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Nurse: unerfeable menace

Livion
Livion Member Posts: 162

Nurse is the undisputed strongest killer.

I don't see many of them but when I do I either face a bad nurse or I face god himself.

And it got me thinking "are there any plans to nerf her or do we just assume she is the best?", that's basically it I jus wanted to know if there where any plans to nerf or rework her

Comments

  • LeFennecFox
    LeFennecFox Member Posts: 1,292

    Uhh that already happened

  • OneGoodBoyDemo
    OneGoodBoyDemo Member Posts: 421

    l agree, nurse is a shell from the past and there's no reason for her to remain in this state for modern DBD.

    She needs changes, but I hope not now. other killers deserve more attention, like Freddy for example.

  • I_CAME
    I_CAME Member Posts: 1,306
    edited April 21

    I don't know why people think she isn't going to get nerfed. Look at how frequently Behavior has been changing killers as of late. She is going to get nerfed eventually and it's really just a matter of time. People said Blight would never get nerfed and now a lot of high level Blight players are saying he is no longer S tier. I feel like they will eventually run out of killers to rework and then she will be changed. If they can rework Sadako so many times then they can rework nurse. I am going to go ahead and predict that she is significantly nerfed within the next 6-12 months.

  • LeFennecFox
    LeFennecFox Member Posts: 1,292

    nurse is still #1 at least in your average game on larger maps though billy is just superior in every way

  • JustWhimsical
    JustWhimsical Member Posts: 590

    Honestly if they do nerf her again it will be the day Nurse dies as her addons besides like 4 are all terrible, perk selection is terrible ever since they made the special attack change, and there is a gaping hole between 0k and 4k. like at least with blight his kit is great and addons being amazing made him broken.

    Nurse is hardcore carried by her kit, this may not look bad, but it's especially volatile to the degree I honestly think any harsh change would kill her for good. I get that might be amazing for some people, but honestly it sucks cause she is genuinely a very unique killer, even if I only really played on ps4 console I did p100 her because I enjoyed her gameplay.

    Don't shade me on that as I started playing her when she was the worst killer to play on console lol so it was never about her being #1 I just played her simply for her concept, teleporting killer is just cool concept. Also fun chase power.

    This may be a nuclear take, but balance wise after her addon nerfs and special attack change she isn't that bad even if you copium and say that a lot of new players are playing her, I do genuinely think she is a killer with plenty of weaknesses that do push her from being as broken as people insist she is. I also really hate when people bring up peak Nurses while avoiding talking about peak survivors since people don't like to balance around peak survivors, but feel fine to say Nurse is overpowered because of how strong the best Nurses are.

  • JustWhimsical
    JustWhimsical Member Posts: 590

    Well if you were around when Nurse got nerfed I think all the blight mains realized blight would be nerfed, it just took longer than expected lol, but it's a bit strange to bring that up cause when they did the addon pass and special attack changes this was already discussed a lot that blight was next.

    I think most people are just wondering why she needs a second nerf because of how hard the special attack changes and addons hit her, most people like to brush it off as oh it hardly effected her, but she lost range and recharge which were her 2 best addons and just randomly hit a lot of addons that never needed a nerf in the first place which was funny, but also sad cause they are now even more dead addons.

    Also I think a lot of people were crying wolf about a lot of things back then regardless, especially on Jenner's addon which was a reworked addon people thought every reworked Nurse would use, but it's hardly ever used. People just clickbaited it and pretended like it would be as good as range or recharge, which it doesn't even come close to in power it's just a gimmick same as the Campbell addon.

    I do however think that if the nerf is as hard hitting as the special attack change or addon pass was it does threaten to make her hag level where good in some cases, but not something people enjoy playing not to doompost or anything, but if you have played Nurse any changes to her power in particular are extremely volatile since they frontloaded her kit so much.

  • SoGo
    SoGo Member Posts: 1,367

    The only nerf she could get (except a complete power rework) is bringing Lightburn back.

