Michael Myers, notorious for terrorizing the teenagers of Haddonfield in Halloween, brings his signature brand of horror to Dead by Daylight. As a stealth killer, the Shape can creep up on survivors without them seeing him, landing an early hit or even snatching survivors off generators.
The Shape grows in power as he stalks survivors, transforming from killer who is stealthy but slow and weak to one who trades his stealth for an insta-downing stab and faster vault speed. Though many players consider Myers one of the weaker killers, experienced players know how to maximize the Shape's unique strengths, making him a killer who is both fun and, in his own way, powerful.
Evil Within
The Shape feeds his power, Evil Within, by stalking survivors. The Shape can stalk multiple survivors at once. When the Shape is stalking, survivors are highlighted, and his Evil builds. There are three tiers of Evil Within, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses is critical to using the Shape well.
In Evil Within I, the Shape has reduced speed (4.2 m/s), a shorter lunge, and is Undetectable. In Evil Within II, the Shape has normal movement speed(4.6 m/s), a slightly above average lunge, a 16-meter terror radius, and slightly quicker vaulting speed. During Evil Within III, the Shape has a long lunge, the ability to insta-down, a normal 32-meter terror radius, and fast vaulting speed. By default, the Shape will revert to Evil Within II 60 seconds after entering Evil Within III.
The Shape's Teachable Perks
The Shape's teachable perks are more situational than those of many other killers:
- Save The Best For Last (Level 30) awards the killer a token for every basic attack landed on any survivor other than the Obsession, with each token granting a 5% reduction in the basic attack cooldown, to a maximum cooldown reduction of 40%. Hitting the Obsession causes the killer to lose 3 tokens.
- Play With Your Food (Level 35) awards the killer a token every time they break chase with their Obsession. Each token grants the killer 5% additional movement speed, to a maximum of 15% additional speed.
- Dying Light (Level 40) grants the killer a token whenever they hook a survivor other than the Obsession. Survivors other than the Obsession suffer a stackable 3% penalty to repairing, healing, and sabotaging. The Obsession, on the other hand, gets a permanent 33% speed bonus to unhooking and healing others.
Save the Best for Last can be extremely powerful on "M1" basic attack killers, as reducing attack cool-downs can allow the killer to reenter chase, deny unhooks, and punish body blockers easily. Play with Your Food can be tremendously strong but relies upon the killer's ability to find the Obsession consistently and at opportune times. Dying Light is, unfortunately, not worth the perk slot most of the time, as the stackable penalty it grants it severely countered by the bonus it grants the Obsession.
General Strategy
Due to the Shape's reduced speed and lunge range while in Evil Within I, the killer's top priority is to enter Evil Within II as quickly as possible. Although it's tempting to go for an early hit or gen grab in Evil Within I, it's almost always better to stalk survivors instead. Approaching from unexpected angles or stalking from afar (from second-floor windows for example) is a reliable way to build stalk early on. There is a hard cap to the amount of Evil that the Shape can gain from stalking a given survivor, so it's advantageous to try to kill survivors who have been fully depleted rather than those that have plenty of Evil left to give.
The Shape has enormous "snowball" potential, able to turn the game around in an instant by downing multiple survivors during Evil Within III, so catching multiple survivors together is always helpful. Rather than trigger Evil Within III at a distance and waste part of the power trying to catch up with the survivor, a better strategy is to "99" the killer's evil by stopping just shy of triggering Evil Within III. Only when the Shape is close and all but guaranteed a hit should Evil Within III be triggered. It is also important to understand that the Shape loses his collision when stalking, allowing him to slip past survivors who are attempting to body block.
Recommended Build
The following build gives the Shape the time he needs to stalk his victims and prepare for their demise:
- Corrupt Intervention (Plague Level 30) locks the three generators farthest from the killer at the start of the trial for two minutes.
- Hex: Ruin (Hag Level 35) causes generator progress to automatically regress when survivors stop working on the generator.
- Hex: Devour Hope (Hag Level 40) grants escalating buffs every time a survivor is unhooked a safe distance from the killer, from speed buffs to Exposure to the ability to mori all survivors.
- Deadlock (Cenobite Level 30) blocks the generator with the most progress whenever a generator is completed and reveals the aura of that generator to the killer.
As for add-ons, these are two of the Shape's best:
- Tombstone Piece (Very Rare) increases the amount of Evil required to reach Evil Within III but grants the killer the ability to mori one survivor, even if they have never been hooked.
- J. Meyers Memorial (Rare) increases the stalk rate by 25%.
Corrupt Intervention serves two purposes. The first is to prevent survivors from popping the far generators before the slow Evil Within I Myers can stop them. The second is to push survivors towards the Shape in the early game, getting him out of Tier I as fast as possible.
Hex: Ruin provides general slowdown throughout the trial. Hex: Devour Hope increases the Shape's lethality while in Evil Within II, and Deadlock slows the game enough for that lethality to do its work. Killing a survivor with Tombstone Piece drains the Shape's Evil, returning him to Evil Within II, but allows the Shape to eliminate survivors as quickly as possible by ignoring hook states. J. Meyers Memorial compensates for the huge increase in stalking time caused by the previous add-on.
Dead By Daylight is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and Stadia.