 hits. The problem is that good players will not let you hit them because crawl spaces and gaps are literally everywhere.

• The skill tree changes made it so you cannot have Fired up with Scout to prevent "lunge tech". You also cannot combine Serrated with Scout anymore and this too is a huge nerf.

• Johnny had some nice random perks. He gets Universal Donor and Blood Banker (max blood storage +20%) - but are you really going to build him for Blood?
  
  His Random perks used to include : Scout, Serrated, Universal Donor, Blood Banker, Chicken Whisperer, Down the Rabbit Hole, Dinner Bell (there could be some synergy if you wanted to be altruistic and help out HH so he could bring more offensive traps - then again you could just play a "working" killer),

• Johnny greatly benefits from the exceptional stalker ability so that you have a chance to ambush victims without them knowing you are coming. The only problem here is that there are a lot better powers for the team ( alarms, -20% stamina when running, +stamina when grandpa yells and 20% more yelling).

• You should never have Cook/Johnny on the same team as they generally have the same spawn and cannot chase around gaps or tight spaces. There is never an instance where Johnny is better for your team than Cook -so Bring cook instead.

• If I want to level up Johnny and not suck what do I do? You will want to focus on a hybrid Savagery/ Blood build to help your team locate victims faster. Unironically you could actually use Chicken Whisperer on Johnny to try and sneak up on victims (since he needs every advantage he can get).

• Stats: 42 Savagery/ 39 Blood Harvesting / 35 Endurance
  
• Perks : Scout / Siphon / Vial-Ent
  
• This setup will give you a 6 hit kill vs 50 toughness Victims with the possibility for a 5 hit kill. If things are very quiet you can take a moment to get nearby buckets. You do not need lots of endurance because you suck at chase.
  
• Only play Johnny on Gas Station or Family House. On Gas Station Stay near two of the gates and guard that area. Only rotate away to move victims off things like the valve or fuse. Do not try to force a chase. Get the easy hits and defend the objectives. Never ever go down into the basement unless someone literally welled 5 feet from a door near you. On Family House you can latch several doors and then come around from the side to break them. This massively limits victim options to do anything in a chase in the main floor of the house.
  
• You can activate the footprint ability to get a few extra points or if there are only 1-2 victims left and you know one his hiding near the Battery or Generator but you don't know where they are exactly.

Hands is the "pay to not lose" character that counters the pay to win character Danny.

Hands can undo tampered valves/fuses. He can restart the generator or battery without waiting for the timer. But since his ability to do this is on a timer he cannot do them all at once.

Hands can bring a perk that allows him to break barricades. Why would you not want to do that? You get a lot of points of breaking barricades. What if your Leatherface DC/s?

This killer was very good on release and got nerfed pretty hard.

Nancy has a trap ability that does minimal damage and snares victims who go through crawl spaces. They take a long time for her to move to the location and setup. Sadly your allies can trigger them. Do you know how pathetic HH would be if Family members set off his traps? Until that changes I have zero interest in Nancy.

You can potentially kill someone who gets caught in your trap if you are chasing them into that but that doesn't seem worth it for me.

She has a "spy" ability where you can see through the victim's eyes (but this was apparently nerfed and made worse). I can't comment on this as I do not have the chracter.

When the game starts you are tied up. Your first priority should be finding an "infinite". As long as it takes Leatherface more than about 8 steps to go around a loop you are immune to his damage at any tight space passage. If you want to assert dominance : give him the old T-bag.

To get out you need tools. If you are with another player it is very strong for you to each have a tool and a bone shard. If you see a large health you might grab that over a bone shard. When two Victims are together one of you can backstab the chaser as long as your partner does not panic and run in a straight line away from you. Leland can shoulder charge the killer but you should always try a stab first as the shoulder charge has a long cooldown.

For the first ~2 minutes being in the basement is very "Free". There is only one killer and you can use that time to gather resources with little pressure.

Note: Several of the aura perks are designed for Newer players. If you need them then bring them but be aware that you can learn where bones/tools spawns after you have played long enough. Once you understand the "how" of resource spawns those aura perks become less useful. There are exceptions of course : showing door auras when playing with randoms will likely help allies who act like trapped rabbits.