  • MagicJoe
    MagicJoe Member Posts: 15
    edited April 21

    The main issue with Nurse is that she's just too unique from all the other characters, which is (probably) why BHVR takes their time to balance her. She's super strong now, but if she ever gets more substantial nerfs to her power she could very well end up the worst character in the game, since by the default she's slower than a survivor's running speed, a game-changing trait that only she has.

    And you might say "well, just rework her so she's more like the other characters." which, while it will allow her to be more balanced, it will also remove the appeal of Nurse, aka how unique she is.

    In essence, it would be a repeat of what happened to Freddy (unique character that was too hard to balance, therefore got reworked entirely so he's closer mechanically to the other characters). That's the main reason (I think) she's never touched too much.

    Imo, they could add a new mechanic for survivors to deal with her power, in a similar fashion to the EMPs and the flame turrets, that would still give the killer some way to counter. Maybe survivors can get an item to hit her with that they have to aim (similar to how the snowballs worked in the event) to stun her out of her power. That way there's some skill expression for survivors (having to aim and time the attack to stun the killer) and the Nurse (having to time her power and teleport in such a way to dodge the attack) that could make her more balanced and interesting while still keeping her uniqueness.

  • Yharwick
    Yharwick Member Posts: 521

    I think Cote said in an interview not that long ago they're fine with Nurse being busted because of her learning curve which is kind of a cop out tbh because she's not that hard to learn, she's possibly not even top 3 hardest to learn. I genuinely think BHVR thinks rebalancing her would be too hard so they just decided not to.

  • SuperMunchkin95
    SuperMunchkin95 Member Posts: 136

    The way I look at it nurse doesn't need a nerf. She's definitely powerful but I see it as MKX, with a balanced experiences, both sides have a good chance to win, but if it is unbalanced, then I believe you create a situation where the mechanics aren't the problem. The killer roster is growing, with that being said, I believe that there's a room for every playstyle. Not everyone wants to get dominanated, but there's some who wants to play more aggressively and who play to win, for nurse to have a "hard to learn, harder to master" fits perfectly with the others.

    To say it simply, nurse isn't an effortless killer, her power may be powerful, but it isn't like there's NO WAY to get around it... it just requires more knowledge whether side your playing on.

  • Aven_Fallen
    Aven_Fallen Member Posts: 16,285

    Her learning curve is pretty steep because you cannot use her as an M1-Killer with many other Killers (e.g. you dont need to know how to rush with Blight or how to use a Chainsaw with Billy, you can still use those abilities only for mobility and do your chases with M1s… This is not possible with Nurse).

    But yet Killers like Billy or Blight are far more difficult to play as Nurse. Because once you learn her, she is not that hard.

  • Neaxolotl
    Neaxolotl Member Posts: 1,477

    Honestly I believe she will not be nerfed because she isn't as good as people believes, she isn't fast, her chase is 100% guess game (basically RNG), and will be hard countered by simple stealth

    It was different when she had range addons which made her faster, but not in today

  • Withered8
    Withered8 Member Posts: 1,241

    Yeah so those killers like spirit, blight, billy, singularity, unkown, plague, hag, twins you just have to play exactly the same against as eachother definitely…

  • Sava18
    Sava18 Member Posts: 2,439

    Her power is poorly designed. If she was the hardest killer it could somewhat warrant her strength but she's not.

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400

    Nurse should be nerfed purely for the plethora of things in the game that make the rest of the roster / perks worse simply because of how strong she is. Balancing maps and perks would be so much easier for them if they didn't have to account for a killer that literally breaks the fundamentals of the game.

  • Dinoraptus
    Dinoraptus Member Posts: 254

    I really don't beef with Nurse, I think her game play is unique and interesting, like Nurse games can be really fun even if she is good.

    I do however dislike how she interfaces with perks, the idea of her essentially causing perks to be changed due to them being too strong on her is annoying and not really fair for the other killers that abide by the rules of the game. For that reason she is a problem. 4 slowdown Nurse is ridiculously oppressive obviously, but even a full aura no slowdown Nurse can feel the same if she is just seeing you constantly and cooking you in chase, blinking on top of you because it is impossible to break LOS.

