How Do People Feel About S Tier Killers Right Now? (Nurse, Spirit, Blight, Twins, Artist, Hillbilly)

If they do nerf billy i can see them reverting his initial turn rate back to .75 and probably make it a brown addon and probably a doom engravings nerf. But yea i think billy is in a good spot. just wish they polished him a bit in the QOL department.

I'd rather play against Blight than Billy in their current states and it takes a LOT for me to prefer a Blight match.

Personally the problem with nurse for me is the second blink range. It feels really good to outplay the nurse but no no no, here comes the second blink that covers entire shack and don't forget the lunge add-on. Promotes really safe playstyle of "oh just blink at corner every time". Just shave the range a bit and remove the lunge add-on.

Spirit is mostly fine. As long as a team plays well and spreads out, Spirit is a manageable killer to face against. The only 2 nitpicks i have is that she doesn't really have "fun" add-ons like her old lunge add-ons and that IW is such a big component in her matches. If u don't have it, it feels pretty bad to be chased by a good spirit. I wouldn't mind having the spirit realm set a fairly low audio on all survivor grunts (similar to what ace and ada have, just a bit lower) no matter if u have or don't have IW. Just to make it more possible to outplay the killer without IW.

Blight is just an outlier. Chucky got horribly nerfed as a 110 killer, meanwhile we have Blight with strong power, short cooldown and he's 115. Personally I would nerf his cooldown to 12sec, remove the shredded notes add-on and make him 110. In return add blighted crow base-kit and rework the add-on entirely.

As for Billy, he mostly needs a small add-on pass. Spiky boots add-on could be legit base-kit and some of his add-ons are just useless.

Nurse is still the strongest killer in the game. I think if she could not see auras while charging her blink attack would be a healthy nerf. Then, nerf her range and third blink addon. After that, maybe add special effect to pallets when playing against nurse that leaves more counterplay against her - kinda like Dredge and the ability to lock lockers to slow him down.

Blight: Still strong but it is difficult to nerf him in the right way. Many players say make him a 110% killer but the issue is his power and not he being a 115% killer. The only nerf could be to increase his cooldown since 10 seconds is very low compared to how strong he is - Dredge has a similar cooldown but his power is less oppressive and more limited l.

Billy is in a good spot. The only change I have is a Tweak to his overdrive: the current Overdrive feels so awkward and I wish instead of getting Overdrive by using chainsaw much (he has to use it a lot to get overdrive and then the speed feels so low), he would get it by hooking a survivor for like 20 seconds to reduce his slug potencial and to get overdrive more consistent (in this case he should also get back his old Overdrive speed).

Spirit is not an S Tier killer - She is in the healthy A Tier and Dracula, Twins, and Singularity are closer to S Tier than Spirit. Spirit is in a fair spot but could get some little QoL changes (faster recharge) and some Addons could get a rework. The only unhealthy part is the Dired Cherry Blossom Add-On but for both sides since it removes many possible counters on the survivor side and requires zero skill on the killer side.

IMO Blight, Billy and Spirit are fine as they are. Only Dried Cherry Blossoms on Spirit should be changed. Yes, they got nerfed, but the Add On is still a training wheel Add On for her and takes away all Skill needed for her, since you get such a clear indicator where the Survivor is. That it can be paired with MDR is the cherry on top, since both share the same Downside, but you basically get 25% Movement Speed Increase on top of the clear indicator where the Survivor is. (MDR on its own is completely fine after the Nerf, just with Dried Cherry Blossoms it is too much. And IMO Cherry Blossoms are the sole problem on Spirit)

Nurse however is busted and should not exist like that. It is mind baffling that a design failure like her is allowed to exist. Imagine you would have Infinites in the game. Or no Window-Blockers. Or old old BNPs. This is basically the equivalent to having Nurse still in the game as she is.

And the issue is, BHVR will never give her any significant Nerfs. (A significant Nerf for me would be that Nurse is in a Spot that not every Tier List since 2016 starts with putting Nurse at the top of S-Tier and declare her the strongest Killer without any explanation needed…). Two main issues why BHVR would not do anything to Nurse:

• The backlash. Because for some reason some people still believe that Nurse needs a lot of Skill. She has a steep learning curve, but once you got that done, she is really not that deep. Any other Killer mentioned here takes more Skill to play. And you dont need Nurse to win most of your games.
• Nurse is the perfect Killer for any P2W allegations. Whenever someone would say that a certain Killer is P2W (e.g. saying that Dracula has so much in his Kit, with the individual abilities alone sometimes better than whole Killer Powers), the Devs can just point to Nurse, say that the strongest Killer in the game is completely free and does not require to purchase any DLCs and thats it.

