Dead by Daylight Huntress Guide - Ready Games Survive

About
Latest Posts

Arron is a featured team writer and lifelong gamer. Ever since he started playing games on his old SNES, and has been hooked ever since. He has a particular love for games like Pillars of Eternity, Skyrim, a variety of beloved indie titles, and also a few online shooters to serve as a means of avoiding open-world fatigue. Outside of gaming, he enjoys watching arthouse movies, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and writing fiction.

Key Info Up Front

Name: Anna
Realm: Red Forest
Power: Hunting Hatchets
Movement Speed: 110%
Perks: Beast of Prey, Hex: Huntress Lullaby, Territorial imperative
Difficulty: Medium

Huntress Overview

Hunt

The Huntress is a ranged killer that uses throwing hatchets to take down survivors from afar. Her playstyle is focused on pressuring the survivors to go where you want them to so that you can catch them with enhanced chase capabilities and surprise tactics. The Huntress’ unique mechanics can take some getting used to for new players, but she shares enough with more accessible killers in the game that experienced players can pick her up with relative ease.

The Huntress’ story started with her mother teaching her how to survive the harsh elements in her native home of Russia. She was raised in solitary in the woods, having to survive difficult winters and help her mom take care of herself. Eventually, her mother was killed by an elk they hunted after throwing herself in the beast’s charging path to protect Anna. Since Anna could not carry her mother back to their cabin, she lay there with her in the cold until she died.

Living on her own in the woods, the Huntress had to fully embrace her instincts and knowledge of the forest to survive. Over the years, she grew stronger and more resilient but at the cost of her ever-waning humanity. Eventually, she graduated from hunting small game like rabbits and foxes to bears and wolves with ease. When she was an adult, she discovered her favorite prey: humans that wandered through her woods. She would kill them like they were any other game and steal their possessions that appealed to her.

However, she could never kill little girls. Instead, she would take them back to her cabin deep in the thick of the forest. There, she tried to make them her daughter by tying them up in a room so they wouldn’t run and surrounding them with the toys and books her mother had for her.

They all would eventually die from various causes, whether the cold or starvation and each one’s death sent the Huntress deeper into desperation for a connection. When people began avoiding her woods, she took to raiding their villages, slaughtering families to steal their children, and wearing an animal’s mask to make the young girls feel safer.

Huntress Perks

Like all killers in Dead by Daylight, the Huntress has three unique perks that she starts with that help define her playstyle alongside her unique ability. However, as players level up the Huntress, they can find sharable versions of the Blood Web perks that allow them to use the perks with any other killers in the game for lethal combinations. The Huntress’ perks are:

Beast of Prey

This perk is all about the chase. When the Huntress gets the Bloodlust status effect by chasing a survivor for long enough, she is also given the Undetectable status effect. Undetectable makes players not be able to hear where she is when they’re within her terror radius, allowing her to surprise the players better that she is chasing. Beast of Prey also increases the Blooodpoints she gets from Hunter actions by 30/40/50%, depending on the perk’s rank.

Hex: Huntress Lullaby

hex

Like all Hex perks, Hex: Huntress Lullaby randomly places a hex totem on the map that must remain uncleansed to be effective. This particular totem gives players a 2/4/6% penalty depending on the perk’s rank whenever players fail a skill check while repairing a generator or trying to heal. The perk is also strengthened every time the Huntress places a survivor on a hook, giving the perk one token. Each token does the following:

1 Token: Decreases the time between the warning sound for skill checks and the check by 14%.
2 Token: Decreases the time between the warning sound for skill checks and the check by 28%.
3 Token: Decreases the time between the warning sound for skill checks and the check by 42%.
4 Token: Decreases the time between the warning sound for skill checks and the check by 56%.
5 Token: Removes the warning sound for skill checks.

Territorial Imperative

This perk is all about playing around the killer’s basement. When the Huntress is within 32 meters of the basement, it reveals the aura of any survivors that enter it for three seconds, allowing the Huntress to react and hunt them down quickly. However, it does have a cooldown of 30/25/20 seconds, depending on the perk’s rank.

