Best Perks And Tips To Counter The Judgement In DBD

Published Aug 5, 2026, 12:30 PM EDT Sanyam Jain is a Staff Writer at TheGamer who has worked as a professional gaming journalist since 2022. A Journalism and Mass Communication graduate, he has been testing the limits of the games he plays for as long as he can remember. An expert in RPG, Open-World, and Gacha games, Sanyam's articles are based on hours upon hours of testing with every new character, mechanic, or puzzle to ensure that you get every information you'll need about it. After a ton of voting over the last year, Dead By Daylight is finally getting its first community chapter with The Judgement as the killer. This is one of the hardest killers to learn, so you might not see them a lot a month after the initial release on August 25, 2026. However, when you do go against them, you'll realize that you can't play like you normally do. The Judgement excels at spreading pressure throughout the map since they can hit you even if they're chasing another survivor. It's important to know exactly what their power does and what you should expect at each moment. Staying vigilant and knowing the killer's location can go a long way. How To Escape The Judgement Usually, when you're playing a game of Dead By Daylight and see someone getting chased on your HUD, you can relax and repair a generator. That's not the case with this killer since they can send divine pillars of light across the map, sniping you when you least expect it, even if they're chasing someone else. Most players will likely also use perks like Gearhead or Lethal Pursuer with this killer, making it even easier for them to pinpoint your location. Hence, if you know that you're against The Judgement, it's recommended to always be aware of your surroundings. Thankfully, you can see the pillar of light if it's coming towards you. As you play the game more, you'll also learn the general location of the killer while they're chasing another survivor, which helps a lot. On the other hand, when you're getting chased by the killer, it's all about relying on the audio effects since you can't turn your screen enough to look at every point of interest, especially on a controller. Essentially, you should be listening to a constant sound effect while the killer is holding their power and then the one where they send it. While they're holding, you can tell where they're sending the pillar, which makes it easier for you to dodge it when they activate it. Here's what you can do in each situation: If the pillar is close to you, try running towards it without losing distance with the killer. If you're close to the pillar when it gets activated, you won't get damaged since it has a delay before it becomes lethal. If the pillar is far away from you, keep a lookout for where the killer is sending it and draw a straight line from its location to yours. This will be the line that the pillar travels in, and you can plan your juke based on it. Much like Nurse, going out of this killer's line-of-sight is a great idea since they're left guessing where to send the pillar, giving you a higher chance to dodge it. If you're getting chased by them, don't try to stay on one loop. Instead, keep your distance and go around the map constantly, making it harder for them to hit you. It's also important to keep an eye out for the add-ons that the killer could be using since a lot of them change how the divine pillar works. For example, the Chains of the Heretic add-on makes the pillar go towards the killer every time they're in the empowered state. Once you know the killer has it, you can easily counter it by not being between the killer and the pillar. How To Survive The Exile The Judgement also has a special hook mechanic called the Exile. This is similar to Pyramid Head's cage, but you get sent to an entirely different map for it and have to play a minigame. When you spawn in the Exile, you'll get a Searcher's Pendant, which can be used like a flashlight. You're supposed to shine these fragments at lost souls (the floating orbs with screaming faces) in the map to get a stack on the bottom left side. These stacks increase the time that the Endurance, Haste, and Elusive effects last for after you're saved from the Exile. You can get up to ten stacks for this effect. While getting the lost souls, you also have to dodge the pillars of light spawning in the exile. If you get hit by them, you lose some hook progress, much like missing a skill check on the hook. If your hook progress goes to zero, you get eliminated with a special animation in the Exile. When a survivor is in the Exile, other survivors can see three shrines highlighted in the area where they got exiled. They can interact with any one of these to bring the survivor back onto the map. The survivor spawns close to the shrine used by another survivor with a beam of light at their location. The Judgement will be quite an oppressive killer once people learn how to play them. Thankfully, there are a few perks that you can use to do well against them: Perk Reason For Counter Bound By Obsession (General Perk) The Judgement works great when you use a ton of aura reading on the killer. However, this perk lets you see the killer when they see you, telling you exactly when they're sending a pillar at your location. We See You (Eleven) This perk from Eleven can let your entire team see the killer after they've revealed your aura four times. Combined with Bound By Obsession, it can make things really difficult if the killer has a full aura build. Boon: Shadow Step (Mikaela) If you're not comfortable with the two perks above, you can instead use this boon and stay in its radius to prevent the killer from seeing your aura. Distortion (Jeff) Furthermore, if you don't want to bother booning a totem, this perk can give you a similar effect but it requires you to get chased. Any Means Necessary (Yui) The Judgement likely won't break pallets after they get stunned since they can play around most of them, but if you pick them back up with this perk, it makes things much harder for the killer. Blast Mine (Jill) Most of the generator regression perks don't work on this killer since they don't hook survivors. Hence, they're forced to use perks that make them kick generators, which is where Blast Mine will help you. Champion Of Light (Alan Wake) If you're using a flashlight, you can stay close to the killer and make it harder for them to aim the pillar with this perk. Self-Preservation (Yun-Jin) Finally, this perk prevents the killer from seeing your aura or scratch marks after they hook someone else, making it a lot harder for them to find you. If you owned Laurie Strode before her DLC was removed, Bound by Obsession will appear as Object of Obsession in your perks.