So yeah, aside from Nurse, all named Killers are completely fine (minus Dried Cherry Blossoms). And sadly every Nerf to any Killer besides Nurse is a Joke as long as she can exist like she does.

Someone's still stuck in 2019 cause Spirit ain't S tier.

As someone who used to main her she's nowhere near as strong as the S tier killers so she's def not S tier. She's very probably not even top 5 anymore.

He's currently everything I dislike about Blight but Stronger. Mainly the longer curve window removes most of his counterplay at loops. The generally accepted "fun" gameplay vs Billy used to be both sides accepting a higher risk/higher reward in chase. For the survivor by greeding pallets and predicting the saw. For the Billy, by going for saws instead of M1. The longer curve window makes most loops so heavily weighted to Billy that the only correct play is now just pre-dropping, and usually you can't even reach another tile before Billy catches up.

For example, running around the outside of shack vs old Billy, you turn a corner, survivor and Billy have no sight of each other. Billy starts revving before turning the corner, and both sides have to read each other. Does the survivor stay looping tight to the wall, or turn out wide? Whichever side guesses correctly wins, right?

But if you guess correctly as survivor today, you're still getting hit 80% of the time, as you watch the Billy guess wrong but correct his mistake with the longer curve window. Where is the agency for the survivor in this situation? Where's the high risk/high reward from both sides? I played it correctly as survivor, read my opponent perfectly, and it didn't matter. The same thing applies to Blight, just with only losing a single health state.

Then add some minor frustrations such as, Billy being able to end game face camp for free (rev limit was originally added for a reason) which removes an exciting game element for survivors, going back for a teammate during end game. And in general, I don't think overdrive is a healthy mechanic.

I think with the removal of hug tech blight is no longer S tier and with the addition of the sound cue with spirit she is also no longer S tier. I don't think Billy has ever been S tier. As a nurse main i think i can speak to her the most.

I can tell you she is far and away the best killer in the game and probably always will be unless she gets a complete rework. However There is a simple thing here that i also ask people in these types of threads, and fundamentally it is an important question that might not seem related to the discussion but i promise it is.

When it comes to balance for DBD, do you balance around AVERAGE skilled players, or HIGH skilled players? I'd also throw in LOW skilled players, but generally i have only ever had 1 person have that take before, usually everyone thinks its average or high skill balancing that matters, but in case you are the rare exception i'll throw it to you as an option.

To preface:

i agree nightlight data is not perfect because the data skews to more experienced players, but in this case i think the data is still relevant. Unfortunately, it is also usually the only recent public data we have.

Now, if you think the game should be balanced around AVERAGE skill players then why do you think nurse is a problem? Looking at the data on nightlight we can see the following in terms of kill rate: Nurse has a kill rate of 58.88% and the killer average is 56.64%. The devs balance around a 60% kill rate. This puts killers on average a bit below in terms of that 60% kill rate, but nurse just slightly below. I'd say anything +/- 5% is probably still within the realm of good for balance discussions. Even if you look at BHVR's published kill rates by killer, nurse is often one of the lowest if not THE lowest in terms of kill rate when looking at average level play, and usually only in the middle or slightly above average when looking at high MMR.

So based on that, nurse is showing as being "fine" if anything maybe she needs a slight buff if you balance around the AVERAGE player.

If you want to balance the game around HIGH SKILL players. Then you need to look at that data, and realize that typically unless nurse is played at the highest HIGHEST level. I'm talking the to 0.1% of nurse players, that nurse is usually only slightly above the average kill rate. And usually behind a ton of other killers. Based on that, at the highest levels of play, she is fine.

But now you need to contend with something:

• If you believe the game should be balanced around AVERAGE skill players, then nurse probably needs buffs to bring her more in line with other killers, as when looking at those stats she is often at the lowest in terms of kill rate.
• If you believe the game should be balanced around the HIGHEST SKILL players, then the nurse is also still probably fine unless we look at literally the top 0.1%, because she's still within that 60% kill rate statistic. BUT, then you contend with the fact that probably 90% of the killers are not viable at that level and need massive buffs, given that comp play has to severely handicap survivors against almost all the killers other than nurse (and still blight and spirit, but i disagree with that given their recent nerfs, comp sometimes takes time to catch up).

