How to Counter Nurse
I've been seeing a ton of posts about nurse recently and most of the comments are saying how the god tier nurse players are unbeatable.
For starters I believe that basic kit nurse is balanced. So nurse without add-ons. Now I will explain the counter play.
You do not loop nurse like a normal killer. You use line of sight blockers and unpredictable movement.
LOS blockers requires the nurse to make a guess which if they guess wrong they will lose distance on the survivor.
Unpredictable movement is simply not being predictable with your movement. Like pretending to double back then later on actually doubling back. Strange movement will throw off nurse players since they will be trying to predict you.
Now I know someone is going to comment but that doesn't work on a god tier nurse. If you watch gameplay of the best nurse players there are times when they have to abandon a chase with a survivor.
Comments
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I completely agree. To be fair, against a god tier nurse you will still go down eventually. However the goal is to waste as much time as you can so your team can get gens done. Survivors should focus on teaming up on gens against a nurse so one 30 second chase will end up being 1 gen done including time to pickup & hook.
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You aren’t supposed to stay up forever against any killer in general regardless. That’s why infinites were removed/window blockers were added/Bloodlust was added/pallets are diminishable/etc. The entire point of chase at high level is to just make it take too much time that it becomes a net negative for the killer.
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Right. A lot of survivors don't understand nurse counter play. So this is a great post. Normally getting even to a weak pallet can buy you 5-10 more seconds in chase. Not against a nurse. So many survivors i see (both on my team when i'm survivor and am chasing when i play as nurse) will camp a pallet. Super bad idea and your only hope is the nurse misses her blink. So many players just don't want to learn nurse counter play and will complain or dc. I guess they are trying to get her nerfed like they did spirit.
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I don’t really think counterplay is her issue, it’s the fact that certain perks can’t really get the buffs they deserve as long as she’s in the game. They’d be too oppressive on her while being balanced and strong on everyone else.
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BHVR has repeatedly buffed and released perks good on her though. Retribution/DMS/NWO/Starstruck/Pain Resonance/Floods of Rage/etc. A lot of other killers are just too garbage to get use out of some. What is a useless zero mobility killer going to do with Starstruck when everyone in their right mind would be running full speed opposite direction? Stuff like that.
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Survivors have a straight forward solution to all of this:
Dead Hard and send her to Lery’s.
But seriously, I do think it’s almost too difficult to beat out a Starstruck Nurse running slowdown. There really isn’t much you can do against that. Base kit is perfectly fine however.
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If you’re curious, the best Nurses in the world versus the best survivors in the world when there are zero restrictions and people can bring anything they want actually averaged out to a negative killrate. She lost (0-1K) 6 games, tied 5 (2K), and won 3 (3-4K). Strong builds can be matched with also strong builds.
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What is your winrate on Nurse?
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I’ve never recorded it before so I wouldn’t know. If I had to guess, around 85-90%, but i very very rarely ever go against people that actually know how to play versus her/are coordinated in any degree. In actually even matchups, I’d estimate closer to 5X-6X% (2 kills with a few more hooks). I have games where I get wiped as well, from coordinated squads that are experienced against Nurse and are better than me.
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You are winning %90 of games and you are calling her balanced and fair! Thanks for info.
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Yeah it’s almost like going against drastically worse players means I stomp them, the same way going against drastically better players means I get stomped. Did you actually read what I said?
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Maybe this people you stomp them were not bad? Maybe your killer was op? Ah no, this can not be possible. Bad survivors!
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Wow, I wonder how the person playing against them can tell when it’s blatantly obvious how they try and mindgame back (or the lack thereof). Yeah, there’s no possible way it’s obvious some people have no clue what to do and others do based off their gameplay.
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Nurse is the dam that holds the rest of the roster back.
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Which is why almost every single recent perk buff is for perks that are good on her and almost every single recent perk release is good on her? And other killers get buffs just fine?
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I tried Nurse in RPD station... It's a no go. Try that?
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There is not fair counterplay for Nurse. That is reason. Yeah i know "Break LoS" is coming but no, it is not working. Good Nurse is not swing early if hit is not clear. Good Nurse is using first blink to see where you are and second blink for hit if you are in range. Guess game is not 50/50 if Nurse has 2 blinks (with add-on 3). She is ignoring walls, pallets and vaults.
Blight is second strongest killer in game and even he is not close Nurse.
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My winrate across all killers except Trapper is over 90% for the last 3 or 4 months. Are all killers OP?
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I would gladly watch you, if stream on Twitch. You looks better than Otz.
