The Problems With The Judgement
I've been playing Judgement for around 2 days straight and facing them a total of twice. It seems as though most people have completed dropped the Community-Made Chapter altogether for the most part, but that's a side tangent.
The problems I come bearing are from my own experience into this, frankly, mess of a Killer.
Divine Light
Let's go over the main part of The Judgement. Divine Light is not very good for several reason.
The Aura
Because of the Aura it has, Survivors can dodge it extremely easily unless they weren't looking, were funneled, or ran into a wall (yes, that has happened to me... on both sides).
It ALSO has the VERY VERY BAD downside of telling Survivors EXACTLY where you are for, what is basically, the entire Trial!
The Range Limitations
Divine Light is the first Killer Power that you just can't use in a chase. It needs range. If a Survivor is too close to you, you almost always have to run them down for an M1. It doesn't help that The Judgement is a 4.4m/s Killer with no movement options.
You can try and flick, but it's very difficult to not only be able to angle it around the corner, but actually hit the Survivor who can see the Aura of it and adjust. You can also try what I call "Backsnaps" which is when you aim the Light far beyond the Survivor you're chasing and then turn around and launch it to snap it back. It looks cool, but it just doesn't happen.
Also, goes without saying, but do NOT, I repeat, do NOT run Rapid Brutality on The Judgement. You need the Bloodlust.
Cooldown Issues
Divine Light has a distance-based cooldown as well, but it also creates problems. If you're trying to use Divine Light at mid or long range, or even trying to use it in close range by angling it outwards and trying to curve it, you're gonna be slapped with a fat cooldown where you move very slow and cannot interact. It feels like a Twins cooldown where it's unnecessarily long and makes playing them awful.
Zealous and Exile
Combining these two into one due to how connected they are.
Zealous
Already starting off not great, when you become Zealous, the effects are hardly noticeable. Neither of the 4 things it does is big enough to make an effect on its own, and still doesn't do much when combined.
The size is not big enough to make differences, the cooldown for Divine Light is already short and you'll make up most of it crawling at the speed of a crippled snail from casting it, you probably won't even use the extra 50% duration as The Judgement doesn't need it too much, and the curve you can do with Divine Light isn't worth the sheer amount of things you give up by Exiling a Survivor.
Exile
Because most of the effects of Zealous is moot, Exiling a Survivor doesn't do anything. Yes, you Hook them faster, but they also get rescued faster. You also lose all of your pressure faster. You also do not force a Survivor off a Generator for long to rescue. 9 times outta 10, you're better off Hooking a Survivor manually rather than sending them to the place that absolutely should've been the map with this Chapter.
You can trade people at Hooks with Divine Light because the beam only slows down when passing near a Hooked Survivor and ONLY then. Unlike Singularity, it doesn't have a lingering duration. As soon as they're unhooked, it's going.
For all the pressure and all of the Perks that you can get from Hooking, Exiling just isn't worth it.
Overall
I do not forsee The Judgement being very good, possibly low mid-tier like so many Killers. There's so many little things wrong with it that it multiplies. The weird nuances with Divine Light, the speed of the Killer, the cooldowns, Exiling, it adds up.
We have a Killer with a Power that has so many asterisks, it's becoming the chat censor, a Power-related Status Effect that really does nothing in the grand scheme of things, an object that they can't interact with whatsoever, no movement options, a slower speed than average, and a cool area that you can send Survivors to who will spend less than 10 seconds there on average.
Comments
killers heard the new killer is too hard so I think they are waiting for the "all clear" from content creators to let them know they are tier 0 new meta hidden OP.
I know I'm throwing shade here, but there's NO reason why this killer should have been rare on Day 1. That's not even trying the killer and finding it hard, it's not even trying in the first place.
TLDR the killer is hard to play despite being extremely powerful in the right hands. It's the opposite of pay to win killers like Jason or Ghoul so you actually need to be good at the game to win. You can't just press button to win with them which is a nice change of pace from how they have been handling killers for the last couple of years.
