Doctor re-work
Doctor - like almost all m1 killers suffers drastically in chase for various reasons that generally apply to most m1 killers. My suggestions to help fix atleast this 1 killer w/out neccesarily altering his core gameplay would be to alter how the madness tiers work. For starters - madness 1 honestly works fine for the most part as is- though personally I'd like to see more of the reverse skill checks given to survivors- but thats just whatever. For madness 2 - I would like the doctor hallucinations to be basekit and not require any add ons however (and more importantly) - I would say that in madness 2 as someone is becoming borderline "insane" they should receive various de-buffs like slower vaulting speed, slower healing/repairing capacity, and when they do receive a madness induced skill check whilst healing, repairing, etc - the skill checks should be more difficult (either the spinner spins MUCH faster OR the size of the skill check is smaller). Lastly - for madness 3- It is my opinion 1 of 2 things should happen, either survivors lose the capacity to vault/drop pallets OR survivors gain a 5-10% hindered status effect. Regardless of which of those 2 options is used - the time to "snap out of it" should be increased from 12 seconds to 20 b/c the sheer amount of time it takes to put any given survivor in tier 3 madness is incredibly long for the relatively non existent rewards they get from doing so.
Furthermore- it is my opinion that the delay on shock therapy from taking effect should be reduced as MANY doctor players (including myself) can attest - survivors often can scream THEN vault or drop a pallet b/c usually of technical reasons (ie button mashing or ping). If instead of reducing the base delay on shock therapy, then the time that a survivor is "pacified" should be increased from 2.5 seconds to something more substantial (perhaps 4 or 5 seconds?)
Now I know that these changes would outright give buffs to the playstyle of Doctor w/out nerfing him in any other manner- but I would say these changes are highly warranted b/c
- Doctor has consistently suffered from many of the same issues that plague most M1 killers in the modern state of Dead by Daylight. Firstly, despite having a power centered around inflicting Madness, the actual rewards for successfully building Madness on survivors are often negligible compared to the amount of time and effort required to do so. In many situations, simply chasing and hitting survivors is more efficient than engaging with a large portion of his power, which is generally a sign that the risk-to-reward ratio is poorly balanced.
2. Secondly, Doctor's power is primarily informational rather than lethality-focused. Static Blast and Madness provide tracking, reveal survivor locations, and occasionally disrupt actions, but they do not meaningfully shorten chases against competent survivors in the same way that stronger anti-loop powers do. As a result, Doctor frequently ends up spending significant amounts of time securing downs despite successfully using his power throughout the match.
3. Finally, the overall power level of the game has increased substantially over the years. Survivors have access to stronger perk combinations, more efficient objectives, and a deeper understanding of map resources than when Doctor was originally designed. Giving Madness tiers more impactful gameplay consequences would not fundamentally change Doctor's identity; it would simply make investing time into his core mechanic feel rewarding and allow him to better compete with newer killers whose powers directly translate into chase pressure and downs.
Comments
also yes I am aware that I made this acct like 20 somethings mins before making this post, but I have been playing dbd for 6+ yrs off and on as various killers or as survivor. (sending love to my fellow Leon Kennedy mains :D)
The issue with doctor is, that he is extremely frustrating to play against if you are a new player. I think this is the only reason his madness tier effects cant be buffed that much.