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Nurse doesn't belong in DbD

This discussion isn't to hate or discriminate anybody, let's keep it civilized and talk about our feelings. With that being said, let's get into it.

After coming back from a break of DbD, it amazes me that nobody talks about the Nurse anymore. I think the problem isn't whether she is broken or not but the fact that she defies every logic in the game. She literally ignores every constraint that every survivor and killer has. I don't think that a killer that ignores every single game mechanic or obstacle like pallets, windows, walls, etc has its place in DbD in it's current state.

You could argue that she is hard to play so it makes sense for her to be that strong but that's like saying Akali in League of Legends should always be overpowered because of her high skill cap or disc priest in World of Warcraft. (I didn't have any horror game example since I don't play any other game this genre)

Also, I do think that the strongest thing in the game is SWF considering you get every information about the killer you need at any given time and the fact that the Nurse can beat that is crazy to me (don't get me wrong I think SWF is too strong too).Dead by Daylight isn't made to be competitive so a killer that can beat a 4-man coordinated team with all the information needed to easily win against every single killer but Nurse and Spirit is obviously a problem. The only reason Nurse can do that is because she ignores game mechanics. So if SWF is too strong and Nurse can beat that there is obviously a problem with both of them.

Of course I'm not an expert in balancing the game but I don't see a way they could change the Nurse to be enjoyable to play against and satisfying to play as. I, for the longest time thought that the only way to change this problem (the Nurse) is to delete her but I'm open for discussion and willing to change my opinion of deleting her.

Comments

  • Bluerry
    Bluerry Member Posts: 233

    nurse's ignoring game mechanic kinda yeah feels like then why there are pallets and windows but she is not uncounterable so ı don't see a problem but yeah i feel ya she is fine but wierd on the game cuz like you said no resources or design to get away works on her

  • ObscurityDragon
    ObscurityDragon Member Posts: 710

    Imo Nurse is one of the most funny Killer to face, she forces you to think it differently and change your PlayStyle completly creating à game of reading and mind games

    Pallets and windows can be used but differently...


    Yet ill agree that à god Nurse that completly reads through you and that you cant mind game isnt fun to face anymore

    Yet there are other killers i would change first rather then Nurse

  • baseballfan4877
    baseballfan4877 Member Posts: 364

    So what if she plays differently? That is what makes her unique.. You wan't every killer to be a 115% m1 only killer? How often do you even see a good nurse? Like it is probably a mythical beast at this point. Nurse needs no changes.

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    I agree that a bad to good Nurse is fun to play against but a god Nurse knows what to do in every situation to counter every options you have. It's not that difficult to do as long as you know what survivors are capable of, like blinking in front of the window instead of across to see what the survivor will do after or blink to get los instead of through the wall.

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    I didn't complain about her being different, I complained about the fact that there is nothing to do against a god Nurse, and in my personal experience, in Rank 1 I see a lot of them.

  • ObscurityDragon
    ObscurityDragon Member Posts: 710

    Yet there are à fiew things you can try

    -be even more imprevisible qnd see who lind games who

    -jump in a locker if she blinks and doesnt have the fatigue reduction addons (she cant open one while pr just after à blink)

    -get that sweet midblink pallet stun (its hard but it feels good lol)

    Qnd à fiew little other ones

  • BenihimeWrath
    BenihimeWrath Member Posts: 968

    Nurse is the only killer you can run around in an open field as well, so now what?

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    While I do agree with the pallet stun even though I think it's janky asf because she doesn't get ''stunned'', the locker mind game is simply not true. The time it takes you to get out of the locker the Nurse has time to recover from her exhaustion and can swing gaining enough movement speed for you to not be able to make enough distance to make it worth. Also, even if you make enough distance, she has her 1 blink back and can catch you right after and if miraculously you make distance she gets her second blink 2 seconds after her exhaustion which doesn't give much time to do anything.

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    I really don't get what point you're making to make here. Yes you outspeed her in terms of m/s but she has blinks to catch you. If that's what you were trying to say.

  • BenihimeWrath
    BenihimeWrath Member Posts: 968

    No, thats not what I'm trying to say. Even when a nurse is very good, how good they are also becomes a weakness. Their muscle memory becomes a crutch, so just behaving a little weirdly against an excellent nurse can cause them to fail regularly due to how her power works in combination with game knowledge. Its very simple geometry even when going through walls. Presuming we are specifically talking about in chase, you know where she is, you know she has to travel a straight line to get to you, you know she gets 2 shots at blinking. You can very easily do the math in your head in such a way to continuously dodge her in the open. Something that you can't really do for any other killer because they'll just bloodlust you.

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    A good Nurse will never go in a straight line for you. She will try to go to the edge of the wall and get los like that to aim their second blink and hit you. There is no special movement you can do to make her wonder what the hell you just did if she does this technique. I do agree that with trees it's different since you can either go forward, left or right but it's still a change out of 3 that she hits you if she doesn't use her first blink properly. There is nothing about muscle memory that comes into play doing this and if you look up good Nurses of play aginst them you should know they always hit on their second blink after getting the los.

  • TacitusKilgore
    TacitusKilgore Member Posts: 1,380

    Your right, she belongs in a hospital. Its a bit weird for a trained medical professional to be wandering around in a forest or a steel mill.

