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Why BHVR is so afraid to rework Nurse?

MikaelaWantsYourBoon
MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564
edited August 2023 in General Discussions

It's clear her power is so busted and there is no fair counters against her.

They can nerf her for million times but nothing will change.

They can take her all add-ons but nothing will change.

They can make her perkless killer to play but nothing will change.

Because this killer is ignoring everything core game has. No respect to pallets, ignore walls, make vaults unsafe. And ofcourse insane map mobility as well.

You nerfed Dead Hard to ground because obviously it was so op. But yet this killer is still in game after years. I think op things deserves to be nerfed only if survivors has it.

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Comments

  • Steakdabait
    Steakdabait Member Posts: 1,275

    Imma be optimistic and say it's because bhvr doesn't wanna throw away nurse players dedication and practice they put into her and not so they can just say that the game isn't pay to win because the strongest killer in the game is free

  • coco_shotz
    coco_shotz Member Posts: 249

    While the nurse is very much the most op in the right hands, it's not impossible to loop her although her add ons could use some adjusting

  • Halloulle
    Halloulle Member Posts: 1,336

    tbh since her add-on changes I find her somewhat alright. --- Though the removal of the burn mechanic kinda offsets that. She should have some additional counterplay aside from "Break LOS" - not least because theres a number of maps where its near impossible to break LOS.

  • DEMONANCE
    DEMONANCE Member Posts: 800

    you can delay her which is good enough i suppose provided you don't get a wide open map with little los blockers

    with her addons gutted i think she's in a fine spot no need to completely destroy one of the few most unique (yet rarely played) killers this game has to offer .

  • Aven_Fallen
    Aven_Fallen Member Posts: 16,270
    edited August 2023

    You cannot nerf Nurse. She can only be reworked. Because if you nerf her, she will either stay overpowered (as we see currently, she got nerfed recently and nothing has changed) OR you nerf her so hard that she really becomes useless and the weakest Killer.

    And both ways (nerfing not enough or nerfing way too much) are not really the way to go.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,839

    Probably because she is the one crutch for killers to compete with the strongest thing in the game. A fully stacked, well coordinated SWF that know exactly what they are doing. Even Blight struggles at that level.

    For casual players Nurse is way too strong though. It's kind of a dilemma. If they make Nurse more fair in general, then nothing remains to keep the strongest thing in the game in check. And you can't exactly nerf these groups either without that affecting weaker groups too.

  • Aven_Fallen
    Aven_Fallen Member Posts: 16,270

    I think two reasons:

    • They are afraid to rework her
    • They dont really know how to rework her and dont even understand the problems with her.

    Number 1 is easy - Killers would go riot if Nurse is reworked in a way that she might not be the broken Killer she currently is. Killer Mains always claim that she should be the strongest Killer because she is sooo hard to learn and that every Nerf so far gutted her. And as we can see, the Nerfs did barely anything. It is honestly a Joke at this point that Nurse, as the strongest Killer, gets away with slaps on the wrist while other Killers get Nerfs. Like, they nerfed Clown more significant than Nurse over the years...

    And second - I feel like they dont really know what are the problems and how to solve them. Because they would need to change a lot of her power to actually make it matter. You cannot just nerf Nurse and call it a day, we have seen on multiple occasions that nerfing her does not work and she will always be, without a doubt, the strongest Killer in the game. And nerfing her to an extend that she is unplayable is also not really something which should be done.

    But I feel that the Devs also dont really have a good understanding when it comes to nerfing Nurse. Like, they nerfed her in a way that her Blinks dont count as basic attacks. Which is fine. So Perks like Starstruck or Sloppy Butcher dont apply to her anymore. And in the same patch they give her a Mangled Add On. And guess what? Killers almost exclusively run this Add On because it is free Slowdown. Who would have thought?


    But it is mainly the first point. And IMO it is a problem that you basically cannot lose anymore when you are really good with Nurse and also that the effort to win against most teams you encounter is so low compared to other Killers. When I compare my time it took me to become decent with Nurse and the time it took me to become decent with Billy, Nurse is probably only a fraction of time...

