Jason Voorhees is finally in Dead by Daylight. Just days after the DBD 10th-anniversary stream showed off a busy roadmap for the next year and beyond, the slasher that was unavailable for so long has finally joined the fog of DBD. I searched for the best Jason builds for DBD and found many great examples, but in the end, I went with my own custom build, which I’ll share below in case you are looking for something I think makes the game more fun.
If you’re looking for the sweatiest builds, or builds to transform Jason into a different type of killer entirely, the game is versatile enough to let you do that, and those builds are available. My Jason build for DBD, however, is meant to lean into what makes Jason feel most like himself: his relentlessness and a sense of evaporating hope for his victims. The perks I’ve chosen create a Jason pulled right out of the movies.
Best Jason build in DBD
Jason’s unique skill, Omnipresent Evil, is meant to mimic the way he can quickly appear where his victims least suspect him. Behaviour wanted to capture this signature move in bringing him to Dead by Daylight, and I’ve built a custom Jason kit that further sells that fantasy of being the big man himself.
This may be especially appealing to players who miss Friday the 13th: The Game. Rather than turn Jason into a fully ranged killer or set him on a path of obsessing over DBD-specific mechanics, I’ve compiled the tools that make him feel like the “real” Jason, including two perks that are unlocked with him, and two others that don’t require any additional purchases in the game.
If you’re new to the game, keep in mind that the perks listed below are interchangeable; they don’t need to go in specific slots.
Perk 1: Hex: Scared To Death
What it does: After you hook 3 different survivors, a Dull Totem ignites. While chasing a survivor, whenever you basic-break a pallet, survivors within 13 meters:
Scream
Gain 13% Hindered for 3 seconds
Why I like it: Unless you’re playing a super-high-level lobby, it’s unlikely that the survivors will destroy all totems in a match before you’ve hooked three of them, meaning the prerequisite for this perk will almost always be in play by the time you go to activate it.
With this, you basically want to bait survivors into throwing down pallets to block you, so you can break them and activate the survivor debuff. This gives Jason the advantage in chases and keeps him feeling like the unstoppable killing machine movie-goers have known for the past 40+ years. It also pairs very well with the next perk.
Perk 2: Rampage
What it does: Whenever you basic-break a pallet or breakable wall, you earn a token, up to 13 total. Whenever you are blinded or pallet-stunned, for the next 13 seconds, you gain 1% Haste for each token. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
Why I like it: Rampage fits very well with Scared To Death above, because while you’re baiting survivors into chases that include pallet stuns, you’re actually growing stronger, gaining the speed buff from Haste, at a time when the survivor you’re chasing may well be suffering from Hindered. This considerably closes the gap in a chase, pulling your speed stats and theirs much closer together.
Some players, especially new players, only really think of running away when it comes time for evasive maneuvers, even if their kits don’t buff them in that regard, so the frequency with which you can benefit from chases and getting pallet-stunned or blinded is very high.
Perk 3: Sloppy Butcher
What it does: Whenever you damage a survivor with a basic attack:
They gain Hemorrhage for 90 seconds
They gain Mangled for 90 seconds
Survivors with Hemorrhage lose healing progress 25% faster
Why I like it: These next two perks solidify the build as a true slasher experience, in my mind. While the first two close the speed gap between you and survivors, these two make healing harder to come by, giving every round that feeling of wounded survivors desperate for a way out, but none can be found.
Hemorrhage leaves more pools of blood to trace and causes survivors to lose healing progress whenever they’re not being healed, while Mangled makes them heal more slowly. These status effects send the tension soaring, as survivors desperate to heal have to adapt to the increased time investment, which is further exacerbated by the fact that you may even be moving faster given the earlier perks.
Perk 4: Scourge Hook: Weeping Wounds
What it does: When the trial starts, 4 random hooks become Scourge Hooks. Whenever a survivor is unhooked from a Scourge Hook:
They gain Hemorrhage for 90 seconds
They gain Mangled for 90 seconds
When they are healed, until they take damage, they heal and repair 16% slower
Why I like it: Like the above, this perk makes healing more important and, at the same time, more punishing. Whenever I play as a survivor, I emphasize keeping my team healed up so no one can be knocked so easily. I’ve essentially created a build I would hate to go up against. With the long timers on these two latter perks, survivors could find themselves in a terribly debuffed state for large portions of the trial.
Add-On 1: Missing Corkscrew
What it does: Impaled survivors emit a 32-meter Terror Radius until the spike is extracted. Gain Undetectable from the time a survivor is impaled to 13 seconds after they extract the spike.
Why I like it: If you find you’re not so good at aiming Jason’s projectile spike, you’ll want to look at other perks–or maybe even other killers entirely, since it’s so important to his kit. But I’ve found the aiming mechanics in DBD to be pretty forgiving, and Jason prospers as a result.
The fact that the spike always emits an aura when it’s stuck in a survivor–no perk necessary–means it’s basically like placing a long, sharp airtag on a survivor, and that’s if it doesn’t pin them to a wall someplace. Giving Jason the Undetectable buff on top of all that is just icing on the cake.
Add-On 2: Mirror Shards
What it does: Impaled survivors become Broken for 30 seconds after extracting the spike.
Why I like it: Sticking with my theme of refusing to let survivors heal without roadblocks, I love applying the Broken status effect, which prevents them from healing at all for a period.
In my early rounds with Jason, I’ve found the impaled survivor usually goes down by my machete soon after, but in situations where I’m chasing more than one survivor and only one is impaled, Mirror Shards lets me ignore the impaled survivor to focus on someone else, knowing that the impaled will be both pinged via the spike’s aura and unable to heal for a good while if they’re able to remove it.
Best Jason build in DBD
Collectively, this Jason build is meant to keep the lobby at less than 100% almost all the time, so long as you can hit your throws and remember that you actually want to be pallet-stunned. This thematic throughline helps DBD’s Jason more closely resemble his movie version by keeping the pressure on survivors and turning him into a tireless monster who always seems to show up at the worst moment for them.