Being invisible is extremely valuable as Victim because if nobody sees you then you are free to do whatever you want. You can't actually be invisible but you can make it much harder to be found. You can for example crouch around bones in the basement so you don't show Leatherface where you are via the noise notification. And of course if nobody ever sees you then you have no need to heal.

Unlike DBD there are no "scratch marks" to follow when you run. But if you make noise - even footsteps then the killer can hear you. They have a focus ability to enhance their senses as well. The game does have "noise alarms" that are shown with a visual indicator that can be seen across the map.

• While you are completing any action that requires you to hold "E" there will be a red notification if the bar fills all the way up and everyone can see that noise event from across the map. Be careful however if there is a cook in a match he can listen for you to make noise by getting the bar about 2/3 to 4/5 of the way full. You will notice a little speaker indicator that goes red; this means a cook could listen to you from that tiny bit of noise.

• Whenever Grandpa yells you need to stay still or your location will be highlighted in yellow to the enemy team. If grandpa reaches level five then you cannot hide from his sonar screams. If you don't like your enemy having wall hacks then you can go up to granpa with a bone shard and press Mouse button two to stab him. Once stabbed Grandpa will not be able to be fed and will stop screaming for a while; in addition family "grandpa" perks can be disabled.

• You have to believe they won't see you or they will see you. Be aware that one of the family members can track your footsteps and get "wallhacks" on your location.

• Do not attempt to stealth around chickens as they will reveal your location. You can stab them with a bone shard to "turn them off."

• At the start of the game Spam press "E" to get out of your restraints. When you interact with Toolboxes/Bonepiles you want to hold "E". When interacting with the lockpick minigame or metal vent ducts you want to tap "E". Be mindful that you do not go too far on the noise level either of these tasks.

• When playing Victim my group tries to unlock as many doors as possible from the basement before opening one. Then we do a 3-2-1 "Open". To make this pay off more I bring Agitator on Leland (which can reduce Grandpa's level by 4 for a single stab - how the hell is that balanced? Just kiding it wasn't balanced and they nerfed it to reduce his level by 2.5 at maximum level now).

• On that note Leland is probably the best character to use Agitator with because he can fearlessly run up to Grandpa and stab him. If any family member comes along you just shoulder block them and run away.

• Because the Grandpa mechanic exists you either need to plan to get your team out before about 6-8 minutes or you need to bring Agitator so you can turn Grandpa "off" again.

• Once you are free to escape you should not immediately leave. You can tell your team how to get out safely. If you are brave you can maybe open an additional door to an area to help them escape.

• On maps like Slaughterhouse and Gas Station it is possible to turn on a battery/generator while a killer is past the gate. You will effectively trap them outside until a family member comes to free them. There is a perk that gives some killers immunity to the electricity (rubber boots) but nobody is using it.

When running from killers you should pace yourself. If you use all your stamina quickly then you have no options. Try to learn to sprint for a moment then just hold shift to better cycle your stamina. Most of the time this will give you more distance.

It is very important to respond to each killer with the appropriate counter.

• Leatherface/Johnny/Cook are powerless against crawl spaces without help.
  
• Sissy and Hitchhiker often require a well escape ("well" is my verb for 2023 : Connie welled from the back). Sissy can blow poison to prevent you from chaining two tight spaces over and over but the Hitchhiker has to set down a trap to stop that behavior.
  
• Everyone except Johnny can be "bush teched" to steal a phrase from a friend of mine. Johnny can follow your footprints and find you even if your character is fully hidden from sight by foliage or if you are behind obstacles. And then they nerfed his ability - lol.
  
• No family members can cross barbwire barricades but Leatherface can Destroy them. Hands can also destroy them if he brings a certain perk (why would he not bring it though).

• In other words if you go chain two tight crawl spaces you can get away from literally every killer in the game except Sissy/HH if they do not get assistance.

Here is a picture of the fuse box puzzle. You must solve the math problem and the fuses must match the color. See spoiler for solution.



You need the Green 9 and yellow 2 for the top row. The bottom row requires the Yellow 10 and the Blue 2.


Some perks are more equal than others. Jump Start and Agitator seem maybe too strong.

• Radar Detector+ Agitator is in theory a wickedly strong Victim combo. Upon testing Radar Detector it does not seem to be showing the family members but rather the victims. Not sure which thing it is supposed to do.

