The Nightmare or Freddy Krueger is the infamous killer from A Nightmare from Elm Street movies. He was added to the roster back in Oct 2017 in the Chapter 6 DLC of the game. This killer has many abilities at his disposal. What are these abilities? How can you capitalize on them? What else is unique about him? All shall be answered in this ultimate guide to The Nightmare.
The Nightmare is at his best when the survivors are in the Dream World. Luckily, the survivors will passively enter the dream state after every 60 seconds in the waking world or if they get hit by your weapon. In the Dream, they can trigger your delaptating Dream Snares. The killer can also teleport to any unfinished generator to pressurize any survivor busy in completing them.
Here is a detailed guide that covers everything there is to know about The Nightmare in Dead by Daylight to make it easier for you to decide whether to pick him or not.
Is The Nightmare (Freddy Krueger) good for beginners?
The Nightmare is stated to be a moderately difficult killer on Dead by Daylight website, however, we would argue against it. Although he is relatively standard killer, keeping track of all of his abilities, the Dream World state, and when to teleport can be a daunting task.
It is hard to find the right groove with this killer and only the right set of hands can make him work effectively. As a beginner, you should stay away from this killer.
Are The Nightmare Perks worth upgrading?
Blood Warden is the only perk in Freddy’s belt that is barely worth upgrading. This perk will make it harder for survivors to exit the trial. The fully upgraded version will completely stop survivors from exiting for a whole minute and thus you can continue your hunt.
Other than that, the Sloppy Butcher perk is great at inflicting Hemorrhage and Mangled status effects from basic attacks. Jolt is another great perk for this killer. And Bitter Murmur is great at keeping track of your preys.
What are The Nightmare Perks?
The Nightmare has 3 unique perks with three tier levels in Dead by Daylight:
Fire Up
Each time a Generator is completed, this perk grows in power and gains 1 Token, up to a maximum of 5 Tokens. Each Token applies a stack-able buff of 3/3.5/4 % per Token, up to a maximum of 15/17.5/20 %, to the following Action speeds:
- Picking up and dropping Survivors.
- Breaking Breakable Walls, Pallets, and damaging Generators.
- Vaulting Windows.
Remember Me
Whenever the Obsession loses a Health State, this perk gains 1 Token:
- Increases the Gate Opening time by 6 seconds per accumulated Token, up to a maximum of 12/18/24 additional seconds, affecting both Exit Gates.
- The Obsession does not suffer from this penalty. You can only be obsessed with one Survivor at a time.
Blood Warden
As soon as one Exit Gate is opened, this perk activates.
The Auras of Survivors standing within the Exit-Gate area are revealed to you.
Once per Trial, hooking a Survivor while this perk is active calls upon The Entity to block the exits for all Survivors for 30/40/60 seconds.
What Weapon does The Nightmare have?
Channel your inner Wolverine through the Clawed Glove weapon. Rip your prey to shreds with the help of this weapon. This weapon is also used to send survivors into the Dreamworld, where this killer is in his most powerful state. More on this ability below.
What Powers does The Nightmare have?
Staying true to the source, the Nightmare is most deadly while haunting people’s dream in Dead by Daylight. This is where his Dream Demon power stems from.
While in the waking world, the killer remains cloaked and only his Terror Radius can be heard by the survivors. He is visible within 16 meters of the survivors, half cloaked from 16-32 meters and completely vanishes if he farther than 32 meters.
Survivors will occasionally fall asleep or Micro-Sleep and enter the Dream World for 60 seconds or they have to be hit by the Nightmare’s Clawed Glove weapon to enter this state. The only way to wake up is to either fail Skill Checks, another survivor wakes them up, or they use their Alarm Clocks to snap out.
In the Dream World, survivors won’t hear the killer’s Terror Radius instead they will hear non-directional Lullabies. They can also trigger the Nightmare’s Dream Snare traps in this state.
These traps are placed by the Nightmare and only work in the Dream World not the waking world. They will slow down any survivor caught in their radius.
Additionally, the Nightmare has another special ability, Dream Projection, which lets him teleport to any unfinished generator in sight. And he can also place decoy Dream Pallets, which when used by survivors, will instantly get destroyed without stunning the killer.
Is The Nightmare fun to play?
As previously mentioned, a skilled player will have a good time playing this killer. However, a novice will fumble a lot with him. He is great at stealth and in the Dream World he is quite OP. But the fact that the Dream state is very random makes him an inconsistent killer.
He has been a troubling character to get just right for the developers. He has gone through many reworks yet nothing seems to work. Try him out only if you are willing to invest a considerable time.
What are some tips and tricks to get better with The Nightmare?
Here are some tips that you can employ when playing as this killer:
- Add-ons that decrease the cooldown of Dream Projection for every survivor in the Dream World are interesting, to say the least. These add-ons are Nancy’s Sketch and Nancy’s Masterpiece.
- The Sheep Block add-on will inflict the Blindness status effect on any survivor caught in your Dream Snares or Pallets.
- Any perk or add-on that notifies generator activity is great for the killer’s Dream Projection ability.
- Survivors who are in the Dream World will glow blueish. This will help you in placing traps. If they are awake then there is no point placing traps in chases. You can continue to hound them with your basic attack.
- Set Dream Snare around loops to catch survivors while you are chasing them. Especially place traps in loops around generators or any place with a high chance of traffic.
- Trap choke points and the middle of the arena to get random tracking information.
- Place a snare where you just downed a survivor. A fellow survivor might come looking to help their partner only to get caught in it. The same goes around hooks.
- Placing snares during chases is another good strategy. A single hit will put the survivor into the Dream World and if they stay in the current loop, they will surely get hit by the snare.
- When you are priming the Dream Projection ability, the survivors will see a silhouette of you on the generator. You can cancel the teleport mid-way and this way you can cause panic at a generator forcing the survivors to bail while you jump them as they exit the generator area. You can even use this tactic mid-chases.
The Nightmare is literally a nightmare for beginners in Dead by Daylight and is a good dream for players who have invested the appropriate time to play him correctly. He is amazing at staying stealthy by fails miserably if the survivors stay majorly in the waking world.