Sanctum of Wrath (Yamaoka Estate)

I love the aesthetic of this map, but it can be a bit of a nightmare for survivors to navigate. I would call it mostly balanced but slightly killer sided.

I like this over family residency

I want to say this is a balanced map, especially if you can get 3 gens on each side. It then becomes up to the Killer to herd them to one side or the other before smart survivors make defending difficult. However, the one gen at the top of the temple is often hard to complete as a Survivor even if it can help serve as a good distraction.

For me it's killer sided, but as a happy balance landing abuser i don't mind this map too much, but spawns of the gates should get some touches, because most of the time i'm getting both gates next to each other.

I would say it's pretty heavy on RNG but on edge-cases it's more towards Survivor.

The big size makes movement around map tricky and odd shape enforces a bit of 3-Gen strategy.

However, the Gens, even in that case they usually end up being tricky to defend.

(Now you might say I'm a Killer main but hold your horses.)

The big issue is that Shack, even though, it swaps places (only Map that has this) with "The Garden", it always has a Maze Tile right next to itself.

Said Maze Tile can range from Pallet Gym/LT to Trashpile Gym (which is deceptively bugged actually) or Jungle Gym.

Shack rotates.

The Maze Tile pool is more favourable to Survivor side (not a real issue) and thus it's possible to get a very disgsuting set-up of a strong Maze Tile, with Shack with some rotations and such.

Yes, you can get Shack's vault facing away from Pallet Gym but you also can get like Short Wall Jungle Gym's Pallet near-lining up to Shack's vault causing the chain to be nigh-infinite.

Main is fine.

Killer is a bit forced to defend non-Shack half and sometimes that part may have 2 Gens (Aka 2-4 split instead of 3-3 one).

Again, heavy RNG but to summarize it, it's more likely to help Survivors than not.

Oh and both gazebo Landmarks swap places but this time, it doesn't change gameplay much.

My propostion: force Shack to be in singular place and then try to balance map around it. Maybe even adjust a bit shape and size to be less annoying for both sides.

Every loop in the middle of the map is quite unsafe but the map layout favours Surivors. I suppose this equals balanced. Also it’s ugly thank gosh for Reshade.

I personally don't like the tall gras while playing as a killer as I keep losing survivors if I don't rely on hearing.

Don't really like the map layout. It just heavily lends itself to 3genning and just playing one side. Both sides have some insanely strong possible tiles (like a jungle gym next to shack), which further incentivizes just creating a deadzone and sticking to it. Map also has extremely poor locker placements.

Two massive death zones near the main building making it really unsafe for survs, also the main buidlding only has decent windows because its only pallet is very unsafe.

I like this map fairly balanced good pallet spawn only thing I dislike map feels a little just a little too big

I think it's balanced but Killers can easily abuse the middle structure to try to create a 3-gen by preventing Survivors from going on the other side of the map. There's a few to many dead zones as well.

Sanctum of Wrath is shaped like a capital "I", so I may refer to different parts of the I. Shack can have 2 spawns on this map, both of which I'll refer to as the "left" side of the map.

I feel like games on Sanctum often go really heavily in one way or the other, so it's hard for me to say it it favors one side or the other, but I also don't feel like I can say it feels balanced equally.

As Survivor, crossing the skinny middle section of the map (main) feels like a No Man's Land once the 2 pallets on main are gone. It's very difficult to get from one side of the map to the other while in chase without taking a hit, unless you're running in the direction that the half-stairs vault in the middle-left of Main point in, running from the bottom to the top of the map.

As Survivor, there is almost always a deadzone that spawns in the area shown below and getting caught out in the section right here can sometimes feel like a death sentence depending on the RNG of the maze tile that spawns here, especially if the killer is coming from the center of the map. If the gen in this corner of the map is left as part of the last 3 gens in a 3-gen situation, getting this gen done can like a hopeless uphill battle, again especially depending on the RNG of the resources around. The deadzone right here also contributes to making crossing the map feel like a No Man's Land.

If Basement spawns on Main Building on this map, it feels like there are very few resources nearby to help survivors flee Main Basement, largely thanks to the dead zones and the No Man's Land. There is the one pallet on the ground-right side of Main, but this pallet is often thrown very early by someone attempting to cross the map mid-chase. It makes camping Main Basement somewhat strong; I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing or problematic, as basement is something Survivors should be afraid of and mindful of. But it is an observation that it's somewhat difficult to escape should the killer decide to camp+tunnel. That said, Main Basement is usually pretty far away out of the way from where Survivors need to be doing gens, so it's generally pretty easy to easy to ignore and for Survivors to blast through gens while Killer wastes time camping.

As Killer, the two larger sections of the map (the top and bottom of the "I") can feel like islands separated by the gen on main. Once the central main gen is gone, it feels like there are not usually many close gens to patrol and I have to commit to crossing the whole map from top to bottom to top unless survivors carelessly 3-gen themselves by doing all the gens on one side of the map, which actually happens often on Sanctum of Wrath and which is why crossing the map usually doesn't feel like an issue. Usually a gen will spawn somewhat near the bottom of either staircase of Main, and these gens help make the map feel smaller to patrol. Main building's placement and height advantage can sometimes also provide a Killer a quick vantage point to help better patrol the map, although spotting survivors from here is never guaranteed.

