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Nurse will never be balanced with her base-kit
She is only killer who is ignoring strong loops, walls, pallets, vaults, everything.
Bodyblocking against her is imposible, that means helping your tunnelled teammate is also imposible.
Very good map mobility, that would be fine if her power was not that busted.
She is just cheating the game with legal way ofcourse. She is really feels like old busted DbD where we had busted infinities, busted survivor items, busted mori offerings. She is from this era. Except her, everything nerfed. She somehow kept her power.
Killers like Billy, Freddy, Slinger was not even close to her level but they all nuked by BHVR but not Nurse obviously. Ofcourse she got some nerfs but no nerf will make her balanced. It's just imposible with her kit.
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Agreed. Nurse has a power that ignores a good number of mechanics that are implemented to give survivors a chance to delay the killer. She can literally go through walls, elevation doesn't matter to her, pallets and windows are a non-factor for her and even things like bodyblocking don't work against her.
To buy time for themselves, survivors have to counter the killer in one way or another. But Nurse pretty much counters the entire game. She was nerfed so many times already and yet she still remains the number 1 strongesrt killer to this day. Further number changes will not balance her. Neither will further restrictions to what perks she is allowed to use.
She needs some pretty big changes, if we ever want her to be balanced.
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Funnily enough I was typing up a thread the other day where I was musing and brain dumping about Nurse. Didn't post it cause it was just a thought expository... but it seems quite relevant to this thread, so here goes:
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This is not a "Nerf Nurse" post, just a brain dump of why she is such an interesting and tricky character to balance in DBD.
I want to say, that especially at my level, Nurse is fine. I typically find her very fun to face, challenging, rewarding, and very unique.
As we all know however, her potential... is insane. She stays around a healthy kill rate because lower skill Nurses tend to get pretty soundly beaten... mid skill will go even, but high skill Nurses will absolutely dominate... and the skill of the Nurse seems to be a bigger factor than the respective skills of the survivor (the survivor has to be A LOT better than the Nurse to even have a chance of consistently beating her). We all know that in a high skilled players hands, playing ruthlessly, with an optimal build, Nurse becomes almost unstoppable... and that is the reward for learning a challenging and unique killer.
What makes her interesting to me, The Nurse to DBD fits the category of one of those characters that exists in many games... she is the character that creates very unique gameplay, that because it is so unique compared to the rest of the game, kind of sits outside of the games normal balance mechanisms, and will always walk a fine line between being busted as all hell or completely useless. (This is usually seen in the form of stealth characters in combat heavy games for example).
The one thing I can see that makes her so incredibly flippant in her performance is her chain blinks. If you master chain blinks, you can almost always score a hit. If you don't... you will miss more often than not.
The optimal way to play Nurse is to blink to the last location you saw a survivor, then accurately chain blink on top of wherever they went, and land your hit, wherever the survivor jukes. The highest of levels comes from knowing the locations of exactly when to do your initial blink to ensure the survivor hasn't got any reasonable ways of faking you out, and then just merely executing it correctly.
It seems to me this is where the mind games against a high level Nurse fall short. As long as her first blink is good enough, the chain blink gives her the potency that she is famous for, and the knife edge of balance lies on that chain blink. Too long, and a Nurse can make up for any errors she had in her first blink, which kills any mind games. Too short, and she can't reasonably catch survivors without having to guess and try to land a well positioned first blink...
Even if you make it short though... at the highest levels, again, skilled Nurses will not really see the difference anyway, cause they know the map points they should herd survivors in to where they will be in what I will call a "Nurse dead zone".
The recent changes to Nurse have been very good, but she will always be that top tier character, because any attempts to standardise, or weaken her enough to combat her unique strength, and she'd easily be killed as a character.
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I guess what I was driving at is the only effective way to truly nerf her off of top tier, is to make blinking to last known location and then just blinking on top of a survivor not a near guaranteed hit for a skilled player. This obviously would kill her skill expression which is never good... but you basically are forced to lower her skill ceiling if you want to balance her.
