Anna, A.K.A The Huntress was released July 27, 2017, in Chapter V: A Lullaby for the Dark alongside David King and a new map called Red Forest. The Huntress was the first-ever ranged character to enter the Dead By Daylight Killers roster. And she remains one of the best ranged Killers to this day. Her Killer power, while extremely simplistic, has one of the highest skill ceilings in all of Dead By Daylight. Before you try any DBD Huntress build you should first practice using her power as it is very unique.
The Huntress range is infinite on paper, limited by your skill in practice. With enough information and good enough line of sight you can hit a Survivor from across the map. But, while her power is extremely oppressive at medium and close range. The Huntress doesn't have much else going for her. If you start missing key hatchets and downing Survivors quickly you will lose the match in a blink of an eye. Thus, you need to slow the game down as much as possible by any means necessary.
If you are interested in just how strong The Huntress is compared to other Killers, check out our tier list of all Dead By Daylight's Killers!
Step 1: Learn About DBD's Huntress Killer Power
Hunting Hatchets, the Killer power of The Huntress is basically why you are here. The ability to threaten Survivors with losing a health state from almost any distance imaginable during a chase is a scary thing! Almost as scary as the skill required to pull off the majority of your throws. And you need those hits because you are not as fast as some of the other Killers in the game.
The Huntress moves at 110% movement speed, exactly 5% less than a typical Killer. If you are questioning how much can 5% movement speed really change in the grand scheme of things then do me a solid. Think back to every single time you played Killer in Dead By Daylight. And how many times you swung at a Survivor, only to miss him by a fraction of a second while he jumps over the window and sprints away to the next set of obstacles. This exact scenario is going to play out so much more often when you are playing The Huntress. Not only because of the 5% movement speed. But because your muscles and your memory are used to different timings if you played a lot of 115% Killers. It all matters.
So Huntress can charge up a throwing ax, and then throw it. If the hatchet connects with a Survivor he immediately loses a health state. Just like he would when getting hit by your basic attack. Sounds simple, right? Wrong! The thing to mind when playing Huntress is how long you charge up your throwing hatchets before you throw them. The longer you hold your power button before you throw equates to how fast the hatchet flies. Up to double the speed at maximum velocity.
This affects the travel time, obviously. But at the same time, it affects how much of an arc the throw creates. Hold the power for a short time, and the hatchet will begin falling towards the ground really quickly. Hold it longer and it will go straight for a longer time before starting to drop towards the ground. Knowledge and application of this tidbit are key when you are trying to hit someone behind an obstacle or at an extreme distance.
But also beware! Every time you throw an ax, you will need to wait out a certain cool down before you can swing or throw another. And this brief window might just be the thing Survivor needs to reach a pallet or a window. Always think before you reach for your throwing hatchet!
And do be mindful of where you pick your battles. Chasing Survivors into interiors or loops with high walls is a bad idea. Prioritize the prey running out into the open, or obstacles that are waist-high. They will have a much harder time avoiding axes in those scenarios.
Step 2: outplay Survivors With The Best DBD Huntress Build Aviable!
Best Perks For Dead By Daylight's The Huntress
The Huntress has an amazing power. A power that is very single-purpose though. And a power that requires a very keen understanding of Survivor behavior and keeping tabs at all times where your enemies could be. To make this tremendous task a little easier you should utilize information gathering perks. If you know the positions of the Survivors, it is so much easier to prioritize targets and to eventually sink your hatchet into someones back. As always, do not stack too many! 1 or 2 are plenty.
The best information gathering perks for any DBD Huntress build are:
The other important category for any DBD Huntress are slowdown perks. Listen, you move at 110% speed. This might not sound like a lot less than 115%, but over the course of an entire match of Dead By Daylight it adds up. You need these perks to take some off the heat off of you. Otherwise, you will simply never succeed. There are 4 Survivors, and you can only really pressure one at a time. And there are plenty of tools to make generators pop in 30-40 seconds each.
To counteract said tools consider these slowdown perks for your DBD Huntress build :
And now we move on to add-ons for Hunting Hatchets. The Huntress add-ons are very basic. Some of them got reworked a couple of months back. And now she doesn't really have any extremely weak add-ons. But at the same time, her best add-ons will not win you games. Most of them sit comfortably in the middle. So they are okay, they help you out, but not that much. So you still need to pull off most of the job with your basic power. That being said.
Here are the best add-ons to consider when making a great DBD Huntress build:
Step 3: Start Playing!
The Huntress is one of the more skill-dependent Killers in the game. The number of hits you score with your Hunting Hatchets will influence whether it is a 4 kill match or 4 escapes match. So you better work on those throws and get your muscle memory trained up to use said projectiles.
Reload as often as humanely possible outside of chases. And on that note, you need to really remember where lockers are on each map. Some of the maps are very barren in terms of lockers. You should identify those maps and recognize around which areas you will not be able to reload. Naturally, you do not want to chase someone healthy with 0 hatchets. That is a significant waste of time.
With all of this knowledge, you should become a top-tier DBD Huntress in no time!