How to Rank Up As Survivor – Dead By Daylight

Welcome to our guide on pipping as Survivor in Dead by Daylight! In this guide, we’ll discuss the essential steps you should try and take every game in order to rank up quickly.

If you want to learn more about how all this stuff actually works, you can check out our How Grades and Pips Work guide for more info.

When you first start learning to play Dead by Daylight, the pips and ranks come fairly easy. However, as your rank increases, the requirements for pips get significantly higher, and the Killers get more dangerous as well. In order to continue ranking up, you’ll probably need to change how you play — mainly, this means making sure you’re doing enough in each of the four categories that grant emblem points: Lightbringer, Unbroken, Benevolent, and Evader.

Ranking Up To-do List

We’ll go into more detail later in the guide, but at this point let’s just take a look at a basic checklist for ranking up as Survivor. In each trial (match) you play in DBD, you should try to accomplish the following:

• LIghtbringer – Do 2 generators by yourself.
• Unbroken – Escape the trial
• Benevolent – Get 40 total bonus points (safe unhooks are worth 20, fully healing other survivors/taking a hit while Killer is carrying someone is worth 10)
• Evader – Get chased by the Killer at least twice

If you manage to do the above, you should get Gold emblems in every category, which is more than enough to rank up. Even in Red ranks, 4 gold emblems will earn you +1 Pip.

Note that your Benevolent score is affected by Survivors being hooked: you lose 10 points for each Survivor hooked, but those points are returned as long as they are unhooked (it doesn’t have to be you doing the unhooking). It’s also unlikely that you’ll be able to avoid getting downed in every game, but that’s OK. As long as you escape, you’ll get a Gold emblem in the Unbroken category.

Prioritizing Activities

In order of priority, here is what you should attempt to do in each trial:

1. Unhook/heal fellow survivors
2. Do generators
3. Run from the killer
4. Do totems

Unhooks and healing are prioritized because they tend to be the hardest to get enough of. If your team does really well, there may only be one or two people hooked in total, and about that many who get injured (and you probably won’t get to heal all of them).

The next highest priority is generators, for the same reason — they are a limited resource. Assuming the Killer fails to kick any gens or use other regression perks, there aren’t even enough generators for everyone to earn a Gold emblem. Running from the Killer is easy to accomplish, but escaping is another story. If you have two chases that last at least 30 seconds, and don’t get hit for the first 30 seconds, you’ll get gold in this emblem.

Totems are best used to supplement your Lightbringer points. A dull totem is worth 20 points (20% of the points doing a gen is worth), while a hex totem is worth a whopping 50 points. It’s worth noting that totems actually give you slightly more points per second for the time you spend doing them — but they don’t help you escape like doing gens, so it’s still usually better to leave them for later.

It’s easier to prioritize activities when you know exactly how many points you need in each category. Lucky for you, we’ve got a separate guide that details precisely how you can earn points in each emblem category.

Easier Said Than Done

This is all great in theory, but in practice, you won’t be able to get Gold or Iridescent emblems in every game of Dead by Daylight that you play. If the game is too much of a stomp in either direction, you’ll sometimes only be able to black pip, even if you play well.

For example, if no one on your team ever gets hooked, you’d have to heal your teammates four times to earn a Gold emblem. Games like this, you should prioritize getting gens done quickly, and then seek out the Killer in an attempt to at least get a Silver Evader emblem. If someone does get hooked, it’s usually worth stopping whatever you’re doing to go and get the unhook before someone else does.

Follow the strategies you’ve learned in this guide, and you will almost certainly find yourself climbing the ranks. If you have any questions, suggestions, or just want to complain about DBD matchmaking, use the comments section below!