Something like shortening her chain blink distance, or limiting the range she can blink and still attack isn't enough to address a high skill Nurse player anyway, with the map knowledge to fall back on to create a "Nurse Dead Zone", they're still gonna be getting their near guaranteed hits.... though maybe if it's short enough there would be enough scenarios that they couldn't force it to make it fine? Otherwise you'd have to have something like slowing down her second blink so that it is more mind gamable, or something similar....
However if you do that... you can easily Hillbilly her to the point no-one will play her... finding a sweet spot that will be fair at all scenarios, but also offer reasonable skill expression seems kinda impossible. A nerf such as this would kill the Nurses at my level, and destroy what makes them fun to face... and at high level... no-one will bother playing her anymore... why play Nurse isntead of someone much less stressful, like Wesker, Spirit, Oni or Blight?
I'm not offering anything useful here... just kinda pointing the problem as I understand it :D
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Nurse is from a different Era in DBD where it was acceptable at the time because both sides had some super op stuff, at the time nurse came out I could get a survivor squad with all BNP on a toolbox and instantly pop 4 generators less than 10 secs into the match, nowadays that's impossible and survivors are nowhere near the same as they were before but nurse has also been watered down over time just not at the same level due to her whole ability itself being broken.
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Otz made a suggestion years ago but he’s seem to have forgotten that suggestion. I remember it to make her like Oni somewhat. Starts out normal movement speed like 115 killers but can’t blink and has to acquire something like blood to charge up her blinks. Then once she enters normal Nurse mode she can blink like normal but is back to default Nurse speed. And then eventually she runs out. Therefor basekit Nurse is still there but dialed back so she’s not able to literally 4k slug at 5 gens every match.
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This is one of those things that is almost universally agreed on by reasonable people. The confusing part is why she isn't higher on Behavior's priority list. Although I do feel like a rework is coming once they check off some of the boxes on their current priority list. I'm sure they realize how broken she is at this point. Things always get changed eventually. Even if it takes them forever.
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I mean, you're not wrong.
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Killers like Billy, Freddy, Slinger was not even close to her level but they all nuked by BHVR but not Nurse obviously.
That might be why a full rework of Nurse is unlikely to happen.
Because if we look at past examples that you mentioned, we see how terrible some of those reworks were. We can also add Onryo to the list, whose rework was so bad it is getting reverted.
The only ones that aren't considered to have been terrible are Bubba and Legion, but that is because they were made stronger. I don't think the community wants Nurse to be made stronger.
I think the developers want to avoid another Freddy or Billy situation. The Nurse won't place puddles of blood on the ground, she won't overheat, and it might be safer to leave her power unchanged.
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Exactly. Nurse is a relic from the past, she should not exist like this anymore. She was a design failure anyway, but she is allowed to exist. If we would start to re-introduce actual facecamping (aka no Unhook possible), actual Infinites or old BNPs, people would riot. But Nurse is still allowed to be there and she barely got nerfed over the past years. She basically always got a slap on the wrist.
"Further number changes will not balance her. Neither will further restrictions to what perks she is allowed to use.
She needs some pretty big changes, if we ever want her to be balanced."
^ this. Number Changes would not change much. Unless you make those changes so extreme that she is basically unplayable and this should not be the goal.
IMO some of the recent changes are also just bad. Like, giving her a Mangled Add On while removing her synergy with Sloppy Butcher... So instead of a Perk-Slot (which is now free for other Slowdown-Perks), the Killer who does not need Add Ons in the first place got an Add On which almost replaces Sloppy Butcher. Wuhu.
Same with things that Pallets dont work against her. It was great that she was stunned AND went into fatique when getting hit with a Pallet. Using Pallets against Nurse is already risky and hard to do, but it was at least rewarding. I stunned a Nurse yesterday with the Shack Pallet, it barely did anything, while EVERY other Killer would have needed to break the Pallet.
And IMO, unless it is very unhealthy stuff, every Nerf to a Killers basekit is laughable as long as Nurse does not receive significant changes. She should not be a auto-win when the player is good enough with her (you dont even need to master her), but she should also not have such a steep learning curve, which flattens almost completely once you are good with her.
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But just because someone loves her power, this does not mean we should ignore her. Nurse's power simply breaking the game rules.