  • miniwengsel
    miniwengsel Member Posts: 387

    If they change her they:

    1. cant say dbd isnt pay to win, because the best killer isnt free.
    2. need to buff all other killers, because there is no counter agument against an good swf anymore
    3. need to put time in something that doesnt earn money
    4. they need to think about a new power and addons
    5. they cant deffend they bad map design anymore

    They probebly will not change her and to be honest I dont have a problem with her. Its another playstyle to play against.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564
    edited August 2023

    I swear i am just gonna save some notes to my pc. So whenever someone tell me "Break the LoS" i can copy paste to here.

    I know. I am doing that. The point is "Break the LoS" is not good counter. It's just not enough to face with this killer. She needs more counters.

    Gosh, Trapper, the weakest killer in the game has more counters than Nurse.

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    Are we playing the same game? One of the big complaints on this forum is that maps have been adding clutter for years. Th majority of maps let you break LOS

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    Depends.

    Singularity is bad design, survivors have so much control on his power.

    But then we have Pinhead. Survivors can deny some parts of his power but even with that, he is still decent killer.

    And no, i don't want them to kill Nurse. I want fair power for Nurse which both sides can enjoy the game. For now, it's only enjoyable for Nurse.

  • Alice_pbg
    Alice_pbg Member Posts: 6,556

    but good nurses are a rare breed. and there's no real in between a good nurse and say... "I could have attacked but I pressed blink again! #########!".


    the vast majority of nurses a casual will ever see is not a good nurse. if even they even see one...

    it is a good counter. just stop running the same way all the time.

    nurse is insanely strong because of how precise she can be. and you can use it against her. give yourself as many options as possible and she will have to guess or safe blink.


    also as it was said before, stealth. a searching nurse is what you want. not a chasing one.

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    She is fair currently. I go against people who know how to counterplay her.

  • Nazzzak
    Nazzzak Member Posts: 5,637

    I don't mind Nurse, but she's hard to go against when there's isn't alot of map clutter. And so many players complain about clutter on maps, and looking at new Rancid Abbatoir it seems BHVR are in agreement. If there's no way to break line of sight then she can be quite difficult to go against in my experience.

  • Xxjwaynexx
    Xxjwaynexx Member Posts: 333

    Correction "you" can't loop her, many others can and do my guy

  • ShErMaDeRmA
    ShErMaDeRmA Member Posts: 338

    She just seems in a spot where there's no really effective way to change her without completely scrapping the killer in all important ways.

    Her add-ons can get another look ig, but she's just too...unique to change much without just getting rid of the killer. Which isn't always a bad thing tbf, looking at you Chess Merchant.

    And honestly she's not that hard to get good at. If you have a few functioning braincells, which yeah in all fairness much of dbd lacks those, she's simple enough to get the hang of, and to learn to the point of high lethality, maybe a day or two of getting into her kit.

  • dbdthegame
    dbdthegame Member Posts: 699

    Go on, tell me. Breaking LOS is literally how you loop Nurse. Zigzag through clutter, go through JGs with odd pathing, hold W at times, double back at others. Playing against Nurse is tons of fun and a breath of fresh air from something like a SM or Knight.

    Trapper, the weakest killer in the game, does indeed have more counters than Nurse, the strongest killer in the game. It's true but I don't know what it proves.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 9,222

    Name a time the burn mechanic was a good idea and didn't end being thrown on a hook. 🤣

  • JustWhimsical
    JustWhimsical Member Posts: 590

    Fr most people didn't even know how to burn her properly. It's more consistent to use a firecracker or flashbang to burn a Nurse out of her power than use the flashlight burn mechanic. It was always a terribly implemented mechanic.

    Most people make a big deal out of it because they think something huge was actually taken away, but no, it was just a mechanic that barely anyone even used in the first place, let alone know about it. Nothing of value was lost IMO with its removal.

  • JustWhimsical
    JustWhimsical Member Posts: 590
    edited August 2023

    To answer your question simply because reworking a killer in the game just because people don't like them is something that shouldn't be taken lightly it's one of the reasons why they don't rework Hag or Cenobite. Let me ask you this, why should a killer be reworked just because you do not like them? Do you want another Freddy situation where the killer dies anyway because what made her unique before just isn't there anymore?

    She is a strong killer, but to make her out to be this big issue like dead hard was where it was played in the vast majority of games is a huge overstatement. She has more comparisons with the pinnacle of swf by the way you are going with this, than dead hard, and even that isn't a fair comparison.

