My thoughts on the Judgement after the first day of live release
I played a few games on the PTB, but I usually like to otherwise wait for the killer to come to live to play as / against them. After playing against the (slightly changed from PTB) Judgement in the live release, here are my thoughts so far:
Positives
I've seen mixed opinions on this, but personally I love the Judgement's power design overall, and I think he is incredibly fun to play against as well, even when the killer seems to know a lot better what they're doing. The Exile is so cool, it kind of makes me wish we had more killer-unique realms in the game. I think this killer also has incredible limits where a really good Judgement main could make people think he is one of the strongest killers in the game, but he requires so much skill to play I honestly don't mind. In addition, the music from this chapter may be some of my favorite in the game. Overall a really cool and unique killer and an excellent addition to the cast!
Concerns
- PTB to Live changes: honestly I think the basekit changes to the Judgement from the PTB to Live were unecessary. The killer is already difficult as it is, and I think nerfing the killer would have to wait until we actually see in a couple months (when some people have begun to fully master him) whether it is deserved. I also think that maintaining Zealous should be rewarded, and a measly 0.3s of control over the beam of light is not much (yes I know there are other buffs, but I think this may be considered the main one). If you're going to keep that as is though, at least update the in-game information and the wiki that both say 0.5s still.
- 3 gen defending: One concern has already been brought up on this forum and that's three gen defending. The Judgement doesn't really have to commit to many chases in this situation when he can spam orbital lasers at the gens, because eventually something will hit. In addition, most killers when downing a survivor in a 3 gen scenario might not feel able to take the time to pick up, carry, and hook a survivor for risk of losing a generator, while the Judgement simply goes into an animation on the spot only a couple seconds long. I'd like to see if there's some solution to this to require the Judgement to commit to more chases in this scenario.
- Camping: This issue is two-fold. In the rare instance that a survivor is manually hooked, while the anti-tunnel system they have in place for the Judgements beams is good, it does not linger after unhooking at all, so the killer can just wait until the unhook and then instantly injure/down the unhooker and get rid of the unhooked survivor's endurance.
When using Exile, I've already had several players simply stick around where they have sent me to Exile and guard the shrines. Even if they don't know the exact ones, they can often either figure it out by seeing how close they are to where the survivor was exiled, or see which shrines survivors are trying to head to. As there's no anti-camp for the shrines, they are able to stick around them and use beams of light on any survivors coming near as much as they want. In only maybe 3-4 hours of playing (in which half my games weren't even the new killer) I have already had 2 killers do this so successfully that, even with my duo trying to save me, I have gone from second hook to death without being saved.
I would like to see the anti-camp on regular hooks linger for a few seconds, and for the number of shrines a survivor can be saved at to be increased from 2 to 3. - The number of things this killer counters (and their functions): Here is a list of things Exile entirely makes useless (please let me know if some of these still function, I tried to not include ones such as Self-Preservation that I thought might still function): Babysitter, Bloodrush, Boil Over, BT, Breakdown, Camaraderie, Come And Get Me!, Dead Hard, DS, Deli, Fast Track, Kindred, OTR, Reassurance, Resurgence, Saboteur, Second Wind, Self-Preservation, Shoulder the Burden, Slippery Meat, Up the Ante, We'll Make It, Wicked, Flip Flop, Power Struggle, and Breakout. That's 26 / ~170 survivor perks and I'm probably missing some.
That doesn't even include things that are at least partially countered or made almost useless, such as flashlights, Alex's toolbox, Background Player, Flow State, No One Left Behind, Desperate Measures, Unbreakable, Exponential, Tenacity, WGLF, Buckle Up (the anti-slug perks because there is no way for a teammate to pressure for a save to buy time, and there are very few times a Judgement will take such a long time committing to another chase when they could "hook" you in 3 seconds). To recap, that is essentially 35 perks, an entire category of items (of which there are only 7, and flashlights are one of the 3 most popular), and several playstyles/build archetypes (sabo, saves, anti-slug, unhook speed, self unhooks, anti tunnel/anti-camp) that are all at least partially countered or completely made useless by just this one mechanic, and many of these are incredibly popular / strong perks and builds, so it is more than likely that when the Judgement becomes less popular and people stop running builds expecting to run into him that half the playerbase's builds will be effected.
