Freddy for Masochists (Outdated)

I hope to make the survs your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!

Intro

This guide assumes you know the basics of Freddy's power (aura reading, terror radius, don't swipe at survs who aren't outlined in blue, etc.). Now, if you know that, you probably also know that Freddy is no Nurse. In fact, the general consensus of the community is that Freddy is the worst killer in DBD, and this is not without warrant. But in my opinion, Freddy is an underrated killer who still beats out Wraith on the addonless level (C'mon devs. Why would you reduce the speed he moves at while he uncloaks to totally negate the awesome new sprint?). With a proper build and strategic play, a good Freddy is nothing to trifle with. I hope that this guide will help hone your Freddy skills and make you an absolute monster in the Fog. With Freddy buffs incoming in the second mid chapter balancing patch (the first one buffed Trapper and my bae the Hag), I believe our dear friend Freddy will become a very good killer, and a pretty fun one at that! So, let's begin...

Strengths/Weaknesses of Freddy

It's important that you know a killer's strengths and weaknesses (yes Freddy has strengths you cheeky smart Alec). So here's a short (probably not entirely comprehensive) list of Freddy's strengths and weaknesses:



Strengths
-Freddy is virtually unstealthable. Outside of Dream World, the survs are unable to see you and therefore will have little chance of hiding from you. This does assume you check places they could be (behind trees or other objects, sometimes a locker if you feel certain). Inside Dream World, the survs can be seen via aura reading outside of your terror radius and usually have little wiggle room to hide inside your radius (especially with Monitor and Abuse).
-The map knowledge Freddy gets by sleeping survs is tremendous. You'll know exactly where they are, what they're doing, how far away they are from other people, etc. No other killer can boast this, not even the Doctor.
-Freddy is the crowned king of mindgames. His small stature allows him to hide behind objects with ease, conceal his red glow, and lunge unexpectedly.
-Freddy's power allows him to counter the gen rush. Survivors will have to scramble to wake themselves up, either by waiting for a self care skillcheck, finding an awake surv, or spamming space on a gen for a skillcheck. None of these will speed the game up in the slightest. The effects of this are kinda small without addons, but they can really pile up with Dress addons.
-Freddy is mostly immune to certain annoying survivor tactics. Flashlight saves are exceptionally hard to pull off against Freddy when outside of Dream World, only cream of the crop survs can do it consistently. Freddy is intangible outside of Dream World, so bodyblocking is impossible for survs outside of Dream World. Something also interesting to note is that due to Freddy's stature and the fact that his lunge is the same distance as normal killers, Freddy's lunge has the biggest hitbox in the game. As such, 360s and other jukes are much harder to pull off.

Weaknesses
-Freddy has no tools other than fundamental mindgames (which he is better at than most killers) to help him in the chase. This gets really annoying on maps with huge loops like the Ironworks of Misery (aptly named might I add) or Groaning Storehouse. Not to mention the surv can usually get to a pallet or window during the Dream Transition phase. Now this is actually a reason why you should play Freddy. Learning fundamental mindgames will help ALL of your killers to get better. That said, it still is very frustrating and the reason everyone says he's bad.
-Survs outside of Dream World can complete actions with no IMMEDIATE punishment. This can either be mildly annoying (a hook save, no biggie, sleep the injured guy and put him back) or absolutely devastating (a surv picks up a downed comrade, waking him up and sending him on his merry way to escape). Not cool. This can actually backfire on survs though, as putting on Block addons can sleep them quick enough to pull the cocky nutsos off of whatever they were doing.
-Without the amazing Dress addons (if you haven't guessed already what my favorite addons are, you aren't paying enough attention LOL), survs can escape Dream World pretty easily. Self Care is the main culprit. Everyone runs it, and its skillcheck percentage is higher than that of a gen. This can be annoying if a toxic surv hits gold while you're on the other side of a pallet. UnbreakaBill is another annoying one, not run as often as Self-Care but can sting much worse. This is the main thing I hope gets buffed when the devs release the Freddy Cube.

Playstyle: Overarching Goal (If you're too lazy to read this whole guide, at least take away this)

DBD boasts an amazing killer roster (besides Leatherface, who I believe is irredeemably one-dimensional and boring). No two killers are the same, and each has his or her own strengths and weaknesses. Killers can be divided into two classes: trackers and chasers. Chasing killers have powers that shorten chases. Tracking killers have powers that help them find survs. There is a sort of grey area in between (Hag, Pig, and Myers each have tracking and chasing aspects, with Hag and Myers falling slightly closer to the chasing side and Pig falling closer to the tracking side. Trapper and Hag's setups make them play a lot differently than every other killer, chaser or tracker. The Doctor's Shock Therapy helps win loops, but Doc is the quintessential tracker.), but this general distinction is helpful. As you can guess, Freddy is definitely in the tracking category. So why would you play him like a chasing Billy or Nurse? The answer is, you don't.