• This perk isn't very balanced compared to family stamina perks or even some of the lesser Victim movement perks.

• This perk previously nullified the Hitchhiker traps - but now it only has 4 charges.

• 40 points in proficiency with 28 stealth will allow you to search a toolbox or bonepile without making any noise without stopping (just hold E).

Some Victims are harder to kill than others. Why might that be? Let's talk about some of the more interesting perks.

• No sell : Getting hit by a Family member results in (40%/60%/80%) less damage. Has (1/2/3) charge(s).

• What doesn't kill: After being injured by a melee attack, avoiding additional damage for 15 seconds will reward you with (50%/75%/100%) of the health you just lost.

• Jump Start: Stamina consumption on dashing is reduced by (10%/30%/50%).

• Jump Scare: Triggering bone charms and chickens increases your sprint speed by 10% for (4/8/12) seconds.

• Slippery: After navigating gaps or crawl spaces, you move (5%/10%/15%) faster for (5/5/7) seconds.

• Conditioned: When you completely run out of stamina, it takes (20%/40%/60%) less time to start regenerating.

Note: This perk can "look" like it's overpowered but they have to lull in front of you not using stamina for a few seconds. A skillful victim can easily make you miss if you're not ready for some crazy zig zag movement + turning.

Victims have stamina not endurance. You always have 200 stamina as a victim; note Stamina has a delay before it starts recharging. The biggest piece of advice here is to never have stamina below 26 because of the recharge mechanics. Why is 25 or less bad? At 25 stamina it takes 16.767 seconds


For Victims every point in endurance gives you faster stamina regeneration delay. This means at 50 endurance Victims have a 1.27 second delay to start getting their stamina back. The delay is about 2 seconds at 35 stamina.

Note : Killers only get that with perks like Fired up which changes stamina regeneration delay from 2.5 seconds to 0.625 seconds.

• There may be something bugged with Victim Stamina because the table from 26-50 almost does not move from ~11 seconds to fully recharge victim stamina. At 25 stamina it takes 16.767 seconds, at 26 stamina it takes 11.128 seconds, and at 50 stamina it takes 11.162 seconds for a full recharge. That's a difference of 0.034 seconds for your stamina to start regenerating from 26 stamina to 50 stamina..
  

It's become very clear to me that Leland is an "S" tier victim. Everyone wants Connie but this guy is probably "better" if you don't want to have to rely on Stealth or GTFO.

After the skill update Leland can go left and have a very strong stealth/proficiency build as he can get +7 to each stat in the same build. The left path also has "No Sell" which is really strong for not getting killed by leatherface at the start of the game. You can also get "What doesn't kill you" which another strong healing perk that can let you recover 100% of the last attack that hit you if you avoid damage for 15 seconds.

Alternatively he can go right and have access to several very powerful perks that work well together. He has Conditioned which gives him a 60% reduction timer before he gets stamina to regenerate. He can combine this with Jump Start which gives him a 50% stamina reduction on dashes. The right path also has Extra Drip which is great for making the most out of healing items.

• Leland's ability says it does not work on Leatherface. His ability does work on LF so I assume this is a bug?

• It was once possible to setup Leland as an infinite backstabber if you had a certain set of barricades next to a bone pile. The killer cannot recover in time to saw the barricade. They were forced to leave or be chain stunned forever.

• Leland can easily prevent a killer from turning off the steam valve once it has started. You can wait for them to start it and then backstab. Wait for them to try again and then shoulder bump. If that's not enough then run away.

This victim has a really cool detection perk where you can spot friends and foes (if you select the top middle option) and track their movements with your special ability.

• The top middle option is definitely the best path for his ability.

If you go up Sonny can grab Slippery and Jump Start to be super hard to chase around tight spaces. He also gets Overlooked with this path which gives him the ability to negate Grandpa's sonar up to 4 times. This path will also unlock Stunt Double if you like jumping down wells (which is actually pretty strong as it reduces the well damage from 20 to 6 damage. If you go left from there you can get Radar Detector (show family's location when Grandpa yells (max 7 charges). Or you can go up from there to get Extra Drip for better healing.