    You can say something is unfair or shouldn't be in the game all you want, but the devs are unlikely ever to do anything unless you can provide accurate evidence to the contrary that Nurse really is some broken, ungodly entity that lurks in the shadows, just annihilating everything because atm the strongest killers in the game are Onyryo and Skull Merchant apparently. She is pretty mixed in performance, and plenty of my matches against her have also gone that way, where sometimes I lose, sometimes I win. Even when I do play a Nurse match, my games go either way. Most Nurses in the game aren't as strong as you are leading to.

    If you actually have evidence to the contrary, though, Nurse is beyond a doubt stifling the balance of the game as well as being so absurdly op that it's comparable to dead hard, which had the most use out of any survivor perk in the game and went through 2 massive reworks and consistently became the most used survivor perk over and over again then go ahead. Because I just am not seeing this in the Nurse. She is nowhere near her prime state and is consistently one of the killers that you aren't likely to face. Please don't just give me a content creator video. I want to see actual data that puts enormous red flags that Nurse is that big of an issue because I am not seeing it.

    The thing is, Nurse is, in most regards, not really a common killer to go against, let alone one that most people genuinely know how to play or can play. Otherwise, she would be the most played killer, but for most people, she isn't as strong or consistent as others would like to make you believe. Her addons are mediocre even before the additional addon pass, though recharge and range needed to be changed. Though you are typically not going to see any addons being used besides the mangled addon and maybe the fatigue reduction addon IMO. People were making it out to be a big deal with the Jenner addon, but I don't think I have seen a single Nurse I play against use it though. I guess it's cause the sample size is pretty small over here. Though it definitely didn't take up as big of a storm as people said.

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 6,671

    Id agree with point 2 if you posted this 5 years ago

    Game is balanced enough where a good chunk of killers can still hold their own against a group

  • Raptorrotas
    Raptorrotas Member Posts: 3,248

    "Good X player too good compare to bad X players and their opponents? Better nerf X"

    If this sets an example, can we substitute X with "survivor" too? I mean good survivors run over like 25/30 of killers ez, or so i heard from sources as valid as those nurse nerf claims.

    And wouldnt it be quite hypocritical to not use the same balance Logic on all characters?

  • Zokenay
    Zokenay Member Posts: 1,158

    Until you deal with Nurses that bring aura reading, which is like all of them, specially Nowhere to Hide.

  • Melinko
    Melinko Member Posts: 291

    Nurse has one of the largest learning curves in the game. Skilled nurse players are going to roll pretty much any team but the people that can really do that are few and far between.

    Of course after one of those matches people usually think the character is OP and again in the right hands, yes she can mop up anyone but it takes a ton of practice to get to that level. She isn't just a log in and play and insta-kill. And her limitations do leave some counters, the issue for most players is countering her requires doing something different. You can't chain drop pallets and loop around shack and feel safe, nope you have to use a lot of mind games and understanding the killer. Hence why she is always being called to be nerfed.

  • Melinko
    Melinko Member Posts: 291

    How is it only enjoyable for nurse?

    Yes, she does ruin the gen rush mentality. You have to get off your gens and listen and move and actually do something different to counter her. Messing with her just takes away the one truly different killer in the game.

  • C3Tooth
    C3Tooth Member Posts: 8,266
    • 2nd blink movement time is 1sec. Her range is 12m, you can run for 4m.
    • Lung time is 1sec, her reach is 6m, you can run for 4m.

    Its not up to you to decide, its up to how good Nurse is. If they're good, no matter your choice, you get hit.

    The only chance for you to out run her lung range is she has to pause and check which direction before lung, good Nurse doesnt give you this precious time, she instantly lung post blink.


    I dont complain on Nurse because great Nurse is rare; good Nurses makes the game end fast, I dont have to endure the pain; average Nurse feels fun.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    It's enjoyable for killer player.

    Most survivors have no fun against her.

  • Archol123
    Archol123 Member Posts: 4,634

    These days it can even be argued that Blight is stronger than Nurse since her addons really don't give her that much whereas Blights addons are still busted af.

    As for the ckunterplay part most players just don't know how to do it, obviously there is stuff you can do otherwise Nurse would dominate in comp without an issue, but of course you won't get a 5 Gen chase as you could against an M1 killer... Which I my opinion isn't bad at all the game is designed to let the killer get downs eventually there is a whole lot of mechanics that suggest that, delaying the killer long enough so you can finish the gens and escape is basically the goal not stomping the killer into the ground leaving him with 0 hooks after 5-7 minutes.

