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Some strategies to counter the Doctor?

madradfox
madradfox Member Posts: 190
in Ask the Community

I am a red ranked survivor, yet one killer in DBD that I don't seem to still have a sound strategy for is a decent red-ranked Doctor.


Thus far, the only thing I have come up with and had good results with is to constantly be on the move and try to take as many bites from anything and everything in different areas of the map before I am struck with madness, which will inevitably happen. This means avoiding forced risky actions like danger-close rescues, staying on gens for too long. etc.But this is only effective very early for maybe the first 90 seconds, until the 1st or if very lucky,m\ the 2nd gen pops .

After it gets down to 3 gens, the doctor can apply enormous pressure with his two blasts. His default TR is 32m and he can increase that for the blast with both perks like Distressing and M&A, and add-ons like "Calm". On top of that, there is Iridescent Queen that can give you madness by simply getting close to another survivor. The aura reveal abilities also free up a perk spot used typically for BBQ , making room for Discordance/IronMaiden for example. Even Nurse's calling can be very effective because the Doctor can block your heal from 28m away with the blast regardless of how close you may be to finishing, and you only have 3.5 seconds between hearing the radius and the Doctor spotting your aura.

The hardest part is the late midgame. When you are down to 2 gens. If you are down to 3 survivors, with multiple hook stages between you, the only way to make progress is to take advantage of other survivors misfortune. You cannot loop the doctor effectively for any significant duration, and you cannot effectively count on pallet stuns either. His movement penalty when shocking can be turned into a madness jump at his discretion. On top of that he gets his Blast every 60 seconds.

In the endgame, red-ranked doctors may often slug once its down to 1 gen. They can still patrol fairly well, because with the (extended) blast range they can theoretically move over 30m from the body in any direction. On top of that the blast can a) reveal the aura b) stop any healing/repair action and c) give Madness III that blocks practically every survivor action. Not only it won't let you heal/repair yourself ; its not that uncommon to get to a dying-state survivor thinking that at worst you will get them up at a cost of a protection hit/hook, only to find out you no longer have the ability to pull off the heal until you snap out of it.


I don't think the Doctor needs a nerf.

(The only thing that could potentially be changed is perhaps Madness III allowing rescues from dying states, but thats still a heal action that only appears instantaneous because of self-recovery pushing the bar to the finish, so normal healing would have to be allowed and that shouldn't be allowed)

Also, I know there have to be some general sound strategies to play successfully against the Doctor, but so far the only evasive maneuvers/strategies i know and use are:

  • If possible, vault something before the shock goes off, but that power's wind up is very hard to hear.
  • If you are in a particularly good looping spot, you may get one going, but you will end up with Madness III virtually every time.
  • Hiding in lockers, if close to a survivor getting hooked, and waiting for the blast (Iron Maiden counters this)
  • If you hear/see screaming survivors auras go in the opposite direction of the last survivor in that sequence. Apparently Doctors tend to move towards the last one heard more often than not.
  • Try to think of the endgame from the start.. Avoid getting yourself into a 3-gen situation at the end, that can be blasted and patrolled without much effort. Start with the hard ones, so you can have easier ones later.


Answers

  • Shaun
    Shaun Member Posts: 28

    It’s important to first analyze what the doctor is to understand strategies: he’s a killer that easily locates close survivors, prevents loops, and disrupts actions by having survivors snap out of madness three. A huge part of his ability stems from survivors making mistakes on their parts, whether it be skill checks, misinterpreting false terror radiuses, or running to obvious loops. Spine chill and this is not happening help with identifying the terror radius as well as making skill checks easier. For running a doctor, you need to be sort of random. It helps to run at a window, get shocked, then run to another close by if there is one, as the charge is on cool down. Also try splitting up; you can’t avoid static blast, so try minimizing its effect on the team. Hope this helped somewhat!

  • madradfox
    madradfox Member Posts: 190

    Thanks.It actually does, because using This is not Happening did not even cross my mind. I always bring Iron Will, and combining that with TINH and Resilience, might actually make for an interesting build.


    The biggest challenge to TINH is getting that first injured status I guess. Taking a protection hit works well for it, but it takes you away from doing something actually helpful. The bonuses from TINH and Resilience alone do not seem to balance out the value of an extra health state, but I would actually have to run it I guess to see if getting nothing but great skill checks makes big enough of a difference.


    Equipping TINH, Resilience , and Iron Will would only leave 1 perk slot, and I would have to choose between Spine Chill (along with Iron Will its one of the best perks in DBD), Kindred (which I always bring, now more for my own sake so I have a higher chance of getting rescued) and Self-Care (which would work perfectly with the other 3, allowing me to heal to 99% to get the bonuses, and heal at the last second for a full state when needed)


    • Does TINH help with the "snap out of it" skillchecks as well?

    I am terrible with flashlight to a point that I don't even pick the purple ones up, but the rift challenges have forced me to bring them. This is how bad I am: trying to get 8 flashlight stuns, my main character started with 11 Purple 12 Green and 40 Yellow . Right now I have 3/8 stuns, and am down to 2 purple 7 Green and 39 Yellow. I wasted (mostly just dropped when empty) at least 15 flashlights to get 3 stuns, and at least 1 of those stuns was gifted to me by a nice killer). As bad as I am with the flashlights, I got plenty of experience against different killers, and one thing I noticed is that:

    • a lot of Doctors seem to be wierdly aftraid of flashlights, more so than other killers (except for maybe Nurses, even Wraiths catch on right away that I have no idea how or when I am aiming it right ). I have had doctors walk really far back , even turn around completely, and I cannot seem to figure out why. Worst case scenario, they get blinded like every other killer, as Lightburn doesnt apply to them. Also I assumed they can just interrupt my flashlight use with shock/blast. Are they more prone to getting blinded, when using those powers, kind of like how killers can be blinded when breaking pallets?