I am against to nerfs and reworks when they don't need it but we have 2 exceptions atm: Skull Merchant and Nurse. Both of them have unhealthy powers for game balance and they need to go.
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nurse does not need further nerfs👍 if you are getting under 30 second chases to the average nurse thats a you problem
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Nurse is from a different DBD era. She was released when survivor's weren't as strong they are now or in other words she was a head of the curve. Any further nerfs to her and you might as well delete her which BHVR isn't going to doing to do because of $$$
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Is the Nurse OP? Yes
Is the Nurse unfun to play against? Most certainly, yes.
Should she get nerfed? No, i dont think so.
You might think i am kidding, but i am not. Let me explain why she is fine:
Playing killer can be sometimes very stressful, and apparently loosing as killer (i somewhat agree as a 50/50 player overall) is more impactful for some people then loosing as it is as survivor. Because of that, some killer mains (not all, i dont mean you!) are extremly whiny and ask for ridiculous buffs even in times like these, where basicaly every killer can stomp survivor without much effort.
But because we have Nurse, they can simply jump on her after a rough game, get an easy 4K and be happy again. She is also for those who want the game on easy mode constantly.
If we nerf Nurse and maybe also Blight, weak players will floot the social medias even more complaining about how unfair killer is. We have experienced what happend in the past when killer where crying about stuff: They got what they wanted. Now they are sitting on 60% killrate with insane winstreaks and are still often unhappy.
I rather would face Nurse in 1 out of 5 games instead of nerfing her and getting flooded with crying killer players who "can not win" with a normal killer that has no cheating ability.
Maybe you think that is a silly argument, but think deeper and imagine this situation in your mind. I think it is very possible that exactly that will happen. Like i said, the time proves my point.
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I think they just don't want to create dissatisfaction.
People are already unhappy with many killer reworks. I can see the reasoning behind not wanting to do another one.
But yes, that means leaving Nurse the way she is. And that can be either a good thing or bad, depending on your views towards Nurse.
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How long we will keep support this myth about Nurse's mobility? It's only true on three maps with two layers.
There are plenty ideas of how balance her power, because insane chase almost without any downside is only thing she has. Even if i agree she needs another light nerf, i think it's only possible parallel to the conversation about SWF nerf sadly.
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If you are going against average Nurses , maybe that's a you problem. Get my mmr level and then we talk.
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Nurse is fine...
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You are correct. As a nurse main she needs a complete and total rework because her power is fundamentally OP.
The problem though? She is the only killer viable against top teams like Ayrun/Hens etc. Until THAT problem is addressed, you need nurse to exist in her current state, because if she doesn't, you'll create a snowball effect that will kill the game.
Right now, survivors like that pretty much only go against nurse (and maybe a stacked blight). But since most killers are not viable at this level you have this problem. Lets say that every player starts at 1k MMR, and these top players are 2.5k MMR, really bad players are 500 MMR and the average player is at 1500 MMR.
You probably have a sprinkling of people at various MMRs, but at that top 2.5k bracket? There are 0 clowns, 0 legions, 0 nemesis etc. It is all nurse and blight. What happens if you nerf nurse and blight (they are about to do that soon with blight)? Now those killers are not viable at that MMR anymore, so those killers MMR goes down. Well now those 2.5k survivors have nobody to play against, so the game opens up the matchmaking pool more so they get shorter queue times. Then they start going against killers who can't handle those types of teams, so they continue to dominate and INCREASE their MMR, making the matchmaking need to work harder and harder to find them matches.
Then as this goes on, more and more killers start playing against teams like this (many of them former nurse/blight top tier mmr players). This results in other survivors who CAN'T handle that type of play to suddenly see harder matches. You'll start seeing them start to go DOWN in MMR and have harder and harder matches. Then what happens?
Well now those top tier killers are playing against those top tier survivors mostly again, and the cycle continues, slowly pushing the MMR of those survivors UP while the killers MMR gets pushed DOWN. This results in MMR basically being non-existent again and the average survivor can't handle this level of play so they start to get frustrated and start quitting the game.
Then you start seeing a mass exodus of players as MMR is failing, not matching people up properly anymore, top tier survivor teams steamroll every killer they see, forcing those killers to play scummier, so when they go against average players the average players suffer. And the top tier killers start playing against average players, making the average player suffer even more. So every game for the average survivor player is awful and miserable. And slowly but surely the game starts dying.
