Which balance mechanic would be the best for Nurse?

Thread i made on this subject a while ago

The tldr is basically i think she needs a counter built into the trials, in a similar vein to how enomorph, singularity, wesker/nemi etc all have their own counter items.

What is your perspective on @HoodedWildKard's take? Not necessarily the exact mechanics as described in the thread, but the concept of an additional objective to limit her power?

I agree with this. In my opinion, nurse's power is fundamentally broken and needs a rework.

How a rework could look like? I dont know, but ive seen a lot of interesting concept over the years. One I liked was that, she could only injure with her first blink but has higher movement speed.

If a simple rework doesnt do it, then scrapping the idea of going through objects entirely might be the way.

Do you think numerical changes might ever be enough for her? TBH, Nurse is one of the killers i enjoy the least to go against - specially if a master Nurse main - but i wouldn't like her to be nuked or reworked into a much weaker and generic killer.

I've always said, make a version of the Spasmodic Breath add-on basekit. This would keep her more or less the same for blinks, give her a reason to use chase perks, and make her more fun to play against for the average person while also nerfing her.

It won't ever happen, but that's the change I'd love to see if they ever changed her. I don't really have too much of an issue with her though.

" I for one am personally in favor of reworking the nurse, but i also think that the fundamental base mechanics of the game need to change to start making the FUN parts of DBD the actual rewarding parts and to start eliminating the unfun parts. But if you rework the nurse because you accept that she is "too strong in the hands of a high level player" then you must also by definition, handle "survivors who are too strong in the hands of a high level player" and the fact that at the highest levels of play, there are maybe 5 viable killers."

Completely agree with you. BHVR should really looks at how unfun the game has become at high level, specially when survivors want to bring the strongest stuff they can. To complement your example, the 15s BT was probably thought to low level players who just want to run in a straight line from the killer but…. in almost all of my matches i get one or two body blocks midchase from someone using their extended basekit BT, specially if they have other powerfull perks or are in a team. So a mechanic create to stop tunneling is weaponized to gain an unfair advantage against the killer, even when the killer is not tunneling.

I think Nurse and Blight (although he was nerfed recently) are kind of a "necessary evil" due to the game current state. They are the only killers that can go against a competent full SWF with meta perks. To be honest, even medium skilled SWF with the meta (Toolboxes, DS, DH/Sprint/, Vigil, Shoulder the Burden, Resurgence) can be trouble for most of the killers. I play for fun with friends and when we decide to go full meta matches barely last 7 minutes, even against some decent killer players.

I'm pretty sure they released kill rates more recently than that, they just don't do it the same way anymore

This still fails to address why killer should win all of their games at a high level and why the best survivors should always lose at the highest level.

If you can master a killer and stand a fair chance in most of your games comp or otherwise (this is the currently reality,) then there is no reason for any killer (character) to be as oppressive as nurse and blight are.


Mind you, the strongest swf's still haven't even come close to the strongest kill streaks.

I think its not the point. I don't think those who complain about high level want killers to have a 100% winrate. Most of them must play survivor some time. The discussion is that all of us want a fair chance with the majority of the killer roster when going against a good team - asking for ALL KILLERs being good i believe is impossible.

Is just that at high level the power imbalance between killer and survivors is too great. Even good killer players will struggle a lot against the meta if they aren't playing the 5 most strong killers of this game.

"Mind you, the strongest swf's still haven't even come close to the strongest kill streaks. " Yeah, but winstreaks are more about bad MMR than game balance itself. Momo took a 4man out in his last loss, as he did the first time he lost. Also, its strange how the highest survivor winstreak for a long time wasn't even the one using the best thing available for them in the moment, since they were handicapped by not being able to bring items or repeat perks.

Verticality bink rework.

maps verticality is ruined because of this killer, only killer that can directly teleport vertically exactly how they want.

other killers cant ignore verticality like her. Freddy has to teleport go to gens and gets cooldown spring trap has to use doors.

Drac bat form can only go to vault locations.

I would love to see something limit Verticality blinks on maps such as RPD, Midwich and Gideon where she can really just stomp because the game also spawns nurse specific 3 gens because its not spawning gens based on if the killer can just go directly through the floor/ ceiling. even with teleport killers like singu you can use emp and force them to walk to location.

Her power ought to work like the Oni.

She should start as a 115% M1 killer that cannot blink while Spencer's Last Breath charges up through various in-game events like scoring a hit, getting stunned, getting blinded, a generator completion, a hook/unhook, etc, until the power is fully charged.

The Nurse activates her power, is reduced to 90% movement speed and can then blink for the duration of the power timer which can be extended through the same events that initially charge it, but at a reduced rate.

The balancing bottleneck that the nurse causes in this one-size-fits-all system has been a problem for all the other killers for long enough.

The problem with being able to remove nurse's power is unlike the other killers, she's slower than survivors. The still have to loop a xeno even after a successful flamethrower. The chase is just over if nurse cant blink.

Nurse was release in a moment this game was a chaotic mess. Most of the maps had infinites, survivors could heal almost instantly, exhaustion perks were stronger and based on cooldowns, not exhaustion, BNP were stronger, etc etc.

Her design philosophy comes from a time were the game was completely unbalanced. Too bad they couldn't adapt her to modern dbd.

Fundamental game mechanics dont need to change before Nurse gets reworked or nerfed. They also didnt need to change before Blight got nerfed.

