Directed energy deposition is being widely applied to localized hardfacing, repair, and surface-tailored property improvements for mechanical parts; yet, many tool steel routes are evaluated through isolated hardness maxima or wear resistance peaks irrespective of practical service requirements. The present study aims at selecting the Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W hardfacing route on SCM420 through a service-driven multi-objective decision-making analysis supplemented with microstructural insights. Four mechanically equivalent surface conditions are considered: carburized SCM420, as-built M2, as-built Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W, and post-heat-treated Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W. The process parameters, chemical composition, post-treatment procedure, hardness, wear loss, wear track width, impact energy, tensile strength, and microstructure analysis are grouped into one comprehensive mechanical property matrix based on specific normalization factors, score-decomposition into relative contributions, decision boundary equations, ideal-distance weighted ranking, and robustness metrics. Post-heat treatment boosts Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W hardness from 48 to 62 HRc, reduces wear loss from 6.33 to 2.32 mg, reduces wear track width from 1030 to 798 µm, and boosts tensile strength from 607 to 922 MPa; yet, post-heat treated Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W exhibits lower impact energy compared to its as-built condition, decreasing from 11 to 6 J. It means that the Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W post-heat treatment gain vector is significantly positive in terms of wear and tensile properties; meanwhile, it is negatively affecting impact energy. Application-weighted scores indicate that the as-built M2 tool steel performs better for wear service, whereas the carburized SCM420 steel continues to excel in terms of impact dominance. For a balanced application, the Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W post-heat treated route emerges as a preferable solution. The decision boundaries and distances-to-ideality confirm that the above statement is not based on artificial numerical manipulations, as the post-treated Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W route is winning when both tensile capacity and wear resistance are strongly weighted. The study thus suggests Fe-8Cr-3V-2Mo-2W route as a targeted DED hardfacing method for load-bearing wear applications, which require optimal manufacturing processes, microstructure, and mechanical loading.