Today I Realized Something About the Doctor

For a little while now, I've been taking any chance I could to share my recent discovery that the Doctor's Terror Radius determines the range of Static Blast, but not its effectiveness. Or, summed up in 5 words, Static Blast Hits Oblivious Survivors. The Doctor's power descriptions even specifically states that "Shock Therapy/Static Blast negates the Oblivious Status Effect, shocking Survivors suffering from it."

At first I took that to mean that it removed the Oblivious effect upon being shocked, but testing in custom games confirmed that to not be the case. I've also had people note the inconsistency compared to other killers with Terror Radius based powers, like the Legion. However, a separate conversation had me realize what the difference may be and why the Doctor is set up this way: it's the Doctor's add-ons.

Specifically the Discipline and Calm add-ons. Discipline's effect causes the Survivor to be effected with the Red Stain and a Terror Radius as if the Doctor were right behind them while they are in chase and for 6 seconds after leaving chase. Calm, meanwhile, causes an intermittent (Tier 2) or constant (Tier 3) Terror Radius regardless of whether the Doctor is around them or not.

I think that's the key. Though this doesn't matter for Shock Therapy as much as Static Blast, the Doctor's shocks can hit Survivors even though they're Oblivious because, otherwise, these add-ons have less of an effect once their Madness tiers up. They'll still have their Shock Therapy detonation and Terror Radius-altering effects, but the Madness effects are lost. I also tested this in custom matches and confirmed a sufficiently Maddened Survivor will still experience the Madness effects of Discipline and Calm, even if Oblivious.

I'd used Discipline as my add-on of choice in this build because of its "move the Red Stain onto the Survivor" effect that, from the Survivor's point of view, removes it from the Doctor. I don't think that will change, since a Survivor hearing my Terror Radius during chase doesn't really affect anything one way or the other, since you typically don't Static Blast in chase (current Rift Challenge notwithstanding) and the Survivor already knows your there. Its value lies in the Red Stain removal. I tried different add-ons for my second, and may now opt to leave Calm out of it, though part of me likes the idea of the confusion wrought by hearing a Terror Radius despite Obliviousness.

In any case, this was an interesting little thing I thought might be worth sharing.