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the trickster in a long yellow jacket posing with a baseball bat against a club lights background
Image via Behaviour Interactive

Best trickster build in Dead by Daylight (January 2025)

Survivors had better swerve the blades when Trickster is behind them. Check out some great builds for this Dead By Daylight icon.

The Trickster, also known as Ji-Woon Hak, is a former celebrity in Korea but now wows the crowds in Dead By Daylight. His flurry of knives can help incapacitate and injure survivors, but The Trickster can be slow to chase them down without good perks. Below we’ve highlighted the best builds you can use as The Trickster.

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Best Trickster builds in Dead by Daylight

As a result of his personal perks, Starstruck, Hex: Crowd Control, and No Way Out, The Trickster can swiftly kill any interfering survivors and block areas of the environment to his advantage. He isn’t difficult to learn to use but is best suited to established players. We recommend leveling up other killers so you can use their perks to boost Trickster’s skills.

Trickster beginner Build

Dead By Daylight trickster build with trickster in his trademarks yellow coat
A perfect hex build for The Trickster. Screenshot by Dot Esports

This build is perfect for those still learning their skills and unsure of what kind of Trickster they wish to become. The perks help you slow the progress of survivors, giving you more time to find and sacrifice each one. The combination of Hex Ruin and Hex Undying means the survivors will spend a lot of time hunting glowing hex totems, while Corrupt Intervention restricts which generators they can start working on. You should spend as much time as possible at the start of the match hunting down survivors and hooking as many as possible. Once Hex Ruin and Corrupt Intervention are gone, and the survivors complete the generators, you can find any remaining survivors after blocking the exit gates with No Way Out.

  • Hex Ruin: A unique The Hag perk.
    • This perk regresses the repair progress of all unmanned generators by 50/75/100 percent until the hex totem is cleansed by a survivor.
  • Hex Undying: a unique The Blight perk.
    • This perk shows the aura of any Survivor near a dull totem within 2/3/4 meters. When a hex totem is cleansed, the hex effect from that totem is transferred to a dull totem, meaning the Hex Undying effect is cleansed instead.
  • Corrupt Intervention: A unique The Plague perk.
    • Corrupt is a great perk for beginners as it helps you track Survivors and slow their generator progression by blocking three generators for 80/100/120 seconds from the start of the game.
  • No Way Out: A unique The Trickster perk.
    • This perk blocks the exit gate for up to 60 seconds and gives a noise notification. To boost the amount of time the gate is blocked, you need to hook each survivor once. For every survivor hooked for the first time, Trickster gains a token and each token buffs the blockage time by 6/9/12 seconds.

The no escape Trickster build

trickster in a brown and pink outfit with his perk build
No one escapes this build. Screenshot by Dot Esports

This is the type of build for more experienced players who can keep their cool during endgame after all necessary generators are repaired. The purpose of this build is to isolate survivors and keep them from escaping. When the last generator is complete and a survivor tries to open the gate, No Way Out will block the exit gate switches for up to 60 seconds. When the block on the exit gates has ended it will then take up to 45 seconds to open with Remember Me. This gives you time to get to an exit gate and find survivors to down with one hit using Hex No One Escapes Death (NOED). Hooking a survivor after the gate is open activates Blood Warden, which blocks the exit entirely for 60 seconds, and reveals the auras of survivors within the gate’s area. If you’re quick, you can sacrifice any remaining survivors before the exit is clear once more.

  • No Way Out: A unique The Trickster perk.
    • This perk blocks the exit gate for up to 60 seconds and gives a noise notification. To boost the amount of time the gate is blocked, you need to hook each survivor once. For every survivor hooked for the first time, Trickster gains a token and each token buffs the blockage time by 6/9/12 seconds.
  • Remember Me: A unique The Nightmare perk.
    • Every time the Obsession loses a health state, you gain a token worth six seconds. These can add up to a maximum of 24 seconds of extra time added to the opening of the exit gate.
  • Blood Warden: A unique The Nightmare perk.
    • This perk activates when the exit gates are open. With this perk, you see the auras of any survivor standing in the exit gate area. Once a survivor is hooked during this time, the exit is blocked for 40/50/60 seconds so no survivor can leave.
  • Hex No One Escapes Death: A general perk available to all Killers.
    • When the final generator is powered and at least one Totem is still standing, NOED activates. All Survivors suffer from the Exposed status and can be downed in one hit until the Totem is cleansed.

