Thoughts and Suggestions on the Nurse
Hey there, my name's Eclipsa. I'm currently rank 8 on Killer and 9 on Survivor. I'm relatively new to the game (having bought it mid august) and I already have a bit over 400hrs on it. Most of my playtime is spent on Nurse or Plague and I felt the need to share my opinions and possible changes for the Nurse.
Now, with introductions out of the way, here is the main part of the thread. After playing roughly 50 hrs of new Nurse, swapping and testing addons, here are my thoughts on the addon changes:
Most of them are great. They're fun to mess around with, and give the Nurse a "free" perk for a short period of time after completing a task. However, three specific addons are in dire need of change in my opinion. The Nurse's identity is that her normal movespeed is slow, so she needs to rely on using her power to move around the map and chase survivors. Those 3 addons remove that identity and instead make her more of a M1 killer than anything else. So here are the changes I suggest to those perks so that they enhance her power and not her movespeed.
Spasmodic Breath: After landing a blink hit on a survivor, the Nurse gains a (Nurse Specific) status effect - Distorted for the next 60 seconds. While active, distorted makes the Nurse leave phasing husks around her Blink path and make her screams non directional. Those husks last from the start of the blink until the Nurse goes into fatigue. Spasmodic breath has a cooldown of 60 seconds, starting after the distorted status effect expires.
Torn bookmark: Blink charges reduced to 1. Blink cooldown is removed. Fatigue duration is slightly increased.
Matchbox: After landing a precise blink hit on a survivor, the Nurse's fatigue duration is tremendously reduced for 20 seconds (cooldown of 60 sec after effect runs out) and gains a burst of decaying over 3 seconds 15% movespeed. The movespeed bonus doesnt trigger while matchbox's effect is on cooldown. Slightly increases Blink cooldown (3s -> 3.5s).
Now that the addons are out of the way, I wanna comment on her main power. In the overall 30ish hrs I've played on Nurse since the nerfs, I've noted some things. The cooldown makes her sluggish and non-lethal for survivors for near 6 seconds after she blinks. Due to her slow movespeed in the meantime, survivors gain a lot of distance on her, and will usually be able to avoid her next pair of blinks due to breaking LoS. Here are some changes I thought of:
EITHER
1. Increase her movement speed to 100%. I do not like this change, since it again, tarnishes with her identity, but it is an option.
OR
2. Reduce the cooldown for blinks to 2 seconds. This change, while fixing the issue with the choppiness of her gameplay, will probably cause problems since it may make her power be too close to what it was before the nerf and that will be too frustrating to deal with her as a survivor. So, instead I think:
3. Let the Nurse recharge her chain blink while she is holding her main blink. As of currently The Nurse doesn't recharge blinks while she is already holding the main blink in her hand. I feel like this change would make her gameplay a bit smoother and less frustrating to play as. This, in my opinion is the best change of all the suggested ones, as the nerfs are still in place, but Nurse doesn't feel as choppy.
Those are the changes I suggest and some feedback on the nurse after her nerfs. Thanks for reading. I'd like to remind, I want to start a conversation, thinking about potential changes the Nurse gets so the current flaws in her "kit" are fixed.
I'd love to read your thoughts in the comments, I'll see you there :>
Comments
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I thought about 3rd one as well. If you start blinking "early", ability doesn't just stop recharging, it also loses all progress. It would be amazing QoL change if ability kept recharging while activating. Also at this point it wouldn't be a stretch to let Nurse cancel activation by clicking primary attack.
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TBH That would make her SS tier again. Those changes dropped her to S/S+. Letting her cancel her blinks will make running into her NEVER an option, when its the only counterplay on some parts of some maps (upper floors on The Game and Hawkins).
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I was fine with inability to do it because before I could actually consistently catch up with survivors using blinks. Right now just running in straight line against a nurse is actually a viable strategy, which feels odd. You don't charge 0.3 sec enough, you can't cancel a blink to let it finish recharging, surv runs at you, and you are left fatigued with all charges gone feeling disappointed with your life decisions.
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Or... just give her basekit back. It's not really a big deal and only reason she was a problem were the addons.
She would get few gimmicks from addons and her base power that she can work with.
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TBH I want her old basekit back more than anything, but I feel like the devs are too reckless to revert the change, sadly...
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Agreed! There have been a lot of posts about this lately, hopefully the devs will join in and share their thoughts on basekit nurse
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I just have to say it, but... people who say running in a straight line works are either bad at Nurse, overexaggerating or they simple haven't played her yet and are jumping on this "Nurse is dead" bandwagon. She's all but dead. It takes 2 seconds longer before you can blink again, a survivor doesn't run nearly as fast enough for the "running in a straight line" to work.
I just saw a (add-onless, No Ruin, No Stridor) Nurse video and one of the survivors "ran in a straight line". Result? They got beat. And even those that didn't run in a straight line still got downed incredibly quickly.
Many have already said it: if you're a good Nurse (and then I mean an actual good Nurse), you'll still mop the floor with Survivors harder than Spirit does or a good Billy, with or withour add-ons. All Nurse's change has really done is extend the chase vs a good Nurse by 2 seconds.