  • ObscurityDragon
    ObscurityDragon Member Posts: 710

    Well i did the locker juke plenty of times to be honest

    As long as she doesnt have the quick recoverie addons, you can extend the chase, you jist gotta be à bit quick to act/react

    Most good nurses will wait to have the 2nd blink back before blinking if there is à high wall, because if they miss it they give you a lot of distance

  • Firellius
    Firellius Member Posts: 4,539

    I think their point is that the Nurse is one of about three characters that can be outplayed in a dead zone. All others will just hold W and smack you, but there's a couple of powers that can be juked, even if there's no window or pallet anywhere nearby.

    Granted, a god-Nurse will demolish you in open areas, but anything below that can be psyched out.


    I have to say, Nurse is pretty fun to go against unless it's god-Nurse. They're super rewarding to play against, and any outplay creates a ton of space and even a possible chase-drop. It's super fun to think outside the box and try to trick the killer, like rounding a corner and then stopping on the spot to bait the Nurse into trying to cut you off.

  • BenihimeWrath
    BenihimeWrath Member Posts: 968

    They don't always get the 2nd hit, if you know what they are doing, the technique they are employing, then you can dodge it. Thats the rules of the game, shes not Deathslinger where its on the deathslinger to be bad and miss. Her power takes skill, and it has adequate counterplay, you just perfectly described to me what a nurse does, so why can't you dodge? You know whats going to happen, path accordingly. If people are struggling against nurse, then they need more practice against her. If you ask me they actually need to lower the barriers of entry to nurse so there is a greater gradiation between bad and excellent nurses, giving survivors a better opportunity to practice against her.

  • landromat
    landromat Member Posts: 2,193

    Place Nurse takes skill so she's balanced comment here

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    Maybe if it's a good Nurse yes, but a god Nurse would never let your locker juke work, it simply doesn't work if she knows how to blink. My problem isn't with good Nurses, it's with god Nurses.

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    So can you explain to me how all the ''pro players'' that know how to ''counterplay'' a Nurse and Spirit aren't able to do it? Even though they know what's the Nurse's plan, they can't. Watch any tournament or any SWF ''team'' that go against a random god Nurse and they almost always get demolished with all the information in the game at their disposal. If they could counter her they wouldn't lose as often as they do.

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    In that sense, I agree that there's a better chance to make a Nurse whiff or miss her blink (granted it's not a god Nurse) than a Trapper that holds W in an open area since the only option you have is get hit and run or try to 360 and lose distance when you get hit which will probably get you killed 5 seconds after.

    I fully agree that a good Nurse is fun to play against since they don't know what's optimal. I have a lot of fun against them myself since I feel that my skills can come out and give me the possibility to survive. Also, I love that she makes you play different than a lot of killers.

    In short, I agree 100% with you.

  • BenihimeWrath
    BenihimeWrath Member Posts: 968

    Okay, but now we are comparing apples to oranges. Presumably, a tournament setting is a much more controlled environment than average gameplay. Due to that its easier to play nurse in a tournament as compared to what would be considered live settings. Furthermore using the top .1% of players to balance all of the rest of the game around is unhealthy to begin with. There are always going to be players that can push the envelope with the game engine, it doesn't matter what game it is.

    You've also brought spirit into the mix which we weren't even talking about. I agree that spirit does not have appropriate counterplay, and because of that it is very poorly engaging to go against her. I've made suggestions to this very forum of possible changes to make her power more interactive. The problem is that its difficult to ascertain the purpose of these killers. I, personally, surmise that Spirit is meant to be a first order optimal strategy when it comes to very high ranks, purple or red minimum. There are no more complicated killers that are rewarded proportionally for their skill in that are better, numerically, than Spirit, but Spirit is easier to learn in comparison. Spirit is arguably the 2nd best killer behind Nurse, when in reality she should be 5-6th, where the 5 killers above her have an enormous skill requirement to play well.

    In conclusion, Spirit should be the bottom of S tier, but only because superior killers exist above her, not because her fundamental design is the problem. Its a strong power that allows newer players to close the gap in experience with better players. Its a failure of the system around her not servicing the ultimate skill ceiling of the game.

  • ObscurityDragon
    ObscurityDragon Member Posts: 710

    The problem is that you cannot "nerf" Nurse in a way that nerfes the god Nurses without breaking the weaker ones either


    But i know.your feeling

  • Moonatique
    Moonatique Member Posts: 10

    Yeah I didn't bring Spirit to the subject for a particular reason, other than imo the top 2 killers (Spirit and Nurse) don't have any counterplay and that's why they are so high in the tier list. That's the reason they are so much better than the 3rd best killer which is, at this point, your opinion for who is 3rd.

    But let's not lie to ourselves that ''pro players'' in DbD isn't a high skill cap for survivors. I consider myself a really good player and could probably try to be a pro player if I had the interest in the competitive scene but DbD isn't made for competitive and probably will never be. I agree that balancing around the .1% isn't healthy but I think the Nurse isn't healthy to begin with since she ignores everything this game offers to survivors which work against every single other killer, for example: pallets for Wraith, Clown, windows for Blight, Billy and los for Huntress and Deathslinger. There's a reason the Nurse is stronger than Spirit, because her chase is even better since it's not a guessing game just like Spirit, for her it's a massacre.

    Also a tournament setting doesn't help a Nurse more than a regular game, it probably harms her more than anything since all survivors have all the information and know in advance they either go against Spirit or Nurse so they can bring items, perks or expect what perks the Nurse is going to bring in advance even before the game starts. That's a lot of advantages that you have BEFORE the game even started.

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,713

    You have to play differently against a bunch of killers, but at least pallets and windows, even obstacles, matter to them. Nurse just ignores it all. There's no other killer that's like that.

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,713

    If it's the corn field, then sure, because the killer literally can't see you.