Dead by Daylight Guide: How to Counter Jason the Slasher

If you spent your last few trials getting pulled out of lockers and pinned to walls, it is time to completely change your survival strategy.

Jason is an absolute nightmare to deal with right now. Between his map wide teleports and those brutal spikes that leave you broken, it makes total sense why you are probably racking up crows while hiding in the corner of the map. The forums are flooded with people complaining about his toolkit, but he is far from invincible. Once you understand the mechanical limitations of his abilities, you can completely dismantle his tracking and waste his time. I figured out his exact weaknesses so you can keep yourself out of his death grip.

Shutting Down Omnipresent Evil

His main mobility tool turns the map misty and triggers his iconic audio cue. When he activates this power, he goes completely invisible and his movement speed skyrockets from a basic 4.4 meters per second up to 7.24 meters per second. The big catch is that he goes completely blind to your actual character model while rushing around. He has to track you using environmental clues instead of direct sight.

Red Mist and Tracking Mechanics

He can only find you by spotting fresh footsteps, pools of blood, or bright red mist indicators that spawn when you perform actions. If you are touching a generator, healing a teammate, cleansing a totem, or jumping into a locker while he is in this invisible state, you are basically firing off a flare gun right at your own head.

Stop whatever you are doing the second you hear that noise. Check your interface to see who is getting chased. If he is busy with someone else, you are clear to carry on. Otherwise, take your hands off the objective immediately to hide your position.

Your Best Stealth Options

Since running and walking leave glowing footprint trails, crouching is your best bet to throw him off. Changing up your movement by breaking up your paces and veering in unexpected directions will utterly confuse his tracking.

Equipping Nea's Urban Evasion perk allows you to crouch walk significantly faster, letting you navigate the map without leaving footprints or losing too much precious time. For a stronger stealth play, Eleven's Extrasensory Perception perk is an incredible counter. While crouching, it completely hides your aura, grunts of pain, and scratch marks while revealing the auras of nearby objects, teammates, and the killer.

If you do get caught and injured, a healing perk like Resurgence will drastically cut down your healing time so you are not leaving a massive trail of blood for him to follow. You can also run Jake's Iron Will to suppress your grunts of pain while you are hurt, though you need to remember that it will not function while you are suffering from the Exhausted status.

Surviving the Jump Scare

While moving around in his invisible state, Jason can use his Jump Scare ability to teleport directly to pallets, windows, and breakable walls. He then bursts out of stealth right in your face to force an error.

Loop Denial and Screaming

Your first instinct is going to be blind panic, but you have to fight that urge. Treat him exactly like you treat The Spirit by staying completely alert when he vanishes instead of just standing around camping a pallet. When he teleports to a structural object, that specific loop becomes dead to you because the pallet or window becomes completely unusable. Take the loss and move directly to the next tile.

The absolute worst part about the Jump Scare is the auditory blast. If you are standing too close when he pops out, your character screams automatically. This triggers Killer Instinct and reveals exactly where you are, even if you are crouching or hiding inside a locker. Run Jake's Calm Spirit to cancel the scream and keep the crows quiet. If you prefer to play aggressive, use Lara's Hardened perk. Instead of screaming after opening chests or interacting with totems, you flip the script and see his aura instead.

Vault and Chase Perks

If you want to fight back at windows, you can trap them with Dustin's Bada Bada Boom perk after repairing a fifth of a generator. If you time it right, the trap will heavily hinder his vault speed for six seconds, killing his chase momentum.

You can also use traditional chase perks to create distance when he shuts down a loop. Meg's classic Sprint Burst can instantly close the distance to a fresh loop if you get caught out of position. If you prefer window setups, Meg's Lithe gives you a clean speed boost after a fast vault. You can pair this beautifully with Kate's Dance With Me, which completely hides your scratch marks for five seconds after a fast vault or a fast locker exit. If you are struggling with Exhaustion cooldowns, running Vee's Ghost Notes will reduce the time your scratch marks stay on the floor while you are Exhausted, letting you recover much quicker.

Evading the Throwing Spikes

When he isn't teleporting around the map, he is going to throw Impaling Throw projectiles at you to end chases early. He harvests these Throwing Spikes from specific locations and hooks scattered across the trial.

Positioning and Healing Penalties

If he hits you with a spike while you are healthy, you get hit with the Broken and Hindered status effects. You move significantly slower and nobody can heal you until you physically stop and pull the projectile out of your body. Because of this punishing penalty, you must make it a priority to find a safe corner and remove the projectile as soon as humanly possible or you are a walking target.

To avoid getting hit in the first place, stay away from flat walls where his projectile can easily pin you against the structure. Treat him exactly like you would play against The Huntress or The Animatronic. Keep your loops tight around solid rocks and debris to block his line of sight. He moves incredibly slow when aiming, so use that to your advantage.

Ranged Counter Perks

A perk like Nicolas's Dramaturgy can give you a sudden, clutch injection of haste to get behind a wall before he can line up a shot, even if the random secondary effects are a bit of a gamble. You can also run Jake's Breakdown perk to actively destroy hooks after you are unhooked, which directly limits the physical spots where he can easily harvest more ammunition. He is a slow killer by default when he isn't using his mobility power, so forcing a miss gives your team all the time they need to finish the generators.