Why it was important to nerf Spirit and Nurse.
I feel like a lot of players, especially killer mains might be concerned about back to back adjustments to the strongest killers in the game and I don't think there should be any reason to worry. Spirit and Nurse have been performing so well for so long that it's become almost memetic how often they could secure 4ks, and how one-sided the chases could be with even seasoned runners like Zubat and Goose shrugging their shoulders in certain situations against Spirit and accepting the down.
Nurse and Spirit were notorious outliers with their ability to fundamentally reduce the amount of interaction in a chase, often speedily downing survivors around some of the otherwise strongest jungle gyms in the game while a more evenly matched high level chase between any other killer could more likely come down to skill and circumstance. The problem with Spirit and Nurse being this strong was that ANY global killer buffs made these insanely strong killers even stronger. In terms of balance it's incredibly important for the killer herd to be as close as possible in terms of power so global buffs and nerfs can help adjust the power dynamic between killers and survivors, and individual tweaking can help killers who struggle like Wraith and Clown.
Spirit will become a much more mindful killer to play after these nerfs and this is important to establish a higher skill platform while allowing for more interaction between killers and survivors. No single killer should demand a perk slot that would otherwise completely ruin your ability to last in any sort of chase with them. Advantages versus some killers like small game makes sense, but having to keep iron will on at all times while a spirit just bumper cars during phase to down you in what would be normally be a back and forth situation is a frustrating experience and feels incredibly non-interactive.
I suspect I've been rambling at this point but the crux here is understanding that having any killer be incredibly strong (killer, nurse) or incredibly weak (old fred, current legion) makes balancing by virtue of adjusting global killer properties far more difficult than if all killers were closer in terms of power.
Thanks for taking the time!
Comments
Killer: gets kills
Survivor: Killer is broken
"Over performing" is a meme and until we get good data from BHVR that actually breaks down kills to DC/Killed themselves on hook/actual sacrifice I don't care what they say is over performing. They say the game balance should be 2k, 2 escape, yet 2k is usually a black pip or depip because I can't do anything to stop the survs from finishing gens in 5 minutes and giving me a silver gatekeeper emblem at best.