Huntress Abilities

The Huntress’ trademark ability is her hunting hatchets. It allows her to charge a ranged hatchet throw that injures any survivors they hit. She starts every game with five in her inventory, but she can always grab more from any empty locker across the map.

The hatchets can also be thrown without fully charging them at the cost of a lower flight speed and shorter flight distance. A charging hatchet throw can also be canceled, allowing the Huntress to react to any other survivors or one breaking her line of sight.

The stats for her hatchets are:

Charge Time: 3 seconds
Reload Time: 4 seconds
Ability Cooldown: 2 seconds
Maximum Flight Speed: 40 m/s
Minimum Flight Speed: 25 m/s
Movement Speed While Charging: 3.08 m/s
Movement Speed While Reloading: 3.74 m/s

The Huntress also hums her favorite lullaby that her mother would hum to her. It can be heard from up to a maximum of 45 meters, helping survivors know when she is approaching, and it only stops whenever the Huntress attacks. Players can also improve her hunting hatchets using any of the following items:

Rarity	Item Name	Description
Common	Yellowed Cloth	Boosts hunting hatchet flight speed by 10%.
	Coarse Stone	Boosts the volume of grunts of pain from survivors by 50% if they are hit with hunting hatchets.
	Bandaged Haft	Decreases the cool-down between hunting hatchet throws by 10%.
	Amanita Toxin	Afflicts survivors are hit with hunting hatchets with the Blindness status effect for 60 seconds.
Uncommon	Weighted Head	Afflicts survivors are hit with hunting hatchets with the Incapacitated status effect for 10 seconds.
	Shiny Pin	Increases the Huntress’ move speed while charging a hunting hatchet throw by 5%.
	Oak Haft	Decreases the cool-down between hunting hatchet throws by 20%.
	Manna Grass Braid	Decreases the charge time for hunting hatchet throws by 8%.
	Leather Loop	Allows the Huntress to carry up to six hunting hatchets at once and gives her an additional hatchet at the start of the match.
Rare	Venomous Concoction	Afflicts survivors are hit with hunting hatchets with the Exhausted status effect for five seconds.
	Rusty Head	Afflicts survivors are hit with hunting hatchets with the Mangled status effect until healed.
	Rose Root	Boosts the flight speed of hunting hatchets by 20%.
	Flower Babushka	Decreases the charge time for hunting hatchet throws by 12%.
	Deerskin Gloves	Decreases the time it takes to grab hatchets from a locker by 20%.
Very Rare	Wooden Fox	It gives the Huntress the Undetectable status effect for 30 seconds when she reloads.
	Infantry Belt	Allows the Huntress to carry up to seven hunting hatchets and gives her two additional hatchets at the start of the match.
	Glowing Concoction	Reveals the aura of survivors hit by a hunting hatchet to the Huntress for five seconds.
	Begrimed Head	Afflicts survivors hit with hunting hatchets with the Mangled and Haemorrhage status effects.
Ultra Rare	Soldier’s Puttee	Boosts the Huntress’ movement speed to 4.6 m/s when she doesn’t have any hunting hatchets.
Ultra Rare	Iridescent Head	It makes the Huntress only able to carry one hunting hatchet at a time but makes her hatchets put survivors in the dying state when they are hit with them.

Huntress Builds

Build

If you’re looking to tackle playing the Huntress, there are a few different ways you can approach using her. Each of these builds can be modified to suit your preferred playstyle better, but these are some of the best builds for the Huntress.

