Dead by Daylight – Tips for Playing The Pig

Looking to up your Pig game? Well, you’ve come to the right place! The Pig is very much a situational killer, which in the eyes of some, makes her less useful than others and her power can be difficult to understand. That being said, she is one of the most powerful situational killers in the game. Because of her situational advantages, the Pig can end games faster than many other killers, IF you use her to the best of her ability. So, here’s a guide to hopefully help you learn how to make all the unlucky survivors locked in with you squeal.

The Pig Guide

Note: Credit goes to Femkat

Power

As with all killers, the key to playing the Pig well is knowing how to use her power to its best ability. The Pig’s power is based around three elements: crouch, ambush and reverse bear traps. She is one of five killers able to completely mask her terror radius, which is one of her biggest advantages. May it also be said, of all the stealth-based killers, she is the only one who can have her identity revealed immediately, due to the jigsaw boxes that spawn on the map. Survivors can very quickly locate them or even spawn next to one, which will tell them who they are facing instantly. It’s a weakness she shares with the Plague, Trapper and Nightmare, but unlike the others, she can make sure they don’t know you’re coming.

Here are the key things to know about Pig’s crouch:

• It can be activated silently and at will. The only other killer with a similar ability is Ghostface and his stealth can be deactivated; the Pig’s cannot.
• She moves at a reduced speed, slower than a survivor’s movement speed. This is shared with Ghostface, who moves at the same speed when crouched.
• While in crouch mode, the Pig unlocks an alternate attack ability: ambush. You cannot use a standard attack while crouched, so grabs are therefore not possible.
• If you enter stealth while nearby to a survivor, your terror radius will not immediately disappear. It will instead fade away as if you are walking away. You can use this to your advantage to trick survivors into thinking you’re leaving.

The best and most efficient way to use Pig’s crouch is to activate it immediately when the trial starts. Although you move slower, using your stealth is paramount to getting first hits with Pig. Proceed immediately to the generators farthest from you, taking a patrol route to hit as many on the way. As soon as you hear noise, conceal your approach using whatever cover is available nearby. It’s good to determine which side of the gen the survivor(s) is working on, but if you can’t see that immediately, don’t worry. She has something to help with that.

The second element of Pig’s power is her ambush attack. This can only be activated in crouch mode, so it has more situational use than a standard attack. The attack allows Pig to move at an increased speed for a brief period of time, allowing you to cover a large distance in a short amount of time. Use ambush to land first hits and finishers. It is a great tool for getting survivors off of gens and wasting part of their speed boost. It can also be used to cut loops short. If a survivor is pallet-baiting you, go into crouch and use ambush to quickly round the loop or go through the pallet, cutting them off before they make it over or drop it. Chases are your biggest nemesis as Pig, so end them as quickly as possible with ambush or you will more than likely lose that round.

Finally, the Pig has her reverse bear traps. These are the biggest part of her power, but they need to be used correctly to be effective. Here’s what you need to know:

• Without add ons, you start with four and that’s all you have for the duration of the trial, so use them wisely.
• All RBTs start in an inactive state. At that point, their only purpose is to slow the survivors down.
• Once you have put an RBT on a survivor, it will only activate once a generator has been completed. Take this into consideration when using them. Once this happens, the RBT icon over the survivor’s icon will turn red.
• The death timer is about 2 minutes.
• The timer for the RBT stops when the survivor is in the dying state or in a chase, so be mindful of that if you see a survivor with one on. A good strategy is to hit healthy survivors and let them escape to waste their time. With injured survivors, remember which hook they’re on. If it’s only their second, hook them again, so that they have further to go to get back to the box. If it’s their third, you can either sacrifice them and get them out of the game or slug them with the chance that the RBT will do the job.
• The survivor will be automatically killed when the timer expires.

The main thing to remember is that RBTs are not meant to kill survivors but stall them. Every survivor with one on their head is a survivor that isn’t working on generators. They are best used as early game or endgame tools, but since you have a limited amount, you need to determine when you’ll use them very quickly. I can tell this by a few reasons:

How quickly gens are getting done:

• If there are no gens done by the time you down your first or even second survivor, start pulling out the RBT’s. They probably won’t finish all of them before you kill them all.
• If a gen has popped (or even two), make sure to save at least two. Always put an RBT on the first survivor you down though. This will leave one survivor unable to work on gens and hopefully slow their progress.

