The MacheteMan Scale - A "scientific" killer tier list system

I just tried to post this a few minutes ago but the post is now missing. Apologies if the first post was moderated but I received no messages or any kind of feedback and that was my first post so I am assuming that it is a website error. Anyway, here it is again:

Introduction

I really enjoy tier lists in DBD but one problem I encounter frequently when I look at them is I do not understand what they mean. What are these killers being rated on? What is the difference between tier B and tier C? Questions like these. It can be hard to tell what the purpose of lists are and why certain killers are placed where they are.

I wanted to create a list using a more scientific approach in an attempt to eliminate a lot of these confusions. I rated each killer in a number of different categories (outlined below) and gave them a numerical tier score which was calculated from the category scores. Of course there is still a lot of subjectivity in this experiment as I am putting my own personal opinions into these scores but I tried to be as objective as I could be and my hope in doing this is it should give a slightly more objective result than just going by gut feeling – at least by my given starting criteria.

The MacheteMan Scale

First, we need a scale to rate killers on, we need to define what is the best and the worst and then place each killer on that scale.

The base to start on is the “MacheteMan” – a totally basic M1 killer with base stats and no power. We use this as a starting point since every killer (barring a few special cases) use these base stats and have the same core mechanics to learn, therefore we eliminate this from our evaluation (and compensate in our category scoring for the special cases). We give this killer a rating using the categories we will be using for each killer and this creates our zero. Then as a counterpart we make a hypothetical “perfect killer” which has the best scores possible in each category. This makes our scale for 0% to 100% where 0% is MacheteMan and 100% is our hypothetical “perfect killer”.

Categories

The following are the categories in which I have rated the killers. Full definitions of each category are defined in the “Definitions” sheet on the google sheet linked at the bottom of the post.

Lethality – measure of how lethal the killer is. How quickly can they get a survivor down in the 1v1 game? Higher scores in this category mean a killer is more likely to be able to kill you quicker. An example of a high lethality killer is Bubba since he has a chainsaw which can insta-down multiple survivors in a single swing or the nurse who can finish chases extremely efficiently with her power.

Mobility / Utility – this is a measure of the killer macro gameplay. Higher scores in this category mean killers have ability to pressure multiple survivors through their movement speed or other abilities to slow down the game. An example of high mobility killer is The Blight with his speed or high Utility The Cenobite with chain hunt dramatically slowing down all survivors.

Addon / Perk Dependency – how dependent is the killer on using addons or perks to do well? The less dependent on addons and perks the killer is the higher this score.

Mechanical Difficulty – how difficult is it to physically use the killer ability? The easier it is to use their ability the better the score for this category (e.g. Blight is very difficult so gets a 5 for difficulty whereas trapper is super easy as you just put a trap down as long as you are holding a trap).

Cerebral Difficulty – how difficult is it mentally and strategically? Does this killer require any killer-specific knowledge? The easier it is to play the better the score for this category (e.g. where trapper is very mechanically easy to put a trap down, it has a higher cerebral difficulty as you need to think and plan a lot).

Note: both difficulties do not take into account how difficult it is to play as an M1 killer. As outlined above we are eliminating this with our MacheteMan base value

The formula

This is one of the most subjective parts of this experiment. Each of these categories have different levels of importance which to different people might have different priorities. For my list I wanted to make a list that could apply in the most general case for the average DBD player. I ranked importance as Lethality first, closely followed by Mobility/Utility, the difficulty is a small factor and the dependencies are a smaller factor still. I wanted difficulty and dependency to be a consideration without swinging the tier score values too much. The exact values I used can be seen in the definitions sheet.

Now with each category being given a weighting coefficient I rated each killer in each category on a scale of 1-5 (with 1 being the “best”). Each killer was rated as if it was being played by a competent player using the average set of addons (i.e. not always bringing the rarest or best addons but rather bringing what I think would be brought in most games). These category scores and category weights are then accumulated into a TierNumber as follows:

TierNumber = SUM(CategoryScore*CategoryWeight)/SUM(CategoryWeight)

This tier number is then normalised to MacheteMan and we finally get our % score for that killer. The tiers are defined in bands as follows: S > 75%, A > 50%, B > 25%, C > 10%, D <= 10%

Results

You can see a full list of results on the below Google sheet. Definitions and weightings are on the "definitions" sheet, all of my scores and the output of the tier list is on the "Patch 5.0.0" sheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rzPqgSzLLYwVdbwhDzQ7lM2MvaczIdrE4Emfuk3T9ks/edit?usp=sharing

Conclusion

Overall, I am quite pleased with how this turned out. In my opinion, killers were for the most part banded into appropriate tiers with just a few exceptions. I think an argument could be made for most killers moving them up or down by one tier or moving them up or down within their tier but no one feels like they are wildly misplaced.

One thing which may be worth noting is how bottom-heavy the list looks with about half of the killers being in the bottom 25% of the scale. I think that this is unsurprising since we are comparing killers to the idea of a “perfect killer” and there are a lot of killers in this game which really do struggle without a lot of help from perks or otherwise.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. I would be very interested in hearing your opinions and critiques. If you would like to use this scale to make your own tier list then feel free to make a copy of the google sheet and input your own weightings and category scores. I would be interested in seeing how different people using the scale might get different results.