Dead by Daylight update 5.3.0 will soon roll out on PS4, PS5, PC, and Xbox One. According to the Dead by Daylight patch notes 5.3.0, the update will bring various balancing and quality-of-life improvements.

DBD 5.3.0 patch Notes

The Trapper

Made a series of small changes to The Trapper.  6 traps will now always spawn (not counting the traps you carry in your bag). This eliminates some of the randomness in playing The Trapper, making each match more consistent.

The Trapper will now be able to carry—and start with—two bear traps by default. This will allow you to get up and running faster without the need for additional accessories. The Trapper’s bag add-ons have been adjusted or repurposed accordingly.

Finally, on the subject of add-ons, we’ve done a pass on some of his least used add-ons and either increased their effects, removed their downsides, or gave them new effects entirely.

Tension Spring (Very Rare Bear Trap Add-On)

A high tension spring that snaps back into place after being stretched.

  • A bear Trap resets within 2 seconds of a Survivor escaping it.

Trapper Sack (Very Rare Bear trap Add-On)

A crude leather sack suitable for foraging.

  • Bear traps should be carried at trail’s beginning.
  • Bear Traps are not available for pick-up.

The Spirit

Made some changes that aim to increase The Spirit skill ceiling whilst also giving Survivors some counterplay.

When close to The Spirit’s husk, Survivors will not receive any indication that The Spirit is phase walking. Originally this was intended to be a fun mind game (“Is she using her power, or is she faking it?”), though in practice, it often doesn’t feel that way. This lack of feedback forces you to make a guess and hope it pays off, which can be great when it works out in your favour, but can also feel awful when it doesn’t.

To add more skill into The Spirit’s counterplay, we’re making two changes:

  1. Any Survivor within 24m of The Spirit will now hear a directional phase sound. This lets you know whether or not she is phasing and also gives you a rough idea of which direction she’s coming from.
  2. The Spirit’s footsteps will now kick up dust while she is phasing. Keen Survivors may be able to pinpoint where she is, but tall grass and other obstacles may make it difficult.

Additionally, we’ve done a pass on some of The Spirit’s add-ons to bring them more in line and make the lesser used add-ons more appealing. Some of these changes, like The Trapper’s, are minor tweaks while others have completely new effects.

Killer Ad Ons Update

We have done a pass on all Killer add-ons to list their exact effects. We plan to extend this to the rest of the game—Items, perks, etc.—in the future.

A description of the status effect that Killer add-ons apply will be provided for any Killer addons.

While our designers were going through hundreds of Killer add-ons one by one to update their descriptions, they also noted down a few for changes as well. There’s far too many to list here, but we’ve changed some add-ons for the following Killers:

  • The Hillbilly
  • The Nurse
  • The Shape
  • The Hag
  • The Oni
  • The Blight
  • The Wraith
  • The Pig
  • The Ghost Face

These changes focus mostly on unused add-ons, or add-ons that are too weak/powerful.

Perk Updates

Vigil

Nice and simple: We’re increasing the recovery rate from 10/15/20% to 20/25/30%. Vigil will increase the recovery rates for the Broken, Exposed and Oblivion status effects, where applicable. In short, more situations where it’s useful, and even faster recovery too.

Babysitter/Guardian

Another small tweak: The rescued Survivor will now receive a speed boost for 4/6/8 seconds in addition to not leaving Scratch Marks or Pools of Blood. The aura reading duration has been extended by a third.

For the People

For the People can create some amazing moments, but the trade-off of being Broken can make it very risky to justify using. We’re decreasing the duration of the Broken status effect from 110/100/90 seconds to 80/70/60 seconds.

Hex: Retribution

Previously, Hex: Retribution would only make a Survivor Oblivious if they cleansed a dull totem. Now, interacting with any kind of totem will make them Oblivious. Additionally, we’ve increased the aura reading duration once a hex totem is cleansed to 15 seconds.

Hex: Blood Favor

This perk shipped with very safe conditions so it didn’t get out of control. We are happy to remove some restrictions, after reflection. Hex: Blood Favor will no longer have a cooldown, and will also activate upon successful Special Attacks as well.

Hex: The Third Seal

Just like the above, we’ve added Special Attacks to Hex: Third Seal as well. This should make the perk more practical on Killers that focus more on dealing damage with their power.

Hex: Thrill of the Hunt

With Boon perks making their way to the game (more on this soon!We decided to show Thrill of Hunt some love by extending Cleansing’s speed penalty to Blessing.

Items and Character Skill Switch

Last but not least, let’s talk about a game health feature: The Item & Character Kill Switch. With over 50 playable characters and their cosmetics, nearly 200 perks and hundreds more add-ons and offerings in the game, sometimes things do break. Rarely, things will break in a way that makes them exploitable, and that can make the next week or two before a fix really rough.

The Kill Switch is your solution. (It’s actually a lot nicer than it sounds!)

The Kill Switch allows us to disable anything that’s causing an issue without needing an update. When something breaks and becomes exploitable, we switch it off until it is fixed. This is something we’ve been able to do with maps for a while now to great effect. Disabled items & characters will be clearly marked and cannot be selected.

Dead by Daylight update version 5.3.0 download links will soon be available for Xbox One, PS4, and PS5.