Feedback and Balance Concerns Regarding The Judgment
Dear Dead by Daylight Development Team,
I would like to provide some feedback regarding the current state of The Judgment. I understand that the killer is intended to be a high-skill character and that strong killers should have powerful abilities. However, in my experience, several aspects of The Judgment’s power make matches feel extremely one-sided and, in some situations, nearly impossible for survivors to win.
I would like to explain my concerns point by point.
1. The main ability has extremely strong map-wide mobility
The Judgment’s main ability appears to have an extremely large range and can travel through walls and across a significant portion of the map.
The ability being able to bypass normal obstacles is already very powerful, but when combined with its ability to travel such a large distance, it becomes extremely difficult for survivors to create meaningful distance or safely reposition.
On top of that, the ability has a cooldown of only around 6 seconds. This makes it available again very frequently and gives survivors very little time to take advantage of the killer not having access to it.
I believe the combination of:
- Extremely long travel distance
- Ability to pass through walls
- Strong chase potential
- Very short cooldown
makes the power far too oppressive in its current state.
2. Hex builds can become extremely difficult to counter
Another major concern is how The Judgment interacts with Hex builds.
If the killer runs multiple Hex perks, The Judgment's power can make it extremely difficult for survivors to locate and cleanse the Hex totems safely.
Normally, Hex builds come with an important trade-off: the killer gets powerful perks, but survivors have the opportunity to find and cleanse the corresponding totems.
With The Judgment, that counterplay can become significantly weaker because the killer can use their power to quickly move around the map and pressure survivors attempting to deal with the Hexes.
This can make a full Hex build feel much stronger than it would on most other killers.
3. Aura-reading builds can create overwhelming pressure
The opposite problem occurs with an aura-reading build.
If The Judgment uses several aura-reading perks, the killer can constantly gain information about survivor locations and then use their power to rapidly reach those survivors.
The combination of information + extremely strong mobility + wall penetration can remove much of the normal uncertainty that survivors rely on during a match.
Once the killer knows where survivors are, it becomes extremely difficult to hide, reposition, or recover from a mistake.
In my opinion, this combination creates a situation where the killer can repeatedly locate survivors and immediately capitalize on that information.
4. The power can feel too forgiving even without extremely high skill
I understand that The Judgment is supposed to be a skill-based killer, and I agree that experienced players should perform better with a difficult killer.
However, I don't believe the current power is as skill-dependent as it should be.
A player does not necessarily need to master every advanced mechanic of The Judgment to become extremely effective. Even a player with relatively basic knowledge of how the power works can gain enormous value from its mobility, wall penetration, cooldown, and information potential.
Once the player understands the fundamental mechanics, the killer can become extremely difficult to deal with.
This creates a concerning gap between the intended "high-skill killer" design and the actual level of effort required to obtain very strong results.
5. Being hit by the ability can lead to extremely limited survivor counterplay
Another particularly frustrating aspect is what happens after a survivor is hit by The Judgment's ability and is taken into the killer's realm.
This mechanic feels extremely restrictive for survivors.
For example, survivors cannot properly use some of the normal interaction-based counterplay they would normally have in a standard chase. Flashlight saves and certain hook-related strategies can become unavailable or heavily restricted.
This is problematic because Dead by Daylight is at its best when both sides have meaningful opportunities to make decisions and counterplay each other.
When a survivor is placed into a special state where many of their normal options are removed, it can feel as though the outcome has already been decided.
6. The combination of mechanics is the main problem
Individually, some of these mechanics may be reasonable.
The problem is how powerful they become when combined:
Wall penetration + extremely long-range mobility + approximately 6-second cooldown + strong information builds + Hex synergy + the ability to place survivors into a restricted realm/state.
Together, these mechanics can remove too many survivor options at the same time.
A killer having one exceptionally strong mechanic can be balanced around it. However, when multiple powerful mechanics reinforce each other, the killer can become oppressive even when the player controlling them is not highly experienced.
7. Matches can feel predetermined rather than skill-based
My biggest concern is that matches against The Judgment can sometimes feel as though there is very little survivors can realistically do once the killer understands the basics of the character.
A strong killer should absolutely be capable of winning against skilled survivors. However, survivors should still feel that their decisions, positioning, teamwork, looping, and build choices can meaningfully influence the outcome.
Against The Judgment, there are situations where it feels like the killer's power simply overrides too many of those options.
That can make the match feel less like a battle of skill and more like trying to survive a power that has very few weaknesses.
8. Suggested areas for balancing
I am not suggesting that The Judgment needs to be completely redesigned or made weak. I think the character can remain powerful while still having clearer weaknesses and counterplay.
Some possible areas the development team could consider are:
- Increasing the ability's cooldown.
- Reducing the maximum travel distance.
- Limiting or adjusting how the ability interacts with walls.
- Adding clearer counterplay when the killer uses aura-reading builds.
- Reviewing the interaction between The Judgment and Hex builds.
- Giving survivors more meaningful options after being sent into the killer's realm.
- Increasing the risk or skill requirement involved in repeatedly using the main ability.
- Making the strongest combinations of perks less oppressive when combined with the killer's power.
Final Thoughts
I want to emphasize that I am not asking for The Judgment to be made weak. I think a powerful and unique killer is good for Dead by Daylight, and I appreciate the effort that goes into creating new killer mechanics.
My concern is that The Judgment currently has too many advantages with too little counterplay.
The combination of extreme mobility, wall penetration, a very short cooldown, strong synergy with aura and Hex builds, and the ability to place survivors into a restricted realm/state can make matches feel extremely difficult to win once the killer understands even the basic mechanics.
I strongly recommend that the development team review The Judgment's power and its interaction with different perk builds, particularly full Hex and full aura-reading builds.
The goal should not necessarily be to reduce the killer's strength dramatically, but to ensure that survivors have reliable and meaningful counterplay and that winning or losing the match depends more on both players' decisions and skill.
Thank you for taking the time to read this feedback. I hope the team considers these concerns and continues to monitor The Judgment's performance and balance after release.
Sincerely,
A Dead by Daylight player
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