One tiny nerf to Doctor

Undrestandable. But if the cooldown isn't too high, survivors would only be able to counter his shock therapy if they are close enough to a pallet or vault anyways. Here's the thing. Shock therapy has a 1 second delay, that means, when the shock actually hits, Doctor only has a 0.5 seconds cooldown left. So avoiding his shock therapy will never be useful if it forces survivors to become outpositioned, and in most cases, this does.

Increasing his cooldown to 2 seconds or 2.5 seconds will give survivors 1 or 1.5 seconds to reach a pallet or vault before the Doctor can attack again. Also, the shock lasts 2.5 seconds, and it starts one second after shock therapy was released. Which means even if the cooldown was 2.5 seconds, the Doctor still would have 1 second to hit a survivor before the shock ends on the survivor.

Also, Doc still would be able to try and predict a survivor avoiding his shock therapy, or he could just fake his shock therapy. So I'm pretty sure his shock therapy would still be very useful in chases. the last thing I want is that his shock therapy becomes fairly useless in chases again. Which is why I don't want them to increase the charge time of his shock therapy.

The difference here is that you don't move slower while the cooldown is active. That was the main problem of Doc. He also had to wait a very short time after shocking before he could switch stances again.

In fact, increasing his cooldown would do absolutely nothing if you as the Doctor manage to hit a survivor with his shock. In this case, the survivor is shocked, can't use any vault or pallet, and you can still just follow him with your normal movement speed while the survivor keeps running. Your cooldown ends before the shock of the survivor ends, and you will get a hit against the survivor if you catch up to the survivor enough. Absolutely nothing changes as long as the cooldown doesn't overlast the shock of the survivor. And nobody wants that because that would make his shock therapy so laughably useless.

The only thing a higher cooldown changes, is that it gives survivors slightly more time to reach a pallet or vault before the Doctor can attack the survivor after using his shock therapy, if survivors manage to avoid the shock therapy. Which is why I think this would be a healthy change to Doctor, and the only proper way to nerf him if he does need a nerf. Because this is simply a change that allows for some more skill based counterplay. And in return, will also afford some more skill based counterplay of the Doctor player. Not that he doesn't take any skill, I do think he does, but this would just add some more skill based play for the Doctor.

It's been fine until now though. All replies have been nice and civil.

Personally, most Docs I've been going against have actually only gotten 1k or 0k. But from my own experience as Doctor, I do feel like this one change to Doctor will be needed. It's true though that it's still very early to say if this really is the case. Especially considering that many people even didn't know how to play against the old Doctor, probably because he played much differently to other killers and barely ever got played at high ranks.

The only thing I'm just slightly worried about is that BHVR might feel the need to nerf him, and then nerf him in a different way. Like increasing his shock therapy charge time, which would be awful in my opinion. That nerf would either just force him to run around a loop more times before he can catch up to survivors, which means it will weaken his chase potential slightly, but totally detatched from any counterplay of survivors, or if the charge time is increased too much, he'll just turn into old Doc with survivors being able to run him around pallet loops infinitely if he continues to try and shock survivors when they approach pallets.

An increased cooldown on the other hand simply buffs an interesting counterplay to him, which is exactly what I would like to see to him. But I do believe that the devs at BHVR do realise this as well if they decide to nerf him in some way.

In the end a killer's balance simply comes down to whether survivors have the chance to survive in chases long enough for their team mates to make an impactful progression on gens, while considering the killer's map pressure, stealth capabilties and tracking potential. And if that's the case, the question is whether survivors can survive in chases long enough because of skillful counterplay, or because the killer's power forces the killer to take too long to chase a survivor. Old legion is the perfect example for the latter, where as Nurse probably is a great example for the former. Increasing Doctor's shock therapy charge time would buff survivors, but in a way that fits in the latter category, while increasing the cooldown of Doctor's shock therapy would buff survivors in a way that fits the former category.

