Dead by Daylight - How To Play The Clown

The Clown is a very unique killer in Dead by Daylight. Many say he is a low D Tier killer since he has an "unreliable" M2. I'm here to debunk this. The Clown, if played correctly, is unloopable and potentially viable.

Things You Need To Know

People say Clown is a boring killer to play as and against, but that's because they consistently lose. The truth is, once you get good with Clown, he's a dangerous killer with a high-skill cap. Why? Because surprisingly, you need to multi-task and have a LOT on your mind. You need to play the Clown like Napoleon; extreme tactfulness with strategy knowing your opponents' every move and play.

Here are some tips with playing Clown:

1. Never touch Clown until you've mastered survivor. Once you've mastered survivor, you can understand what smart and viable survivors do in chases and where they are (i.e. doing gens, healing, cleansing a totem, etc.) You need to have a survivor mindset when playing Clown.
2. Understand how to actually play killer with M1 mind games and make sure to graduate from bloodlusting at pallets and loops.
3. Aim your bottles at high objects and NOT at survivors. If you didn't know, when Clown throws his bottle, his gas is quite small, but the higher the bottle hits, the greater the circumference and area of the gas. Any map with ceilings make Clown S Tier.
4. Do NOT play Clown like Huntress or Freddy with Dream Snares. You should NEVER aim for survivors with the bottle, it's a waste and you'll slow yourself down. Do not play like Freddy and spam bottles at loops. You need to aim for high objects such as trees, walls, etc.
5. Master the killer without addons first (but that's for every killer anyway).

Best Perks

Anyone who has played Clown before will tell you he needs 4 basic perks: Hex: Ruin, Spirit Fury, Enduring, and Brutal Strength. Although, these perks synchronize together, they synchronize too well and there's too much synergy. What I'm essentially saying is that it's overkill and unnecessary.

Brown-Green Ranks

If you are in Brown-Green Ranks, the best perk combinations would be: Hex: Ruin, Save the Best For Last, Brutal Strength, and Barbecue & Chili.

1. Hex: Ruin is meant for you to slow the game down with Clown and stall for the first portion of the game.

2. Save the Best For Last is a very dirty perk for Clown once you master his power. This actually makes Clown unloopable. It can only reach it's true potential in very powerful survivor loops. (i.e. Infinites, Jungle Gyms, and Killer Shack).

3. Brutal Strength is for you to gain momentum in a chase rather than lose it. Brutal Strength is arguably the best perk for Clown.

Let me explain:
If a survivor just placed down a pallet and if you're both vis-a-vis, do not break the pallet, but rather throw a bottle at the wall, over the pallet, and then break the pallet. Not only does the survivor gain distance, but you can get a stack of Save the Best For Last and (depending on how many stacks you have) could prevent survivors from getting to another loop.

4. Barbecue & Chili is decent on Clown. Say if you're in Brown-Green Ranks, it's good since you get extra bloodpoints which could be used to level up Clown to get better perks. Barbecue's sole purpose in these ranks are for intel, tracking, and bloodpoints.

Purple Ranks

If you are in Purple Ranks, the best perk combinations would be: Hex: Ruin, Save the Best For Last, Brutal Strength, and Pop Goes the Weasel.

1. Hex: Ruin - See above
2. Save the Best For Last - See above
3. Brutal Strength - See above
4. Pop Goes the Weasel is better than Ruin if you managed to get to the Purple Ranks with Clown. Once Ruin is gone, you no longer have gen pressure. If you manage to get good with Clown, you'll be hooking people over-and-over. Slowing down generator progression with Pop Goes the Weasel slows the game down a lot.

Red Ranks

I wouldn't recommend using this build unless if you've invested at least 1K hours with Clown alone. This Red Rank build is also a try-hard build. This would be: Infectious Fright, Knock Out, Barbecue and Chili, and Pop Goes The Weasel.

1. Infectious Fright's purpose is to locate other survivors. With Infectious Fright you slug.
2. Knock Out synchronizes with Infectious Fright and this stalls the survivor's time and they can't see their allies unless they get close enough. Whether you go against a SWF group or not, this still wastes time and makes it so that 1 person is not on a generator. (Red Ranks killers would understand how huge that is.)
3. Barbecue & Chili is meant to be used if you didn't hear anyone scream from the Infectious Fright. You then hook the survivor then B-line to the people that you've seen with Barbecue and you could potentially snowball with the Infectious Fright.
4. Pop Goes The Weasel is a must use since you need to have gen pressure. Although it does not synchronize with a slugging build, it could be used when you get your Barbecue stacks.