Everyone will tell you Freddy is an endgame killer. Now, what they usually mean by endgame is gates powered. And indeed, Freddy can shine when the means of waking up survs no longer are available. The problem is survs ALSO have endgame power. ONE awake surv can pick up a downed comrade and allow both to escape. Prior to the endgame this isn't that huge of a problem, given that the survs are scattered hither and yon trying to complete gens. But at the endgame, the survs are congregated at the gates, and the chance of a downed surv being revived are unfortunately quite high. This, however, is not the only possible endgame scenario.

An ENDGAME STATE is a state from which it is possible to put all remaining survs on the ground. With every other killer, Nurse included, such states usually only come about through unreasonably good luck, as not knowing the location of even one surv can cause a snowball effect where one surv can revive the whole team. Freddy, however, knows EXACTLY where everyone in Dream World is provided they aren't too close, in which case they are most likely dead already. Putting all survs asleep allows Freddy to slug his prey and slow the game to a screeching halt, culminating in everyone hooked and fed to the Entity. Your job as Freddy is this: put the game into an endgame state and finish the game with one clean sweep.

Playstyle: "You are ALL my children now!"

Ok, so you want to put the game into an endgame state. What are some ways you can do this? The first way that should naturally occur to you is to put everyone in Dream World. Prioritize sleeping new victims over EVERYTHING, even hitting old victims midchase. Chase survs you've slept for as long as they aren't in ludicrously good loops. If they get to a really good loop, leave em, especially if they aren't injured. If they aren't injured, they'll be forced to run to a gen or find a teammate to wake up. Pay close attention to their auras from time to time. If you see them bent over, they are getting awakened by a teammate. Rush back and try your best to sleep them both. If they are injured, make a judgment call. The more people you have in Dream World, the more time you have to chase because everyone else will be forced to wake up and not work on gens. If you think you can get the surv you are chasing in a reasonable amount of time given the geography of the area and the number of survs asleep, by all means get them downed. Otherwise, leave them and hope that enough time will be delayed trying to get a Self-Care skillcheck. You'd be surprised how much time can get wasted in such fashion. Should you see them crouched down trying to get woke up, run on back and put both in Dream World, something made easier by the fact that they will most likely be healing and not hiding. Heck, even mix things up by putting survs to sleep and not even chasing them, just going off to find others. This option is especially useful if the gens are going fast and you need to slow the game down.

One technique that can be helpful is slugging. Leaving survs on the ground can draw teammates to them and allow you to sleep everyone. In addition, this can generate time, as you'll gain the benefit of survs rushing in for heals without the deficit of wasting time hooking the survs, especially those with Decisive Strike. The key perk here is Knockout: when used correctly, Knockout can generate lots of time for you as well as move the game MUCH closer to an endgame state. For tips on the proper use of Knockout, I recommend watching Spectrobyss, Soren, or SpaceCoconut (they are Hag mains, but there's nothing special about Hag in particular as pertains to using Knockout to slow the game down). You'll see that they tend to slug survs around the edges of the map.

Playstyle: The salty side

Now, here's where things get a bit uncomfortable. Survivors hate tips like these, but considering they freely use Decisive Strike, teabag, and flashlight like mad, you really should have no compunctions about this. While you are planning on putting everyone in Dream World, you should also be prioritizing the death (always called 'tunneling' when survs want to bash your playstyle) of one or two survs. Make sure that you get survs dead as soon as possible. You can't camp very well (not to mention you won't be able to put new survs into Dream World while you're by the hook), but if you do see survs coming in for the save, sleep them all and put the saved person back on the hook. Keep a mental note of how often survs have been hooked and keep hooking those who have the most hooks on their belt. An exception is the perk Make Your Choice. It is almost always a good idea to try and strike the Make Your Choice guy down, even at the expense of not rehooking the saved person. Slugging those who haven't been hooked to gain time to find hooked people is a viable strategy, as long as your slug is in a reasonably isolated place (Knockout). Freddy is an excellent 'tunneler', as he can always find survs he's left behind, sometimes in more advantageous locations. When one surv is dead, be vigilant. All three survs asleep is a viable endgame state, and if they are spread apart far enough you can easily start slugging them all. When your second victim dies, the game is almost certainly yours if the gates aren't powered. You can play as normal, but why not have patience and go for gold!? Slug one of them as bait for the other, sleep them both, down them both. There is very little reason a Freddy should exit the game with a 3k instead of a 4k, and it's quite lucrative to kill all 4. If the gates are powered, don't get greedy, just hook as normal and get your kills in before it's too late.

Playstyle: A 'short' section about chasing

Freddy has one advantage over other killers that often flies under the radar: he's short. The shortest male killer of the cast, Freddy can hide behind high walls and confuse survs. A prime example of this is at Coldwind Farm. Freddy is completely unseen behind the large hay bales that comprise the major loops of the place. Combine this with hiding your red stain by walking backwards or at an angle, and you can easily trick survs into thinking you are at one place when in reality you are at another. Backtrack, spin, trace and retrace your steps, do a barrel roll (well, not that), etc. to juke survs and catch them off guard at loops if the walls look high enough. Freddy can do this so much better than about 75% of the roster. Experiment with this to get a feel for what you can do. I recommend watching some of TruTalent's older Freddy videos for tips on how to do this kind of stuff.

