The Nurse has been in Dead by Daylight since 18 August 2016 and is still the only Killer whose power ignores the entire loop. That is exactly why guides about her go stale so quietly: nothing about her silhouette changes, so nobody re-reads the numbers. The community wiki page for Sally Smithson currently opens by calling her "one of 41 Killers currently featured in Dead by Daylight." The live roster is 44. Further down the same page, her own teachable perk A Nurse's Calling is printed as 20 / 24 / 28 metres — a value Behaviour replaced more than a year ago.
This guide is written against Patch 10.1.2a, which went live on 17 September 2026, and every number below is traced to Behaviour's own patch notes rather than to a wiki table.
Quick answer: The Nurse moves at 3.85 m/s (96.25%), the slowest of any Killer, and trades that for two Blink charges that cover up to 20 metres at 13.33 m/s. Her base Fatigue is 2 seconds, rising to 2.5 s after a Chain Blink and 3 s after two, plus 1 extra second if she swung. A Nurse's Calling now reads 28 / 30 / 32 metres and reveals every Survivor in a healing interaction regardless of health state. Her strongest add-ons after the Patch 9.6.0 pass are the range and recharge pieces, not the lunge pieces. You counter her by breaking line of sight during her charge and by walking, not running, through the Fatigue window.
What are The Nurse's actual Blink and Fatigue numbers?
Spencer's Last Breath is a charge-based teleport, not a dash. The exact live values:
- Blink range: 20 metres maximum, 1.5 metres minimum
- Blink speed: 13.33 m/s (333.25% of base Survivor speed)
- Charge time: 2 seconds to reach maximum distance
- Charges: 2, recharging at 3 seconds per charge
- Chain Blink: 12 metres, available inside a 1.5 second window
- Fatigue: 2 s base, +0.5 s for each Chain Blink, +1 s if an attack was thrown
- Terror Radius: 32 metres, standard
- Movement speed: 3.85 m/s — slower than a sprinting Survivor at 4.0 m/s
That last line is the whole character. She is the only Killer who cannot win a straight footrace against a healthy Survivor, and the design compensates by letting her pass through walls, floors and ceilings. Her secondary speeds matter more than most players realise: 0.96 m/s during Fatigue, 1.16 m/s while charging a Blink inside the Chain window, 1.54 m/s while walking in that window, 2.89 m/s while charging a Blink normally, and 6.16 m/s during a Blink Lunge.
A self-described former Nurse main on r/DeadByDaylightKillers explained the learning curve this week better than any stat table: a destination-preview add-on "helps you to know what objects she can or cannot blink through, and how her blink position will change depending on your camera movement." Blink placement is a camera skill before it is a timing skill.
Why is A Nurse's Calling still listed as 20 / 24 / 28 metres?
Because the wiki table has not been updated since before Patch 9.2.0. Behaviour has changed this perk four separate times in the last twelve months, and the chain is worth reading in order.
9.2.0 PTB (3 September 2025), live 23 September 2025: "Increased range to 28/30/32m (was 20/24/28). No longer affects Survivors who are in the Dying State."
Patch 10.0.1 (23 June 2026): "Fixed an issue where A Nurse's Calling incorrectly revealed the auras of Survivors being healed from the dying state."
Patch 10.1.0, Chorus of Sin (25 August 2026): the perk was rewritten to "Within 28/30/32m of Survivors who are healing or being healed, you see their Auras," explicitly reverting the Dying State restriction while keeping the range buff. Behaviour's dev note: "There has been some confusion about the expected behaviour with A Nurse's Calling, we felt it was a good opportunity to make it more consistent and clearer."
The same patch quietly taxed the build that abused it. Coulrophobia went from 30/40/50% to 20/25/30% healing speed penalty, and Behaviour said why in the notes: "Because we're buffing A Nurse's Calling back to its pre-9.2.0 state while keeping the range buff, we felt it was safer to adjust Coulrophobia at the same time to decrease its synergy with certain builds."
So the live perk is a 32 metre, no-exceptions heal-tracker at tier three, and the classic Calling plus Coulrophobia lock is weaker than it was a month ago. If you want the wider picture on tracking perks, our DBD aura reading perks guide ranks it against the rest of the information suite.
Which Nurse add-ons are actually good in 2026?