  • Melinko
    Melinko Member Posts: 291
    edited August 2023

    I like the challenge. If it is one of the like 1% of Nurse players, sure it is miserable but it'll be over super quick. The next % say 9% will probably still make rather quick work of you but the average Nurse player isn't OP and honestly on certain maps is very fun to go against.

    I think most survivors don't like to get off their gen and want to rush 5 gens and exit as fast as possible, and nurse turns it into a thinking game. Personally, I love it. It isn't just the same run here, drop pallet, now run here and hurdle and loop and loop and loop..

    I'd love to see them add a trip feature so if you run while looking back for too long you trip and fall. Break up the endless loops. That is why Nurse is amazing. She forces you to play different.

  • ShinobuSK
    ShinobuSK Member Posts: 5,279

    Is this some kind of new trend making thread with "Why is BHVR so afraid of X" ?

    Just because Peanits felt like responding to one of them, doesnt mean he will to others.

    Nurse has been nerfed already. Thats all we got after many years so just accept it and deal with it. I hate that killer since forever but I came to understand how BHVR does things. Just focus on making them nerf Blight add ons and be glad Nurses range add ons are finally gone

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564
    edited August 2023

    I will take this boring, same run killers instead of Nurse. At least i will know, i am playing against fair killer. Not the busted one.

    And no, she is not amazing. She is very bad designed and terrible killer. Wish she would never exist, she is one of the reasons we have not balanced game.

  • dbdthegame
    dbdthegame Member Posts: 699

    Maybe don't stand there? Put a wall between you and her. Better yet, put multiple walls.

  • Melinko
    Melinko Member Posts: 291

    I have a question and it is not meant to be taken as anything other than just a question.

    Have you played her? I feel like a lot of times people think a killer is OP because they had a few bad run-ins with that killer. I play both sides, I wouldn't say I main either side, I just go to the side with the shorter cue or with what my mood is set too. When I find a killer tough to beat, I play that killer and learn the weaknesses and see what other survivors do against them. This allows me to find ways to counter and enjoy the match. Same with certain perks for survivors that are viewed as OP, it is about understanding the limitations.

    Nurse has limitations in the hands of anyone that isn't the top tier.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    Devs balance killers around kill rates. So the reason you don´t see her getting nerfed into oblivion is, that her kill rate isn´t particuarly high. Thats it, thats the whole reason.

    If her kill rate would show that she is as deadly as people claim, than she would have gotten a hard nerf. But this simply isn´t reflected in the stats. Also, how many years did it take the devs to nerf DS? 5 or 6?

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    Yes, i played her a lot for unlock her achievements. But now i am playing her so rarely.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    Do you remember when they refused nerf OoO cuz survivors who used it died most times.

    That's BHVR and their amazing stats.

    I don't know when they will realize they can't balance this game with looking stats because stats are not telling everything. And they can be manipulated so easily.

    Survivors was killing themself on hook against Freddy because he was one of the most hated killers. And we know how this story ended.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    Yes, i remember both things. It wasn´t the suicides that killed Freddy though, it were the disconnects on a free weekend right after Freddys release. Which also ended up bringing us dc penalties.

    I also see survivors suicide on first hook against Nurse. So even with that, her kill rate is still at a place below a nerf reason to the devs. While the stats might not be perfect and are somewhat easy to manipulate. Fact is, that the game would be in a worse state, if the devs instantly nerfed things based solely on forum feedback.

  • Halloulle
    Halloulle Member Posts: 1,336

    to keep her from chain blink? that was super useful - especially if you had someone trail. Sure, it was a skill you had to practise but we had a fl enthusiast for a while who was pretty sure to extend your chase by quite a bit by denying her a chain blink. Similar to how fl-ing away Artists birds can be super useful.

