Trying to improve your gameplay or to rank up as a sole survivor in Dead by Daylight is frustrating at the best of times. While it is deemed more fun to lobby up with two or three friends, sometimes you just have a Dead by Daylight itch to scratch and nobody is available to lobby up with you.
In order to make the experience a little more bearable, here are some tips on how to make the most out of solo-queuing.
Recommended Perks
Kindred
This is a perk you simply should not solo-queue without. With Kindred equipped, all survivors can see the auras of each other and the killer (if he is within 12 metres of you) while you’re on the hook. Additionally, you’ll be able to see the auras of all other survivors whenever someone else is on the hook too. This is a wealth of information!
You can see who is working on a generator. You can see who is being chased. You can also see if anyone is already going for the rescue. This helps you to avoid the killer and encourage other survivors to unhook you rather than leaving you for dead (as some often will do). When you’re unable to communicate with the team that you’re playing with, this perk is crucial.
Self Care
The Self Care perk and people who regularly run Self Care can often be frowned upon. The perk uses more time than if another teammate healed you or than if you used a medkit. This valuable time could be spent on generators or unhooking your team.
However, if you’re in a solo queue situation and can’t communicate with your teammates, it can be useful when you need that heal but nobody else is around. Alternatively, a medkit does the same thing; and if your medkit is above a brown one or has some add-ons, you can heal yourself much faster than Self Care will.
Inner Strength, with Small Game
As an alternative to Self Care, Nancy’s perk — Inner Strength — allows you to heal yourself by getting in a locker for eight seconds after having cleansed a totem. This is even quicker than when a teammate heals you and can be really useful if you’re a bone-hunter and in a rush. Using this perk alongside Small Game, which gives you an auditory notification when you're nearby a totem, makes healing yourself incredibly easy when in dire need.
Bond
One of Dwight’s perks, Bond, allows you to see the aura of your fellow survivors within a particular distance. This perk can be incredibly useful when you’re unable to communicate with your team and you need to make a quick decision of what to do next.
Bond allows you to make faster — and smarter — decisions than if you were unable to see your teammates. You can go ahead and give another survivor the heal that they need, get yourself healed, avoid the killer, or go ahead and team up on a generator when needs be.
Dark Sense
Whenever a generator is completed, the Dark Sense perk will reveal the killer’s location to you for a limited amount of time. When unable to directly communicate with other survivors, this perk gives you enough knowledge to know what objective to complete next.
You’ll be able to see whether the killer is chasing someone or heading straight in your direction and ultimately, you will know which direction to go towards next so that you can become one step closer to escaping.
Left Behind (If You're Looking For Hatch)
Hopefully, it won’t have to come to this. Yet, if you’re approaching the end of the game and there are two generators left while there are only two survivors left alive… it’s safe to assume that your game will then become a fight for the hatch.
Left Behind is one of Bill's perks. It will show you the aura of the hatch within 20-30 metres provided you are the last survivor standing. However, it’s not often that this perk gets to be used, so we recommend using a perk you’ll get more use out of as a solo survivor.
Recommended Items
Flashlight
If you feel confident enough with a flashlight, then go and be a hero. You’ll find that when queueing up with random players, injuries happen left, right, and centre without much anyone can do about them.
With your flashlight, however, you can stun the killer and make them drop your teammate, giving them a second chance to run away from that hook. Not only does this make you look like a hero, but you will instantly build trust (you’d hope so, anyway) with the fellow survivor, making teamwork a little easier.
By protecting your team, they can be more productive as you keep the killer off their tail. Thus, bringing you one step closer to a successful escape.
Med Kit
If you're concerned your teammates won't heal you, a good medkit can help rather than running Self Care or using Inner Strength — saving space to utilise other perks. A con of the medkit is that you can often only heal yourself once using it, so it is to be used cautiously. However, a good medkit with some add-ons can give you more than one heal. On top of that, it could also heal you incredibly fast if needed too.
Other Tips
Utilising emotes.
In Dead by Daylight, your survivor can perform two different emotes. One will make your survivor point in the direction that they are facing and the second encourages whomever you are communicating with that they should follow you.
When up close and personal with a teammate, these emotes can prove incredibly useful in dire situations. You can show your teammate where the hatch has spawned, encourage them to come and work on a generator with you, help them to avoid the killer, tell them to go for the save, and the list goes on. You just have to hope that your fellow survivor understands what it is that you are hinting at when using these emotes.
Alternatively… you can utilise your emotes to ‘boop the snoot’ of The Pig or Demogorgon; but, I don’t recommend trying to take that risk when solo-queuing.
Finally, don’t give up! Farm bloodpoints.
Sometimes, solo-queuing really does become unbearable. Even at its most frustrating — when other survivors are leaving you on the hook, or some keep running the killer towards generators being worked on, or you're facing a killer who simply won’t leave you alone — it is never worth giving up.
While you can, go and farm as many bloodpoints as possible. Prolong your chases, open every chest you see, drop palettes and cleanse totems. If you fancy it, go down to the basement and get those lovely Basement Time points too.
The game may essentially be over, but that doesn’t mean to say you shouldn’t get anything from it!