Final debate between stronger side killer vs survivor
Killer and survivors enter match without perks, offerings and add-ons, no tools box, medkit, map nothing.
Which side do you think will dominate under a standard match?
Give well structured arguments only
In a Dead by Daylight (DBD) match where both the Killer and Survivors enter without perks, offerings, add-ons, or items, the Killer has a distinct advantage. Here’s a structured breakdown of why:
1. The Killer’s Built-in Strengths
Unlike Survivors, who rely heavily on perks and items for efficiency, the Killer’s core mechanics remain potent even without enhancements. Key advantages include:
Inherent Map Pressure: The Killer always knows where Survivors will be (e.g., generators, hooks, exit gates). Survivors must constantly move and react, while the Killer can dictate the flow of the game.
Guaranteed One-Hit Advantage: While Survivors need two hits to go down, they have no way to heal themselves without a medkit or perks like Self-Care. Once injured, they stay vulnerable.
Hooking Survivors Is Unchanged: Without perks like Decisive Strike or Deliverance, Survivors have no second chances after being hooked. A Killer who gets a down always progresses toward a sacrifice.
No Tool-Assisted Loops: Without Dead Hard, Sprint Burst, or medkits, chases are entirely skill-dependent. The Killer’s speed and mind games become even stronger.
2. Survivor Struggles Without Perks and Items
Survivors rely on their perks and items for resilience. Without them:
No Healing: Without Medkits or perks like Self-Care, a single hit puts a Survivor in a dangerous state indefinitely.
Longer Generator Times: No toolboxes, Prove Thyself, or Resilience means generators take the full 90 seconds per Survivor, allowing the Killer more time to pressure objectives.
No Chase Perks: Perks like Dead Hard, Sprint Burst, and Window-related perks help Survivors extend chases. Without them, most Survivors will go down quickly.
No Hook Second Chances: Perks like Borrowed Time, Decisive Strike, or Unbreakable give Survivors counterplay after being hooked. Without them, the Killer has fewer obstacles to sacrificing players.
3. Exceptions & Edge Cases
While the Killer generally dominates in a no-perk, no-item environment, a few scenarios could challenge this assumption:
Map Dependence: Some maps (e.g., The Game, RPD) have strong natural loops. A highly skilled Survivor team could out-loop a basic M1 Killer.
High Coordination: SWF (Survive With Friends) groups can communicate and make strategic plays. Even without perks, a well-coordinated team can extend the match.
Certain Killers Struggle: Killers like The Trapper, The Twins, or The Pig, who rely heavily on their power and add-ons, may struggle more than straightforward Killers like The Wraith or The Hillbilly.
My Conclusion: Killer Dominates all the time.
Comments
Well, we do play both sides. It's just whichever side you're more emotionally invested in, that's the one you pick. But some people are honestly wanting to argue in favor of better balance, even though they've taken X side, and others who just argue in bad faith.
Spoken like a potato surv.
Yes, killer is generally the power role but a strong SWF is the strongest thing in the game. Without an artificial ruleset like they use in comp, a good, coordinated SWF will almost always win regardless of the killer. A comp level team in public matches is a wrecking machine.
Yes, solo queue is the weakest role in the game by far, and often miserable, but saying that a surv team's only chance is if the killer is trash is nonsense. I have a near 40% escape rate strictly in solo and I'm not even all that great. I've seen some of the stats BHVR sent people where they had a 70-80%+ escape rate (who admitted the play almost exclusively in SWF).
That's not all because of bad killers. Solo sucks, but too many survs seem to just like wallowing in their victim complex.
The fact of the matter is that this game is too messy with variables and imbalance to make blanket statements about one side versus the other, regardless of how much time people spend trying to break it down.
There is no overwhelming evidence. The "plenty" of streamers you're referring to can be counted on 1 hand, maybe 2 or 3. And they're very secretive about their exclusive anti-cheater queue and other benefits. Maybe the rest of us are dealing with subtle cheaters all the time, who knows? But if killer was just that easy, everyone would be doing 100+ win streaks and never complain. Maybe it's a mindset we're missing. Maybe if we just "believe" in getting this super impressive streak, and have an accompanying gameplay mentality, we'll magically get it. But with how the math of the game is, nothing tangible really supports that.
Except survivors can see in the normal mode. 🤦♀️ Not a good comparison.
There are no killer sided maps, except for how Hag performs on Midwich, the Knight on The Game, or Ghost Face on Lery's. But those are niche killers with, what, 1 favorable map? A "killer sided map" would be one where all killers perform well on it, every time.
Haddonfield is a killer sided map by virtue of having such gigantic deadzones on it, which is why I used it as an example. Midwich also favours killer on average due to its size/shape and how easily patrollable the exit gates are.
There are definitely more survivor sided maps, but that doesn't mean killer leaning maps don't exist.
just like there are plenty of survivor sided maps, there are plenty of killer sided ones. Haddonfield is killer sided for example.
it would probably be a draw
There is no overwhelming evidence. The "plenty" of streamers you're referring to can be counted on 1 hand, maybe 2 or 3. And they're very secretive about their exclusive anti-cheater queue and other benefits.We're just in conspiracy territory. The streamers just get easier survivors? This despite the fact that SWFs stream sniped the blight streak during it trying to take it down (and that's eventually what ended it).
