Best Knight Perks - Dead by Daylight

Because the Knight excels at using his guards to chase and corner Survivors, perks that help you in chases or give you benefits for injuring or downing Survivors are generally best. At the same time, the Knight can damage Generators quickly using his Guardia. The best perks, then, either improve your ability to chase Survivors or makes damaging Generators more powerful. Listed first are “General” perks, i.e. perks available for free without purchasing any DLC chapters or Killers. Then, we’ll list unique perks, i.e. perks that you can only get by purchasing the associated Killer, or by purchasing them from the Shrine of Secrets.

For more information on how unlocking perks works, see our Killer Loadouts guide.

Best General Perks for Knight

In case you don’t want detailed info (and just want to know which perks to try out), here are the best general perks for Wraith in Dead by Daylight:

Bitter Murmur
Hex: No One Escapes Death
Hex: Thrill of the Hunt
Sloppy Butcher

Next, here are detailed explanations of how the perks work, and why they’re effective on Knight!

Each time a generator is completed, the Auras of all Survivors within 16 meters of that Generator are revealed to you for 5 seconds. Once the last generator is completed, the Auras of all Survivors are revealed to you for 5/7/10 seconds.

It’s always useful to have additional surveillance, and this is one of the best perks for it. This not only lets you know where Survivors go after finishing a generator, it also lets you know how many were there, helping you start a chase or apply pressure on other generators (or even try to block pathways for Survivors). Plus, if you are running Hex: No One Escapes Death, this perk can turn into an almost guaranteed down.

Pairs well with Hex: No One Escapes Death.

Once the Exit Gates are powered, if there is still a Dull Totem on the map, this Hex activates and lights it. While this perk is active, your movement speed is increased by 2/3/4%, and all Survivors suffer from the Exposed status effect. Survivors can see the Aura of the Hex totem, starting at 4 meters away and expanding to 24 meters over the first 30 seconds the Hex is active.

Since Knight lacks the ability to one-hit-down without Perks or Add-ons, he can really struggle to get kills once the Exit Gates are powered — NOED fixes this problem.

Pairs well with Bitter Murmur and Hex: Thrill of the Hunt, and with the Iridescent Company Banner

Pairs poorly with the Knight’s Contract add-on

For each Totem remaining in the Trial, this perk gains 1 Token. Survivors suffer an 8/9/10% penalty to totem cleansing and blessing actions per token (to a maximum of 40/45/50%. You receive a 10% bonus to Bloodpoints gained in the Hunter category for each token, up to 50%.

This perk causes the initial cleansing and blessing of totems to be significantly slowed (going from 14 to 21 seconds). Given how popular Boon perks are in the current meta, and how important it is to get ahead early, Thrill of the Hunt will give you significant value. Still, you should only take this perk if you’re combining it with other Hex perks — otherwise you aren’t getting the full value from it.

Pairs well with other Hex perks.

Basic attacks cause Survivors to suffer from the Haemorrhage and Mangled status effects. Additionally, the perk increases the Hemorrhage bleeding frequency by 50/75/100%, and increases the rate at which partial healing progress is lost by 15/20/25%. Both Status Effects are removed once the affected Survivor is fully healed.

The Knight’s basic attacks are underwhelming, and he lacks any add-ons to improve upon them. While there is plenty you can do to make your Guards better, then, you need to be improving yourself as well. Giving your strikes Haemorrhage and Mangled accomplishes that. Especially if you are using add-ons to give your Guards one or both effects as well, this perk can make your attacks from all sources truly devastating.

Pairs well with Broken Hilt and Chain Mail Fragments

Best Unique Perks for Knight

Again, if all you want is a list of the best perks to take, here are the best unique perks for Wraith in Dead by Daylight:

Hubris (Knight)
Nowhere to Hide (Knight)
A Nurse’s Calling (Nurse)
Blood Warden (Nightmare)
Brutal Strength (Trapper)
Call of Brine (Onryo)
Dragon’s Grip (Blight)
Enduring (Hillbilly)
Eruption (Nemesis)
Fire Up (Nightmare)
Superior Anatomy (Mastermind)

The name in parentheses is the Killer you need to unlock the perk on to make it available to all characters. Read on to find detailed explanations on how the perks work, and why they’re effective on Knight!

When you get stunned by a Survivor, that Survivor gets the Exposed status effect for 10/15/20 seconds.

One of the Knight’s own perks, Hubris can allow you to turn what would normally be a disadvantage into a huge advantage, letting you subvert a pallet stun to be in your favor. Combined with Enduring, which reduces the duration of Pallet Stuns, and you can turn what would normally be a mistake into an unexpected one-hit down.

Pairs well with Enduring

After damaging a Generator, the Auras of all Survivors within 24 meters are revealed for 3/4/5 seconds.

Another perk that comes with the Knight kit, Nowhere to Hide allows you to locate Survivors while applying your regular Generator pressure. 24 meters is quite large, meaning that you will be able to catch nearby Survivors hiding or running away. This also drastically reduces the time it takes to do generator patrols, since you won’t need to search for nearby Survivors.