For the health of the game right now, nurse needs to exist to prevent this from happening. Until they fix survivors at a high level so these top tier survivors don't win almost every match, then we can go about finally fixing the nurse.
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She doesn't really fit into the game in it's current state. A lot of BS has been removed and nerfed from both sides but Nurse's power still remains. Even with it's current limitations it's just far too good and the survivors have very few ways of dealing with it.
Nurse is basically her own game. Nothing you learn from playing against other killers works on her. You can't loop her in the normal sense you can only try and mindgame her as she blinks, but a good Nurse will have seen it all before and only miss once or twice at most. Even if you get lucky and dodge one of her hits she can blink and try again shortly after, and usually will land the hit pretty quickly. You never feel rewarded in chase against her because nothing you do will buy you much time since she will just blink right at you a moment later.
It's far too much in the killer's hands how the chase goes. Once a Nurse player reaches a certain skill level, it doesn't really matter what survivors do.
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Its not impossible to help a tunneled team mate it just requires a different approach to simply just body blocking. This is one of the problems with how people react to nurse. She undermines a lot of the established plays in DBD and while some think that its better if every game plays the same way, the fact that she mixes it up so much and that players struggle against her as a result is a good thing.
It means there is more to the game than just one established playstyle. How much of the "no counterplay" argument is the result of players simply refusing to adapt their gameplay.
We need more killers who break the rules, as these are the killers that make the game dynamic and interesting.
Disagree if you like but there are few killers as terrifying as a good nurse, she is really hard to get away from and we need more of that not less.
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Now I might sound like a broken record but hear me out...
Make Spasmodic Breath basekit. I strongly feel this would be the only change she needs to be "fair and balanced".
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She'll never be a real DBD character but they at least can give her an adequate downside for keeping such a ridiculously powerful power. Which they refuse to because... reasons.
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She is a cool character to face, because you have to play completely different. I would want her to have some down sight or counter with the flashlight.
Missing should be punished more.
Reworking her is in my opinion wrong. The only thing, where she needs a change, is in the top 10%. A normal nurse is fair and a good one can be hard, but if you win it feels even more rewarding.
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Yes, Nurse is broken on a fundamental level, and is out of place in DBD. This is widely accepted. There is no tweak or nerf that is going to "fix" her.
So what can you do?
- Totally remake her; throw her power away and take her back the the drawing board. But that's a ton of work, and isn't likely to ever happen.
- Delete her. Won't happen for obvious reasons: lots of people have a lot of time/money invested in her, and you can't just take her away without creating a lot more work (in finding some sort of compensation).
- Do nothing, just look the other way.
It's gonna be #3, so the best we can do is just accept it. I don't play as Nurse, and I don't really think of games against her in the same way as any other matches. I just turn on the autopilot when I hear her screech.
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Hon, nurse is the least of most survivors‘ worries. Nearly every killer on the roster is dominating right now.
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Nurse is fine. The root of the issue is that survivors here won’t be happy until they can dictate pallet mindgames against every killer.
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True
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i don't think you understand that very top mmr that wins all the time is like very small number. it is like 200 survivors players and like 50 killer players. I also would not be surprised if most that is like duo swf, 3 man and 4 man swf. I do not agree on that snowball effect. at worst, killer role might be under-powered as a whole vs strong teams but nothing more.
I think they can nerf nurse by nerfing her blink movement speed so instead of being fast near instant teleporting killer, she would be a slow teleportation killer but I suspect that nurse would be something like current billy where rewards for playing character wouldn't be worth effort in winning with the character. Like I could easily see a nurse where TP is 33% slower to what it currently is where nurse tp's are barely faster then blight's rush.
Another possible nerf that they could do is Spirit type change. Currently, with Nurse's blinks, you do not get info for where nurse blinks. This forces survivor to predict nurse's blink location using mindgames instead of reacting to nurse's blink location. So another possible change is to give nurse a blink indicator after releasing a blink. This would reduce nurse's mindgame potencial and allow survivors to more easily outplay blink.
nurse is possible nerf. it is just bvhr has no interesting in nerfing nurse.