And if we make the streak 1000s we only are talking about a handful, which is true just based off time they have, but lots more than that do 50 game win streaks.
Maybe if we just "believe" in getting this super impressive streak, and have an accompanying gameplay mentality, we'll magically get it.Or maybe some killer mains haven't quite mastered the game as well as they think they have. I have no claims to being a perfect killer player, far from it, but streamers don't seem to be hitting the level or frequency of SWFs that killers on this forum claim to exist.
But with how the math of the game is, nothing tangible really supports that.It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.
~Richard Feyman
You claimed it couldn't have happened because your concept of how a DbD game should go means it is impossible. Except it did happen, so your postulating that somehow BHVR throws them easier survivor groups. When data contradicts a theory a more rational explanation is that the theory is wrong.
I have a big problem with what people classify as killer sided maps. Survivor sided maps tend to be heavily stacked in the survivors favor and there are a number of them. Generally, with the exception of Haddonfield and perhaps the vecna map, the maps that people say are killer sided arent actually killer sided. They just arent survivor sided. A map that is balanced for both sides is not killer sided. Take Midwich for example. For the most part Midwich is a pretty fair map, not really favoring either side. Certain killers might do really well on it but thats gonna be the case on killers that are map dependent.
Ideally, all maps would be fair for both sides and not favor one side over the other. I realize that this might be a bit challenging for the map design team to pull off since DBD is big on licensed content, and there is a big desire from the map design team to stay faithful to the franchise the map is associated with, but some balance problems are really egregious and there really just isnt much of an excuse.
Does Eyrie really need so many safe pallets within a stones throw away from each other? Does Giddeon need to have so many regular and god pallets? Why are the main buildings on so many maps intentionally made to be strong and safe for the survivor as possible? There are some really notorious examples of extremely oppressive main buildings on some of the maps (Disturbed Ward, Ormond, Badham as a few examples)
as a killer main i say that killer are advantaged, bc the strongh of the survs are the perks, it's not swf but the perks, so many perks of second chances, first of all OTR, DH & DS… remove these from dbd, and it change the game as killer side… with this perks is totally surv side, without considering the borrow base kit devs gave to them
oh true, I forgot most people care only about personal escape rate.
I usually focus on overall escape in my games, so kinda thought about it by default.
IIRC, the depip squad got to the point where they played 100 games with no perks, items, or comms, and still won like 96% of their games.
Even with all the changes since then, I think if the survivors and killers are playing equally well, the survivors win nearly 100% of the time. The killer just can’t be in 4 places at once. They can’t chase 4 people at once.
Momo beat SWFs and coordinated ones in his winstreaks exactly like how all other good killers are winning.
Besides, the game should be balanced for solos. Killers shouldn't be able to winstreak. We already know a good killer will always win against solos and that fundamentally shouldn't happen unless the game itself is massively failing, which it is. Survivors are unable to counterplay good killers because the skill ceiling is very small. I still believe in what I said given all the evidence we have. Survivors depends on the killer being terrible at the game to stand a chance. Individual survivors are variables in the game that means nothing for the outcome.
are we talking about actual high skill and 0 perk/item/addon restrictions on each side? Survivor wins most of the time
You can't lose if you play perfectly in either side, unless the other side brings stronger items, dbd is about the side who have the most meta stuff (maps are important too but anyways)
When 3 survivors kill themselves on hook at 4 or 5 Gens do you as a killer feels powerful?
I have seen many games were a killer came with no perks or add-ons and won the whole game but I e never seen a game where survivors came with no perks, add-on or items and didn't get sacrificed completely
Wrong. There's been countless killer games where they were downing survivors back to back to back, and all the gens got done anyway. And when the gens get done, there's like 90% chance of multiple survivors escaping, meaning a draw or a loss.
If it's about having the most meta stuff, which you'd use to trump the other side's stuff, how is it also possible for someone to for you to never lose if you play perfect (playing your best)?
because chances to come up against a perkless 4-men squad are about 4 times lower than chances to come up against a perkless killer.
Question: Can you please point us to one of these cases so we can see? Preferably a non comp "wild" match.
We had this "experiment" it was called chaos shuffle.
What happened?
Killers hard tunneled because they had no gen defense
Survivors hard gen rushed because the killer had no gen defense
The game is literally balanced around killers bringing 2 gen defense perks, and survivors bringing at least 1 anti-tunnel perk each. When that doesn't happen its a giant ######### show.
Thanks for the statistics Captain Obvious
Of course how could have have ignored maths and statistics?
Killers have a 64% win rate on average and that number is too high, with the number of survivors on the map the survivors should win more based on the argument but that's not the case is it?
Its because anything that gives survivors a chance to escape is nerfed or removed from the game.
I am looking for an engaging discussion with arguments for or against.