Dead by Daylight Update 5.5.2 Explained

In Dead by Daylight, the killer must first strike a survivor to injure them and then strike them again to down them. Once downed, the killer typically picks them up and carries them to a nearby hook. The survivor's goal in Dead by Daylight is to win chases and evade the killer to continue working on generators, but there are many ways survivors can manage to stay alive if they are caught and carried.

Popular survivor perks for evasive techniques in Dead by Daylight include Dead Hard and Decisive Strike. Decisive Strike, for example, is an anti-tunneling perk that lets survivors free themselves while carried if they succeed a narrow skill check. However, there is another perk that has been used abusively in the past while that killer mains will be happy to hear has been nerfed in Dead by Daylight's latest patch.

Dead by Daylight's bugfix patch 5.5.2 addresses a myriad of bugs and issues that have come up in the game recently. The patch notes list all bugs that have been squashed, such as "an issue that caused the Nurse's second blink to be delayed and thus cover less distance." But one of its most prominent fixes refers to Kate's teachable survivor perk Boil Over. Boil Over improves the player's ability to wiggle free while being carried by the killer. If survivors wiggle long enough for the progression meter to fill, the killer effectively drops them, and they return to an injured state.

Further, Boil Over fills the wiggle meter when survivors are carried and the killer falls from any height. Because of how these abilities can stack, Boil Over was recently exploitable in certain maps that featured different heights the killer could fall from. Boil Over previously offered a flat 25% increase to wiggle progress when the killer fell. If survivors have a purple, third-tier Boil Over perk it increases the wiggle intensity to 100%, and a flat 25% increase to the wiggle meter from a fall could result in an insta-drop.

Survivors would then abuse this by laying downed near the edge of a drop so that the killer would take the bait and carry them down. Fortunately, Boil Over has been nerfed so that it only grants a 33% increase to the player's current wiggle progression. Dead by Daylight's Behaviour Interactive notes that an insta-drop will still result from Boil Over's fall mechanic if survivors have over 75% of the wiggle meter completed, but it will no longer permit abuse in maps with many heights to fall from.

Here are the complete Dead by Daylight update 5.5.2 patch notes:

Content

Boil Over
- Changed to give 33% of current wiggle progress when falling from great heights (was a flat 25% increase)

Dev Note: This change prevents abuse of Boil Over in specific map locations where the killer has no choice but to drop from a height. It still stays relevant for longer walks and especially for basement access. At over 75% wiggle progress, it still results in an insta-drop.

Changed "Rite of The Executioner" Daily Ritual to require sending 2 Survivors to Cages of Atonement (was 4)

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that caused some players to encounter a Grade Reset after updating to patch 5.5.1. Note: This issue was only visual.
Fixed an issue that caused the Wraiths Withering Vine cosmetic to erroneously be unlocked for all players.
Fixed an issue that caused the Hillbilly's Fable Acres Delivery torso cosmetic to clip into the camera when hooking a Survivor.
Fixed an issue that caused the HUD score alerts to lose their formatting when using the Large Text setting.
Fixed an issue that caused players with at least 1 game played but 0 pips to not receive any reward at the end of season.
Fixed an issue that caused the Nemesis' tentacle strike recovery animation to be missing when too close to an asset.
Fixed an issue that caused the Nurse to not be able to lunge after a blink if the attack input is pressed before the end of the blink.
Fixed an issue that caused the Nurse's second blink to be delayed and thus cover less distance.
Fixed an issue that caused the Nurse not to enter fatigue when having a grab validation fail after blinking.
Fixed an issue that caused the Nurse's hand not to close properly when charging a chain blink.
Fixed an issue that caused the Nurse to be able to blink out of bounds past the exit threshold in the Springwood maps.
Fixed an issue that caused the Nurse to be able to blink out of bounds past the exit threshold in the Backwater Swamp maps.
Fixed an issue that caused the Survivors to use ''Dead Hard'' to jump on rocks near the Ferry Boat.
Fixed an issue that caused Jonah's tablet to be visible on the floor of the Vat room in The Game map.
Fixed an issue that caused hooks in the Eyrie of Crows map to be missing the white glow from Scourge Hook perks.
Fixed an issue that caused a small part of the Entity to stretch when a Survivor is sacrificed.
Fixed an issue that caused the exit prompt to become unresponsive after adding a friend in the Friends List.
Fixed an issue that may have caused the game to become stuck when joining an almost full survivor lobby (PS4/PS5 only)