Huntress Beginner

This build is focused on learning the Huntress, especially if you’re an experienced player, as it requires some perks from other Killers. This build is all about helping you find survivors while also giving you plenty of time to practice with your hunting hatchets to get you comfortable with the Huntress’ most powerful tool. For this build, you’ll need these perks:

Barbeque & Chili (Cannibal): Reveals the auras of every survivor for four seconds after putting a survivor on a hook as long as the other survivors are more than 40 meters away. It also grants you a stacking 25% bonus to earned Bloodpoints every time you hook a survivor.
A Nurse’s Calling (Nurse): Reveals the auras of survivors that are healing or being healed within a certain range of you.
I’m All Ears (Ghost Face): Reveals the auras of survivors that perform rushed actions within 48 meters of you.
Corrupt Intervention (Plague): Blocks the generators furthest away from you at the start of the game for up to 120 seconds, depending on the perk’s rank.

These perks will help you track survivors no matter what they are doing, allowing you to test out hunting hatchet throws and keep them on hooks as much as possible. If there are any of the above perks that you don’t have, replace them with ones that reveal survivor auras as much as possible to help you track them down efficiently. For items, you’ll want to focus on ones that increase your hatchet capacity to get as much practice with them as possible and to help avoid running out of them during a chase.

Intermediate Huntress

This build is great to move on from the above beginner build. Once you feel comfortable getting consistent hits on survivors with your hatchets, this build will transition you into using map control and aura visibility to help you better hunt players down and control where they go. It also will help you get them to hooks more consistently. For this build, you’ll want to use these perks:

Monitor & Abuse (Doctor): Expands your terror radius base value by 8 meters and decreases your terror radius by 16 meters while increasing your field of view when not in a chase.
Beast of Prey (Huntress): When the Huntress gets the Bloodlust status effect by chasing a survivor for long enough, she is also given the Undetectable status effect.
Whispers: Alerts you with whispers whenever at least one survivor is nearby.
Iron Grasp: Decreases the effect wiggling survivors have on your movement by 75% while also increasing their duration to wiggle to escape.

With this build, you should also start experimenting with more of the Huntress’ items. Since by this point, you should be more capable with her hunting hatchets, you can use items that make them more effective or afflict status effects on survivors to find which ones work best for your play style. Then, once you feel confident in your abilities as Huntress, you can pick one of the following builds.

Rounded Huntress

This build focuses on enhancing the Huntress’ strengths and mitigating her weaknesses as much as possible. However, it requires perks from some other killers, like most of Dead by Daylight‘s strongest killer builds. This build focuses on keeping you well stocked with hunting hatchets and making the Huntress’ slower movement speed not as impactful on your performance. For this build, take these perks:

Corrupt Intervention (Plague): Blocks the generators furthest away from you at the start of the game for up to 120 seconds, depending on the perk’s rank.
I’m All Ears (Ghost Face): Reveals the auras of survivors that perform rushed actions within 48 meters of you.
Barbeque & Chili (Cannibal): Reveals the auras of every survivor for four seconds after putting a survivor on a hook as long as the other survivors are more than 40 meters away. It also grants you a stacking 25% bonus to earned Bloodpoints every time you hook a survivor.
Blood Echo (Oni): Afflicts all injured survivors with the Haemorrhage and Exhausted status effects for 45 seconds whenever you hook another survivor.

For your items on this build, you can take whichever you prefer. Having your hunting hatchets afflict additional status effects on survivors is a good route, but increasing your hatchets or decreasing the time it takes to charge your throws can also be very impactful. Which ones you take depends more on what you prefer than anything else.

Pressure Huntress

The Pressure Huntress focus on making the game as difficult as possible for the survivors. It does so by helping you find auras to start chases, slowing down survivor progress, and controlling the map to your preferences. This build can be incredibly difficult for survivors to counteract or beat even at the highest matchmaking ranks with a strong player. To do it, you’ll need these perks:

Knock Out (Cannibal): When putting a survivor into dying state with your basic attack, their aura is no longer revealed to survivors that are too far away, and they are afflicted with the Blindness status effect, are deafened, and crawl at half speed for 15 seconds.
BBQ & Chili (Cannibal): Reveals the auras of every survivor for four seconds after putting a survivor on a hook as long as the other survivors are more than 40 meters away. It also grants you a stacking 25% bonus to earned Bloodpoints every time you hook a survivor.
Hex: Ruin (Hag): Increases the regression rate of generators while not being worked on up to 200% depending on the perk’s rank.
Hex: Thrill of the Hunt: Gets a token for every totem still active on the map. For each token, players cleanse totems slower at a rate up to 50%. Each token also grants a stackable 10% Bloodpoints bonus for actions in the Hunter category up to 50%.