She has 20 add-ons, and the current tier order is not the one most lists print, because Heavy Panting was nerfed in Patch 9.6.0 on 28 April 2026 and almost nobody logged it. The patch notes read: "Extends the duration of a lunge after more than one blink by 10% (was 30%)." The wiki add-on table still says "Extends the Lunge duration of Special Attacks to 130%, which increases your Attack range by +30%." That is a live, wrong number sitting on the single most-linked Nurse reference page on the internet.
Top tier. The Last Breath family — Bad Man's, Campbell's, Jenner's and Kavanagh's — plus Torn Bookmark and Matchbox. These change how often you get to use the power, the only resource that matters on a 3.85 m/s Killer. Plaid Flannel belongs here too, but as a training tool: it draws your Blink destination, and the correct usage is to run it for a handful of matches and then take it off.
Middle tier. Spasmodic Breath (4.6 m/s for 60 seconds after a Special Attack hit, at the cost of disabling your power) and Dark Cincture are situational rather than bad. Fragile Wheeze applies 70 seconds of Mangled on a Special Attack hit, which does nothing for your chase.
Bottom tier. Heavy Panting after the 9.6.0 cut, plus flat trinkets like Metal Spoon and Dull Bracelet. A 10% lunge extension that only applies after a second or third Blink is not worth a slot when a recharge add-on exists.
One more staleness tell on that page: Stridor is flagged as "based on the changes announced for or featured in the upcoming Patch 8.1.1," Thanatophobia points at Patch 6.1.2, Spencer's Last Breath at 6.7.0 and Fragile Wheeze at 7.6.0. Patch 8.1.1 shipped on 24 July 2024. Those banners have been announcing the future for over two years.
Has the Nurse been changed recently, and why does her Change Log say no?
The wiki Change Log for The Nurse terminates at Patch 8.3.2 (24 October 2024) with a single undocumented mori animation tweak. Read literally, that means nothing has touched her in almost two years. Patch 9.6.0 disproves it on its own — the Heavy Panting cut above is a real balance change on 28 April 2026 that never made the log.
The bigger gap is the bug-fix stream, which is where the Nurse actually changes. Across Behaviour's public patch feed from 24 July 2024 to 15 September 2026, there are 80 separate "fixed an issue" lines about the Nurse and Blinks, spread across 39 different releases. Patch 10.1.0 alone shipped eight of them in one go, naming Autohaven Wreckers, Yamaoka's Family Residence, Eyrie of Crows, Gideon Meat Plant, Toba Landing, Freddy Fazzbear's Pizza and Ironworks of Misery. The 10.2.0 PTB has three more map Blink fixes queued.
Practically: if a Blink through a specific rock, hill or staircase felt inconsistent six months ago, re-test it. The geometry she can pass through is one of the most frequently patched surfaces in the game.
One older change predates Behaviour's public patch archive, which only reaches back to 12 July 2024, so credit it to the wiki rather than to Behaviour: Patch 5.5.0 "rewrote the majority of the code governing The Nurse, especially net-working."
What is different about the Nurse in 2v8, and does it still matter today?
It matters for a few more hours. The current 2v8 run opened on 8 September 2026 and closes today, 29 September 2026, at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm BST. Our DBD 2v8 September 2026 breakdown covers the full 16-Killer roster and the Xenomorph addition.
In 2v8 the Nurse gets two class skills instead of perks. Her Innate Skill bundles what would be four add-ons in the base mode: +30% lunge range after a Blink, a further +30% per Chain Blink up to +90%, Fatigue reduced by 7%, Chain Blink extra Fatigue reduced by 65%, missed-Special-Attack Fatigue reduced by 0.5 seconds, Chain Blink Window movement +30%, and the window itself extended by 0.2 seconds. Note that the +30% lunge figure is the pre-9.6.0 value, so she keeps the un-nerfed version of Heavy Panting's effect for free in this mode. Her Team Skill reads: "While within 16 metres of the other Killer, The Nurse is granted +1 Token towards her Power. This Token is lost once The Nurse is no longer in range and cannot be saved."
Here is the part every 2v8 Nurse guide still gets wrong. The wiki's Nurse Innate Skill page lists "Teleporting within 1 metre of a Survivor causes them to scream" as an active effect. Behaviour deleted it in the 2V8 Developer Update of 11 November 2024, in a one-line entry under The Nurse: "Survivors within 1 meter of The Nurse's blink will no longer scream." That is nearly two years of players being told about an information tool that does not exist, on a mode that has run repeatedly since.
What are the best Nurse perk builds right now?