    Nurse on her own isn't a problem, it is just the game around her. But you also can't say like, alright Nurse; no perks, no addons, that isn't really fair either. I honestly have no clue what to do to her to keep that uniqueness but also put her in line with everyone else, the thing that makes her unique is that you have to play against her power in a completely alien way.

  • Krazzik
    Krazzik Member Posts: 2,475
    edited April 26

    She did get some important nerfs that she did need; not being able to benefit from exposed perks, and changing her range(+speed) addons did need to be done, but yes everyone knew she would still be by far the strongest killer even after those changes.

    The issue is though, how would you nerf her without just making her slower and clunkier? Making it take longer to charge blinks, increasing fatigue times or just getting rid of her second blink altogether would just make her less fun to play and even more punishing for newer players than she already is. It would take even longer to learn her, and guarantee even more 0k games before you started getting good with her, and even if you DID make her a lot slower, really good Nurses would still get a hit out of every blink and still be as annoying to go against, it would just be a 4k at 4 gens instead of 5 gens.

    Making stuns remove her blink charges so she has to charge them again, thus making stuns more punishing for her (+ Blight) is a good idea I've seen, but that's not gonna have a big effect really.

  • Reinami
    Reinami Member Posts: 5,531

    Why would they nerf the killer with the lowest kill rate in the game?

  • Marioneo
    Marioneo Member Posts: 808

    Nurse is extremely unfun to go against even more than Skullmerchant her "Uniqueness" is just ignoring every mechanic and counterplay survivors have against normal killers. Imagine if Devs made a map that had No pallets No vaults the map was a complete deadzone thats what its like going against a Nurse there is no playstyle and people don't respect her

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,384

    The thing that would be nice about a Nurse rework would be all the janky balancing features, such as yanking her head down, can be removed.

    Whatever would be done to limit her power, it frees up the removal of the parts of her that make her a pain to play.

  • JustWhimsical
    JustWhimsical Member Posts: 590
    edited April 27

    So, calling Nurse's nerf a "slap on the wrist" is a pretty big understatement. Let's break it down. Before, Nurse had synergy with 13 perks, but after the 6.5.0 update, that synergy is gone those perks all being unusable. Plus, many new perks added after content updates either don't work with her or don't work well with her either because her basic attacks are now considered special attacks.

    So, players are left with very few viable perk options. On top of that, several addons that weren't even good were nerfed alongside her two strongest sets: Range and Recharge, which were definitely overpowered. Saying it's just a "slap on the wrist" feels like a gross oversimplification.

    Stop trying to downplay the impact of the changes. If anything, it feels like some people just want Nurse to be nerfed even further until she's basically unplayable. And let's not forget the addon situation. After the mid-chapter nerfs, Nurse has ended up with some of the worst addons choices out of any killer in the game. Out of 20 addons, only about 4 or 5 are actually worth using now. And even the ones they buffed still don't come even a little close to the power of either Range and Recharge so the whole hysteria on those buffed addons being a actually a buff to Nurse was clickbait.

    So, where exactly is this being just a "slap on the wrist" in all of this? If we keep going down this path, we might as well just slap another nerf on her power until she's completely underwhelming. Maybe make her unable to use her power for a minute after downing a survivor, or take away her aura-reading ability so she can use even fewer perks. At this rate, we might as well make her heal survivors, since she's a nurse, right?

  • Vlarian
    Vlarian Member Posts: 165

    Nurse is perfectly fine atm, shes incredibly hard to play and mistakes cost her the game

  • Livion
    Livion Member Posts: 162

    Well... Maybe nurse isn't that bad after all, after reading the many comments here I am fine with her being the best considering the skill expression and the fact the counterplay actually works

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400

    Nurses difficulty is vastly overrated. Blight, Billy and Huntress are much harder to play and have way more depth than Nurse does.

