For a lot of people, math isn't our strong suit in the first place. Add in dozens of perks, powers, add-ons and more that affect action speeds and things can get really confusing, really fast. But for those so inclined to bust out a calculator and figure out how long something will take- we've got you! In this post, we'll go through how action speed bonuses and penalties are calculated.
An introduction
Interactions in Dead by Daylight use something we refer to as “charges”. For example, a generator requires 90 charges to complete, a heal requires 16, and so on.
When you do one of these interactions, you add charges to it. When the charges are full, the interaction is complete. By default, you add one charge per second (CPS) – AKA “100% action speed”.
Different Perks, Powers, Add-ons, etc. may impact your action speed, but never the total charges of an interaction! A generator, for example, will always require 90 charges to complete. How long it may take you to add those 90 charges can vary depending on action speed bonuses or penalties, but a completed generator always requires 90 charges.
How do you calculate action speed?
To calculate your action speed, you first need to separate positive modifiers (things that make the action faster) from the negative modifiers (things that make the action slower). This is because in Dead by Daylight, positive modifiers are added together, while negative modifiers are multiplied together.
This way, your action speed will never reach 0 (making it take forever), and stacked effects have diminishing returns.
To make things easier to work with, we'll convert every percentage to a decimal. (e.g. 10% becomes 0.1, 50% becomes 0.5, etc.)
Positive Modifiers
Simply add all the positive multipliers together.
Example: 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.1 = 0.85
Negative Modifiers
Subtract the speed penalty from the base charges per second (1 CPS). Do this for all negative multipliers. Then, take these results and multiply them together.
Example: (1 - 0.5) * (1 - 0.25) * (1 - 0.1) = 0.3375
Putting it all together
To figure out what the total speed is with multiple effects in play, you can use the following equation:
(1 + sum of positive modifiers) * product of negative modifiers = charges per second
Time
Now that you know how to calculate your action speed- or charges per second- all you need to do is convert that into time.
To figure out how long something will take, simply divide the base charges and action takes by the charges per second. This will tell you how long, in seconds, that action will take. (Note: If multiple survivors are doing the same action, make sure to take all their progress into account!)
Example
Say you have Botany Knowledge (+50%) and a First Aid Kit (-33%) with Medical Scissors (+10%), but you're under the effects of the Killer's perk, Sloppy Butcher (-20%). If you were to heal yourself, the math would something like this:
1. The sum of the positive modifiers is: 0.5 + 0.1 = 0.6
2. The product of the negative modifiers is: (1 - 0.33) * (1 - 0.20) = 0.536
3. The final charges per second is therefore: (1 + 0.6) * 0.536 = 0.8576
4. The total time it would take to heal a Survivor is: 16 / 0.8576 = ~18.65 seconds
Efficiency
Item efficiency determines how many charges are used to complete an action. There higher your efficiency, the fewer charges you'll use. This can allow you to squeeze more heals out of a Med-Kit, more progress out of a Toolbox, or more uses out of your Flashlight. On the other hand, lower efficiency will cause you to use more charges, causing your item to run out sooner.
Efficiency is calculated similarly to action speed, but by using efficiency modifiers instead of action speed modifiers. To use self healing with a First Aid-Kit and Streetwise as an example:
16 / (1 + 0.25) * (1 - 0.33) = 19.1 charges
With that, we can tell that a single self heal would consume 19.1 charges. If your Med-Kit contains 24 charges, that means you'll be able to squeeze 1.25 heals out of it before it runs out.
If efficiency and action speed seem confusing, here's a little trick to remember what each one does:
You item stores a certain number of "charges" inside it.
Action speed makes your action meter fill up faster or slower. But no matter how fast or slow, you'll use the same amount of charges to complete that action.
Efficiency is the only thing that affects how many uses you get out of your item.
If you're still with us at this point, you're now an expert on Dead by Daylight math! If you're still a bit confused, don't be afraid to ask for help in the forums. The Ask the Community section is a great place to get an answer for any questions you may have- math related or otherwise.
