The Shape or Michael Myers was the first franchise crossover to be added to the Dead by Daylight roster of killers. What is special about this particular killer? What are his teachable perks? How should you go about playing him? All the answers, tips, and tricks to this killer can be found in this ultimate guide to The Shape.
The Shape starts off slow and ramps up his killing potential if you know how to stalk effectively. His killing capabilities evolve as you progress to the later stages of his Evil Within power. Not the most difficult killer to get accustomed to but one who needs a constant eye to stay at his most powerful level. He is great at one-on-one chases, especially in open maps.
Here is a detailed guide that covers everything there is to know about The Shape in Dead by Daylight to make it easier for you to decide whether to pick him or not.
Is The Shape (Michael Myers) good for beginners?
The Shape requires a bit of practice to get over his learning curve in Dead by Daylight. He is moderately difficult for beginners to properly grasp.
Nonetheless, his whole upgrading Tier and weak/stealthy starting-off style is extremely frustrating to comprehend. And the fact that all this time waiting for the end result and it doesn’t transform you into a juggernaut of a killer is quite lackluster.
Given enough time and your ability to quickly transition into Tier 3, this killer does boast one of the best lunging ranges and movement speed, especially while vaulting, allowing him to come out on top at the end of most chases. In this tier, you will essentially be insta-downing survivors left and right.
We do not recommend the Shape to new players who are looking to buy a new killer.
Are The Shape Perks worth upgrading?
Save the Best for Last and Play with Your Food are the perks you should upgrade. The latter perk makes you faster if you let the obsessed go, complementing your chasing potential for the rest of the opposing team. The prior will fasten your basic attacks to targets other than the obsession. Both these perks are great at harassing the entire team of survivors.
What are The Shape Perks?
The Shape has 3 unique perks with three tier levels:
Save the Best for Last
Each time you hit a Survivor other than your Obsession with a Basic Attack, this perk gains 1 Token, up to a maximum of 8 Tokens:
- Gain a stackable 5 % Cool-down reduction on successful attacks per Token, up to a maximum of 40 %.
Each time you hit your Obsession with a Basic Attack, Save the Best for Last loses 4/3/2 Tokens.
- When the Obsession is sacrificed or killed, you can neither gain nor lose any more Tokens.
Play with Your Food
Each time you chase your Obsession and let them escape, this perk receives 1 Token, up to a maximum of 3 Tokens:
- Each Token applies a stackable 3/4/5 % Haste Status Effect, up to a maximum of 9/12/15 %.
- Performing Basic Attacks, or Special Attacks that can damage Survivors consumes 1 Token.
Play with Your Food has a cool-down of 10 seconds on Token-accumulation.
Dying Light
Each time you hook a Survivor other than your Obsession, you gain 1 Token:
- For as long as the Obsession is alive, all other Survivors suffer from a stackable 2/2.5/3 % penalty to Repairing, Healing, and Sabotaging speeds per Token, up to a maximum of 22/27.5/33 % or 11 Tokens.
- The Obsession is unaffected by this penalty and instead granted a permanent 33 % Action Speed bonus to Unhooking and Healing other Survivors.
What Weapon does The Shape have?
The Shape has the Kitchen Knife as his primary weapon. It is a typical slashing weapon that only deals damage. There is nothing special going on with this weapon.
What Powers does The Shape have?
Michael Myers has a special 3 tier power called Evil Within. As you build up your power by stalking the survivors, this ability will upgrade to higher tiers which will grant you various capabilities. You need to use his Stalk special ability to upgrade yourself first. The killer can stalk multiple survivors at once.
The tiers and their effects of Evil Within are as follows:
- Tier 1: The killer becomes Undetectable. Has a lower movement speed. Lunge attacks will have a reduced opening time and range. The vaulting speed is lowered as well.
- Tier 2: His Terror Radius will shrink to 16 meters and will remove the Undetectable status. His movement speed is moderate. Lunge attack speed and range will be normal. Vaulting speed is relatively quicker than before.
- Tier 3: All survivors will be inflicted by the Exposed Status Effect for 60 seconds. The killer will revert to tier 2 again after this timer runs out. His Terror Radius will be doubled to 32 meters. Movement speed will stay the same as tier 2. Lunge attack will have a bigger opening window and its range will be farthest. Vaulting speed will be significantly faster.
In short, The Shape starts off as a slow, stealthy killer and moves on to becoming a full-fledged murdering machine as he progresses through his ranks in Dead by Daylight. You just have to keep stalking survivors when you are in your weakest state.
The fruits of this power come into play in the late game. You just have to lurk around like a predator and come out when you know you can jump them. The good thing about him is that he won’t revert to Tier 1 as he does from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
Is The Shape fun to play?
Sadly, all this tiered mess is hard to get used to, and thus The Shape loses out on a lot of fun factors. To make him at most an effective killer, you need to quickly ramp his power tier to level 2.
This is where he will behave as a standard killer. Tier 3 is where he truly shines, but it is short-lived, so you will have to work toward maintaining this heightened state.
Of course, if you are into the whole sneaky gimmick he starts off with and really play into this, this killer can be a wrecking force in the right hand. However, this killer demands a ton of attention, and even though he is quite uncomplicated, he is actually not.
What are some tips and tricks to get better with The Shape?
Here are some tips that you can employ when playing as this killer:
- Right at the start of a match. make your way to a generator where there might be higher traffic and camp it to build your power meter by stalking and quickly transitioning into Tier 2. Staying in Tier 1 should be avoided for the most part.
- Add-ons like Memorial Flower, which lets you build up Evil faster while Stalking are a godsend. These will push to higher tiers at a faster rate, upping your chase game overall.
- Do not immediately go for Tier 3. Keep it at 99% and only fully commit once you are certain you will utilize the 60-second window to ideally take out 2 survivors close by.
- Tier 3 will instantly down survivors so pop it when you are mid-chase and there is no way the survivor could hide or out-maneuver you.
- You can continue stalking even though the survivor has spotted you. You can do it mid-chase or let them run away while you power yourself up.
- If you are running the obsession perks, then capitalize on the speed boost you get from chasing and leaving the obsession to chase other survivors.
- When the survivor turns red it means you can not stalk them any further. At this point either go in for the kill of your can or move to another survivor to stalk.
- Try to take out survivors who have reached the stalking limit.
- While in Tier 3, leave any downed survivor on the ground and make your way to others. You don’t want to waste this amplified state carrying survivors.
- Prioritize survivors in healthy states when in Tier 3. The Exposed status effect will down them instantly.
The Shape’s Evil Within power can make or break this killer in Dead by Daylight. If you can’t use his stalking ability properly then do not pick him. He is hard to master, and even then, he is good at only a few things. Chase potential is great, but pressuring the entire map is pretty lacking.