Nurse basekit change is only an issue if you, the Nurse player, mess up too many times. It's more punishing than before. If you don't mess up, or only mess up once or twice every now and then, you'll still be the strongest killer in the game, no doubt.
I also don't get why the add-ons of old Nurse suddenly became the problem soon as Nurse basekit change was announced. Prior (almost) everyone agreed Nurse was broken because she literally took every means of survival away from survivors, aside from attempting a mindgame like doubling back, but we all know how well that worked against someone who was actually good at Nurse (or someone who had good headphones and could track you through the wall purely on sound alone). I'm a trash Nurse and I still managed to 4k sometimes even against survivors who had some clue what they were doing (granted, I was running Ruin and Stridor, but that's because I acknowledge I'm not all that skilled at playing her). And this was on PS4! I remember encountering a PS4 Nurse player who was so good, he'd wipe everyone in 2 - 3 minutes, without add-ons.
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hey
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Addons weren't the problem (aside from omegablink) from what I remember watching the dev VOD. They just updated them since they got old and didnt abide by their current standards.
Frankly speaking, the base kit change didnt "just extend chases by 2 seconds". Ive explained it in the post already but going out of fatigue and having 2 options: blink once max 20 meters (survivors have already gotten out of that effective range by that time) or wait 3 more seconds to have a chain blink. In both cases Nurse struggles.
Please do not give me the "she is still SS tier, ure just not a godlike Nurse" crap. I feel like everyone who says that is a content creator wanting to say "good riddance" but doesnt wanna get cancelled. She isnt dead, she isnt Pig or Wraith per say, but she feels very sloppy and unrewarding to play. Take spirit or even billy for example. Both have lower skill floors than the Nurse currently but what they can offer (in sense of kill potential) is around equal to that of the Nurse, which I find to be poor balance. Having easy to pick up/easy to master (looks at spirit) killers be as effective as a hard to pick up even harder to master killer is not OK.
I feel like her power needs to be changed in another way. I am not exactly sure how, but keeping her at bay for so long between blinks with her amazing 95% movespeed feels like poor killer design.
Welcome to my ted talk LOL
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You blink, hit the survivor. Your first blink has recharged by the time you recover from Nurse's basic fatigue. The second blink recharges in 3 seconds. Blink again, hit survivor. You still play Nurse the same way. First blink to get close, second blink to adjust to any movement the survivor might've made.
There, chase lasted 3 seconds longer if you hit after both your blinks (which you should if you're experienced, you don't even have to be godlike).
If you have to blink another time (e.g. pre-chase because you saw the survivor but there was some distance), it'll last ~6 seconds longer if you hit after both blinks.
Nurse's satisfaction comes from the fact that you hit her blinks, telling you that you predicted very well where you'd be and where the survivor would be. It just takes 3 seconds longer. 3 seconds! That's it, unless you missed your blink and/or attack.
(It doesn't take any longer (if you can land your blinks and hits), survivors move at 4.0 meters a second and 6.0 after hit for 2s. If you instantly blink again for 20 meters after 3 seconds, after hit:
6 x 2 = 12 | 12 + 4 = 16. They moved 16 meters. If they kept running straight, your blink range + lunge range would hit them perfectly. And that's if they run in a mathematical straight line, which happens rarely.
If you wait for your second blink (12 meter blink), another 3 seconds, the survivor would have moved an exact 12 meters, you still have your lunge range.
And this is after a hit. If you missed, they'll have 4 meters less of distance. That's sufficient enough for "running in a straight line" to not work.)
If you don't feel that landing blinks feels rewarding, then you didn't like old Nurse either. They're basically the same, except this one kills slightly slower.
Also, nowhere did i place her in a "tier". I'm not making a tierlist. (If I had to, she'd still be S tier in the hands of a skilled Nurse player, A(+) in the hands of a lesser skilled Nurse who's still decent enough to land their blinks the majority of the time.) But if you're good at Nurse, she's hands down still the strongest killer in the game, and if it doesn't satisfy you to land a good blink, the whole point of Nurse, then you should find another killer to play.
Nurse may be harder to master than Spirit, but that would increase the satisfaction of mastering her even more. Though I suppose that depends on the individual you ask the "is Nurse satisfying to play" question to.
And hey, if blinks are boring, become a 115% M1 killer by using the add-on. Welcome to the world of almost every other killer not named Nurse, Hillbilly, Spirit or Huntress. See how satisfying that is.
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Sadly all "Trusted" and "Dev" people calculated that chases became longer by just 5 seconds for the nurse.
All these games with all 4 survivors escaping the nurses are normal.
Next up: Removing Billies map presence by adding cooldown to the chainsaw.
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I loved old Nurse because there was no slowdown. Her gameplay was always dynamic, with no cooldown inbetween. I enjoy playing Plague more after the Nurse's changes (and she is a m1 115 killer) which says something.
Also, your math takes into consideration that the Nurse will always predict where the survivor will go and she will be in lunge range. (Also I wanna mention her lunge is very weird after dedicated).