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Group A: Basically never touches gens ever/almost never tries to mindgame or change up their response to blinks/never or rarely looks behind them/and or never properly uses LOS-blockers/etc.
Group B: Regularly cranks through gen progression every chase, consistently is hyper unpredictable with responses, looks behind them often and sometimes doesn’t to make the Nurse think they won’t double back when they actually will or when they actually won’t, understands LOS blockers and frequently uses it to their advantage, etc.
Yes, it’s impossible to tell if the survivors are good or bad. Clearly I’m just OP, I guess.
Good players can be not in range of the second blink. Wow, they evaded. Amazing how that works. It’s almost like that’s why she has only 2K average at the highest levels of play in the world against equally skilled survivors. 3 blinks is bad design. 2 is completely mindgameable.
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A good player will dominate any average matches because most average players are not good. That’s just a matchmaking issue.
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My kill rate on basically every single killer (other than the few I don’t play like Hag/Huntress/etc) is 80-90% on average. Most average players are just not good, on either side.
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MMR is on other hand, it is bad. I agree. It is worse than old matchmaking. But if this guy can win 90% of games with Clown, Legion etc, i should watch him and learn. Because i am not that good. My best killers are Nemesis and Nurse. And i have 80% win on them. My other killers are not close.
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This. Public matches can almost always be won by virtue of not doing dumb things and having game sense. I'm definitely not the most mechanically gifted player, but I have a couple years of comp experience. Most players aren't efficient and don't position well.
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Before COH I was able to constantly 3/4k with legion. So would that mean legion is very strong.
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There are several killers in this game where survivors need to shelve their ego and actually pilot the killer so they can understand the limitations.
Nurse is one of those killers.
Show me someone who calls Nurse boring, or having no counterplay, and I'll show you a survivor main who's never played Nurse.
Same logic applies to Deathslinger and Blight. Maybe a few others.
EDIT: Two counterplays/survivor strats that really make my cheeks clench and lean forward knowing its going to be a challenging game
- The survivor that doesn't double back on a blink until they're over the basement or a second floor, forcing you to teleport through the ground and bury yourself
- The survivor that abandon LOS/mindgames and break for distance because they know you have only one blink in the tank. They've either 1) Identified both your addons based on your first two blinks and have a feel for your recharge or 2) Looks at the small orbs in your hands
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Why does nurse hold back the rest of the roster? I've had people argue that the devs would make perks stronger yet they have already been doing that. For example hex retribution giving 15secs of auras.
If nurse didn't exist in this game do you really think that the devs would buff aura perks when you constantly see posts on the forms about the 4sec aura from bbq being too strong.
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I feel the best way to learn how to counter nurse and really any killer, is to play as nurse. Shes my 2nd main killer and i know she can be countered because people do it to me half the time.
And all the people who say "theres no winning against a god nurse". I will bet you have never faced a god nurse. They are that rare.
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You're really telling me that there's no difference between Blight and Nurse?
Those Killers all need some adjustments. Some buffs, some nerfs.
None of them break the game like Nurse
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Retribution being 15 seconds is not going to help Clown or Legion.
Maps being smaller and loops being more sensibly distributed would. Unfortunately, if we do that, Nurse becomes even more busted than she is now.
And, addressing the 2nd best Killer, Blight; he already zooms around the map quickly. Making maps smaller isn't going to affect his power, but it allows other Killers to close the gap since mobility will no longer be so necessary.
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If you want to base your fears off of unreasonable arguments, then go ahead.
Most people here can tell if someone is being reasonable or not.
Nurse holds back maps from being more balanced. Blight needs some of his add-ons looked at, no other changes required. Huntress needs some QoL buffs and a hatchet hitbox rework. Spirit needs to be adjusted too, but I'd buff her since her last nerf did nothing to help her fun to face factor.
The fact that you don't see that Nurse is overpowered is proof enough for the reasonable people out there to see that you are incredibly biased. Survivors feel about Nurse how we Killers feel about Dead Hard.
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Nurse playing on smaller maps isn't busted. Remember hawkins it was one of the most difficult maps for nurse and it was small.
The reason it was so difficult for nurse was because of all the Los blockers. You would have to predict if a survivor was going to run into a room or not.
I'm not going to assume anything but most people who say nurse doesn't have counter play don't play nurse. I had a friend who refused to play against blight even when I would explain the counter play. It wasn't until they played the killer they found how other survivors deal with him.