Your behaviour is absolutely ridiculous. And if you think of me as someone who just wants a killer nerfed because they are a noob, then I can just laugh. I've thoroughly explained why I think this small nerf would be fine for Doctor, if people choose not to read the thread fine. Just don't accuse me of wanting Doc nerfed just because I am a noob.

I do agree that it's too early to nerf him now. This thread was just about my experience and my opinion what might need to be done to Doctor in the future. I think I am just worried that they nerf Doctor in a way that will make him much weaker again.

I've seen the suggestion to increase his shock therapy charge time, and I feel like that would be a terrible way to nerf him. Because it would either just increase the amount of times a Doctor needs to loop around a pallet loop while shocking the survivor everytime they approach the pallet again before he catches up to the survivor to get a hit, or if the charge time is increased too much, his shock therapy will end up being just as useless in chases as it was before the rework.

An increased cooldown on the other hand will simply make one certain counterplay of survivors a bit more viable, which I think would be the far better way to nerf him since that counterplay takes skill.

Any reasoning for why you disagree with my nerf suggestion? And keep in mind I do understand that it's too early to nerf Doctor right away, this is just about what change I believe the Doc will still need, based on my observations on how effective his shock therapy works at loops, which I explained in my thread.

Useless is a bit much, I admit. It was helpful against window loops, especially god windows, and it probably was helpful at pallet loops if the loop was particularly big, like the really long Coldwin Farm loops.

It was also really good at killer shack, though now it's even better. But to me his shock therapy just wasn't helpful at enough pallet loops for Doctor to be even nearly viable, and now it is.

The inconsistency still sucks a bit, but now it's much more doable to just shock survivors early enough.

Perhaps. Like I said, I don't want this nerf to happen immediately. Just from all the experience I've gathered with Doctor up until now, I feel like a nerf might happen in the future, simply because I fear more and more people will start arguing that Doctor doesn't have enough counterplay, which is why I made this thread, to suggest what nerf I would like to see.

This thread wasn't done just because I feel like I lose against Doctor too many times within this short period of time. I made this thread based on my experience and observation of playing as Doctor, and I explain why exactly I think this nerf would be good, and what exactly this nerf would affect. I'm not saying I am right, just what change I would probably like to see for the Doctor, at least if more people start complaining about doctor, because I feel like I've gathered quite a bit of experience and knowledge with the new Doctor and how he works the last couple of days.

I think you make some great points, and it makes me hopeful that the discussion of Doctor not having enough counterplay will never actually happen. Though I do think that the bigger a pallet loop is, the better it is for Doctor, assuming he has already been close enough to the survivor to shock him when he approached the pallet a first time.

You're definitely right with the second point. Especially with how maps are procedurally generated, you won't always be able to tell where a pallet is coming up early enough to shock a survivor.

I also didn't know that he does not get Bloodlust when using his shock, that's good.

Your forth point is also right, but that's the one aspect I wanted to buff a bit for survivors. Right now, dodging his shock therapy won't do anything in most cases since dodging his shock therapy also means survivors outposition themselves, which means the Doctor will get a hit against the survivor anyways. By increasing the cooldown, survivors will have slightly more time to reach the pallet they are looping and use it against Doctor if they managed to dodge Doctor's shock therapy, despite them getting outpositioned because he can't attack them for a short period of time after using shock therapy.

But maybe this nerf won't be needed. I do agree that an increased range to his shock therapy would be a good compensation for this nerf, should have mentioned that.

Because I am simply worried that it isn't enough counterplay. Like he has counterplay, but it's hard to tell if it's a fair amount or just very little counterplay that he has.

In that case people will catch on to this sooner or later, and that's why I wanted to make a post about how I think Doctor should be nerfed if it comes to that. Perhaps I'm just a bit paranoid that the devs will make a mistake and the Doctor will end up with a Legion treatement, even though I don't actually believe that would happen.

I'm not crying though.