Again, she is not underpowered or garbage, but I still feel like she needs some work on the CD. By how it isgoes now you might as well play Spirit. Is a lot easier and is just as efficient
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Dedicated servers do hurt her, I'll agree with you on that.
And yeah, my math does expect you to predict where a survivor will go because that's how you get downs as Nurse. If you fail your predictions but still get downs then you only got lucky. (If all goes right, aka dedicated servers don't mess up her lunge, then Nurse also has the same lunge range as every other killer, which covers quite some distance, too, you don't even have to have pinpoint blink accuracy.)
I'm sorry to hear you don't like Nurse. The point I'm trying to make here wasn't really directed at you per se either, rather at all these people saying "Running in a straight line counters Nurse", which isn't true, or the people who act as if this change has absolutely destroyed the Nurse (and there's quite a few people who act like it did).
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Setups like these don't exactly prove a point. She wasn't in a position a survivor would normally be in, and you definitely weren't, and you were catching up (albeit, I will admit, slowly (Additionally, you would have caught up faster if you started moving while charging your first blink, and if you used a second blink at the start, as this second blink didn't need to charge then.)).
In an actual game scenario, she'd be closer to map boundaries and also, most likely, surrounded by objects, preventing a scenario like this in the first place..
Plus, she'd have been an easy kill after she hit the wall. (Map boundaries are another reason "running straight" doesn't work, you'll have to take a turn at some point.)
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Surv on a video didn't move until nurse blinked, that's why nurse didn't move until she blinked.
Nurse caught up to a surv only when he bumped into a wall.
Nurse had no time to wait for second blink to recover (it would be 1 more second after each blink and 1 more second for surv to make distance).
Surv could just keep running along a wall, in the video surv just stopped in place. Even if nurse would be able to hit a surv by cutting the angle (for this surv should do completely nothing in response, ofc, don't forget that nurse had 0 blinks after final one), whole chase would be reset after 1 hit (post-hit exhaustion, speed boost for a surv).
So, from your words, in order for a nurse to catch a surv she should block them against a wall, corners and obsticals, which mostly FOV blockers that supposed to be nurse's weakness. Fixing problems with more problems, I see. You really caught the spirit of dev changes lately. Let's include there that after last PTB sounds are broken and often disappear when behind walls and obstacles, and nurse relies heavily on sounds.
Thanks, your response is very questionable.
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I specifically mentioned the first second blink. You know, the one that was already there and didn't need to recharge, like you say it would have to?
And again, the video example is highly impractical. You will almost never be in a position where you don't already force the survivor to take a corner or where you can't cut them off as you approach them. Almost never. On the off-chance that does happen, that means you're likely already somewhere near the middle of the map (as you'd have to approach from one side that's long enough for a setup like this to actually occur naturally), meaning the survivor would hit a wall nearly twice as fast than what the video shows.
My answers aren't questionable, it's you taking a set up video scenario that almost never occurs during actual gameplay seriously in order to make a conclusion.
Also, FOV blockers are Nurse's weakness, but against a Nurse, they're also a survivor's, because a Nurse can blink through them. Hence why you should never try and loop a good Nurse.
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Survivors do not gain a lot of distance during the cooldown. Nurse move is 3.85 m/s compared to survivors 4.0 m/s.
If you use both blinks. 2.5 second fatigue(.96 m/s). 3.5 seconds of CD (3.85 m/s)
in 2.5 seconds she moves 2.4 meters. Then in 3.5 seconds she moves 13.475 meters for a total of 15.875 meters.
Survivors move 4 m/s for 2.5 seconds (fatigue phase) then 4 m/s for 3.5 seconds (CD phase)
That's 10 meters in the fatigue, and then 14 during the CD phase. Total of 24 meters.
This means they have a total gain of a little over 8 meters. During the CD phase, the survivor can only gain roughly .6 meters on the nurse unless the nurse is forced to walk around a wall in which case you got outplayed, should consider your environment and think ahead.
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The thing with all those calculations is that in game it never happens as the way it happens in your head when youre calculating. Usually when I spot a survivor I blink to them, chain blink and hit them. Then begins the hard part - unless you wait for 6 seconds and thus giving the survivor more than enough time to break LoS or just run out of your effective range, you will not be able to catch up to them with the one 20m blink you have in your hands.
Thats the problem with Nurse right now. She lacks lethality after the first hit. She is still scary at the start of the chase but once she uses her blink and they go on CD while u get a speed boost (not to talk the possibility of an exhaustion perk too) and get on the other side of the map.
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The simple fact of the matter is that the nurses move speed is not slow enough for a survivor to gain on you a significant amount. All that few extra seconds does is give the survivor time to break LOS otherwise she is completely the same as she was before the nerf.
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@SkeletalElite she had the same cooldown before the nerf? survivors could just run in a straight line before in order to escape?
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My issue with Nurse right now is that it feels like her range has been severely reduced to the point where I have to charge a while to even blink to the other side of a park bench in Haddonfield. It feels like short range blinks I used to be able to hit perfectly are nearly impossible now. Maybe I just need to use her landing marker addon until I get used to the rework though.
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