DBD Killer Tier List (November 2026): Every Tier Explained

The Nurse, The Blight and The Spirit are still the strongest killers in Dead by Daylight, with The Hillbilly, The Huntress, The Mastermind, The Singularity and The Ghoul a half-step behind. If you want one killer to learn for wins, learn Blight; if you want the highest ceiling and can live with a brutal learning curve, learn Nurse.

This DBD killer tier list reflects the live 10.2 build in late October 2026, plus the Update 10.3.0 Public Test Build that Behaviour opened on Steam on October 28. That PTB carries the Terrifier chapter, which Behaviour says launches for everyone on November 24, 2026. Ranks are our opinion. We don’t quote kill rates, and movement speeds come from the Dead by Daylight Wiki.

How we ranked DBD killers

Our mode is public matches against solo-queue and duo survivors at mid-to-high matchmaking, the games most players actually see. A killer ranks higher when its power still works on bad maps, it can end chases without relying on a pallet mistake, it pressures generators across the map, and it doesn’t need purple or iridescent add-ons to function.

Coordinated four-stack SWF teams compress every killer toward the bottom, and high-level tournament play rewards a narrower pool still. Neither is our lens. If you play mostly against tight squads, slide everything below S down a tier in your head.

DBD killer tier list for November 2026

Each tier lists killers in rough order. “Not ranked” means too new or too recently changed for us to call, not weak.

S tier

• The Nurse: blinks through walls, so loops simply don’t exist. Her base speed is slower than a running survivor, which is why she’s hard to learn and terrifying once learned.
• The Blight: rushes at high speed and slams off objects to redirect. Covers the map fast and ends chases faster.
• The Spirit: Phase Walk hides her from survivors and turns every mind game in her favor.

A tier

• The Hillbilly: the chainsaw sprint crosses the map and downs instantly on a hit.
• The Huntress: thrown hatchets punish open ground and short loops alike.
• The Mastermind: Bound vaults over pallets and windows, and his infection adds steady pressure.
• The Singularity: Biopods let him teleport onto tagged survivors from range.
• The Ghoul: Kagune leaps cover distance quickly and shorten chases at most tiles.

B tier

• The Lich: a spellbook of tools that rewards players who know when to use each.
• The Dark Lord: shape-shifting forms give options, but each has a clear weakness.
• The Houndmaster: the dog shortens chases, though strong loopers can play around it.
• The Oni: dangerous once Blood Fury is active; slow until then.
• The Plague: Corrupt Purge is powerful, but survivors control when she gets it.
• The Hag: trap webs crush survivors near generators; weaker in open chases.
• The Artist: long-range crows pressure the map but need good placement.
• The Wraith: stealth and speed for ambushes; chases are mostly basic.
• The Doctor: Static Blast finds survivors but rarely ends chases on its own.

C tier

• The Trapper: setup-heavy; good survivors avoid traps once spotted.
• The Pig: Reverse Bear Traps buy time, but her chase power is limited.
• The Clown: bottles slow survivors, yet loops still cost him time.
• The Legion: Feral Frenzy spreads injuries but struggles to finish downs.
• The Shape: Evil Within rewards stalking, but he’s predictable at loops.

Why movement speed decides so many ranks

Here’s the math behind the gap between tiers. Per the Dead by Daylight Wiki, a running survivor moves at 4.0 m/s. Most killers move at 115% (4.6 m/s), some at 110% (4.4 m/s), and The Nurse at 3.85 m/s outside her power. Divide a starting gap by the difference and you get the time a killer needs to close it on open ground, with no power, no vault and no pallet.

That’s an extra 8.3 seconds for every 10 m of lead, and a good survivor resets that lead over and over at pallets and windows. It’s why 110% killers like Spirit and Huntress only work because their powers more than make up for it, and why a 110% killer with a weak power falls fast in any ranking. It also shows how absurd Nurse’s design is: on foot she can never catch anyone, so every down comes from her blinks.

Audio matters as much as speed for the survivor side of this math. Terror radius heartbeats and footsteps tell you exactly how much of that 10 m buffer you’ve got left, and a decent set of cans makes the difference; our picks for wireless headsets under $100 are a good start.

What about The Judgment, Jason and Art the Clown?

The Judgment arrived on August 25, 2026 with the Chorus of Sin chapter, The Slasher (Jason Voorhees) joined on June 16, 2026, and The First came with the Stranger Things chapter in January 2026. All three are left unranked. Recent killers tend to get tuning in their first months. We’d rather wait than rank on a moving target.

Art the Clown is the next killer. Behaviour’s announcement says the Terrifier chapter, with Art, survivor Sienna Shaw and the new Hartshorne Mall map, went to the Steam PTB on October 28 and releases on November 24, 2026. PTB versions often change before launch, so we won’t rank Art until the live build is out. Check the official Dead by Daylight site for final patch notes.

Our ranks are opinions built on facts you can check, the same split behind how we score games. Disagree with a placement? Good. That’s what tier lists are for.

For other multiplayer rankings, see our Battlefield 6 weapon tier list and Wild Rift tier list, or our guide to Deep Rock Galactic crossplay if your group also plays co-op.

Quick questions

Pick a top-tier killer, learn one map’s loops, and the rest follows.