The no vaulting allowed Trickster build

trickster with blue hair and a bamboozle build
No vaulting on Trickster’s watch! Screenshot by Dot Esports

Trickster’s main weakness is looping, and if he faces strong teams of survivors, he can lose progress in the game quickly. Survivors can quite easily avoid his knives by running him around jungle gyms or the killer shack, sticking close to the walls and trying to get around corners. This build will help you overcome this issue by blocking pallets and windows, slowing survivors, and stopping them from wasting your time in a chase. Crowd Control, Blood Favor, and Bamboozle all block vaults, making any survivors in chase panic and lose their ability to loop effectively. Hex Undying will keep one of those hex perks going even after being cleansed, and keep other survivors busy trying to cleanse them all.

  • Hex Crowd Control: A unique The Trickster perk.
    • When a survivor performs a rushed vault, that vault becomes blocked as long as the hex totem is lit.
  • Hex Blood Favor: A unique The Blight perk.
    • This perk blocks pallets nearby when a survivor is injured.
  • Bamboozle: a unique The Clown perk.
    • When The Trickster vaults a window, that window becomes blocked for 8/12/16 seconds and increases your vaulting speed.
  • Hex Undying: A unique The Blight perk.
    • This perk shows the aura of any Survivor near a dull totem within 2/3/4 meters. When a hex totem is cleansed, the hex effect from that totem is transferred to a dull totem, meaning the Hex Undying effect is cleansed instead.

The terrifying Trickster build

trickster with red hair and a mad grit build
Survivors will have nowhere to hide. Screenshot by Dot Esports

This Trickster build makes it almost impossible to stop you from carrying a survivor to a hook and will even let you know when a survivor is trying to get in your way. Mad Grit pauses a carried survivor’s wiggling progression for up to four seconds if you land an attack on another survivor, while Iron Grasp means the wiggling won’t have much of an effect on you anyway. With Agitation, your terror radius and speed while carrying a survivor are both increased. Lastly, with Starstruck, any Survivors in your terror radius will receive an exposed status for up to 30 seconds after they leave your radius. This build is deadly for survivors who like to crowd the hook and try to get their teammate free or sabotage the hook before you get there.

  • Starstruck: a unique The Trickster perk.
    • This perk is activated when you pick up a downed survivor. Any survivors within your terror radius are given the exposed effect, meaning they can be downed in one hit. This effect persists for 30 seconds and the perk has a cooldown of 60 seconds.
  • Mad Grit: a unique The Legion perk.
    • When carrying a survivor, their wiggle progress is paused when you land a basic attack on another survivor. It also removes any cooldown of a missed basic attack so you are free to swing aimlessly.
  • Iron Grasp: a general perk available to anyone.
    • This perk allows you to hold on to your prey tightly. The effects of the survivor wiggling is reduced, and their wiggle duration is increased while you carry them.
  • Agitation: a unique The Trapper perk.
    • While carrying a survivor, your speed and your terror radius are increased.

The best Trickster add-ons

The trickster with his add ons dressed in a street style with mask
Add-ons can make all the difference for The Trickster. Screenshot by Dot Esports

The Trickster can be a very strong killer if you use the right add-ons. Although he is not considered one of the best killers in Dead By Daylight, he can be very effective with a good perk and add-on combo. His main weaknesses are how slow he is compared to some killers, and his lack of anti-looping powers. This is why we recommend some anti-looping perks like Crowd Control and Bamboozle, along with any of the speed or power-boosting add-ons below.

  • Memento Blades: a common add-on.
    • This add on decreases time between blade throws by 10 percent.
  • Tequila Moonrock: an uncommon add-on.
    • This add-on increases Main Event duration by 60 percent.
  • Caged Heart Shoes: an uncommon add-on.
    • This add-on increases movement while carrying blades by 2.5 percent.
  • Waiting For You Watch: a rare add-on.
    • This add-on increases the duration of Main Event by 0.4 seconds for every blade that hits.
  • Trick Blades: a very rare add-on.
    • This add-on allows blades to ricochet off surfaces twice and grants extra Bloodpoints.
  • Diamond Cufflinks: a very rare add-on.
    • This add-on reveals the auras of survivors when their laceration is one blade hit away from maximum.
  • Iridescent Photocard: an ultra rare add-on.
    • This add-on gives you an extra 1 percent haste for every consecutive blade that hits, up to a maximum of 7 percent.

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Author
Image of Jorge Aguilar
Jorge Aguilar
The Weekend Editor for Dot Esports. Aggy loves the video game industry and loves telling stories. Aside from that, he is an Author, Illustrator, and Computer Animator. https://linktr.ee/SirAggy