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An attempt to rework the problem named "Nurse"
tl;dr is at the bottom of the post.
Nurse has been, undoubtedly, the most powerful killer in Dead by Daylight... forever. She's the very reason why certain perks can't be buffed in duration because they would always benefit her far more than any other killer. She's the reason most players, when they see a new killer perk, think "'kay great, but how good would it be on nurse?" She's a slugging master, an exposed psycho, an aura-reading mon--
You know what? I'm stopping that monologue, because you get the point. She's a problem. A problem that may very well cap the potential balancing of the very game itself. She requires a massive rework.
So that's why I'm here. To(hopefully) answer the problems that she creates.
Disclaimer: I am not a nurse main. I have played her a few times with some success, but that's only because she isn't my kind of killer. So you can take this post with a grain of salt... after all, it's an attempt to fix her. But understand that I'm not trying to ruin a killer; I'm just trying to improve the health of this game overall.
Second disclaimer: anyone that just says "this sucks" and doesn't elaborate on the why... just don't bother.
The Problems
The Nurse has a lot of problems that all-in-all make her a bane to balance. But the ones that come to mind are:
- Her incredible synergy with exposure perks
- Her incredible synergy with aura-reading perks
- Her extremely strong add-ons
- Her extremely powerful base kit power
- Her low-kill rate
1 and 2: The first two problems are obvious: the qualities of her power make for extremely dangerous combinations with these types of perks. Her blink attacks counting as basic attacks despite taking less effort, and her aura-reading capabilities basically negating the problem of guessing where your target is through walls. These problems are the reason why these perks can't have their durations increased: because they'd slightly buff some killers, but make Nurse a doom machine.
3: Then there are her add-ons, which can make a mediocre nurse a problem, and a good nurse a monster. Recovery add-ons, range increase add-ons(that used to make her fast), or her third blink add-on which just seals your fate.
4: But those add-ons wouldn't be a problem... if it wasn't for her basekit. She's a killer that ignores loops and walls, an essential part of the chase. Now that isn't a problem. There are quite a few killers that have extremely dangerous powers that can completely body whole teams... but those killers have to work for it, and they have a limited amount of time to do so. Oni has to absorb blood, Plague has to drink from a fountain, and Myers(even with his tombstone add-ons) has to stalk people to kill them. But Nurse just has it at all times. That's a problem, especially when you combine that with godly add-ons.
5: And then there's the final issue, one that you perhaps didn't expect: her low kill-rate. This is due to her skill floor being extremely high(where some killers' skill ceilings would be). She sits at a 49.25% kill rate(an older statistic, but still). That's the lowest kill rate for a killer in the game. And that is the reason why the devs are vehement in not nerfing her. Because if they do it any further, they'll just make the skill ceiling for her higher... which is not exactly a good thing. It doesn't matter if god-level Nurse players hold up her kill rate: if the design forces you to have hundreds of hours of experience beforehand just to do well, it could have been better designed. I'm not saying we make her brain-dead easy or less unique. I'm saying that she can be more noob-friendly while keeping her level of uniqueness.
The thing is, you can't solve the balancing of Nurse just by solving one or two of these problems. Because then it makes the other problems worse. Make her blink attacks special attacks and stop her from seeing auras while charging a blink? She still has dangerous add-ons. Nerf her add-ons? She still has a powerful base kit. Do all of these things and make her base kit weaker? Now noob players wouldn't even bother trying to play her and her kill rate drops even further for the people that try. In the end, all of these issues need to be solved at once.
So after that long discussion about her issues, here is how I'd rework them. And once again, this is a rough draft that can be refined further. If you have any suggestions, go for it.
Rework "Last Breath"
- By default, the Nurse will have one blink while at 110% movement speed.
- In this default state, Nurse will not float around, but instead walk on her feet.
This is a massive change for Nurse that will solve the fifth problem: her low kill rate. Because if a player is doing poorly at a killer, then they could always default to the "M1 killer-style", or at least use their faster speed(110% speed) to eventually catch up.
Currently, it would be suicide to do such a thing on Nurse, because she starts slower than Survivors. A 110% speed will allow people to give chase, and her single blink will give her mobility to help against survivors without making her too overbearing.
But no worries, she can work up from there.
- The Nurse now has a new state called "Final Breath" that she activates after she passively absorbs the exhales of survivors that run or get hurt. She requires 90 charges to activate this ability, and it lasts 90 seconds when activated.
- Final Breath: once Nurse uses the active ability button(Ctrl, I believe), she will go into a 2-second animation where she levitates upwards until she starts floating.
- She floats around at 96.25% movement speed(so how fast she is now), and has access to a second blink.
- To access this "Final Breath", Nurse has to passively absorb the exhales while she chases them.
- If they run and Nurse starts a chase, she will slowly fill up her progress meter by one charge a second; this is the only method where she cannot fill up the progression completely
- If she hits someone, she gains 15 charges at once
- If she hooks someone, she gains 9 charges at once
- Both the bottom methods can fill up the progress meter
Now, what is considered base kit for Nurse is actually an activatable power that Nurse must work towards. Since this functions the same, players that know how to play her well can still play her well once they get the power, and new players will do better with the default 110% single-blink Nurse while also learning how to use her power properly without feeling too punished for failing.
- Nurse's blink attacks are now considered special attacks
Finally, I did the thing. /s
But seriously, this change still needs to be made considering her power goes through walls. But this combined with her new default state of 110% speed, it will both kill her exponential synergy with exposure perks without making them absolutely worthless. It will also free up exposure perks to be buffed to be stronger on other killers.