Pairs well with Perks for damaging generators

The Aura of Survivors who are healing within 20/24/28 meters are revealed to you.

A fantastic perk that can enable you to locate Survivors after you’ve already hit them once. Since the Knight lacks one-hit down options without using perks or add-ons (which won’t always activate anyway), this can turn your unexciting basic attack into a down. As well, this will help you track down Survivors hit by your Guards, who might’ve otherwise escaped your own vision. Of course, pairing this with perks and add-ons that cause Mangled or Haemorrhage is ideal.

Pairs well with Sloppy Butcher, and the add-ons Broken Hilt and Chain Mail Fragments

Once the Exit Gate is opened, the Auras of Survivors standing within Exit-Gates are revealed to you. Also, once per trial, hooking a Survivor while the Exit Gates are open blocks the exits for 30/40/60 seconds.

A fiendishly devious endgame perk, this perk is one of the few that can turn a successful escape into a complete slaughter. All it requires is for you to hook a Survivor in the endgame, which is made much easier with Hex: No One Escapes Death and the add-on Iridescent Company Banner, which can corner Survivors even in the Exit Gates.

Pairs well with Hex: No One Escapes Death and the Iridescent Company Banner add-on.

Increases the Action speed of breaking Pallets and Walls, and damaging Generators, by 10/15/20%.

While it needs the right build to work, namely requiring Hubris and hugely benefiting from Enduring, Brutal Strength can be an excellent way to round out a Knight build. Not only does it allow you to get past dropped pallets easier (in order to take advantage of Hubris’s Exposed effect), but it also will generally increase your generator damage speed, which is universally useful.

Pairs well with Hubris and Enduring.

Pairs poorly with Flint and Steel, as that requires you to not break pallets.

After damaging a generator (by kicking it), Call of Brine activates for 60 seconds on that gen. The damaged generator regresses at 150/175/200% of normal regression speed, and its Aura is revealed to you. Each time a Survivor succeeds at a Good Skill Check on a generator affected by Call of Brine, you receive a loud noise notification.

This is one of those Perks that’s basically good on every Killer, and Knight is no exception. It lets you more effectively defend key generators, and gives you valuable information about when Survivors are working on said gen.

Pairs well with perks that activate upon kicking generators, such as Eruption and Nowhere to Hide.

After damaging a generator (by kicking it), Dragon’s Grip will activate for 30 seconds, causing the first Survivor to interact with it to scream, reveal their location for 4 seconds, and suffer from Exposed for 60 seconds. It has a cooldown of 120/100/80 seconds.

A good alternative to the Knight’s Nowhere to Hide and Hubris perks, this perk allows you to locate Survivors on generators, and gives them Exposed. While neither effect is as powerful as Nowhere to Hide or Hubris, this is a good option when you want a perk that both gives you a 1-hit-down and some gen surveillance, without using 2 perks slots.

Pairs well with perks that activate upon kicking generators, such as Eruption and Nowhere to Hide.

Reduce pallet stun by 40/45/50%.

Enduring is a perk that is not incredibly useful on its own, but becomes invaluable on Hubris builds. Because Hubris allows you to 1-hit down someone who stuns you, it serves as a good basis for a kind of bully build that relies on you getting hit with pallets (throwing many traditional playstyles for a loop) in order to get 1-hit downs.

Pairs well with Hubris and Brutal Strength.

Kicking a generator will highlight it in yellow. The next time a Survivor enters the Dying State, all generators affected by Eruption will explode — removing 10% of generator progression — and then start regressing, removing the highlighted aura. Any Survivor repairing a generator when it explodes screams and suffers from the Incapacitated Status Effect for 15/20/25 seconds.

Like Call of Brine, this is one of those perks that’s just straight up good on every Killer. The 10% progression removal is great, but even better is the fact that any Survivor working on a gen when it explodes via Eruption won’t be able to do gens for 25 seconds. This is a significant length of time to deny Survivors their main objective. This allows you to commit to chases away from generators you want to protect, since you can effectively “defend” generators you’ve marked with Eruption simply by getting a down.

Pairs well with perks that activate upon kicking generators, such as Call of Brine and Nowhere to Hide.

Each time a generator is completed, a 3/3.5/4% speed bonus is applied to breaking pallets and walls, damaging generators, picking up and dropping Survivors, and vaulting windows, up to 15/17.5/20%.

For rounding out a Hubris build, Fire Up can effectively double the boost Brutal Strength gives you to certain actions as the game goes on. This allows you to continue a chase even faster after an obstacle presents itself, increasing the likelihood of being able to use Hubris’s Exposed effect to 1-hit-down a Survivor. While this is the first perk you should swap out if you don’t want to dedicate all 4 perks to a Hubris build, it can still make it absolutely devastating.

Pairs well with Hubris, Brutal Strength, and Enduring.

So, now that you know how best to use perks for the Knight, it is time to put them into some builds! What kinds of builds are you planning with these perks? Let us know in the comments below. Good hunting!