So TLDR: Playing against a top level nurse that can destroy teams is extremely rare, about as rare as these mythical "SWF troll squads"

Now, back to the point of your thread, i can't speak for the others very well but i can definitely speak for nurse having mained her for years and years at this point and having thousands of hours just playing her. I think she is in a mostly fine state, albeit being the strongest killer in the game, but only because of the current state of the game.

• Her blink is strong, but still has counterplay around survivors staying in the open.
• She can ignore windows and pallets, but stealthing against her is her main counterplay.
• LoS blockers can be an absolute nightmare for her to deal with when survivors are good at using them.
• At lower level play she seems to still be at least playable, giving players something to strive for.
• She's is the only killer in the game, where it is less about survivors outplaying HER, and more about HER outplaying the survivors, giving the killer ultimate skill expression.
• Every other killer is designed in a way where survivors have to make a mistake for you to do well to win, nurse does not have to rely on survivor mistakes, she just has to play better than them.
• Given her kill rate in low level play vs high level play, i think she is probably the best designed and balanced killer in that regard.

I personally think though, nurse needs a complete and total rework, BUT that rework can only happen if and when they fundamentally change the game in a way that makes it so all the other killers are viable. This isn't a, just buff all the bad killers, because all of them are bad when compared to nurse. There needs to be fundamental basekit changes to killers as a whole, so they can compete at the highest levels of play without being forced to handicap the survivors. If that ever happens, i would happily go for a rework of nurse, but since that will never happen, i think she's fine as is.

There is still a lot of counterplay against Spirit even without iron Will: if you have an item, you can drop it near a vault location to make the killer think you vaulted. You can do a uturn or spin around when you're in the open, you can also fake directions to make her make a mistake. You can also drop pallets from the wrong side. Then, once Spirit's power is on cooldown, it is on cooldown. She becomes an 110 killer which is easy to loop or to make distance/run to a stronger loop. When she has power, you can hold foreword. she is also limited in her addons: 95% of the time, it will be Rust Flute with either speed or charging - MDR is only used by experienced players due to its drawback and the fact how awful sounds can be sometimes. She also has to use her power for mobility (and this mobility is no longer as insane as it used to be or like Nurse, Blight, Billy, or Dracula have). and chase, which results in more cooldown time. If you don't use Rusty Flute, you power takes ages to come back - more wasted time.

Singularity and Dracula don't have these problems. It is extremely difficult to hold W against these killers. Dracula can easily adapt to a loop with his powers, and even when he is on cooldown, Wolfform has still a third-person view, is small, and a 4.8 killer half of the time. Bat form gives him a great map mobility while the Bamboozle addon makes this form also a great tool for chase besides just to use it to carch up. Hellfire is strong on small loops, against bodyblocking, on hooks, or just to make the survivor hesitate. Singularity has his power always available and adds a sidequest to survivors, which is always huge for them - can also make use of every M1 addon. Their addons are also much stronger and provide more variety than Spirit's ones - their addons are less niche than Spirit's ones. Much like Singularity, Twins is a very rare killer, which means survivors are often less experienced against them. A big counter against these killers is also teamwork, which makes it even more difficult since many matches are against SoloQ, and some of them are rather selfish. Both are also great at slugging, which is a strong playstyle. Twins also have a good variety of addons to hit survivors off guard or simple ones to make Victor more ooppressive.

This comment makes me guess that you don't have a lot of experiences with Spirit. Spirit has a really high skill ceiling and floor, especially in a time where sounds are so unreliable and bad in this game like never before. "Just a good head set" is such a basic answer that is simply not true. A good headset does not make you a good spirit player - its like saying crosshair makes you an insane Huntress player.

Idk, but it's a really based behave without any deepness.

i don't have any issue countering her and having decent long chases against Spirits so I think that may be a skill issue on your part. Even most 10k+ hours dbd content creators don't put Spirit in top 5 anymore on their tier lists as they realized that she doesn't belong to S tier.

Dropping the item has an extremely similar sound like a slow vault and can work. Same when starting to pick up a pallet with AMN. Mindgames like these work to confuse the Spirit player and still better than giving up when you have nothing.

Downvotes make sense for people who are overwhelmed with facts that don't fit into their small world, especially when their comments would have the same "quality" like yours.

Also please don't tell me you think Artist is S-Tier or why do you listed her next to Nurse, Blight, and Twins?