So what does that make Nurse in your eyes? Free, first DLC killer, and has been the undisputed Queen of DBD for over 10 years now. Ghoul has fallen off in the last 6 months at the highest levels because he's still forced to M1 you to down you and can be punished hard at loops by smart survivors (P100 Ken here, I've seen it plenty of times by comp Survs with bedazzled Steam Profiles) and Jason is definitely strong and a powercrept Huntress/Afton, but the idea that he's PTW is comical. Go play him perkless for 10 games and see how many of those games you 4k5Gens.
Tbf the killer IS powerful but the power is so convoluted to use to the point of… why don't I just play an easier killer that's more consistent. To me this literally just feels like a "hype moments and aura" type killer where you get a small dopamine rush when the survivors across the map don't see the giant beam of light heading towards them.
thats not what he's saying though is it? He is saying you are far more likely to win with Ghoul or Jason because they're just way easier than judgement is. you're describing being outplayed at pallets and he's talking about The Judgement who ignores them and can hit you anywhere on the map, it just doesn't come free. The Nurse is also in a higher skill tier than Kaneki or Jason… its kinda not comparable. Judgement requires game knowledge, map knowledge, full map awareness to even win… The Ghoul and Jason absolutely don't. and if we're splitting hairs, Jason is even a tier higher than The Ghoul in skill requirement… The Ghoul is a high tier killer because he has extreme mobility and free deep wounds with very low skill baseline. that doesn't mean you don't have to be good at the ghoul to beat high MMR players.
Given how many aura perks are in the game nurse is just an easy killer to play with the right loadout that does not require any kind of skill or thought. Sorry to break this to you but it's just a simple fact that nurses only counterplay is breaking los and since there's so many aura perks that's not really an option anymore so that eliminates the only skill nurse players needed and the only counterplay survivors had.
Seconds I do find it hilarious how you contradict yourself by saying Jason is a super strong powercrept killer but also somehow not PTW. Like seriously? Also the added requirement of needing to be perkless? Like get out of here man or at the very least be intellectually honest with yourself.
I thought the same way at first, but using add-ons helps a lot, specifically the brown add-on and blue add-on (the brown makes the divine light get stuck at a wall and the you can aim it easily, the blue add-on makes you able to return the divine light back and get a hit, it's nice to combine them together).
The zealous does actually do a lot, a lot of hits you get with zealous you wouldn't get without it.
Just try the 2 add-ons I told you.
As someone who thinks me contradicting myself (I didn't lol, "definitely strong and a powercrept Huntress" is factually accurate and by no stretch of your feverish and delulu imagination the same as PTW, nice try tho, pookie), I do have to say, hilarious that you avoided the fact that Nurse is free and the very first DLC killer. Yeah, aura perks are great on her. Is she PTW? She's the best killer in the game by a country mile, so tell me, is she PTW? She's effectively skill-less according to you, but tell me, is she PTW?
"Like get out of here man or at the very least be intellectually honest with yourself." Lol, lmao, ecks dee
In case you needed to hear it, Mike, you're speaking truth.
Thank you? I just don't like when people conflate "good, strong, busted, and PTW" as the same thing, bc this game has always had problems with people assuming those terms are interchangeable. Especially when those people laugh in my face effectively while being dead wrong lmao.
Please re-read what I wrote. Like I thought making it two separate paragraphs would have made it clear I was not talking about Nurse in the second one but I guess you somehow thought I was still talking about her lol.
Judgement is genuinely top 5 in the game you just have to put the time in. The idea that we got a new hardest killer in the game and people wanna call them weak after a day is laughable.
Without the beam being shown to the survivors, you would quite literally have the killer just sniping you with no indicator that the beam is even going to you.
I personally love going against her, she has a high skill ceiling, and many people haven't mastered the whole curving the beam around loops as I've noticed.
I think another issue is the aura reliance, it's fine for doing four aura perks but for the most part - gen regression has always been a part of the killer's repertoire and aura reading can only get you so far without you reaching a point where you start facing more skilled survivors who know how to functionally loop and evade your beam.
I do not personally think she needs four aura reading perks to excel and ultimately, she will be gen rushed but you see so many people making videos with her and having aura reading all on her, but the MMR system actively will punish that the more and more someone plays as her because playing all aura reading perks on a high skill ceiling killer will not cut it.
I'll even argue that I don't think she will be a good pick in comp, as they actively ban aura reading perks as a whole - so, she will stay a high skill ceiling killer, up there with Nurse just more punishing it seems.