Do they have to eventually change, yes. Coordinated survivor teams with no weak links are too strong for a majority of the roster.

However, Nurse is not the be all and end all of killers. Reworking her before changing survivor will not make the game unplayable all of a sudden. At least not more than it already is.

Which rules does she supposedly ignore?

"Moving through walls" ?well we have many teleporters by now.

She doesnt hit people through walls btw. Thats tule is broken by many others

Blindness when charging power and reducing the range of the second blink to 10m.

If this does not put her more in line with other killers, then tweak power cooldown accordingly.

Simply make her power work like Oni's.

She gets charges in some way (nomal movespeed, no blink) and when she activates her power, she becomes the nurse we've always known for a set amount of time (slow, but able to blink).

Simple, isn't it?

But you still miss the point, even at "high mmr" nurse is often the lowest kill rate killer in the game. So at what point to you is "nurse a problem" it appears to me with the data that nurse only becomes a problem when the hands of like a comp level player. Which whenever balance discussions come in, i am reliably informed that comp players should not be considered for balance discussion because they aren't playing normal queues.

But if you look at the statistics of the middling levels like you are talking about and they show that she has the lowest kill rate, then clearly there is something going on here.

But that is PRECISELY MY POINT.

If it means that she is "not easy to weaponise" that by definition is going to likely fall in the hands of a high skilled player who has played thousands of hours. And when balance discussions come in, i am reliably informed that we must ignore those types of players because they are so rare and that survivors aren't a problem because most players aren't like that.

MY POINT is that if you hold that belief, then BY DEFINITION you must hold that belief for killers as well, and if you do not, than you are biased. If you DO NOT hold that belief and truly believe that nurse is a problem (btw i agree with you again as a nurse main with thousands of hours) then BY DEFINITION you MUST also agree that survivors at that level are also a problem and need to be dealt with.

You do not get to have it both ways.

Fair enough, when these discussions pop up, usually the argument is "nerf nurse she op" but the reasoning for it also by definition implies that survivors are a problem as well but said person would never agree with that.

So, then, you believe that nurse is a problem and needs to be dealt with. And that survivors are also a problem given the current state of balance against the vast majority of the killer cast?

If that is true, then we agree and there really isn't anything more to say.

I think the built in counterplay mechanic, like the Xeno turret, is the only idea I've seen that handles the issue while not hitting the many pitfalls people point out. It keeps her identity and doesn't change how she plays so much, but gives survivors a chance against one of the most oppressive powers in the game. Playing against a Nurse is just hoping she messes up, and trying to make that more likely. If the Nurse plays well, no amount of good play in return will prevent a quick down.

You could even buff her basekit to a degree if it shuts her down too hard.

I've seen a few suggestions for what would work against her, and might as well throw my hat into the ring. Forgive me if this isn't explained fantastically, work was brutal today. Please keep in mind the numbers are completely arbitrary and would probably need fixing by someone much more clever than I.

The Concept:
So much of Nurse's concept is around that last breath you take. She suffocated people in life, and now teeters on the brink, constantly gasping for her last sip of air herself. I think we can play into that, while giving survivors something unique to use when dealing with her, while also not taking away Nurse's power.

Nurse now has unique stations. These are simple old-style hospital beds, maybe with a bit of entity goop here or there, classic DBD stuff. They start neatly made. A survivor can perform a unique action to rummage the bed, making it dischevelled and giving Nurse killer instinct on them for 2s. In doing so, they receive a photo fragment as a killer-specific item.

While holding the photo fragment, it will slowly begin to burn away, taking a total of 180 seconds to burn fully. However, survivors can press the the interact button while holding it to hold their breath. There is a slight audio cue of them breathing in once, to make it risky to do while she is on top of you. While holding their breath, survivors:

• are completely invisible to Nurse, disappearing the same way they do from a phasing Spirit's POV.
• are completely silent.
• are unable to run or perform rushed/conspicuous actions.
• fill a meter over 10 seconds, if filled all the way, they gasp for air and give Nurse a loud noise notification for their trouble.
• double the burn rate of the photo fragment.

This will have a 10 second cooldown after each use, and a 20 second cooldown if you allow the metre to fill all the way, that way it cannot be feathered/abused too easily. Injured survivors fill the meter twice as fast, and hooked survivors immediately have their fragment burn away.

Once all fragments have burnt away, the map adjusts with a global cue, maybe a breathless screech/weep from Nurse. All survivors permanently breathe as if sprinting, all Nurse's stations reset and lock while a timer starts, like World Breaker. During this time, Nurse's fatigue is shorter in duration, making her substantially more lethal. Meanwhile, the photograph has been restored, revealing a picture of Andrew, her husband. This photograph must be burned by a 5s interaction, which lowers Nurse's time in this powered up state from maybe 120s to only 10s. It spawns randomly on the map and all survivors get permanent aura read on it, making it a mad dash to get to it.

Once it is burned, the stations unlock, and the cycle repeats. Survivors find and get their fragments and can stealth again.

It'd certainly be an interesting and different way to play the game. I'm super inefficient with my words so maybe this looks more complicated than it is. I think it's quite simple. Stealth section that leads into a climactic scary section and back down into stealth again.

Nurse mains try not to down arrow me too much.

EDIT: photo fragments will burn automatically if not collected from the station within maybe 5 mins?