The Best Rick Grimes Perk Build in Dead by Daylight

Rick Grimes, the stoic and strategic sheriff from AMC’s The Walking Dead, will officially bring his survivalist instincts to The Fog on 29th July 2025. Equipped with leadership, altruism, and tactical awareness, Rick can support his team or act as a self-sufficient survivor depending on how you want to tackle the trial. Here are three strong builds that utilize Rick’s unique perks in one of Dead by Daylight’s most anticipated crossover chapters.

Apocalyptic Ingenuity:

See the auras of broken pallets within a range of 24 meters. To activate, you must unlock and rummage through 2 chests –  after which, while near one of the broken pallets, press the ability button for 8 seconds to reconstruct it into a Fragile Pallet. As with Party Pallets, these can be used once and will instantly break after being dropped. 

• Clairvoyance: After cleansing or blessing a Totem, press and hold the ‘Use Item’ button to tap into your aura-reading abilities for up to 8/9/10 seconds. During this time, you can see the auras of Chests, Exit Gate switches, Generators and The Hatch within a 64-meter radius. While the next perk in this guide also gives you the ability to find Chests, Clairvoyance can help you to plan which Chest is best.
• Plunderers’ Instinct: The auras of closed Chests, items inside opened Chests, and items dropped on the ground are revealed to you within 32/49/64 meter radius. Additionally, your chances of finding higher rarity items in chests are increased by 50% while using this Lara Croft perk.
• Ace in the Hole: When retrieving an item from a Chest, there’s a chance that it will come with an add-on of ‘very rare’ rarity. Combined with the previous perk, chucking your old items and taking the time to replace them will be more than worth it. Out with the old, in with the new. 

Come and Get Me!: 

This perk is activated while crouching and remaining still. After unhooking another survivor, press the ‘Ability’ button to suppress their scratch marks and pools of blood. This works for all injured Survivors within 24 meters. However, in exchange, you scream and reveal your aura to the Killer for 5 seconds. Your sacrifice offers others a moment to disappear.

• Hardened: This activates after unlocking a chest and blessing or cleansing a Totem. You no longer scream for any reason, and the Killer’s aura is revealed to you for 3/4/5 seconds. Not only does Hardened negate the screaming caused by Rick’s perk, but there is also good reason to combine it with Apocalyptic Ingenuity. 
• Overcome: If you become injured, this perk extends your on-hit speed boost by an additional 2 seconds, giving you more time and distance to escape. While making a getaway is the ideal outcome, if you do find yourself in a sticky situation, this perk could keep you off the hook.
• Distortion: Whenever the Killer tries to read your Aura, Distortion activates and consumes 1 Token. For the following 8/10/12 seconds, your Aura can’t be read and your Scratch Marks are hidden. You begin the game with 1 Token, and for every 30 seconds you spend in a Chase, Distortion regenerates.

Teamwork: Toughen Up: 

While injured, if a Survivor within 24 meters stuns the Killer with a pallet or blinds them, your grunts of pain, pools of blood, and scratch marks are hidden for the next 20/25/30 seconds. This perk relies on your fellow Survivors to be of any use. 

• Aftercare: The Auras of the last 1/2/3 Survivors become permanently visible to you after you unhook them, they unhook you, you heal them, or they heal you. These Survivors will also see your Aura. When you know where your teammates are, it’ll be easier to be in their vicinity for Toughen Up. Aftercare also shows your aura to those same players, meaning they can intercept your chase.
• Window of Opportunity: This perk shows you the Auras of Breakable Walls, Pallets and Windows within 24/28/32 metres. As Toughen Up centers around Pallets, knowing their location is nothing but helpful and if you can see which survivor is near which Pallet, you know who is primed to help you. 
• Wiretap: Press the ‘Active Ability’ button while near a partially progressed Generator to install a Trap. When the Killer comes within 14 metres of that Generator, their Aura is revealed to all Survivors. Different to the other aura-reading perks, this one utilizes your time on Generators even more and can catch out a killer hoping to stalk their prey. Never be blind to anyone’s location when combining all these perks. 

Teamwork: Toughen Up also pairs well with a perk of Michonne’s – the other survivor coming to The Fog later this month.