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Hawkins is bad map for Nurse because it has so much rooms. It is easy to break LoS on this map. Worst Nurse map probably. And plus Hawkins is not small map. Saloon, The Game and Midwich are small maps. And Nurse is busted on this 3 maps. After Midwich and Saloon, BHVR back to big maps again. Guess why?
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You're really using Hawkins, an outlier map that was terrible for Survivors, as justification? It's not even in the game anymore.
Midwich, The Game, Dead Dawg. All three are incredibly good Nurse maps.
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Nurse can't open lockers after a blink
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Also, since nurse is in the game, survivors NEED dead hard. It’s literally a requirement against her.
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Nurse is good on midwich because of the long hallways, saloon is a basically an open map so of course it's good, and the game upstairs again doesn't have really anything for los blockers so again great for nurse.
Nurse is not the reason why we haven't had a small map in awhile. I would like to see where the devs have stated that.
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I used that map as an example because of all the Los blockers and the fact that it wasn't a big map.
The reason midwich is a good map for nurse is the long hallways. The Game has basically no los blockers for the upstairs and only certain areas of the downstairs. Dead dawg is basically an open map with very little los blockers other than across from the main building.
Hawkins might not have been the best map but the one thing it did right is have a lot of los blockers. Midwich, the game, and dead dawg are basically open maps compared to Hawkins.
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Watch out, I think I hear the people who complained about Spirit on their way in here to talk about "guessing" isn't a proper counter.
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Exactly right.
Even a well trained Nurse can be juked. As for the "gods", I don't think they are relevant to any discussion. I've been called a "god" Nurse by nice survivors several times but what I call that is "being lucky this time" or "having a good day".
When a Nurse misses a hit, she is almost blind for a few seconds. If the survivor is unpredictable and doesn't panic he is likely to avoid the next hit or even escape from the Nurse's perception.
However, in many games the survivors do the silliest things.
The less experienced players sometimes manage to dodge an attack (they are naturally as unpredictable as a headless chicken) but then run directly towards me.
The more experienced players know a few tricks but since I know these too I can bait them most of the time. I fake my intent, they react to a cue and eat a bone-saw for their trouble.
The good players know all this and also know how to exploit the very bad short-range perception of killers. They don't panic and disregard most of my baits so I have to brute-force it and it becomes a game of who is more unpredictable.
One thing to understand is that the only players complaining about the Nurse are the ones in the first two categories.
PS: Dead Hard is very strong against the Nurse (But one has to be smart using it.)
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The worst opponent of a Nurse is another Nurse ^_^. (I have better survivability against a Nurse than against any other killer)
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Absolutely not, it's just strong against her (if she doesn't know how to handle it). But survivors raised on DH usually aren't very good. We should see some change after its rework.
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Yeah we also should see some changes after nurses rework.
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Nurse is never been a strong killer in BHVR's eye, nothing is holding others back.
True problem that holding low tier killers/perks back, is unbelievable incompetence of overwhelming majority of survivors.
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What was meant is that, like the ruin rework affected the quality of survivors by making them generally worse at hitting great skillchecks, the DH rework should improve them at looping and juking.
The improvements evoked for the Nurse were about making her easier to handle for newbies. That's something I hope never happens as her difficulty is part of her charm. However it may indeed push survivors in being generally better too. The Nurse may finally stop being the worst killer in the game (she has, after all, the lowest kill rate) and raise her to at least Clown level. Even good survivors could have problems against her then. Survivors would see her at all skill levels so they would have no choice but improve.
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I find The Game generally easier than Dead Dawg. I tend to have better win rates on multiple floors because in my experience survivors don't tend to think vertically. Midwich, The Game, Hawkins when it was still available and even RPD (but there an immersed team will win easily) As small Dead Dawg is, I find some of its structures more difficult to handle (lots of blockers packed together, and a survivor hiding there will block the blink landing and break it).
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Exactly, nice of you to write those tips.
I guess the only problem now is no counter play to a nurse using add-ons. I mean the counterplay is still the same, but yknow. Recharge let's the nurse be more agressive, range let's traverse even faster, and one additional blink is just "easy mode" as someone said.
Still a fairly balanced killer without add-ons. (Balanced as in the expertise she requires to use her power well)
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There is counter-play. It's just more difficult. Addons get spent though, and the good ones aren't too common.
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Fyi Hawkins wasn't a bad nurse map at all. Long straight corridors and rooms, predictable open doors placements and easy 3 gen strategies made it a very good map for her. This doesn't really matter anymore though since luckily, Hawkins is no more
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Exactly good sir.
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