Perks part 1

While it is indeed possible to rise through the ranks as perkless, addonless Freddy (observe Marth88's Iron Freddy challenge), the majority of players will have perks and addons on their killers. Besides being helpful, it is fun to mix and match stuff to create a fun gameplay experience. So, let's take a look at Freddy's best perks.

Freddy is versatile. Quite a lot of perks (besides the crappy ones and Overcharge) work well on Freddy and can create interesting scenarios. One of the best perks for Freddy in my experience is Monitor and Abuse. The purpose is twofold: it helps ambush survs in Dream World easier (you have a Michael EW2 terror radius), and improves your aura reading. There's very little the survs can do to hide or prepare themselves when you are bearing down on them from 16 m away. For those who prefer jankiness over straightforward utility (i.e. those guys who would rather run Devour over Make Your Choice even though the latter is more reliable simply because Devour is cooler), we now have a second option. Tinkerer will cut your terror radius down to zero when a gen is 85% complete. Now, this has very little effect on the people on the gen considering you'll have to sleep them, but it WILL affect survs in Dream World. You have 16 seconds where you have permanent wallhacks on them and they can't hear you coming. I haven't playtested it much, but it certainly can be fun, albeit less reliable than Monitor. At higher ranks, Knockout seems to be the pivotal perk as opposed to Monitor, but Monitor is still a very recommended perk.

With this, you will definitely want a game slowing perk. The most popular option is Hex: Ruin, and can sometimes yield good results, but alas, it is a Hex which reveals its presence as soon as a gen is touched. As such, it usually is gone in the first 30-60 s. For those more daring, Knockout will serve as a time waster and a great way to bring on an endgame state. Knockout is Freddy's best perk imo because of this. However, you must have survs slugged for it to work, so comboing it with a more immediate slower like Ruin is a good idea. Do not touch Overcharge, that sucker will wake up survs and do more harm than good. A better option in that regard is Pop Goes the Weasel. Since it doesn't increase skillcheck frequency, Huntress Lullaby can be used to effectively slow the game down, albeit with the same impermanence of Hex: Ruin. A useful two perk combo is Sloppy Butcher and Thanatophobia. Heals will take very long (especially if you have skillcheck decreasers to keep people in Dream World) and as a consequence, getting 3 or more people injured is much easier. At this point, Thanato will kick in and become Dying Light 0.5 and it does a relatively good job of slowing gens. Not to mention having many survs injured will help set up the foundation for an endgame state. It is definitely worth a shot! Dying Light can actually work well on Freddy due to his innate ability to never lose survs, but this is always a toss up. If, however, you use a Black Box addon, you can REALLY improve your odds of making it work!

Perks part 2

To keep your momentum going, it's recommended you use a tracking perk to find survs to put into Dream World. The best in this regard are BBQ and Chili, Discordance, and Surveillance. BBQ is a GREAT option due to being able to see exactly where everyone is at if they are far enough away as well as giving a Bloodpoint bonus. Freddy is an incredible farmer, almost as good if not better than the Doctor, and netting more Bloodpoints with BBQ always feels good. It has lost some of its usefulness since the release of Distortion and the locker change, but it is still a great option. Discordance and Surveillance are powerful, Distortion immune, and virtually undetectable (and thus VERY hard to counter) perks that keep the gens diwn and find awake survs. Discordance can give two survs for the price of one and is now my favorite tracking perk for Freddy. Surveillance is even harder to detect, gives a nice bit of map knowledge, and will allow you to hear repairs right on the edge of your radius to prevent stealthy escapes, but gives no audio notification and doesn't really guarantee you'll find MULTIPLE survs. But both are definitely powerful and worthwhile perks. Whispers will give tremendous help in the beginning of the game to get the ball rolling as well as allowing you to put remaining stragglers in Dream World to give you that coveted endgame state, but is very hard to use efficiently. Another good option is Nurse's Calling. Unlike other killers, awake survs don't hesitate to heal inside your terror radius because you don't do immediate damage. This is very helpful in targeting the weaker survs. Bitter Murmurs is an interesting option used by rank 1 Freddy main MrBeCrazy (look him up on YouTube, he knows his stuff), and it can work pretty well too. I'd probably recommend sticking to BBQ, but if you are desperate not to level up Leatherface (I don't blame you), this perk will show up much earlier. If you are interested in levelling up the Spirit (who is much more interesting and powerful than Leatherface), Rancor will make a fine addition on your Freddy. Like Bitter Murmurs, it will help you track survs after each gen pop. The primary differences are it'll show all survs and only give locations, not auras. Seeing as how Freddy can avoid stealth with ease, this isn't a big problem. Oh, and it'll give you an instadown and mori on your Obsession at the endgame. Now that's a lotta damage >:D

After this, you have one perk slot left (assuming you are picking perks out like I recommended, which you don't have to do. Always be sure to play around with comboes and have fun). You could use a chasing perk like Bamboozle, Brutal Strength, Enduring, Save the Best for Last (probably my favorite, though not necessarily the best for Freddy), or Spirit Fury to supplement your chasing weaknesses. You could use Devour Hope, Make Your Choice, or Haunted Grounds (this one will work if you have Ruin up) to instadown survs and hasten an endgame state. You could use an endgame (gates powered) perk like NOED, Remember Me, or Blood Warden, although I don't like to do so due to the situational nature of these perks. Heck, slap on Coulrophobia or Sloppy Butcher to prevent heals in your face (A word on this. Coulrophobia is twice as effective as Sloppy Butcher if your only purpose is to stop in-your-face heals. But Sloppy Butcher's Mangling will keep survs occupied longer even outside your radius. You could make this work to spread out damage and make the survs more ready for an endgame state). Or double down on a category (tracking or game slowing) I mentioned before. The possibilities are endless!

Addons part 1

Freddy has an arsenal of addons at his disposal, several of which are not only useful, but also fun! See, with Nurse, addons affect blink range, blink window, number of blinks...YAWN. Freddy's addons not only give him power, but can also twist and warp the fabric of the game itself in unique and interesting ways! I am going to start with the worst addons first and then work my way up to the best ones.

The WORST addons are those that increase movement speed after drawing survs into Dream World: Garden Rake, Prototype Claws, and Paint Thinner. The effects aren't noticeable in the slightest. Even if they were, they would only be helpful if the dream transition time was shortened, which you need yet another addon to do and can't be done too effectively with only one addon slot.

Following those are the Dream State slowers: Jump Rope, Garden Rope, and Swing Chains. One thing that should be mentioned is that Swing Chains affect you on the second AND subsequent Dream Transitions. The wording is terrible. These bonusses are multiplicative, so the Jump Rope, which is labelled as giving an extra 20% penalty, gives a 10% penalty (20% of 50%) to speed in Dream World. Stacking both Swing Chains and Jump Rope gives an extra 25% penalty to speed of Dream World survs, for a grand total of 75% slowdown. Are these addons fun for memes? Definitely! Helpful? Somewhat. For most intents and purposes, a 50% slowdown to sleepy survs is sufficient. The main exception is if you wish to stack these suckers and get a slowdown on OPENING A GATE. Now as opposed to a gate taking only twice as long to open, you can get the gate to be up to FOUR times as long to open. This with Remember Me could be absolutely cancerous (200 seconds)! But ofc, endgame builds are always a bit of a toss up, so I'd recommend the next few addons on the list for putting the game into YOUR endgame. If you want to run one of these, add a skillcheck decreaser to keep em in longer to milk all the use out of the addon.

On a level (maybe slightly better) with the previous addons are the range extenders: Kid's Drawing, Nancy's Sketch, and Nancy's Masterpiece. The effect is quite noticeable, and Freddies occasionally use these to sweep the area like a mini radar with their dream catcher orb and catch survs unawares. I've really tried to use these suckers, but I just can't get them to work. If there's any obstacle, you can't get the full range off your orb. It really stings because lots of really good players seem to really get use out of these, and yet I flounder with them. I'd personally recommend the next couple addons over these, but don't automatically dismiss these addons.

Addons part 2

Now here's where things get really good! Block addons lessen the amount of time it takes to go into dream World: Sheep Block, Cat Block, Unicorn Block, Z Block. Stack these bad boys up with each other (or with Red Paintbrush which we'll talk about later on) to quickly strike survs when they enter Dream World. Should you have enough time taken off, you can even pull cheeky survs off gens when they transition! One thing we must be clear on though is that the Cat Block also makes it easier for survs to wake up. This is an oftentimes fatal weakness. I would not recommend using it period. I guess you can make another Budget Combo (a cheap yet effective combo which I outline in the next section) with it and Unicorn Block, but imo Cat Block's risks far outweigh its benefits. The Unicorn Block only costs 1k more and does not have that skillcheck penalty attached to it.

Right up there with the blocks are the dress addons: Wool Shirt, Green Dress, and Blue Dress. The Wool Shirt is pointless, use only if you want to cheaply counteract the effects of a Cat Block. Blue Dress does its job pretty well and has no downsides. But the best one in my opinion is the one right in the middle of the rarity spectrum: the Green Dress. The difference is EXTREMELY noticeable, and survs will stay in Dream World for a very long time, allowing you to move closer to an endgame state. The time penalty is very little and can actually be helpful in one fun combo which we will discuss later. Green and Blue Dress is a very cheap, yet effective addon combo (I call it the Budget Combo and it is a staple in my Freddy matches) to keep survs sleepy and move the game perilously close to an endgame state with little effort. Because remember, as Freddy you will want to oftentimes run off and find other prey to put to sleep. So these addons will help keep survs in the palm of your hand.

By the Numbers

How powerful are the Dress addons? Well, here's how much percent they take off base skillcheck percents:

Wool Shirt: 1%
Blue Dress: 2%
Green Dress: 3%
(Cat Block adds 1% chance)

Hey, that doesn't seem too powerful! Or is it? I'll show you how to gauge just how much time on average you can expect survs to waste trying to get a skillcheck. There is MATH (egad) involved, but it is easy. You can skip this section if you want.

Let's start with a simple example: there's an 8% chance per second to trigger a gen skillcheck, how often on average do gen skillchecks come up? Well, I shall show you how to find out. First, change your percent chance into a decimal form by dividing it by 100. 8% in decimal form is 8/100 or 0.08 (shift the decimal place two to the left). Second, grab a calculator and divide that sucker into 1. 1/0.08 = 12.5. And that's it. You should expect on average one gen skillcheck every 12.5 seconds. What would happen if we added a Green Dress to the mix eh? Well our percent chance has gone down to 5% per second for an average of 1 skillcheck every 20 seconds. You've gained 7.5 extra wasted seconds on average for EVERY time a surv tries to snap out using a gen. Which means just 4 gen snapping out opportunities has given you (hypothetically, we're still talking averages here) 30 extra seconds. And the Budget Combo reduces the percent down to 3% for a whopping average of 33.33 seconds wasted trying to get a skillcheck, 20.83 extra seconds on average PER ATTEMPT! This doesn't take into consideration survs being woken up by others, but a good Fredster will be on the lookout to capitalize off those opportunities.

Now I know what you're thinking "But that's RNG, we know how well that worked with Pig." To that I answer that Fredster has the Law of Large Numbers on his side. The Law of Large Numbers states that as you repeat a trial more and more, the average of your results should approach the expected value of the trial. Take flipping a coin for instance: flipping four times (sort of analagous to using 4 RBTs) could give you all sorts of results, but you'd expect that if you flipped a coin say 20 or 50 times (analagous to how many times you could transition survs and send them on their way to try and fail a skillcheck), you'd see something somewhat close to an even split. And that's why RNG isn't as much of an issue for Fredster, he can just keep on sending survs on their way to try and fail a skillcheck over and over and over again and RNG will usually behave more reliably in the long haul.

Something survs can do to mitigate this (if multiple ones are asleep and in one place) is to ALL hop on a gen. This will decrease the average amount of time by a lot and should be broken up at all costs if possible.

Here are the percent chances for all skillchecks that can wake you up. Feel free to add and subtract percentages of addon comboes and see for yourself how powerful the dresses are:

Gen: 8%
Self-Care: 10.5% (An average of 9.5 seconds to get one check. Self Care is a pain in the butt)
Healing oneself with Medkit: 12.5%
Healing another surv: 15%

Addons Part 3

The addons that follow are really fun and gimmicky. Use them often; use them well. Pill Bottle is a fantastic gimmick that will allow for good hits and solid trickery. Since the survs can't see you, you can maneuver yourself into a good position to land a solid hit. Stand on one side of a pallet they're at and anticipate them running into your loving arms. Wait for them at the other side of windows. Walk away as the survs squirm around trying to escape an imaginary target. Hide yourself in a nearby room on an indoor map. The possibilities are endless and very fun to envision!

Black Box is an ultra rare addon that will allow for easy Obsession targeting. You can really maximize the potential of Dying Light and Remember Me with this one. And it gives you an early lead as to where one surv is (possibly more than one if a comrade decides to wake him up), a very good advantage.

Red Paintbrush is perhaps the funnest gimmick of them all. You can use it in tandem with a Z Block for a 3 second Transition, a very good time. The best part of it, however, is that JUICY terror radius reduction! Only 8 m stands between you and unlimited wallhacks on Dream State survs; zero if you use Monitor and Abuse. You can use it with Pill Bottle to jumpscare survs from around corners when you transition. Using it with a map offering for Lery's or the Game gives you unbelievably good ambush potential, with much better speed than a Scratched Mirror Myers. This addon is unmitigated fun, and was one of the chiefest reasons I Prestige 3ed my Freddy. Be careful however, that speed reduction is very real. Sometimes it has led to catastrophic losses. But on indoor maps, this is hands down the most powerful and fun combo.

What addon combo is the most powerful for all maps you ask? Well...

Addons: THE BEST ADDON

It ain't an ultra rare, but it gets things DONE: Class Photo. With this addon, you can see the auras of every surv on the board while one is transitioning, including the transitioning one himself. Plus, transitioning time is increased by two seconds. WHY would you want extra transitioning time? So you can have extra aura reading time! NEVER chase a transitioning surv. Instead, run and find the nearest non transitioning surv and sleep him. Wash, rinse, repeat until at least 3 survs are in dream world. You can go for the fourth (I usually do that), or chase one of the suckers already in Dream World. Always strive to keep as many survs in as possible. You can get endgame states LUDICROUSLY quick with this addon, find weaker survs to get back on hooks, find Make Your Choice survs, have wallhacks on survs you are currently chasing, and slow the game to a limping crawl. IT'S JUST TOO GOOD TO REFUSE! Never run this addon with a transition time decreaser, especially not Paintbrush. There are two really good second addon choices: Pill Bottle or a skillcheck decreaser. Pill Bottle can keep transitioning survs guessing and allow you to smack them silly when they finally transition. Skillcheck decreasers are probably the best option: you'll be able to find survs to put in Dream World and they will STAY in Dream World (for awhile). The absolute best one for this is Green Dress. Not only will survs struggle for ages to get out of Dream World, you will have another 0.5 seconds of aura reading to find and sleep survs. In my opinion, Green Dress and Class Photo is Freddy's most powerful combo for ANY map. Paintbrush and Z Block is probably more powerful on maps like Lery's and the Game, but Class Photo and Green Dress will reliably yield results on any map.