3-genning feels like it happens very frequently on this map, and often on Survivor the game can feel like it grinds to a halt if this happens, as usually late game many pallets have been thrown, and "No Man's Land" has been created. It feels like 3-gens quite often happen on the "bottom" side of the I in my experience, and from my own personal experience these 3-gens often feel the hardest ones to break on this map.

If I had to take a guess as to why 3-gens happen quite often on this map, it's because of the gameplay that's created by the No Man's Land. I think many Survivors recognize crossing the middle of the map is risky, and in chase tend to stay on one side of the map to minimize risk, either the top or bottom. Chases often will happen on this one side of the map until resources are depleted on that side. Survivors not in chase will stay doing gens on the side that the Killer is not chasing on, which if the Survivors are not attentive to their gen spread can lead to all the gens on that one side of the map being done, and the side of the map where the killer has been depleting resources all game remains filled with gens.

I'm not sure if I can say whether this is a map design issue or an issue that is solved with player behavior - should the Survivors intentionally keep gen spread as far as possible, of course the 3-genning No Man's Land isn't as bad of a challenge to play around. However, should the bottom-left gen and top-right gen be left for the last 3 gens remaining, defending these as killer feels nearly impossible. However, that doesn't often happen due to the tendency for 3-gens to happen.

Despite everything I think the map's design is unique and has great affordances for unique gameplay not found in other maps in the game! This map absolutely has its place in The Entity's Realm:

Main offers a vantage point of the whole map that both sides can possibly use to their advantage. There are tons of line-of sight blockers around Main, and opportunities for stealth gameplay on both sides around main is very fun! There are tons of unsafe windows in Main that offer some unique opportunities for chase combos and mindgames. The rock pallets on the map are usually pretty safe to play around as Survivor, but once you deplete through these on Killer, chases become much easier. I think the map's size is very reasonable, and patrolling/contesting exit gates is always a unique experience on this map thanks to Main's vantage points.

I must even admit, the No Man's Land is a very unique experience to this map that does have a place in DBD and add some exciting gameplay - the bottleneck gives Killers a consistent and reliable advantage, and Survivors must be conscious of how they play due to it. As Survivor, the bottleneck and No Man's Land creates great and scary emergent gameplay, as it is very important you don't get caught out of position there. I do like that Sanctum of Wrath offers both roles unique strategies and presents unique dangers for both sides.

I mostly would love to see for some slight changes that help prevent games on this map from feeling too one-sided in either direction.

The recent addition of new edge tiles to some of the realms has been very welcome - these are great emergency tiles to play around as Survivor. I'm a particular fan of the edge rock pallets that were recently introduced to Autohaven: These pallets make traversing the skinny section of Azarov's Resting Place much more feasible, without being too strong. The middle section of Azarov's previously also felt like a No Man's Land, but since the introduction of these pallets feel much better to play around as Survivor. I think a couple very unsafe pallets of this variety being introduced to the deadzone in the bottom-right that I pointed out or to the borders of No Man's Land of Sanctum of Wrath could potentially help address a couple of the pain points I've noted on this post: namely, they would give Survivors more confidence to cross the No Man's Land and not keep chases on one side of the map for too long, helping to reduce the severity and strength of 3-genning, and helping to provide a way for survivors to escape Main Basement.

(The type of edge rock pallet on Azarov's I'm referring to pictured below:)

I think Sanctum of Wrath is pretty good for a map when it comes to both sides. 3-gens are a bit strong but since gen changes that's less of an issue. The main building is unique and kind of fun. I never find myself getting frustrated with the main structure but it might be a bit weak for the survivor side since there are only a few options.

Depending on gen spawns, it’s either balanced or slightly killer sided. There can sometimes be a lot of generators on one side of the map and almost none on the other side. It’s not as big of a deal as it used to be before the anti-3-gen mechanic, but it’s still something that could be improved on this map.

Other than that this map is fine imo.

Both Yamaoka maps are too huge, consequently too hard to be patroled. Not balanced in my opinion.

I think that overall the map is pretty well made and is fairly interesting with the main building and middle section being both a chokepoint and a lookout spot. Tile spawning is normally good but there can be some egregiously bad deadzones occasionally and sometimes 4 generators can spawn on one side of the map which is extremely unbalanced. Otherwise, not a map that needs too much attention.

The map is balanced but only because of its size. The bottleneck in the middle favors killers while the size favors survivors. That being said, I loathe to get this map both as killer and survivor. Like the realm as a whole, it's a bit too dark. Sanctum of Wrath in particular though just doesn't have much going on in terms of interesting looping. Main building is a death trap and it's very easy to create deadzones in the rest of the map. It takes too long to go from one end to the other and I feel like its size is what's determining the outcome of my matches (win or lose) rather than skill from either party.

I feel like the map size conflicts with the middle of the map, there’s maybe two or three pallets in middle of map on one side of the middle (including the one on top of the shrine thing on a specific render of the map) and then the other side has much more pallets. But the middle where the huge shrine with stairs are can be a dead zone of those three pallets are gone? Maybe you could cut off the length and add more to each side to make up for the dead zone area?

Of all the dogbone shaped maps, this one feels the most balanced due to its 3 lane structure, however I do think it should still be widened enough for another gen to sit there, and narrowing the ends of the map to compensate.