Self-Care plus the new Leon silent healing perk is a ridiculously good combo tho. I can't count anymore the amount of times I loose a killer just because I stop in a corner and start healing, it's so good.
Also healing others with that Leon perk also saved their asses so often already, it's crazy how bold you can stay right besides the killer and just keep healing and they run straight past, that perk is legitimately awesome.
The new Leon perk is amazing, true, but you could just as easily do that much faster with even a basic medkit, and do it twice with a decent one. The amount of time you lose self-caring just isn't worth it. Even with medkits you shouldn't be stopping to heal yourself more than a few times.
Hmm… so what do you suggest then? I really like the sound of Babysitter so if it's good I could buy Steve and I also like the sound of Flip-Flop and I already bought Ash… 🤔
There's a lot of good perks. For beginners, I would suggest...
1 Information Perk.
I recommend either
Bond or
Kindred.
You get Bond from Dwight and it lets you see nearby Survivors. This comes in handy in a few ways. It lets you see if someone is around you that can heal you or needs healing, it lets you meet up with other people to tackle a gen together, and perhaps most importantly if you're in a chase it lets you see nearby survivors on gens so you know not to lead the killer in their direction and go another way, so they don't get knocked off the gen.
If you don't want Bond, though, Kindred is just as good. It lets you see where all the other survivors are when someone is hooked and lets all the other survivors see each other when you're hooked. This lets you figure out if you need to go save someone from a hook or if you should stay on a gen. It also lets you see if a killer is camping, since they'll also show up near the survivor. Kindred has the added bonus of not being a teachable perk, so you can start using it early.
1 Exhaustion Perk.
The Exhaustion Perks tend to be the best ones in the game. By far the most useful ones are
Dead Hard and
Adrenaline. Dead Hard is my favorite but it takes some practice getting used to, so for a new player I actually recommend
Sprint Burst, which you learn from Meg, that gives you a speed boost when you start running. Though my advice for using Sprint Burst is to not try and save it too much. You don't want to be crouching or stealthing if the killer isn't near you, that's just wasting time you need to be spending doing gens. The best use of Sprint Burst is for when a killer catches you doing a gen, your initial running away gives you a massive head start and will prolong the chase. I suggest this for beginners because learning the chase is one of the hardest parts of learning Survivor, and this will give you more time at the start of the chase to get a feel for it.
Once you have one of each of those, you can fill out your remaining perks with any of the "meta" ones. They're often boring to see over and over again for longtime players, but they're so common for a reason, and they can give you some wiggle room when learning the game.
A few I recommend:
Borrowed Time (Bill) - Like I said, it's great. In low ranks you run into killers who camp way more than in higher ranks, and Borrowed Time is a great counter to it.
Decisive Strike (Laurie) - This is the anti-tunneling perk, it used to be really overpowered but it's much more balanced now. If the killer is tunneling you off the hook, hitting a skill check when they pick you up will let you escape one time.
Unbreakable (Bill) - And this is the anti-slugging perk. Once per match if a killer leaves you on the ground, you can pick yourself up by recovering.
Iron Will (Jake) - You make no sound while injured. This is THE stealth perk, and once you're more comfortable with the game you can pair this with things like Dead Hard to make for a great "staying injured" build.
Prove Thyself (Dwight) - Get a boost to gen repair speed the more people are on the gen with you.
tl;dr: I think the best Survivors to level up first are Dwight and Bill, as they both have two perks that can serve you well. From there you can do Meg, Laurie, Jake, and David to get the other "meta" perks. And by the time you've done all that you'll likely have enough time put into the game to know what you want next.