Builds Part 1

I'm assuming that if you're here you are thinking: "Gee, it sure would be boring to follow that long section on perks. I want to explore new build possibilities!" An admirable sentiment! So here's a list of builds I've come up with. Some are tried and true, others are zany and wacky memes, and there's a little surprise at the end!

Ready For Freddy (One of my standard builds): Monitor, Ruin, BBQ, Make Your Choice
This build would work pretty well on just about any killer, but Freddy in particular recieves great power from Make Your Choice and Monitor. This is a build I run when in an aggressive/confrontational mood. As such, it would work well with Block addons, but basically any addon combo would work with this build.

Sleepy Slugs (Another standard build of mine): Ruin, BBQ, Make Your Choice, Knockout
It's only one perk different from the above build, but Knockout changes all! Now you have the ability to slug survs and move the game closer to an endgame state while also slowing the game itself. You will notice Monitor isn't there. This is because when I P3ed, I lost Monitor. I'm searching for it relentlessly. I think Monitor will take MYC's place in this build. The "Budget Combo" Green and Blue Dress is probably my most recommended combo for this setup to slow the game down even further, though again, almost any addon combo will work here.

Rusty Blades: Sloppy Butcher, Thanatophobia, Any two of Ruin/Knockout/BBQ
Thanatophobia ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING with Sloppy Butcher. When executed correctly, the game will slow to a miserable crawl for the survs and you will win the war simply by attrition! You will probably want something else though to slow the game down as well. Ruin is a more conservative option, but Knockout can be EXTREMELY devastating in this build. You could do both at the expense of BBQ, and this could actually be more efficient in some cases. Anything goes as far as addons with this build.

Endgame Freddy: Blood Warden, NOED, Remember Me, Bitter Murmurs/Rancor
The classic build for an endgame Freddy. With no means of waking themselves up, asleep survs are at your mercy unless an awake surv comes along. If NOED survives, you will be in a VERY good spot. One problem this build has is a lot of people expect it. A NOEDless Freddy is a rarity for most people, so your totems might be all cleansed. They might also wise up to you having Blood Warden, having 2 other endgame perks in tow. Nonetheless, this build will hit HARD when it works! A Class Photo or a Black Box would be recommended to quickly rack up stacks for Remember Me, although the trick could be done cheaper with Block addons should you be lucky enough to find your Obsession.

Lightning Fast Jazz Hands: Brutal Strength/Spirit Fury, Bamboozle, Enduring, Save The Best For Last
Tired of not having chasing power? Let's fix that. Pallets will break quickly (with double hit potential if you use Spirit Fury), DStrikes mean nearly nothing, windows can be fenced off, and best of all, you can clean your weapon with ease! It's your call whether or not to use Brutal or Spirit Fury (both serve the same purpose in this build: clearing pallets), but I'd personally use Spirit Fury. The double hit possibility is too good to refuse and helps rack up Save the Best for Last stacks quickly. The only problem with this build is it doesn't give any insulation against genrush, but if you build up enough momentum with hooks, you can prevent a genrush with some quick deaths and more importantly move the game to an endgame state. For max chasing power, stack blocks. For some genrush insulation, "Budget Combo" or Class Photo and Green Dress.

Builds Part 2

InstaFreddy: Make Your Choice, Devour Hope, NOED/Rancor, Haunted Grounds
The name of the game is instadowning. Devour and Haunted makes a lovely combo. If the survs cleanse totems, there's a good chance they'll hit Haunted Grounds and BOOM! you have 60 s to rack up Devour stacks and hooks. And if they don't cleanse for fear of Haunted, even better! Instadowning works well as there is very little way to hide from the invisible while awake, aura reading while asleep Freddy. Make Your Choice will still be working overtime no matter what. I've left you a choice between NOED and Rancor. NOED works awesomely, but again, NOED on Freddy is predictable. Rancor will only let you instadown one person, but it is guaranteed to proc unless you've won and will give you tracking power throughout the match. Not only that, the Obsession won't be able to see your aura outside of Dream World, mostly negating the one downside of the perk. And do I even have to mention the mori ;) ? This is an unadulterated aggressive build, so Blocks are definitely the best option.