These perks will allow you to punish survivors whenever they leave a generator alone while helping you keep them away from generators by chasing and repeatedly downing them. For your add-ons, you can go with whatever you prefer, but items like Iridescent Head and Shiny Pin will help you if you’re confident in your hunting hatchet skills. Items like Glowing Concoction and Venemous Concoction will help you hinder survivors more when you hit them with your hunting hatchets, allowing you to close the gap for a basic attack to down them while also helping you find their auras more easily.

Huntress Do’s and Don’ts

Do:

Wait to throw a hatchet until you know that you will hit.
Throw hatchets from a great distance by arcing them when you can see a survivor’s aura.
Leave pallets standing to give survivors a false sense of security before you hit them with a hunting hatchet.
Try to throw hunting hatchets while survivors are stuck in a locked animation, so they can’t move.
Use your ability to hit survivors from a range to pressure players and make them scared of you no matter where you are on the map.
Feel free to damage a generator after hitting a survivor working on it, as you can cover the gap this will give them in the chase with a well-thrown hunting hatchet.
Experiment with the Huntress’ unique items to determine which ones work best for you.
Take your time and stalk survivors as much as possible, waiting for an excellent opportunity to strike.
Learn the radius of your lullaby and get used to throwing hunting hatchets at people outside that radius, so they don’t see you coming.
Use players who know Huntress’s sounds winding up a hunting hatchet or putting one away to your advantage.

Don’ts:

Try to take a stealthy approach to hunting down survivors, as your lullaby will repeatedly give away your position.
Hold a charged hunting hatchet for too long, as the slower speed makes chasing much more difficult.
Reload your hatchet supply at inopportune times.
Swing your main weapon too often as it has a very slow swing speed that gives survivors plenty of time to flee.
Rush your hunting hatchet throws and scare survivors and cause them to flee, ruining your time spent stalking them.
Get frustrated if it takes some time to get proficient with throwing your hunting hatchets.

Huntress Trivia

trivia

The Huntress was the first killer in Dead by Daylight to have a ranged attack.
The Huntress was the first character in the game without a known surname.
The Huntress is one of the most human-like killers in the game, as it seems like The Entity has not mutated or altered her very much.
The Huntress has black eyes like an animal, possibly referencing the lycanthropic Bodark creature from Russian folklore.
The song hummed by the Huntress is a popular Russian lullaby called Bayushki Bayu about children getting pulled from their bed by wolves if they sleep too close to the edge.

FAQs

**Question: Is the Huntress good in Dead by Daylight?**

Answer: Yes, the Huntress can be a very strong killer if the player knows how to use her strengths to their advantage. She definitely has weaknesses that survivors can exploit, but these attempts can be countered by smart play.

**Question: Is the Huntress in Dead by Daylight from a movie?**

Answer: No, there are various movies and pop culture characters that are called the Huntress, but the one in Dead by Daylight is an original character from its universe.

**Question: Is the Huntress’ hum in Dead by Daylight still directional?**

Answer: No, it was originally directional but was changed in a patch to help the Huntress not give away her exact position to survivors all the time.

Conclusion

The Huntress can be a problematic killer to learn since her hunting hatchets can take some players a lot of time to come to grips with. However, once players get the hang of them, she is incredibly fun to play.

Skillful Huntress players can hit survivors from nearly anywhere on the map, making for great moments and exciting hits, especially while chasing a player in a loop and then finally getting a hit on them to put them in dying state.

So, the time it takes to learn Huntress is more than worth it, especially for any players looking to mix up their matches as the killer.

Continue reading related Dead by Daylight guides: