Dead by Daylighthas changed many times through its six-year lifespan, butthe Jul 18, 2025, Mid-Chapter updatemight bethe biggest shakeup yet.This patchchanges dozens of perksandcompletely changes the meta, especially for survivors. There are countless overall changes inthe Mid-Chapter patch,but the perk changes are especially noteworthy.
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Players are used to seeing perks like Ruin, No One Escapes Death, Dead Hard, and Decisive Strike in nearly every lobby. These four perks have been rooted in the meta for both killers and survivors, but this patch changes all of these perks—and many more! These changes are only of a few of the biggest meta-changing modifications to perks in the Mid-Chapter patch ofDead by Daylight.
10Barbeque & Chili
Barbeque & Chili was consideredone of the best killer perks in the gamesince the introduction of Bubba, the Cannibal killer from theTexas Chainsaw Massacre. Previously, the perk allowed killers to build stacks after reading survivor auras. These stacks wouldgive the player controlling the killer a goodbloodpoint bonusat the end of the game.
This, combined with the perk’s general strength, made it one of the most commonly used killer perks. After the July 19th Mid-Chapter patch though,BBQ & Chili will no longer give a bloodpoint bonus,which makes it useless for farming bloodpoints. This isa big nerf to the perkalthough its core power of being able to read survivor auras after a survivor is hooked remains.
9Corrupt Intervention
Not all killers are made equal inDead by Daylight. Some need alot more setup timethan others, and for those killers,Corrupt Intervention was an absolute must.Killers like Trapper, Myers, andGhost Facecould often be found running this perk, as itblocked the three generators farthest from the killer spawn for up to 120 seconds.
While thiscore power remains,the perk received ahuge nerfin the latest Mid-Chapter patch. Now,Corrupt Intervention deactivates after the first survivor enters the dying state.This means that once a killer downs their first survivor, Corrupt Intervention ends, and the blocked generators can be worked on as normal.
8Hex: No One Escapes Death
No One Escapes Death (commonly shortened to NOED) is a perkuniversally despised by survivors.Many survivor players found the perk to be completely unfair, as it putall remaining survivors in the trial in the exposed state once the exit gates were powered.Many killers with weaker late-game powers used this perk as a way to secure more kills near the endgame.
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NOED receivedan interesting nerfthat many playershope will balance it more.Nowwhen NOED activates, the hex totem is revealed to survivors who are within four meters of it.Thisdetection range gradually grows to 24 meters after 30 seconds,giving survivors a much better chance of finding and cleansing the totem before they and all their friends are sacrificed in the late game.
7Hex: Ruin
Ruinwasone of the mostcommon generator regression perksfor killers to run. Whenplaying killer, there are tons of things to handle.Killers need to correctly manage hooks, manage their powers, cleanse boon totems, and much more.Ruin made slowing down generator progress a background processwith no generator kicking needed.
Thispatch gave Ruin a massive nerf.Now,once a survivor is killed by any means,thehex totem auto cleanses and becomes a dull totem again.This is a massive nerf to the perk, so expect to see a larger variety of slowdown perks in the future.
6Lethal Pursuer
Lethal Pursuer, named aptly after the Nemesis fromResident Evil 3wasalready a decent perk for killers to run.Its biggest flaw was thatit deactivated after the first 10 seconds of a match.Players running this perk basically had to play the rest of the trial with three perks, as Lethal Pursuer became useless after the first 10 seconds of a game.
The perkwas buffed nicely with the ability to synergize with other aura-reading perkslike I’m All Ears or Darkness Revealed. Now,Lethal Pursuer offers a two-second extension to all aura-reading perks.
5Tinkerer
Tinkererreceived a decent nerf.Before the patch,Tinkerer could activate multiple times on a single generator.This was a crazy-good perk to run with Ruin, as survivors could be chased away, the generator could regress, and Tinkerer could proc again and again on that same generator.
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After the patch, Tinkerer can only proc once per generator.This is a pretty big nerf to the perk, so expect to see less of it when playing as a survivor.
4Iron Will
Iron Will received a nerf.This perk was especially useful for survivors with loud grunts of pain likeJill Valentine or Bill Overbeck.Before,the highest tier of Iron Will completely masked the grunts of painof an injured survivor.Now, the highest tier only masks grunts of pain by 75%and the perk won’t activate if a survivor is affected by the exhausted affliction.
3Saboteur
Saboteurwas a must for survivors looking to runhook sabotage buildsor flashlight save builds.After the Mid-Chapter patch, the perk is even more powerful.Saboteurnow allows survivors who are within range of a carried teammate to see a killer’s scourge hooks.Scourge hooks are special hooks that activate when a player is set on them. The most popular scourge hook perk is Pain Resonance.
Survivors running this perk will now be able to identify scourge hooks and destroy them.Thehooks will obviously come back eventually,but the ability to temporarily remove a killer’s perk is quite powerful in the right hands.
2Decisive Strike
Decisive Strike (normally referred to as DS) wasthe bane of many a killer.This perkallows survivors to temporarily stun the killer and escape their graspif the survivor has been picked up twice in a row without performing a number of certain actions.The perk received a massive nerfwhich some think will remove it from the survivor meta entirely.
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DS now only stuns for three seconds; previously it was a five-second stun. To add to this nerf,DS deactivates once the exit gates are powered.This means that survivors can no longer escape using DS in the late game if they are somehow caught. This nerf is quite controversial in the community, with players who prefer killer celebrating and survivors feeling that the Mid-Chapter patch was a littletookiller sided!
Dead Hard wasthe single most controversial perk inDead by Daylight.It wasa ridiculously powerful survivor perkthat granted asmall speed boost and temporary invincibility when used.The perk could be activated any time once a survivor was injured, andkillers literally had to learn to adjust their playstyles to accommodate Dead Hard,as it was run by nearlyeverysurvivor in the game.
The perk has gotten a colossal nerf.Dead Hardno longer grants a speed boost in its animation,so it cannot be used for distance. Itno longer grants as many frames of invincibility either.In fact, it basically only offers a couple of frames of safety.The perk grants players a 0.5-second window to avoid damage from the killer.With the nature of online games, latency alone will surely ensure thateven the best survivors struggle to consistently avoid damage with Dead Hard.This nerf stands as the biggest in the patchand will force amassive shift in the meta for both killers and survivors.
Dead by Daylightis available on Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Steam, IOS, and many other platforms.