Tunnel Vision: Remember Me, Dying Light, Ruin, Knockout
This build either works unreasonably well or fails miserably. Always go after the Obsession and hope he's not too good at looping. If you find another guy beforehand, slug him and chase your true target.If you can get Dying Light online and a few Remember Me stacks, you are invincible. Works well with a Mori. To get the full effect, let's use Black Box and Class Photo. The former will get you started with the Obsession, the latter will help you find him again to follow through. I have gotten this build to work with the recommended addon combo even without the aid of a Mori at rank 2 (3? Can't quite remember, it was awhile ago). So it is possible to execute.

Major League Slugger: Third Seal, Knockout, Make Your Choice, Haunted Grounds
Now we're in mostly meme territory. BUT, if you whack all 4 survs with Third Seal, you will be in a very good position. Survs can't read the auras of slugs and more importantly, vice versa. With the new addition of Haunted Grounds, your Third Seal has a much higher chance of surviving AND racking up damage on the side. You COULD get 4 man endgame states with this build very easily (hypothetically of course). Go "Budget Combo" or Class Photo/Green Dress all the way.

Clean Sweep: Third Seal, Devour, Ruin, Haunted Grounds
For a meme build, this has actually worked pretty well for me. The least desirable outcome is all cleansed, but even that will rack up some time. But there's also the possibility Third Seal will live to blind all 4 survs. This could lead to a deadly slugging soiree. And there's the other possibility that Devour can live long enough to instadown and maybe even Mori, and that's going to hurt even more! With this is the ever present threat of Haunted Grounds racking up damage. I'd recommend this build on a map with well concealed totems like Lery's or the Game. I'd use either Budget Combo or Class Photo/Green Dress to further slow the game, although since this build has the possibility to become a high aggro build Block stacking can work well here.

Stupidly Slow Heals: Coulrophobia, Distressing, thanatophobia, Sloppy Butcher
Pure memes right here. At the very least, survs will suffer a 25% penalty to healing speeds. At the WORST we have 15% off for Thanatophobia, 25% off for Sloppy Butcher, 50% off for Coulrophobia ( made more likely by the larger terror radius), and 50% off for Dream World. Multiply ALL this together for a grand total of 84% slower heals. That. is. painful. To embrace the full spirit of this meme, run with Jump Rope and Swing Chains to make Dream World 75% slower for a whopping 92% penalty. To embrace a safer portion of this meme's spirit, run Green Dress and Swing Chains (survs will stay in Dream World longer to be more reliably slowed) for a still impressive 88% penalty.

Dream Ride: Play With Your Food, NOED, Devour Hope, Ruin
This is a meme build made to give the speed addons a little glimmer of purpose. It honestly isn't too bad of a build in its own right either. With the exception of Ruin every perk is built to try and make you faster. Run Paint Thinner and Prototype Claws as addons (trust me, you won't run out of either of these anytime soon). You should notice a REALLY palpable speed boost upon sleeping a surv. The ideal situation is you're chasing this one surv and you see another, sleep them, and ZOOM right up on the first guy. You can also sleep a surv and use the speed boost to zoom across the map to another patrol spot. Be sure to pick up some PWYF tokens to up the meme factor. Freddy can kind of do this easily due to the fact he can swiftly relocate the Obsession. Two tokens are usually enough to make for a relatively brief non Obsession chase, you get the first hit in fast and the second hit in slightly faster than normal. Would this build be more effective on a Bing Bong or Spirit? Definitely. But NOBODY sees a Freddy and thinks "Golly, I think he may be running Play With Your Food along with some speed addons". And this can really catch people off guard. They might try and do another loop on you only to find you're fast AF.


And finally:

I Really Hate my Existence: Distressing, Overcharge, Unnerving Presence, Surveillance
Please, never run these perks unless you're really trying to feel miserable. If you win with these at any rank above 10, consider yourself blessed above all men! Class Photo and Green Dress doesn't count btw.

Conclusion

I can't guarantee you'll get to rank 1 or win all the time. Only Nurse can guarantee that with enough practice. But I do hope that these tips help you to win with Freddy and appreciate what power he has. Is Freddy top tier? No, and he isn't likely to be. Is he fun? HECK YEAH he is. Is he underrated? I firmly believe so. Freddy isn't like Nurse, Billy, or Huntress, but it sure would be boring if every killer was (and especially if every killer was as one dimensional as Leatherface), and I don't think that a killer has to be like them to succeed. If my guide has helped you in any way, please comment below. If you have suggestions for improvement in organizing my guide, I would like to hear that too. And if by any chance one of the crazy souls who mains Freddy reads this guide and has some tips of their own, I would love very much to hear their input. This guide will be updated with any needful changes when patches come along and new perks get added. Till then, sweet dreams!

Gallery

This gallery is a hodge podge of pictures. You will notice that some matches as Freddy are shown here. I am doing this only to increase my credibility as a reliable source for Freddy gameplay and encourage people that Freddy can be powerful when used correctly, not to toot my own horn. Not all matches are pictured here, I have had my fair share of losses with Freddy, and every other killer for that matter (looking at you Nurse, Wraith, and Leatherface). Enjoy!


Freddy in his default garb. Observe how short he is. This is probably your only tool in the chase so use it well.






