A Proper "Nerf Nurse" Thread

Special Attacks:

This is kind of a no-brainer. I'm not sure what the hold up is here. It's not even that Starstruck Nurse lacks counterplay. It's that you end with a really slow and boring game when survivors do actually counterplay it (happens like, 1 out of 100 times, but still). You'll see survivors like myself running clear across the map the second a survivor goes down on their half of the map, and then they'll wait out the exposed timer before moving. It's a slog. It's either busted synergy if the killer is actually good at the game and the survivors don't play around it, or a really boring and slow game if the survivors do choose to play around it.

Pallets:

I have some issues with the talking points around pallets with Nurse. They aren't your first line of defense against Nurse. They aren't even your second line of defense against Nurse. It's akin to saying hammers need changes because they aren't good at taking out Philips head screws. You have some time during the stun window to make some distance. Losing both tokens is a bit harsh for any Nurse not running recharge add ons.

Reduced TR/Lullaby:

I feel like that would be way too strong in the killer's favor. The biggest part of Nurse's counterplay is distance. Survivors are already insanely bad at making distance for whatever reason with a directional 32m TR. 75% of survivor's problems against Nurse come down to not running early enough. I feel like reducing her TR would impact that even more.

Special Attacks: In my opinion, the best suggestion I heard was making the lunge after Blink a third type of attack. That way, if perks like Starstruck are too powerful on Nurse, then they can be adjusted to not work while still allowing access perks such as Sloppy Butcher.

Pallets: I don't really have an opinion. Using a pallet against Nurse makes as much sense against a Huntress that can hit accurately with hatchets. I don't see pallet stuns happening that often and most likely just giving the Nurse an easy hit. If it were pulled off, should it get an extra reward? No opinion either way

Reduced TR + Lullaby: Unnecessary if the Blink lunge is a third type of attack. The TR would probably still be helpful at 32m for survivors since people should become cautious as soon as they hear the TR.

They ARE a third type of attack.

There are three attack types; Basic, Special, and Sub Basic.

Sub Basic attacks are a sub group of basic attacks given additional properties. Nurse's has a unique modifier to her lunge speed due to her low base movement speed, but otherwise entirely emulate a basic attack. Other examples include Legion's Frenzy, Pig's Dash, and Slinger's reel into M1.

Perks only acknowledge two types. Special and Basic, so Sub Basic attacks tend to be caught in the middle, unsure exactly which to be considered. That's why Pig's and Legion's were basic and changed to Special, and Nurse's and Slinger's remain basic.

Special Attacks:

Turning the nurse's basic attack into a special attack will prevent her from using certain skills like Sloopy Butcher, Jolt, Knock Out, Franklin's Demise, NOED, etc.

Apart from NOED which is really a rather aberrant skill in itself, especially with the nurse, there is no reason to deprive the nurse from using the other skills.

Pallets:

What about the nurses who get knocked out with a paddle when they are just walking, and not teleporting?

In addition, when a nurse is currently knocked out by a pallet in the middle of a teleportation, she is already getting tired and needs to recharge her teleportation token(s) that she just used. 

Reduced Terror Radius + New Lullaby:

Preventing the nurse from using Starstruck is simple: just reduce her terror radius to 1m when she carries a survivor.

This would not make her more dangerous at all, because while she is carrying, she cannot teleport or perform charged attacks.

So there is no problem if her terror radius is almost non-existent during this phase.

Indeed, survivors do not need to hear the nurse to know where she is when she picks up the survivor; the survivor's aura is clearly visible on the ground and disappears when the killer picks him up. And even with Knock Out, they can still pinpoint the nurse's approximate location by listening for her terror beam before it disappears.

Well I genuinely appreciate this balanced outlook, because it's genuinely like something I think a lot of people can get behind besides I guess the more extreme people. As I am one of the people who is fine with any nerfs to the genuinely too strong aspects of Nurses kits and unfair perk combinations like starstruck. It was honestly a little disheartening to see how lopsided all these discussions were in the past and still are, so I'm glad there are people like you on the forum. Cause all the negativity is really not fun to interact with nevertheless discuss with in the first place.

I would rather that wasn't the case if im being honest, I kind of despised the extra blink addons as they were always meme addons in my opinion, so please don't make Nurse have to use 5 blinks to get around cause just imagining playing as Nurse and hearing the screeching sound 3x more as you try to get around is already annoying as it is. :c

They should have just made the constantly screech spam from the can't blink bug back before they finally fixed it basekit as nobody would play Nurse if their eardrums explode.

As a "Proper Thread" I agree with this nurse nerf idea.

Because it is specific and clear about the reasons and rationale.

"Regarding Blinks for a second, I'm not sure why so many people respond to that by saying she'd have no way of using Basic Attack perks with that change, because... yeah? That's the goal?"