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So its ok for these survivors to basically completely win every single game "because its rare"?
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That's a pretty good idea and I think I've seen a couple of people approach it from a similar angle. Basically, some way that nurse's power is temporary and her speed is buffed when the power is not available (@ohheyitsbobcat Spasmodic Breath argument also gets there).
Playing killer can be sometimes very stressful, and apparently loosing as killer (i somewhat agree as a 50/50 player overall) is more impactful for some people then loosing as it is as survivor. Because of that, some killer mains (not all, i dont mean you!) are extremly whiny and ask for ridiculous buffs even in times like these, where basicaly every killer can stomp survivor without much effort.I find this very funny. I like the idea of keeping Nurse around just as a counter to complaints - 'Go play nurse!'
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Now that blight is getting changed you went back to complaining about nurse?
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I never stopped complain about Nurse? And before i stop to talk about Blight, i have to see PTB first. SM will also be talked by me.
I am using this forum for my feedbacks and suggestions. What's problem?
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Idk all you do is say she ignores mechanics but by that same reasoning there's plenty of other killers who do the same
Her broken stuff has been nerfed (and if you remember or check my past threads/comments, I was one of the people here who most outspokenly called for those nerfs), and even with add-ons her basekit fundamentally remains unchanged and blinking is the only way she has to actually hit people. At this point if one's not able to hold a chase with her for longer than 15 seconds that's their problem, not nurse's
"Certified nurse hater ®" has been a stable on my steam profile for quite a while after that comment, and yet here I am, saying she's (mostly) fine 😳
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even tho im not a very reasonable person i agree
nice name btw
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i do not think survivors in average soloq win all the time. survivor don't try hard enough to win every single game. The average strong swf probably wins huge % of the time, like 80% of the time. Could they win 100% of the time? Yes, Hens showcases that you can make a swf strong enough to win 200 games in a row but those are uncommon as in non-existent. Most of the reason why you can win with such high % with survivor is weak killers. BVHR refuses to buff killers in a significant way to go against strong survivor players. most of their killer are balanced around average weak survivor player. on top of that, there is still some soloq vs swf disparities issues. So until BVHR resolves that, they unlikely to buff killers because killer win % being too high. Killer do not need nurse. they have nurse and blight until bvhr re-balances the rest of the game. unfortunately, they seldom change anything so status quo stays.
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So why does nurse need a nerf then?
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Yup that’s exactly what they’re saying. These same people then turn around and say that SWF is fine because good players are rare. The survivor bias in this community is undeniable.
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A few weeks ago, some player came to complain about the Nurse on Vulpixia's stream. He was spouting the usual nonsense about her being impossible to counter.The kind of player who doesn't understand he has to adapt to every killer (and the fact so many killers are easy to counter the same basic way is more a problem than what should be the norm)
Anyway ...
So Vulpixia let him play Nurse against a few survivors and he got trolled hard. He wasn't bad though. It's just the survivors had a clue.
That was quite funny to watch.
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I just don't understand why a killer that can pass through walls/objects exists in the game at all.
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That's what i always say, and my response is simple. If they believe that then why do we need to nerf nurse then? They can never answer that. Because they always say "the average player blah blah" ok. So why nerf nurse then? Every single time they release data, she is literally the lowest kill rate killer in the game. Which shows that, in the hands of average players, she is terrible. So if we balance around average players, where are my nurse buffs? Yet they never want to take that to the obvious logical conclusion and just show their bias.
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You have this on your calendar circled like the ring don't you? Today I will complain about Nurse, tomorrow Blight. Next day...
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I will always complain about Nurse, Blight and SM until they fix their issues. I am not complaining about Wesker, Chucky, Xeno, Plague, Artist, Spirit or any other A tier killer. I am talking about these because i am believing they are problematic for balance.
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Balance ruined the best parts of this game in my opinion. Sadly survivors are just fresh meat for killers right now.
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Nobody would deny that her power is busted. But touching her without making weaker killers to be more satisfying would be pointless.
