You get to choose if you want to play as a survivor or a killer in Dead By Daylight with its asymmetrical nature. If you play survivor, you’ll have to go against a dangerous killer who will actively try to sacrifice you to The Entity. The Nurse is one of the original killers in the game, and they’re quite common since every player gets the killer for free.
Ever since the game was launched, The Nurse has been one of the strongest and the hardest killers to learn at the same time. It can be quite a task to win a game against this killer, but a few tips can make it a lot easier.
Don’t Try To Loop A Nurse
When you learn to play as a survivor in Dead By Daylight, looping is one of the first skills you have to master. There are different tiles in the game, and you need to know how to loop them to make the most against a killer. Although, this skill is completely useless against a Nurse because you’ll get knocked down quickly if you try to loop her.
The Nurse can blink through any object in the game, which makes both the pallets and windows useless against her. If you try to loop this killer, they’ll just wait for you to drop a pallet or vault a window, and then blink on top of you and hit you.
The opponent will be able to get you easily even if they’re playing this killer for the first time. If you’re going up against a Nurse, forget that pallets or windows exist on the map. The only time you should drop a pallet is if she blinks into the desired range to get stunned.
While it’s hard to stun a Nurse, it also has added benefits. Apart from the normal duration of a pallet stun, the killer will also go into fatigue mode if they used a blink to get to the pallet. Although, the stun gets canceled completely if you drop a pallet on The Nurse while she’s already in fatigue.
This pallet stunning technique is a double-edged sword, and it can easily work in the killer’s favor if you’re not careful. It’s recommended to avoid this trick if you can most of the time.
Double Backing Is Very Helpful
Against a normal killer, you’d only be able to double back in an indoor map to bait them in the wrong direction and make more distance. But this skill is much more useful against a Nurse since the killer’s movement speed is slower than a survivor without specific add-ons. A survivor runs at 4.0m/s when they’re sprinting.
On the other hand, The Nurse can only move at 3.8m/s unless you use an Iridescent add-on that reduces your blink charges to one. With that in mind, the only way for the killer to catch up to you is by using her blinks, which opens the path to a ton of mind games.
Keep in mind that you’ll need a ton of line-of-sight blockers if you want this strategy to work. Double backing won’t be helpful if the killer can see you do it since they can react and adjust their blink.
Most maps in the game have objects that can hide the survivors, forcing the Nurse to guess where they’re going to go. Use this against the killer by double backing at the right time. One of the important things you have to do is look back and keep a check on the killer’s current position.
Once you cut a corner and go behind a tall object while the Nurse is holding her blink, wait for her to turn and guess your movement, and then walk in the opposite direction. The killer can still use the second blink to catch up with you, but you can double back again while she’s charging her blink and run into her.
The Nurse will mostly charge her second blink fully thinking you’ll keep running straight, which makes her over blink if you turn around. Although, some good players might see through that play and get you anyway.
Pay Attention To Her Add-ons
After The Nurse got an add-on rework, her range and recharge add-ons were removed, making her significantly less oppressive while playing survivor. Although, this also introduced a ton of interesting add-ons that you should keep an eye out for. Here are the names and functions of these add-ons:
Matchbox | This is an Iridescent add-on that limits her blink number to one, but she can move at 4.4m/s, which is the same as The Huntress. She can’t increase the total number of blinks with any other add-on when she has Matchbox. |
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Torn Bookmark | Instead of reducing your blinks, this Iridescent add-on increases your total blinks to three, but her movement speed stays the same. Your blinks will recharge 30 percent slower as well. |
Campbell’s Last Breath | When the killer emerges from a fully charged blink, she will instantly blink again in the direction she’s looking. This will make the double backing play harder against her, but you can also take advantage of this after you know the killer has it. |
Jenner’s Last Breath | After exhausting all the blinks, The Nurse can teleport back to the original place where she started blinking. She will also get one blink back when she does this. If you know that the killer has this add-on, avoid running back to the location where she started blinking. |
Spasmodic Breath | If you hit a survivor with a blink attack successfully, you’ll lose the ability to blink but move at 4.6m/s for 60 seconds. You’ll be able to notice the difference in her movement speed when this happens, and you can loop her like a normal killer. |
Apart from these add-ons, she can also have reduced fatigue or increased lunge, but those are quite hard to determine in a game. The add-ons mentioned above are quite common, and you can use most of them against the killer once you know they have it.
Choose A Quiet Survivor
When you’re injured, you’ll make a ton of grunting noises, which can alert the killer of your location. These noises are different based on the survivor you’re using. For example, the killer can hear you from far away if you’re playing Jane Romero or Ash Williams, but you barely make any noise while playing Ada Wong or Ace Visconti.
You’re free to play your favorite survivor in the game, but it’s a strategy to play the quiet survivors if you’re going against too many Nurses. When you’re using these survivors, the killer won’t be able to tell if you’re still in a certain tile or not. This will create a lot of confusion and make it harder for them to pinpoint your location.
Beware Of Aura Reading Perks
While generator regression perks might be meta in the game, the aura reading perks are very popular among Nurse players since the killer has no way of keeping track of your movement. These perks solve that issue by giving the killer your exact location. Here are the most common aura reading perks:
Nowhere To Hide | This perk allows the killer to see survivors in a certain radius whenever they kick a generator. An easy way to avoid getting detected by this perk is by going inside lockers before the killer kicks the generator or run out of the radius of the perk. |
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Scourge Hook: Floods Of Rage | Whenever a survivor is unhooked, the killer will see the exact location of every survivor except the one that got unhooked. This is usually combined with Pain Resonance, but you have no way to counter this perk properly. Instead, you should be careful so that you don’t get ambushed because of this perk. |
A Nurse’s Calling | This is a Nurse teachable that works particularly well with her since she can heal auras of healing survivors in a certain radius. You can easily counter it by not healing in the killer’s terror radius. |
I’m All Ears | This perk reveals your aura to the killer for a few seconds after vaulting a pallet or a window. Since you’re going against a Nurse, you don’t need to vault these things anyway, which makes it easier to counter this perk. |
Apart from these counters, you can also use the Distortion perk. Along with hiding your aura from the killer, this perk can also tell you exactly what the killer has.