    Having cluttered maps doesn't mean you can break LOS - it mostly means janky and incomprehensible collision boxes. And I do get the impression that the complaint about clutter is more often getting stuck, have M2 collide with air and making pathing efficiently difficult. All of that is irrelevant for Nurse. Just look around a bunch of maps and see how far you can see and how many filler structures there are that can't be seen over. There aren't that many. And since most non-filler tiles (TL, four lane, pallet gym etc) have very few options for a survivor to go after breaking LOS. A predicting Nurse with some game sense has pretty much a 50:50 chance to hit with every blink - heck, in those tiles one of the most reliable ways to make her miss is to hol into a locker and pray to the ping gods. If a Nurse misses more than three blinks on you or walks you down it's just not a good Nurse.

  • DemonDaddy
    DemonDaddy Member Posts: 4,167

    Stealth still works when your accounting for aura perks and using the base mechanics provided to limit and counter them. Almost every perk has set conditions which produces a time window to take action.

    Take bbq for example; I assume every nurse is using it cause she can actually reach survivors quickly with the information. Maybe "this" nurse isn't running it, but I'm still using those lockers as a counter measure.

    Obscuring aura by hiding behind gens, using lockers, or just properly gauging distance can reduce if not eliminate aura perk effectiveness and that's all before factoring in survivor perks.

  • Sava18
    Sava18 Member Posts: 2,439

    I mean, are we talking blight with add-ons or nah? His top 4/5 in certain combinations put him ahead of nurse on some maps. Iri-tag/alch-ring blight is a pub stomper set up with no equal, that's true. But alch-ring/green speed, adren/c33, c33/green speed and iri-tag/green speed put blights potential above nurses, although that's assuming the blight is really good. Nurse just takes 5 games and 2 videos to start auto winning vs 95% of teams. Blight has no skill ceiling so there is no definite way to say nurse is stronger when including add-ons.

    I always say this: Nurse gets 85% of her power from basekit(approximately) and Blight can get a potential increase of 200%(vs really good players) - 400%(iri tag/ alch ring against far worse players) from add-ons.

    My point being that if you want to contest such a well coordinated swf it should require the amount of knowledge high level blight takes. Nurse is simply safe blink, no gambling, no mindgames, just win, unless there is some absurd luck based LoS blockers. So even if bhvr considers nurse to be a crutch to fight the 1-5% swf people rarely go against, there is already a much better and healthier supplement.

  • Sava18
    Sava18 Member Posts: 2,439

    Her learning curve is essentially nothing, even while being the highest. Her skill ceiling is probably low A tier at best. It really is just a fact that most players on both sides are terrible and thus killer players struggle to get over a curve that is easy.

  • appleas
    appleas Member Posts: 1,128
    edited August 2023

    Perhaps Nurse pick rate might be the issue? If they nerf her till the point that she’s unusable (BHVR can and will do that) and there are lots of people who play her constantly, do you think these people will just switch to main other Killers? I suspect a good bunch will just stop playing Killer as a whole.

    It’s not like they haven’t tried to change Nurse with the addon pass and m2 nerfs as well.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,839
    edited August 2023

    Oh, I don't deny that. But the vast majority of players is far from the highest level of play anyway.

    As I said for us casual and even good players, I believe Nurse to be too strong. Mainly because you get the hang of her power rather quick and don't have to step up your game again until you reach the higher levels. But that doesn't mean I would be fine if there was no tool for killers to compete on the highest level at all.

    It's a dilemma, really. Because the strongest tools are always used against the wrong people. That casual solo queue lobby that was killed by Nurse in 30 seconds after waiting 5 minutes for a game is not exactly going to sing praises for this killer. And neither will the Trapper, that lost 5 gens, his wallet and part of his soul to the survivors, that finished all gens in 3:30 minutes and then teabagged him for 2 minutes straight.

  • Thusly_Boned
    Thusly_Boned Member Posts: 2,954

    Because she's busted on a fundamental level. The only way to make her fair would be to completely change her power, and at that point you might as well just remove her.

    And can you imagine the uproar if a long time character were deleted or changed completely? Isn't gonna happen (thought it would be amazing if it did).

    Just look at it like this: games against Nurse aren't really even the same game; the killer isn't playing DBD, they're playing Nurse.

    I don't even get mad, I just switch on the autopilot and start thinking about my next game as soon as I hear that first blink. Sometimes the Nurse sucks out loud and you win, by I don't really care either way any more.

    I look at facing 4 man SWFs the same way as a killer. I don't even consider it a real match.

  • coco_shotz
    coco_shotz Member Posts: 249

    Her point is that she shuts down specific loops, she doesn't completely remove looping altogether