Why no Ruin? Ruin is a bitter-sweet perk. It's like rolling a dice. You may land it in a good spot and have it for 5 gens or it may pop in less than a minute of the match. It's RNG based and it's very risky to use. Counterplay to Ruin is to hit the skillchecks and/or break the totem. Counter to Pop? Don't get caught!

Best Addons

So before I can speak about the best Clown addons, I must tell you about some of the "strongest" ones first:

Readhead's Pinky Finger - allows survivors to be exposed for the duration of the intoxication. This addon COMPLETELY CHANGES Clown's playstyle and makes him easily loopable since you'll be using your bottles to get direct hits instead of slowing survivors down. When using this addon, you'll be playing a mediocre Iridescent Head Huntress with quicker speed, but a chance of not being hit. This addon is by no means the best addon for Clown.

Tattoo's Middle Finger - survivors auras are shown to you for 6 seconds when intoxicated. This addon isn't necessary if you know survivor movement and pathing. It's good yet kind of unreliable.

Cheap Gin Bottle - gives you 2 extra bottles. You won't need this if you get good with Clown and you shouldn't use this if you want to get good with Clown. It's like getting good with Huntress with Infantry Belt; extra chances giving you less of an incentive to be conservative and efficient with your power.

Cigar Box - expands the gas area and increases the blurred vision for survivors. This addon is one of the best in my opinion. You need to understand this: Clown does good at big loops and bad at small loops. Since this increases gas area and blurred vision, this should make the small loops harder to loop and jungle gyms and killer shack impossible to loop.

Ether 15 Vol% - considerably increases the intoxicated effect duration. This is undoubtedly the best Clown addon. When you increase the intoxication effect, you're essentially making the survivor become slower for an additional 1.5 seconds. When you M1 a survivor, no distance is made when they get their sprint burst since they'll still be intoxicated just enough for you to not lose distance.

Garish Make-up Kit - moderate expands the area of the gas and the gas duration is moderately longer. This addon is decent since you need the correct perks in order to make it useful.

From this point on, I will only speak about the cheaper addons that have reliability

Some of the cheaper addons for Clown are really powerful as well. For example:

Ether 10 Vol% - This is essentially a weaker version of Ether 15 Vol%. This addon still slows down survivors and prevents the survivor from gaining any distance with their sprint burst when you use your M1 attack.

Flask of Bleach - applies the Hindered effect when intoxicated. This is the second best addon for Clown in my opinion. This stacks meaning: a survivor is already slowed down because of intoxication. Now with the Hindered effect, you're applying an addition 10% of speed reduction. This is what prevents survivors from reaching another loop in time.

Solvent Jug - applies the Exhausted effect when intoxicated. Decent Clown players say it's one of the best, I say it's not but rather, it's only decent. This addon is completely countered by Sprint Burst rendering it useless. This addon is good for countering Dead Hard, Balanced Landing, Head On, and any other Exhaustion perks. This tears down the walls for the self-defense of good survivors.

Good Combinations

Some of the best addon combinations with Clown are:

1. Ether 15 Vol% with Flask of Bleach - mix this with Save the Best For Last and survivors get no where and they're downed in seconds. This also makes Clown unloopable unlike any other M1 killer. No other killer can do this except Nurse or Spirit. With Ether 15 Vol%, the survivors are slowed down to 85% of their movement speed. With an additional Hindered penalty from Flask of Bleach, survivors are slowed down to 75% of their movement speed! No distance is gained from survivors. This combination makes Clown S Tier and the third best killer in the game.
2. Ether 10 Vol% with Flask of Bleach - a weaker version of the combination above; survivor movement speed is decreased to 85% when intoxicated.
3. Ether 15 Vol% with Ether 10 Vol% - a weaker version than the first one; survivor movement speed is decreased to 80% when intoxicated and the intoxicated effect lasts longer. (Stronger than 2nd combination.)
4. Ether 15 Vol% with Cigar Box - This makes the smaller loops unloopable and it prevents any survivors to get anywhere or to any loop when their movement speed is decreased to 90%. This also helps Clown mind game better since the extra blur with the Cigar Box allows you to hide your red stain even better and it slows down the survivor's reaction time in real-life since they can't see the red stain.
5. Ether 15 Vol% with Garish Make-up Kit - Makes Jungle Gyms and Killer Shack unloopable since the survivor is slowed down to 90% of their movement speed with the gas area being larger and longer.
6. Flask of Bleach with Solvent Jug - This slows down survivors with the Hindered effect and prevents survivors from using any Exhaustion perk when in a chase. This combination is only strong from Brown-Purple Ranks. This will not help you in Purple-Red Ranks since 95% of those survivors know how to ACTUALLY loop and this combination isn't necessarily anti-loop. Only Flask of Bleach allows it to be somewhat anti-loop. This is the community's "strongest" addon combination for Clown. It's not. It can't help in a high rank chase since not everyone is going to carry Exhaustion perks.
7. Redhead's Pinky Finger with Cheap Gin Bottle - This completely changes The Clown's play style. I wouldn't recommend this combination in Red Ranks. Although survivors do get Exposed when directly hit with the bottle, it's not easy to hit with the bottle. You need to play like a Huntress when using this and this combination is only good when you're right behind a survivor which by then a survivor should be at a pallet unless if they're at a dead zone. Since it's very hard to hit with the bottles, use Cheap Gin Bottle to have more bottles whilst in a chase.