  • H2H
    H2H Member Posts: 753

    maybe if they nerf her a tenth time survivors will finally be happy

  • Sandt1985
    Sandt1985 Member Posts: 350
    edited April 27

    The Nurse has already been nerfed over and over and over. She lost the ability to have more then two blinks. She lost her range addons. She lost her ability to use basic attack perks. Her addons have been nerfed into the ground.

    Just say what you want. You want Nurse to be loopable. Just be honest

  • THE_Crazy_Hyena
    THE_Crazy_Hyena Member Posts: 357
    edited April 28

    The main issue with Nurse is that she does not have to abide to the game's rules at all, being able to phase through anything (essentially a form of no-clipping). This is why she is near impossible to properly balance, without making her too weak or too strong. In other words: There is no balanced middleground for Nurse with her current power.

    But she does have unique ways for counterplay, that no other killer does, which in some situations makes her really fun to verse.

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    I’d love to see footage of you playing her on Leary’s

  • jmwjmw27
    jmwjmw27 Member Posts: 438

    Nerf count for nurse does not matter. Survivors have been nerfed every year several times since the game's inception, and they still have things that are way too strong. Since they have already been nerfed does that mean we can't nerf them again? Of course not.

    As for killers with respected powers even against the top players, see:

    • Ghostface (survivors on indoor maps hold checkspots as they have to respect not knowing where the ghostface is, and have to play around stalk. See the recent Spring invitational by Hens to see how badly a match went for the survivors when they hopped on gens before knowing where Ghostface was.)
    • Oni and Plague (comp survivors will actively stealth these powers if they can because of how strong they are)
    • Blight/Billy (forces good positioning near objects)
    • Huntress (holding hatchet while camping allows complete control of some areas that you must respect)

    It is fine and arguably even good to have powers that survivors have to play around and respect. What I at least personally do not think is fine, is the fact that all game mechanics are ignored against nurse and the counterplay in chase is minimal and boring. Vaulting windows or dropping from heights without a specific perk is always a bad play. Pallets are useless ever since the stun + fatigue fix. Niche slowdowns like champion of light and the steam on the Alien map do nothing as Nurse's power is teleporting. The way you chase against nurse is shift+W away from teammates, and break LOS because when she can see you she will always hit you if she blinks safe and is good. The only true counterplay is when you have enough distance from the nurse AND are behind an object, where you can 50/50 where you go and hope the nurse guesses wrong. When you're close enough, safe blinks mean that even that counterplay does not exist. And all the Nurse needs is one of several aura reading perks to eliminate all counterplay completely, like nowhere to hide, lethal, or floods of rage, and this is why Alf ran aura reading perks in his world record Nurse winstreak.

  • JustWhimsical
    JustWhimsical Member Posts: 590

    So what do you want? Do you want Nurse to not be able to run Aura reading perks at all so you are even more constricted perk wise? Like what is the endgame here for people who dislike Nurse, because currently after the special attack change perk wise regression or aura reading are the perks you should use.

    If you block aura reading on Nurse it will make regression the only consistent perks to utilize for Nurse, honestly it would have been much better if they simply given Nurse a lullaby instead of making her basic attacks special attacks because she now suffers from the issues that she had when they applied that nerf before.

    I know that Nurse is a top tier killer, but any more nerfs genuinely have the ability to turn her into actually the weakest killer in the entire game. Because her main strength is her chase power, if you make that weaker or remove synergy with aura reading perks, it will flat out make EVERY Nurse weaker not just the top tier Nurses, not every Nurse is as good as the top ones. Not everyone plays like Alf does.

    I am genuinely worried that if people call for another nerf and it happens, it might actually be the one that kills her, mainly due to how volatile she is as a killer where she is either strong or she is weak, no middle ground. If you rework her power you just do another Freddy situation where people feel like they lost their main, if you nerf her power she will become too weak, if you keep her how she is, people will complain.

  • jmwjmw27
    jmwjmw27 Member Posts: 438

    I am well aware that nurse is in a delicate spot balance wise. It is difficult to come up with a change that would help make her less OP at the higher level without destroying beginners, which is why I did not propose any changes in my post.

    Personally, I think a full rework to change her into a completely different character is the only viable solution.