Freddy in his P3 garb. Other than simply looking cool and setting you apart from all the other people that play Freddy (and maybe net you more fear/respect), this doesn't really have a strategic advantage.







A merciless victory as Freddy at rank 1 using Pill Bottle and Unicorn Block. This was achieved on the Pale Rose, advantgeous as the large area of the map made Knockout very effective. The game was concluded with a 3 man endgame state. It is possible to win at high ranks with Freddy, and I know you can do it too!









The survs made a few mistakes on this PTB match (the Legion PTB) at Mother's Dwelling that I capitalized on (minor ones like just sitting on a gen instead of trying to stealth and one major one involving an early unhook). I'm not sure I would've gotten this result otherwise. But I felt exceptionally happy about this match nonetheless, especially after my frustration futilely trying to get even a couple kills with Legion. Since this time (one day later) I have gotten two more perkless rank 1 Freddy matches ending in 4ks. And again, Freddy isn't special MECHANICALLY, this isn't due to skill in reflexes but in micromanagement. Which means I know that you too can master the ways of the Sweater boi and hopefully get these results.

Freddy Mains on YouTube

It has taken quite awhile of search, but here it is: a collection of high level Freddy mains that post videos on YouTube. Observing their playstyles, movement, and builds can give you a visual aid to learning Freddy. This list will be added to from time to time as more high quality Freddy mains come under my radar.

Marth88 Iron Freddy Challenge: While not a Freddy main, Marth88's exemplary performance with perkless Freddy is what gave me the strategy outlined in this guide and made me the Freddy player I am today (above average Freddy, but nowhere near the awesome guys below). It is well worth a few hours of study if you are serious about becoming good at Freddy.

Mr. Becrazy: A console Freddy main with the skills to pay the bills. Don't let the console bit throw you off, the survs pictured can be great at juking. And in the end analysis all you have to study is his general playstyle and strategy, which is not dependent on platform.

Kam Dodson: A PC Freddy main whose skills are baffling. He will use the "I Really Hate My Existence" build (yes I am actually serious) at rank 1 with a mother flipping Cat Block and STILL 4k. I think that alone is enough credentials!

Changelog

-February 1st 2019: Surveillance and Discordance have become the top two tracking perks for Fredster next to BBQ. My original garbage perk has become meta now. Sniff, they grow up so fast!
-November 25th: Added an extra section on skillcheck odds with different addons
-Novemeber 21st: Added a "Freddy Mains on YouTube" section
-November 7th: Cat Block has been removed completely from recommended addons.
-September 18th: The Spirit came out, hooray! The builds have been updated accordingly.
-August 8th 2018: A gallery was added to the guide. This is mostly to encourage people that Freddy is underrated and can be played at high ranks with success. Not all matches are pictured here, I do have my fair share of losses with Freddy. In fact, it's just one match lol. I keep forgetting to add matches.
-August 4th: A builds section was added to the guide
-July 27th 2018: After a bit of playing around not only with Freddy but with other killers, I discovered that Sloppy Butcher and Thanatophobia is a pretty good combo and will help slow the game down. The perk section part 1 has been updated accordingly.
-July 24th 2018: The mid Chapter patch buffing Trapper, Hag, and several little used killer and surv perks dropped. Tinkerer is now an interesting alternative to Monitor and Abuse, Sloppy Butcher can be used to prevent in-your-face heals, and Save the Best for Last is now a useful chasing perk. The guide has been updated accordingly.
-July 13th 2018: Thanks to the help of FunAsh16, a seasoned Freddy main, we have decided that the Range Extension addons are on the same level as the Dream Speed Slowing addons. The text has been changed accordingly.
-July 12th 2018: Added pictures to the guide

[Prof.Profanity]

+rep

[vilewitch [VF4-A]]

god, seeing this in my favorited guides takes me back. Makes me happy that I wasn't the only person who enjoyed old Freddy. Thanks for keeping this up for the lil memories <3

[Raising Cain]

@Hans Hagall They totally reworked his power. He now spams snares on the ground to slowdown survivors and can teleport to generators. This guide will not be of any help to you, alas. I just kept it up as a relic because I didn't want to delete my work.

[Hans Hagall]

New Freddy? What changed?

[Hans Hagall]

Great guide, thx you.
Devs says Freddy at top 1 now :O

[Raising Cain]

@Cream Cheese | trade.tf

Alas, it certainly won't help you get used to new Freddy. But thank you! ^^

[Cream Cheese]

amazing guild thanks it helped a lot and helped me get used to freddy

[Raising Cain]

@The Meatball Man

Feels pretty good! Thanks mah dude XD

[BRIMStone]

hows it feel to have a very outdated guide be in the top spot in the guides list for so long?

or maybe its there cuz its in my favorites?

[Raising Cain]

@The Shape

I'm probs just going to get the Prestige skin. A lot of time and effort, but I have a weakness for the color red XD

Plus not feeling in the mood to pay for skins. If I ever do tho, Pig's drill first and I start playing Pig 25% of all matches XD