What the survivors are doing:

• You can tell pretty quickly if the survivors are going to be an issue. Pig is very easy to loop and smart survivors will take advantage of this. If you’re in a chase lasting longer than 20 seconds, disengage and go somewhere else. This survivor is not worth your time.
• If the survivors are gen rushing, you’ll need to get RBTs on them as quickly as possible. RBTs are useless if put on after the last gen is completed.

That all about covers the basics of her power and how to get the best out of it.

Builds

Builds are not my strong point as I don’t have enough perks to really make them, but I do have a few tips on what perks work well on the Pig.

• Of her three teachable perks, Surveillance is the only one that is really viable for her. Hangman’s Trick is pointless if the survivors aren’t running a sabotage build and Pig is too slow to make effective use of Make Your Choice. Surveillance allows Pig to keep track of gens and gives her more space to use her ambush attack due to the increased sound of gen repairs.
• Hex: Huntress Lullaby can make finding survivors working on Jigsaw Boxes much easier and also increase the time they’ll be working on them due to both the missed skill check penalty and lack of sound prior to the skill check.
• Spirit Fury and Enduring can punish survivors for dropping pallets on you, something that will happen to you often as the Pig.
• In general though, the Pig benefits from a mix of detection and chase perks, to use her ambush attack efficiently and cut chases as short as possible.

For her add-ons, it depends on how you want to use the Pig. There are generally two directions to go with Pig: RBT-heavy or ambush-heavy. She has add-ons to benefit both of these playstyles.

• If you want to focus on RBTs, then use either Jigsaw’s Plan or Last Will paired with the Rules Set No. 2. Jigsaw’s Plan will increase your Jigsaw Boxes by one with no penalties and Last Will will increase your RBTs by one. The Rules Set No. 2 disabled survivors’ ability to see Jigsaw Boxes until their trap is active. This forces them to either run around the map searching aimlessly or work on gens, which will activate the trap once completed. It will either stall them or make the chances of an RBT going off stronger.
• If you want to just push with your stealth and ambush and don’t care about RBTs, Amanda’s Letter and Video Tape are the best combo there. Amanda’s Letter reduces your RBTs to one and Jigsaw Boxes to two, but allows you to see the auras of nearby survivors while crouched. Video Tape decreases your ambush charge time and penalty for missed attacks. This will make you a force to be reckoned with stealth-wise, but take away one aspect of her power.

Situational Advantages / Maps

Like I said before, the Pig’s strength comes from her situational advantage. Under certain circumstances, she can be practically unbeatable, but like any killer, the scales can tip based on circumstance. As the Pig, the map is your friend. I’ve learned that Pig excels on particular maps and is a nightmare to play on others. In case you want to tip the balances in your favour with offerings, these are the best realms/maps for Pig:

• Autohaven Wreckers. Above and beyond Pig’s best map. She excels on large, flat maps with a lot of cover, ironically the same maps that normally benefit survivors. Flat maps with a lot of cover give you a lot of space to use your ambush attack, while large maps make it harder for survivors to remove their RBTs. While any map in this realm is to your advantage, Wrecker’s Yard and Blood Lodge are the best. Wrecker’s Yard has no landmark other than the killer shack, which helps you in chases and Blood Lodge has a landmark that you can use to your advantage.
• Family Residence. A lot of what applies to Autohaven applies here. Large map, with lots of cover. Both Yamaoka maps can be good, but this one is better simply because the landmark is easier for you to deal with. Tall grass is your friend and this map is swimming in it. Use it to sneak up on survivors and play mind games with them.
• The Game. Fitting that Pig’s home turf is one of her best maps. This is probably the best killer map in DBD and while it is definitely stronger on killers like the Doctor, Pig still gets good use of it. The pallets on this map are easy to deal with, there’s lots of cover and the two floors make jigsaw boxes harder for survivors to get to.