- Nurse can no longer see the auras of survivors while teleporting
The other reason why aura perks are lower than they should be. Her being able to see where survivors are while using her power is a very busted ability, lowering the counterplay that survivors would have against her. This also allows for aura-reading perks to be buffed without making Nurse broken.
Disclaimer 3: I'm on the fence about if I should only make the inability to read auras a thing while she teleports, or while she is charging her ability. If anyone thinks it should be the latter, let me know.
Add-on Adjustment
Considering how I suggested the rework, a couple add-ons would have to have their descriptions altered or their alterations changed entirely(Matchbox would just straight up be a nerfed default Nurse if I left it alone), so here I go.
Matchbox(Iri)
- Increases the Movement speed of The Nurse to 4.2 m/s while she takes her Final Breath.
- Reduces the duration of Final Breath by 20 seconds.
Now, Matchbox isn't a worse default Nurse and has a trade-off that actually makes this Iri feel like an Iri addon.
Torn Bookmark(Iri)
- Increases available Power Tokens by +1 Token while taking her Final Breath.
- Increases the Power Recharge time by +50 %.
Her having a second blink at all times would just be a base kit Nurse but with a slower recovery(which could be countered with a recovery add-on), and I already made a point about how her current base kit is too strong to be accessible at all times.
Spasmodic Breath(Green)
Hitting a Survivor with a Blink Attack causes the following effects for 10 seconds:
- Increases the Movement speed of The Nurse by 5%.
- Increases the Power Recharge time by +50 %.
Honestly, I didn't need to change this add-on, but it was such a stupid add-on that I felt like something had to be done. Instead, I gave the add-on an upside that applies to both her default state and her Final Breath state. If the downside is too severe, then tell me so.
If there are any other add-ons that you feel could be changed, tell me how.
Conclusion
Nurse has a tirade of issues that hold her back as a balanced killer and hold the game's balance hostage as a consequence. This rework seeks to solve all the issues: extreme synergy with exposure and aura perks, overpowered add-ons, a strong power that is accessible always, and a low kill rate. To my belief, this solves these issues while still making Nurse not only unique and strong, but balanced.
But once more, if you feel there are still changes that must be made, comment below.
tl;dr: blink attacks are special attacks, auras can't be seen while teleporting, her base kit power has been made into a power that must be worked for like Oni's or Plague's, and when she hasn't activated her power she's a faster killer with one blink that makes her more noob-friendly while still keeping her original feel.
Comments
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You summarized what I have been too lazy to say pretty quickly.
I have played nurse since 2016 and seen everything done to her. I don't feel like reading everything however this part "Nurse has been, undoubtedly, the most powerful killer in Dead by Daylight... forever. She's the very reason why certain perks can't be buffed in duration because they would always benefit her far more than any other killer. She's the reason most players, when they see a new killer perk, think "'kay great, but how good would it be on nurse?" She's a slugging master, an exposed psycho, an aura-reading mon--"
Whenever a new killer is out, or a killer is nerfed, or a survivor perk is nerfed, or extra seconds are added to doing gens, the only thing going through my mind is "Wow now I can 4k even easier on nurse!!!" LMAOO
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Her basekit is completely fine as is. Range and three blink addons are the only issue. Your idea completely kills using basically any perks except slowdown on her, which also makes zero sense considering aura and Exposed aren’t an issue in the first place.
The power change completely deletes a high skill-expressive character and dumbs them down into just being terrible but simpler. 110% 1 blink is utterly worthless garbage for traversing the map. It’s also utterly worthless garbage for chase at anything except point blank blink across pallet/window which becomes even less skillful because you give her a free hit at any window/pallet once she catches up but her power is completely worthless till then because 1 blink is the world’s easiest thing to ignore.
And you make her do all that, just to have the basekit she has now which already is completely mindgameable as is and defeats the entire point of simplifying her, but time-limited and with all perks except slowdown worthless on her.
Matchbox is outright horrible. Shortens the already limited basekit Nurse mode for some inane reason.
Torn Bookmark is literally just gutting.
Spasmodic is completely horrendous design that makes the survivor able to do literally nothing because she walks at them till she gets to a pallet/window and then guaranteed hits them, but is completely useless garbage at crossing the map or expressing power creatively in any other way in chase outside of that.
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really good stuff.
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Really good stuff if you want to destroy the character and make her another hapless killer.
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I dont think all blink attacks should be special attacks, just blinks that go through something she cant walk through, maybe not trees but like walls, floors, pallets, cars, that kinda stuff, and double blinks.
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I like a lot of these ideas. But they might be a bit drastic, at least for now.
I don't think the Nurse should ever walk though, I don't think her blink would look right. She could just float lower in Last Breath than she does in Final Breath.
I hope BHVR does tweaks like making her attacks from 2nd or 3rd blinks special attacks while her 1st blink still counts as a basic attack. Then she could still see value from Starstruck and Haunted Ground that she could never see with your rework.
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Nurse brigade already here to defend her. They just want to keep getting easy 4ks in basically all of their games. Don’t listen to them.
Some good ideas there.
I've seen a few different good ideas on what to do with nurse the past week or so on these forums and reddit. Hopefully the devs are watching.
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Thinking on it some more they could help with the learning curve by just making the iridescent add on that makes her 1 blink 110% move speed a yellow add on.
Maybe to reduce her oppressiveness make it so her blink doesnt start recharging until shes out of fatigue.
Range add ons could make her terror radius larger
Make it so torn bookmark cant be boosted with recovery add ons ( much like iri head doesnt work with ammo belt anymore)
Maybe disabling scratch marks while teleporting kinda like spirit.
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