While Dead by Daylight is a simple game of cat and mouse on the surface, there are quite a few systems cooking under the hood. Various status effects can help or hinder both the Killer and Survivors, while special indicators inform you of how well you’re progressing in certain tasks. These effects are denoted by various symbols on your HUD. Here are all the indicators and what they mean in Dead by Daylight.
All Indicators and What They Mean – Dead by Daylight
Dead by Daylight tracks a variety of status effects, proficiencies, and perk effects as you go about your tasks in a Trial. These effects are indicated by the various symbols on your HUD. Status effects are denoted by circles on the right side of your screen, proficiencies appear above progress bars during tasks like generator repair or sabotage, and perk effects appear next to your personal perk symbols.
Related: Dead by Daylight Survivors Tier List
In addition to the symbols, there are also colors and arrows that denote whether you’re being positively or negatively affected by the symbol in question. An upward arrow means a buff, while a downward arrow means a debuff. Yellow bars on your status symbols and progress bars indicate positive benefits like boosted speed, while red bars indicate negative penalties.
Status Effect Symbols
These symbols appear when you’re being affected by a buff or debuff. These can arise from environmental factors, perks, Killer abilities, and more.
- Sparkling Triangle: Blessed: Appears when a Survivor is in the radius of a Boon Totem.
- Red eyeball: Blindness: Unable to read player auras.
- Animal Skull: Bloodlust: Boosts Killer speed during a chase.
- Crossed-out Red Cross: Broken: Survivors are unable to heal themselves or be healed by others.
- Empty Triangle: Cursed: Appears when under the effect of a Hex Totem.
- Person with a slash on their chest: Deep Wound: A Survivor must complete the Mend action before a timer runs out or they take damage.
- Normal person: Endurance: A Survivor can take a hit from a Killer without being damaged.
- Empty heart: Exhausted: Survivors are unable to use physical perks like Adrenaline or Dead Hard.
- Skull: Exposed: Survivors can be downed with a single hit from the Killer, even if they’re Healthy.
- Droplet: Haemorrhage: Survivors produce more frequent blood pools when injured and heal slower.
- Winged Shoe: Haste: Players move faster.
- Ball and chain: Hindered: Players have decreased movement speed.
- Handcuffs: Incapacitated: Survivors can’t interact with designated map props.
- Brain: Madness: Survivors are under the effects of the Doctor’s abilities.
- Broken bone: Mangled: Survivors take longer to be healed by a health state.
- Hand-over-face: Oblivious: Survivors cannot perceive the Killer’s Terror Radius or hear the Heartbeat.
- Sleeping person: Sleep Penalty: Survivors who take longer to be awoken from the Nightmare’s abilities.
- Invisible person: Undetectable: The Killer’s Terror Radius is suppressed and their aura cannot be seen.
Proficeincies
Proficiency symbols appear over progress bars while performing actions like repairing generators or sabotaging hooks. If they are yellow, they are positive, and if they are red, they are negative.
- Four-leaf clover: Chance: Affects the probability of self-unhooks. Yellow means a better chance, red means a worse chance.
- Lightning bolt: Efficiency: Affects how quickly items are used up. Yellow means the item is being consumed slower, red means it’s being consumed faster.
- Red cross box: Healing: Affects healing speed. Yellow means faster healing, red means slower healing.
- Fast-forward symbol: Progression speed: Affects how quickly you’re progressing on a task. Yellow means faster progression, red means slower.
- Wrench: Repairing: Affects generator repair speed. Yellow means faster repairs, red means slower.
- Saw: Sabotaging: Affects hook sabotage speed. Yellow means faster sabotaging, red means slower.
- Skill Check symbol: Affects ease of Skill Checks. Yellow means skill check success areas are larger, red means they’re smaller.
- Skill Check symbol with dice: Affects chance of Skill Checks occurring. Yellow means they are less likely to occur, red means more likely.
Perk Effects
Smaller versions of the usual perk symbols will appear next to your perk diamond when you’re under the effect of another Survivor or Killer’s perks. If it’s blue and has an upward arrow, it’s a positive effect. If it’s red and has a downward arrow, it’s a negative effect.
The perks that cause perk symbols to appear are as follows:
- Aftercare
- Better than New
- Blood Pact
- Blood Echo
- Boil Over
- Boon: Circle of Healing
- Boon: Dark Theory
- Boon: Exponential
- Boon: Shadow Step
- Coulrophobia
- Dark Devotion
- Dead Man’s Switch
- Dissolution
- Dying Light
- Fearmonger
- Franklin’s Demise
- Guardian
- Kindred
- Knock Out
- Leader
- Hex: Face the Darkness
- Hex: Pentimento
- Hex: Plaything
- Open-Handed
- Overwhelming Presence
- Prove Thyself
- Reassurance
- Remember Me
- Scourge Hook: Gift of Pain
- Streetwise
- Terminus
- Thanatophobia
- Unnerving Presence
- Up the Ante
- Vigil
- We’ll Make It
Learn to recognize these various symbols at a glance. That way, you can adapt your playstyle to your buffs and debuffs on the fly.
For more vital survival (or hunting) information in Dead by Daylight, check out our list of the top 15 Survivor items and our guide on how to use Teachable perks. Check out our Facebook page, as well.