There is no problem with the nurse being able to use Sloopy Butcher, Gold K.O., etc. These are not perks that turn her into a weapon of mass destruction.

Only NOED becomes abused when in her hands (but generally speaking, it is NOED himself who should leave the game).

Regarding the "Exposed" status, there is no need to deprive the nurse from using the perks that include it.

Except for Starstruck (but the solution is simple: TR of 0 when carrying a survivor), the Exposed status does not really need to be removed from the nurse's possibilities.

There are 9 skills that work with the Exposed status.

If we remove NOED and Starstruck, which I agree with (but whose problem could be solved without changing the nurse's attack), there are 7 left.

Out of these 7, only Devour Hope is really dangerous, because it affects everyone, in addition to generating a totem that is sometimes very well hidden.

Dragon's Grip / Make your choice / Haunted Ground can be avoided by hiding until the malus disappears.

Hubris requires to knock out the nurse with a paddle, so it happens very rarely (or on baby nurses who don't know the maps).

Iron Maiden : besides the fact that, technically, once the first survivor is exposed, everyone can potentially have the information, and thus avoid going into a locker, this skill is only moderately effective with the nurse, as it is extremely situational, even if it can surprise survivors who are used to hiding in a locker to avoid the teleported attack and get out of the locker while the nurse is tired

Rancor: if the nurse has already killed the obsession during the game, the skill becomes useless (unless coupled with others allowing to change the obsession); and if the obsession is still alive, she had the whole game to understand that it is Rancor and therefore sneak in endgame.

Make your choice can become very dangerous if coupled with Floods of Rage, but this is only one of hundreds of combos.

I like OP's suggestion and would be very happy if 1, and 2, got implemented (3, is a bonus that I don't really need).

If these things were not very acceptable, then I would go for alternative solution - make nurse 105% killer when not using power, but make her effective speed when using ability at most 120% killer. Meaning prolong these actions: ability charging speed, blink speed, after blink speed, fatigue time and token recharge time (including that token recharging starts after fatigue finishes) - that overall average time will at most be 120% (or 4.8m/s). When you think about it, 120% speed is already pretty fast - even more so, because she can ignore elevation and all the other things, that block any other killer - so she would still be quicker then most killers.

The only real problem is Starstruck and eventually NOED, the latter being a perk that all killers could honestly do without.

It is very easy to prevent the nurse from using Starstruck, by changing her TR when transporting a survivor. No need to touch her basic attack.

However, a modification could allow some killers to be up without affecting the nurse, and that, however, would be interesting.

Let's take the example of Jolt, who has a range of 32 meters.

Now let's imagine that we create, in addition to basic attacks and special attacks, a third type of attack (which already exist somewhere), teleported attacks, which would only be specific to post-blink attacks. Let's call this new type of attack "M3".

This would allow Jolt to be up for all the other killers, while keeping him as he is for the nurse; example :

- Jolt caused by an M1: 40m range

- Jolt caused by an M3 : 32m range

As for NOED, in order for the nurse not to be able to use it anymore, it would be enough to code the status "Exposed" as follows:

AS LONG AS [exposed status] occurs when there are 3+ unrepaired generators left on the map

THEN [exposed status] can be triggered by an M1 or an M3

IF [exposed status] occurs when there are 2- unrepaired generators left on the map

THEN [exposed status] can be triggered by an M1 only

I disagree that those two are the only problems, as Make Your Choice and Haunted Grounds (+ Retribution) are both very strong on Nurse, but even assuming that it is only Starstruck-- even after you fix that perk, you still have the problem that no Exposed perk can ever be very good or it'll be broken on Nurse.

Returning back to at least five of the Exposed perks (MYC, Haunted, Devour, Starstruck, kinda-sorta NOED) being a problem on top of future Exposed perks also being a concern, is it not just much simpler to make the Blink attacks Special Attacks? That neatly solves the current problem and future-proofs Nurse against problematic perk synergy in the future.

There is the mild potential issue of perk synergy, but realistically, only a handful of basic attack perks are any good and at least two of them have already been translated into standard addons for many killers - Sloppy Butcher and Franklin's Demise - so there's no reason Nurse can't get the same treatment there.

You don't have to overcomplicate this with a third type of attack, you can just tweak Nurse to be in line with every other killer. Not using basic attack perks is a tiny price to pay for the strongest and most oppressive power in the game.

That's not the way to go cause every killer should be able to use every perk. Sure some killer are better with perk x the other killer but they can still use them. Nurse with m2 blinks can't use any m1 perks cause she is to slow. And I think that will start a very unpleasant chain reaction cause it's bound to start why can killer x use perk x why can he use perk y bla bla bla you know what will happen. At that point we can just get rid of perks that's ctually do something. I can already see how the very next thing would be people wanting the same for hag after teleport

Would be all for that I love playing with matchbox cause I suck with normal nurse but I love the esthetic of her but a Iri addons in nothing I can regularly drop