It seemed that everyone wanted to play her at first - and for good reason. Her power is busted in that she can open a door with a killer coming right at you.

Her power basically opens a lock in under 2 seconds. This means on a map like Family House you can run to the back gate while being pursued and then use your power on that gate (mid chase). You pop the lock then jump into the guaranteed well.

This is kind of broken because she can wait out her power and do it again.



Go up for Bomb Squad (ignore the need for bone shards to disable traps), Left for Must have been the wind which gives you 5 charges of : searching for items makes no noise / Crawl spaces make no noise. You can also get Sneaky Pete (+7 Stealth) on this path. From there you can either go left for a speed boost option from Jump Scare or Right for Efficient Locksmith / Extra Drip.

Alternatively you could go up for Bomb Squad / up for Agitator / Right for Slippery and still have access to +7 Endurance and Extra Drip.

What are the odds you are not going to have HH Hands or Nancy in the lobby?

• She can't do it anymore but before the perk tree rework Connie was one of the only characters in the game that could get +7 to three stats via perks. She had access to +7 Toughness, +7 Endurance and +7 stealth.

• These were once random perks for Connie - what? She literally had "Lithe" if you have played DBD. This was completely busted because you could just from crawl space to crawl space and had almost no chance of dying to most family members. Note : Sonny still has this combo as an option.

• Connie had Bad Blood (highlight killer who kills you to team for 1-2 minutes) and Last Ditch Effort (low health gives you a bone shard) as random perks.

• When Leveling Connie I would suggest you get the stamina reduction for the first tier until you unlock the second tier. Once you have tier two you probably want the tier 2 stamina modifier. Once you have been playing for a while the family proximity is probably the weakest modifier for her power.

• Connie is completely broken because her focus ability will remove all locks on a door (including extra padlocks).

This character starts with 35 stealth which is the highest of all the Victims; Jule is built to be sneaky. When activated her power will hide her from the Cook and Johnny but will also make her able to run very efficiently.

If you play DBD and love Sprint Burst then she might be the character for you. Use her power and then dump all your stamina while it is active.

Following her "up" path you can take Sneaky Pete, Tougher Stuff, and Slippery for a very stealthy build that will probably be able to run away if they can use a few tight spaces. For a beginner player you could put her Proficiency up to 40 and then raise her Endurance to 35 points. That makes you a strong all around character who can do almost everything well (your weakest point will be opening crawl spaces and turning off generators).

• Random Perks include : Fuse Lights, Agitator, Dead Weight, No sell, Efficient Grappler, Empowered, Lone Survivor, Radar Detector, Stunt Double (up to -70% damage from falling out of windows/wells and recover faster from the fall) and Well Trained (possibly one of the worst perks in the game since most wells have a bone right next to the drop).

• Julie has a path where you can get both Fish Hooks and Efficient Backstabber in the left/middle options for her tree. You can combine this with Agitator for an "all in" sneak attack build. Note: if you're going for sneak attacks against the family you will want to put some points into strength as Julie and Connie are tied for lowest Strength.

This is a link to an amazing google doc with *way too much information*

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rgpbVd8Qt_lSP5MLiuuB2Fx-_rPKXOLvWJCvAUIMSTc/edit?gid=283344632#gid=283344632


I've finally managed to get a group to do some custom testing. Here some important findings from a very brief testing session (it's hard to get people to play for no XP for very long).

• Using a perk that boosts your stat over 50 (get stat to 50, add perk for +7) does nothing.

• Sissy's Poison Damage from the Cloud (with the top ability) is laughably low. The Top middle option will make the poison deal 15 damage regardless of the duration you have chosen.

• Carrying a poisoned item seemingly does nothing. You should probably take continual damage over time for carrying a poisoned valve/fuse. You will be revealed in red if you drink a poisoned potion. You will take damage from the poison.

7876 is the artist who made the lovely maps in my guide. Their map is so nice that it deserves a special thank you section.

You can go and find their complete map guide here :

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3025301406

If these maps helped you as much as they helped me - please go check out their guide and give them a big thumbs up.

Note : All maps used with Artist's permission.


If you have read this far please do me a favor and give me a thumbs up if I was entertaining or you learned something you didn't know from my guide.

This is a work in progress so there will be more later but hopefully what I have now will help some people new to the game.