Plague does something similar with healing, but even only she counters builds centered around healing others and healing yourself and one item, ever other build or perk is still completely viable. The Judgement makes so many builds, perks, and playstyles useless and the survivors have no way of knowing before already being in the game. The Judgement has the downside of not being able to effectively use perks that activate off of hooks, unhooks, or picking up / carrying survivors, but the killer is obviously aware of this before going into the game and is able to guarantee that all of their perks will see value. In addition, in relation to Pain Res, they basically made an addon equivalent. The most concerning part of this by far though is: - Tunneling: Because this killer completely counters all anti-tunneling perks, it makes it incredibly easy to tunnel on this killer. Like I said in the camping section, camping is still very possible, and if you know for a fact that the "unhooked" survivor doesn't have DS, Babysitter, or anything else, what exactly is there to stop you from tunneling? This might have been fine if there was some kind of anti-tunnel system in place, but there isn't. This is something that, if it isn't addressed, could lead to a good Judgement player trying to win at any costs being even worse than a good Nurse player trying to win at any costs.
- Addons: It may be more of a personal thing, but a couple of the addons really need to be looked at. Almost every Judgement player has had either Aurora's Telereceptor or Blindfold of the Devoted or both. And it's no mystery why, these are probably the best addons this killer has, as every Judgement player is also running Lethal Pursuer. I had a Judgement player running all 3 of these along with 3 more aura reading perks, and at the time I was running We See You. We See You was actively getting tokens way more often than not. I had to play the entire game assuming I was constantly seen through every wall, but in mid range it was almost impossible to dodge when he could see every direction change I did. It made me realize how useless the "+2 seconds of survivor aura reading on the killer" drawback they added to Aurora's Telereceptor is, as 1. most survivors won't be running killer aura reading in the first place and 2. even if they are, the Judgement is not a killer that is useful to have aura reading on because she snipes you through walls and if they're decent they won't be going for m1s. Realizing this and how oppressive these addons are, I
- "Toxicity" system: the general idea behind this system is novel, but it just doesn't work. If survivors want to be toxic but are told "you can't crouch 3 times" they will crouch 2 times. As it is, this system will just end up misfiring on normal players because when trying to be toxic, a survivor will just do less than the limit every time, resulting in clips like this:
If the Judgement had gone for the m1 instead of the beam, I would have gotten hit there. Because I was "toxic" enough to crouch behind a bush after realizing I might be able to take advantage of Shadowstep to lose the killer.
Anyway sorry for the super long post, I genuinely love the design of this killer, it's just there are a lot of things that can definitely be improved on that sometimes ruin it for me and the people I play with. I know not everyone will agree with all of these concerns, but I hope you relate to at least a couple.
Tagged:
Killers
Comments
The complete add on pass change and zealous nerf was what bothers me. I understand that sniping gens and totems isn't fun gameplay for survivors because the judgment can stand in one place and pressure whole map. But with 12m more range where light is revealed this will by only issue on indoor maps. However I had no much time to try her yet, because of queue times and lack of time to play.
To respond to your points @Archangel20 :
1. On that I agree. the 0.3 seconds makes it nigh useless trying to curve while zealous.
2. I actually disagree here. Judgements entire playstyle is feast or famine. She is only really able to assert pressure when she actually hits her shots, as people seem to be sidestepping the beams on gens just fine, IF they actually sidestep. that is the big disparity I see right now: The survivors that dont react at all get hit, the ones that pay attention dodge it fairly well. Her only being able to run the hex totem build for gen regression (which is another can of worms, nerf Thrill of the Hunt further imo) is reducing regression to a minimum as she relies heavily on aura perks to function. She NEEDS to pressure gens by trying to disrupt people repairing them, thats a good thing.
3. I think this is only partly true. People being chased right after being freed from exile is usually because people use shrines very carelessly right now, plus Judgements see the "unhooker" with a higher probability because people are exiled with aura reading like Celestial Witness, so they are more likely to go where the unhook happened. That is just natural, its not tunneling per se.
4. This is the BIGGEST disagreement I have with your point here. It is true that being exiled disables persk that are activated when being hooked or unhooked, but it is also true that exiling disables KILLER perks that trigger on hooking or unhooking. Meaning the stringest perks in the game like BBQ, Friends Till the End, Pain Resonance, Pop goes the Weasel…. all ALSO dont work. It is just a tradeoff, not a design issue.