Because she cannot pressure a map on foot, every good Nurse build is either information or slowdown, never chase.
Standard tracking build. A Nurse's Calling, Lethal Pursuer, Nowhere to Hide and a regression perk of your choice. Calling at 32 metres now catches every heal in a huge radius with no health-state exception, and on a Killer who can cross a wall to punish it, that is the single highest-value perk in her kit. Note that Nowhere to Hide was rewritten in Patch 10.1.0 to read "Whenever you damage a Generator, for 3/4/5s, you see the Auras of Survivors within 24m of the Generator," which is a change of anchor point — the radius is measured from the generator now, not from you.
Slowdown build. Corrupt Intervention, Pain Resonance, Grim Embrace and Deadlock. This is the build that survives her weakest phase, which is the first ninety seconds while you are still reading the map's Blink geometry.
Add-on-light practice build. Plaid Flannel plus a recharge add-on, with Whispers, Lethal Pursuer, Bamboozle and Enduring. Two warnings on habit-forming picks: Whispers is being changed in the 10.2.0 PTB to 28/26/24 metres with an added 5% Haste outside that range, and Deerstalker has not been a dying-state perk since Patch 9.2.0 — it is now a mutual aura-reveal perk and does nothing for Nurse practice, despite still appearing in older build lists.
Worth saying plainly: the Nurse is strong but not automatic. A comment on r/deadbydaylight this week put it better than most tier lists do — "nurse and blight are very strong but only when played properly, which is a difficult thing to accomplish." Her in-game Difficulty Rating is literally Very Hard. For where she lands against the rest of the cast, see our DBD Killer tier list.
How do you counter The Nurse as a Survivor?
Forget pallets. A recurring and correct observation from the community is that the Nurse is the only top Killer who is not punished by pallet density — Blight and Ghoul still eat stuns, she does not. Loops do not counter her at all.
What does work:
- Break line of sight during the charge, not after. She is committing to a destination during those 2 seconds at 2.89 m/s. If she cannot see you when she commits, she guesses.
- Change direction late and unpredictably. Hold a direction until the last moment of her charge, then cut. Her Blink cannot be redirected mid-flight.
- Walk, do not sprint, through her Fatigue. She moves at 0.96 m/s for 2 to 3 seconds and her camera is locked. Sprinting leaves scratch marks that tell her exactly where you went; walking leaves none.
- Use elevation and floors deliberately. She can Blink through floors and ceilings, so second storeys are not safe by default, but the added charge distance makes vertical Blinks harder to place.
- Do not heal in the open. With Calling at 32 metres and no Dying State exemption, a heal is a beacon.
More Dead by Daylight guides
FAQ
What is A Nurse's Calling range in 2026? 28 / 30 / 32 metres. It was increased from 20 / 24 / 28 in Patch 9.2.0 (live 23 September 2025) and rewritten in Patch 10.1.0 on 25 August 2026 to reveal every Survivor in a healing interaction regardless of health state.
How many Blinks does the Nurse have? Two charges by default, recharging at 3 seconds each, with a Chain Blink available inside a 1.5 second window. Add-ons have not allowed more than three total Blinks since Patch 3.3.1.
Is Heavy Panting still good? No. Patch 9.6.0 on 28 April 2026 cut it to "extends the duration of a lunge after more than one blink by 10% (was 30%)." Many reference pages still show the old 130% / +30% wording.
Why is the Nurse so slow? She moves at 3.85 m/s, which is 96.25% of base speed and slower than a sprinting Survivor's 4.0 m/s. It is the deliberate cost of a power that ignores walls, floors and ceilings, and it makes her entirely dependent on Blinking for mobility.
Does the Nurse make Survivors scream in 2v8? No. Behaviour removed that effect in the 2V8 Developer Update on 11 November 2024, even though several reference pages still list it.
Can Survivors still blind the Nurse out of a Blink? No. The Lightburn mechanic was removed in Patch 6.7.0. Flashlights work on her exactly as they do on any other Killer now.
Is the Nurse free to unlock? She was released as free DLC in The Last Breath Chapter, so she has no Iridescent Shard or Auric Cell price in the store — the same as Trapper, Wraith, Hillbilly and Huntress.
Accurate as of Patch 10.1.2a, 17 September 2026. Perk and add-on values sourced from Behaviour Interactive's published patch notes; character stats from the Dead by Daylight community wiki. Patch 10.2.0 is on the PTB and will change Whispers and Distressing.
