Are Nurse and Spirit REALLY the only viable killers at red ranks?

No, this is incorrect. Viability is the ability to compete against the best builds that the survivors have to offer at the high ranks. To that end unfortunately not all killers are viable, and that's the problem. Spirit is considered S rank or high rank viable because her ability allows for mindgames and pressure that most killers don't have. Whereas Clown, while being efficient at anti-looping with the proper add-on's, simply can't apply good pressure to the survivors and isn't able to keep up with or deter their objective progression.

Honestly it all comes down to the most basic premise of what makes a killer viable: Map Pressure. Those that have Movement Speed altering abilities or lacking that, have pure stealth to compensate, are far better performing than those who have neither. In the case of stealth, survivors don't know where the killer is coming from which grants the killer a pressure advantage despite moving at normal speed, whereas a killer with a Speed advantage can cover more ground and guard more gens more frequently.

When it comes to Viability the killer has to actually achieve the status of the "Power Role" over the survivors. This is a Difficult task for most killers without the aid of add-ons or perks to balance out the many mechanics survivors have that work against them. What makes Nurse and Spirit "Viable" is that they either can ignore some of those mechanics or turn them against the survivors that use them, and thus claim the "power role" from the survivors and give them a challenge.

It's ironic that survivors constantly complain about killer add-ons and abilities, and the killers hold back on them because of said complaints, but survivors never hold back on theirs. In many ways the survivors, with the right builds and add-ons, claim the "Power role" and abuse it endlessly while whining about being the victims, which IMO is pathetic. If a killer can best you while you and your team are using the the best you have to offer, that's not because the killer is OP, its because the Player out smarted you. Many survivors seem to forget that they are up against other human beings, and get enraged or salty when the lose to them, which is honestly unbecoming and embarrassingly juvenile of them.

This game is loaded with imbalances, but while survivors never change or have anything that makes them unique from one another, Killers have it in the opposite. Each killer has a unique power, and each power is gauged based how well it deals with the best the survivors have to offer. Most can do decently at the mid ranks/builds but there are only a few among them that can use their unique power to compete with the highest ranks and builds while providing them an adequate challenge.

This is what makes a killer Viable. Not the idea that they can "4k every match" as you have so stated. What makes a killer viable is simply the ability to, with their power, be able to compete at the higher ranks, despite what the survivors throw at them and give them a good challenge. Lets face it, if all survivors at red ranks had a guaranteed win every game... the game would've died out long ago. We NEED viable killers more than we need pushovers, and unfortunately, the devs seem to be keeping killer viability to a minimum in the current roster.

No, they’re not the only ‘viable’ red rank killers. Good killer players make everyone work at red ranks.

I sadly disagree, Try as you might at the high ranks, Clown Simply can't compete even with his best add-ons. His overall lack of map pressure, just can't compete with a gen rush meta team no matter how swiftly you end a chase with him. This is the inherent problem with killers:

If they can't apply adequate pressure to slow down the gen progress with their abilities, they will always lose at the high ranks.

That's not to say they aren't fun to play, because at low-mid ranks they can seem very viable, but when they are put up against the best the community has to offer, they simply can't compete on the same level.

Nurse, Spirit, and Hillbilly have that competitive edge in their base kit, which is what makes the "viable" in comparison. It's not that it makes getting kills easier, its that it makes their ability to kill while applying map pressure less of a frustrating or impossible endeavor.

If any thing needs to be changed its the rank system, I kill 3 people most games while hooking everyone 3 times and the last 1 2 times, I end chases quick, rekt all these useless red rank survivors but always safety pip, ######### is broken, rank needs to be removed or just go back to the old system, makes me not want to ######### play the bullshit

I'm sorry but I just don't see it. He takes soo long to set up.

As far as bad Killers go his weaknesses aren't for the normal reasons, since the actual effect of his power is excellent (unlike most Killer's who struggle because of weak powers or powers that are unlikely to work), but it just takes so long to set it up that unless you're using bags ect it's far too easy to just gen rush through a trapper.

From a guy which uses pop as his only gen slowdown perk - Not really.

You don't need to put every single trap down before going after people, just 2 or 3 (depending on how many you have around) on some good positions and then you go chase people off gens while getting more traps.

Again, great success.

(But yes, playing without a bag is nowhere near as good)

I'm a Pig main and always do well in red ranks.

But I also play Freddy, Demogorgon, and Plague. They're also really good in red ranks.

Against top-of-the-top SWF squads? Yeah, probably to some extent at least. But anyone that claims that's a majority of games are either straight up lying, utterly blinded by negativity bias or playing in a low-pop region where they fight the same small set of survivors repeatedly (or getting streamsniped hardcore I guess)

Against the actual majority of red ranks? Not at all, you can do fine with all killers most likely. Win some and lose some of course, but that should be expected.

If anything the clear and reasonably objective definitions of a win (pip and 4k) are both things that for different reasons can be difficult to achieve against high ranks at times. 4k because of hatch/EGC mechanics, pip because killer pipping in red ranks is honestly ridiculous (especially for killers that have powers that mess with the Chaser emblem like instadown killers and Trapper) with how people can play solid matches and still safety or even depip when they clearly and decisively won the match.

And I am not saying "killers just want 4K xD", I'm simply saying it's a reasonable thing to view as a complete victory. Just like a pip is the game telling you that you did what it expected of you and advanced your rank - it's objective and clear cut in theory.

Console red rank killer. They're all viable. Some killers are obviously a bit better than others but I'm getting 4ks with all of them. Sometimes I do get rekt too. But that has more to do with the survivors I'm going against and the mistakes I'm making than the killer I'm using.

Also, I'm a good killer but nothing special. So if I can 4k with doc, wraith, trapper, plague, etc in red ranks, than so can probably anyone else.