5. Survivors get basekit extended unhook protections from collecting faces in the exile, plus see point 4.
6. Judgements entire design is built around her using aura perks. She is akin to 4 aura perk Huntress, you just have to go in with the expectation that she likely sees you. Plus her aura perks have conditions you can know as to if she sees you or not.
etc etc. These are things you can play around with. You can also use her aura reading against her, perks like Object of Obsession absolutely destroy her as you know when she sees you from you seeing her aura.
7. That is true. I had 1 group emote spamming with emote cancelling so they dont get the heresy debuff. Also had one swf that had 1 tbagger at the exit gate where the rest just heal teched the 2 hits before the 8 seconds ran out. 12 seconds would be better if its actually supposed to stop BM at the exit gates imo.
I at least understand most of your points, but not for 4 and 5. For point 4, I literally addressed that in the OP. Yes the killer also has the tradeoff of not being able to use hook / unhook perks which also contain some of the most popular/strong perks in the game, but they obviously know that going into the game. Unless they are brand new, they will never run a build where they basically can't use their perks, and instead will just look for replacements. Can't use Pop? The killer knows that, so they bring Eruption (which also gives aura reading so it's even better). Can't bring Pain Res? There's an addon that basically acts as a replacement. Can't run BBQ / Friends / Alien Instinct? Run Blindfold of the Devoted or a different aura reading perk.
There are many other perks that serve similar purposes that the killer can run but more importantly knows they should run before going into the game. The survivors, even for the perk categories that have replacements that do not require hooking / unhooking (and some, like anti-tunnel, pretty much don't have any), whenever they run into Judgement there is an extremely high likelihood that at least one of their perks if not more will be rendered completely useless.
As for point 5, unhook protections got nerfed back down to 10s so the extended protections in my experience usually end up around 15s maybe 20s. That's essentially the same as it was before but with elusive, and people still tunneled really often with 15s BT. The elusive might help a bit more with this duration, but 1. this is a killer where the distance from taking the BT hit will not do much for you and he will just snipe you immediately after getting rid of BT and 2. even if you're on a map that helps you get away with elusive, once elusive is up, the killer will almost 100% be running a bunch of aura reading and find you again. And again, like I said in the OP and now here, anti-tunnel perks just straight up do not work, so there is absolutely nothing to be scared of to tunnel a survivor.
Big agree about the number of perks and stuff this killer counters. At the very least exile needs to count as being hooked. This game is too dependent on perks that interact with hooks for balance to have a killer completely ignore them. This also basically exclusively negatively effects survivors because the killer is obviously not going to queue into a match with perks their own power prevents from working. Of course the killer loses some build variety options, but there are plenty of equally strong perks that work just fine with their power like the unemployed build
More people need to be aware of how oppressive The Judgements "Hex: Under Your Thumb" Perk is too, nerfing vigil and then adding a hex that causes haste to be limited to 115% is an insane move.
the perks is weak enough that people dont run it, wdym. Why would anyone waste a perk slot on a destroyable hex that reduces 4 perks in the game, when instead they can just run a perk that causes exhaustion?
Causing Exhaustion makes no sense when you can just prevent distance entirely. though, I will admit, vigil being gutted makes running perks to cause exhaustion way more viable, though that isn't a good thing it just makes exhaustion perks not viable… they're like a major part of a lot of peoples gameplay especially into killers like myers who you want as much distance as possible from to outlast his power. this will, again, disproportionately be excellent on high mobility high impact killers and just not that good on M1 killers… Ghostface will not benefit from this very much but Myers and Wesker, and The Ghoul, etc will.
High mobility killers like Ghoul or Blight won't care about a Sprint Burst, they catch up in 2 nanoseconds. The new hex perk is not even remotely as strong as something like Blood Favor
Lithe initiates by jumping over a physical barrier, and then creating space between you and the killer, That is still useful against Kaneki and The Blight. very much so, as is Balanced Landing. and as stated by you in this thread, Killers KNOW what they are running before a match and what it counters, Survivors Hope. I have already experienced killers yesterday that knew this. this perk makes using haste perks to get between a proxy camper and a hook unviable as well, they get a notification when you use haste perks. this will turn many "might have to be a trade" situations into a definite hook trade or worse.
Celestial Witness is too powerful of a perk with this killer's ability to spam beams across the map. Especially when combined with Nemesis and Lethal Pursuer. I've had quite a few Judgement killers after the match agree that it is too powerful, especially in combination with those perks.
It literally just turns into slightly better deerstalker if you do this.
yes, deerstalker would also be too powerful