Best Maps

Every killer has their best map, but the Clown has several. He can do fine on any map so he's not RNG based, but some maps make him considerably stronger. Clown's strongest maps are:

1. Treatment Theatre - this is Clown's best map. While Nurse struggles on this map, Clown can easily dominate on this map. The reason being is that 95% of the map is inside and there are walls and ceilings. With Clown NEVER aim at survivors with the tonic bottles. Aim for the ceilings and at the walls and the area of the gas is increased making every where a survivor goes unsafe; every loop, every window, every pallet. If you decide to bring a map offering for the Treatment Theatre, I would recommend bringing the perk Bamboozle. This perk will only come in necessary for ONLY this map and nothing else since Clown grunts when he vaults, making Bamboozle for Clown much weaker than any other killer.
2. The Game - this map is 100% inside. Why is it worse than Treatment Theatre then? This is because the ceilings are too high for you to throw a bottle and get an accurate hit on survivors. When you are downstairs however, the ceiling isn't that high, but rather too low for you to get a large area of the tonic gas. Though this map has those negatives for Clown, Clown can still throw bottles and ceilings and slow survivors down a lot.
3. Shelter Woods - this map is good for every killer, it's small, not many loops, and weak pallets. What makes Clown stronger on this map than any other killer is the trees. With Clown, NEVER aim for survivors, aim for trees, walls, and high objects. Since the area of the tonic will be larger depending on the height of the object, the greater the distance the survivor has to avoid or run through. It's a pick-your-poison scenario; you get hit regardless.

Some others include: Grim Pantry - a lot of buildings, Gas Heaven - aim at the sign and some loops become unloopable, and Father Campbell's Chapel - half of the map is survivor orientated while the other half is killer orientated.

Clown tends to dominate on small maps, but really, he can dominate on any map with an abundance of trees. His worst maps however are:

1. The Thompson House - this is every M1 killer's worst nightmare. The only killers that can do good on this map are Spirit and Hillbilly. The reason why this map is bad for Clown is due to the lack of trees and open fields. There are no high objects except at the loops which are still appalling for Clown.
2. Rotten Fields - this is map is poorly designed for both sides. It's weak for killers since it's mostly cornfield making tracking difficult and it's weak for survivors since there are no good loops except TL walls which are very weak. This map is bad for Clown since all of the trees are on the outskirts of the map where no survivors would run to except Rank 20s. There are no high objects that you can aim at and when you do, the survivors will run into an open field where the only way you can slow them down is by throwing bottles at them which you should NOT do, the only exception is this map.
3. Blood Lodge - this map is the worst map for M1 killers. This isn't however Clown's worst map since there are a lot of trees, but the absurd amounts of smaller loops in the middle of the map is what makes Clown weak. Remember what I said? Clown does good at large loops, but bad at smaller ones.

How To Counter Clown

This is section is survivor orientated!

If you go against a Clown that throws his bottles like a ditz then these counters should be really easy to follow. When normally looping, you want to "hug" the walls and keep running the loop. However, with Clown, it's much different. You have to waste the pallet and place it down when he gets close (kind of like rank 15s). This is why he has Brutal Strength though so make sure, as survivor, that you know your pathing.

If you go against a Clown like I've explained in this entire guide then you're in for a hell of pain. Basically you have to create as much distance as possible and make your movement too awkward and unpredictable for this Clown.

✘ Normal Pathing Against Clown:

✔ Awkward Pathing Against Clown:

Perks to hard-counter a GOOD Clown would be:

1. Sprint Burst
2. Quick & Quiet
3. Dance With Me
4. Iron Will

The perks listed above hard-counter Nurse and Spirit; the two best killers in the game.

Do keep in mind, if you know how you play, you'll predict like yourself. If you play good, you'll counter good; if you play bad, you'll counter bad.

Guide by ShittyM1Killer