There are people who consider wins as self-satisfaction, Nurse is just a wise way to enjoy killer for them. And there's nothing wrong with it. Does that ignore the necessity of nerfs? No, but nerfing her without rebalancing other things just solely kills killer (not her) pick rates which isn't good at all. It's such a naive mindset if you expect some killer mains would play other killer once that happened.
People who realized how this game works know that most killers are pure garbage with many downsides even if most can easily win in low~average level. Just because you can 4k with F tier killers a lot and say "You don't have to play those killers, don't have to play dirty.", do you expect killer mains who focus on winning and mostly play S~A tier killers give a thing to you?
Anyway she will one day get rework (aka huge nerf). And another 'Nurse' will arise and there will be done nothing to SWF I expect. I really don't mind her being nerfed if many obstacles that you can't find less in Nurse can be solved. Nurse is just same as SWF, funny thing is the latter is invincible in DbD balance while the former isn't.
Post edited by lav3 on0 -
you shouldn't be asking me that question with an opening sentence as following:
As a nurse main she needs a complete and total rework because her power is fundamentally OP.
The vast majority of killer that gravitate towards do not need to play nurse to win the vast majority of matchmaking games. Nurse in terms of regular matchmaking is crutch killer to get free-w's. Some people also say same for blight. I am not sure how i feel about blight being crutch killer in that category. Maybe if you consider running C33 or a running double speed/alchemist ring speed with moon-rushing. maybe.
nurse had many changes over the dbd lifespan. So far none of the changes have yet to turn nurse into unviable killer. Safe to assume that nurse is unlikely to ever be irrelevant.
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Same. Imagine if survivors could do that lol.
I can kite nurse all day and they usually rage quit on me, I still find their mechanics ridiculous.
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Nurse is broken but your comment is ridiculous. You might be able to run bad/new Nurse player but you aren't "kiting" a Nurse that actually knows how to play on a regular basis.
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The most funny part of this post: Nurse call her self is fine.
I have a reliable way to play against Nurse though, quite effective, if you would like to know.
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I'm asking you that because its simple.
First of all, i personally think she does need to be reworked, but the game has a ton of other problems to deal with first. But to answer your question on why i asked you that, let me pose you with another question.
Would it be better for the devs to balance the game around:
1) Top tier players
2) Average players
Based on your post talking about solo queue and "average survivor" and so on. I am assuming that you think the game should be balanced around average players. I personally disagree with this, i think you balance the game around the top level players, because top level players are going to be the best at exposing issues in your game, making it more important to balance the game around them as well as using them to find the flaws in your game faster than you or the "average" player would. There are other nuances there as well but in general that is what i believe.
And the reality is, at the highest levels of play, only nurse and blight are viable and every other killer falls apart to a SWF team. Even nurse often falls apart if she doesn't play perfectly. Here is an example match that is a bit old at this point, but still showcases exactly what i'm talking about:
Now, on to the "average" player. If you think you should balance the game around average players, why does nurse need a nerf/rework? Every single time that BHVR has released data on kill rates, the most recent one being over a year ago at this point:
Keep in mind when looking at this, the devs shoot for a 60% kill rate, you can argue against that if you want, but that is what they balance for and is part of a different discussion.
So anyway, looking at this data, it is clear that when looking at "the average" player, nurse is by far the lowest kill rate killer in the game. And this has been pretty much true since she has existed and almost every single time they release data. I think there have been a handful of times where someone dipped below her, but in general she is always in the bottom 3.
So, again i tell you. If you balance the game around the "average" player, then you MUST also take that to its logical conclusion and ending point. And that logical conclusion leads you down a single path. Nurse not only should not be nerfed, but that she actually needs MASSIVE buffs, because she is so far and away below every other killer in the game.
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sorry but mmr hardly exists in this game unless ur on a fresh acc which in that case ur gonna play against other fresh accs lol. nurse rlly isnt as impossible to run as u think she is. i would love to see a recording of this high mmr gameplay of yours
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One 👏Blink 👏Basekit👏
Remove the 2nd blink, and rework the green addon that extends her lunge by 30% after a blink. They nullify any jukes a survivor may attempt. Can't tell how many times I got demolished by that green addon, despite my great efforts at juking the blink. We do not need Freddy's extendo arm on Nurse, pls.
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