Best Builds for The Nurse
The bane of Survivors everywhere, The Nurse is one of the deadliest Killers in Dead by Daylight. She is a total game-changer, as she can completely ignore the standard rules of looping by Blinking through structures at devastating speeds. This allows her to quickly land hits on Survivors both near and far before they have a chance to react.
This guide will spotlight some of the best builds to run on one of the most dangerous Killers in Dead by Daylight. These builds have an emphasis on both teachable and non-teachable builds for new players and veterans alike, so that they can strike fear into the hearts of Survivors as they cut them down, regardless of skill level.
Updated on December 30, 2025 by Mark Sammut: As we head into 2026, should you even be considering Sally as a Killer in Dead by Daylight? Well, we added a section that explores this question a bit further.
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With these builds for The Spirit, Dead by Daylight players can make the Killer even more soul-crushing than before.
The Nurse: Best Non-Teachable Build
As powerful as the Nurse is, her mechanics can prove difficult to master for new players. This build aims to passively slow down the game with Thanatophobia to give newer players more time to perfect the Nurse’s movement and encourage pressuring multiple Survivors at once – something that The Nurse excels at. Furthermore, Bitter Murmur, Spies from the Shadows, and A Nurse’s Calling will allow players to keep track of Survivor movements and interrupt healing actions.
- A Nurse’s Calling (The Nurse) – Survivors who heal within a 28-meter range will have their auras revealed.
- Thanatophobia (The Nurse) – For each injured Survivor, repair, sabotage, and Totem-cleansing speeds are slowed by 2%. After all 4 Survivors are injured, there is an additional 12% speed penalty.
- Bitter Murmur (General Perk) – Each time a generator is completed, the auras of Survivors within 16 meters of that generator are revealed for five seconds. Once the last generator is complete, all Survivors’ auras are revealed for 10 seconds.
- Spies from the Shadows (General Perk) – Within a 36-meter radius, cawing crows provide The Killer with a visual cue.
The Nurse: Best Build
This build focuses on using some of the best tracking and generator regression perks currently available in Dead by Daylight. By using The Nemesis’ Lethal Pursuer, The Nurse can immediately find the location of Survivors in order to quickly land a hit. Meanwhile, Pop Goes the Weasel and Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance will massively slow down generator progress upon hooking a Survivor. Finally, Nowhere to Hide allows players to find other Survivors near generators.
- Lethal Pursuer (The Nemesis) – At the start of the trial, all survivor’s auras are revealed for nine seconds. This perk also increases the duration of other aura-reading abilities by an extra two seconds.
- Nowhere to Hide (The Knight) – Kicking a generator will reveal the aura of all Survivors within 24 meters for five seconds.
- Pop Goes the Weasel (The Clown) – After hooking a Survivor, kicking a generator in the next 45 seconds will remove 30% of its current progression.
- Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance (The Artist) – The Killer starts with four tokens. For each different Survivor hooked on a white Scourge Hook, lose one token and explode the generator with the most progress, causing it to lose 25% of progress.
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The Nurse: Best Add-Ons
Plaid Flannel
Useful for beginners, this simple Common Add-On shows players the target location of a Blink, allowing for more accurate positioning.
Heavy Panting
This Rare Last Breath Add-On increases The Nurse’s lunge attack by 30% after performing more than one Blink. This allows the Killer to land hits where Survivors would otherwise be out of reach.
Fragile Wheeze
Acting like Sloppy Butcher (one of the strongest Dead by Daylight Killer perks), the Fragile Wheeze Add-On inflicts the Mangled status ailment for 70 seconds on Survivors hit by Blink attacks. This can help slow down healing speeds by 25%.
Jenner’s Last Breath
Among The Nurse’s most oppressive Add-Ons, Jenner’s Last Breath enables her to warp back to her original position once all her Blinks have been used. This can be used to great effect when patrolling an area while still defending a hook or generator, preventing the anti-camping meter from filling up.
Torn Bookmark
Perhaps The Nurse’s strongest Add-On, this Ultra Rare gives her an extra Blink, at the cost of a 30% power recharge time, giving her more opportunities to land a hit on a Survivor.
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He may not be someone you know, but he’ll kill you just the same. This guide showcases the best builds for Dead by Daylight’s Ghost Face.
Do You Need To Do Anything To Unlock The Nurse?
Currently, Dead by Daylight has 40 Killers, a number that will only grow moving forward. Unsurprisingly, most of these characters are not available right out of the gate, and you will need to spend money to buy them. As a rule, a licensed Killer or Survivor can only be purchased by dropping money on them; meanwhile, original characters are either available for free or can be unlocked by buying them using either cash (by purchasing Auric Cells) or Iridescent Shards earned by playing the game.
Sally Smithson is not only an original character, but she was also the first Killer released as DLC (in Chapter 1: The Last Breath). Her chapter was immediately free since it was released as a thank you to players who stuck around following Dead by Daylight‘s first two months on Steam. Nowadays, if you buy a version of the game, you will instantly have The Nurse available as a Killer. While the PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC iterations have some differences, Sally is part of the free lineup in all of them.
Is The Nurse A Good Killer For Beginners?
While the licensed DLC characters tend to hog the limelight because the prospect of running around as Chucky or Albert Wesker is simply exciting, Dead by Daylight beginners will likely gravitate towards the “free” Killers that are included with the base game. Due to their longevity and accessibility, you might automatically assume they are among the easiest DBD characters to master, and that is certainly the case for Killers like The Wraith or the Hillbilly. However, they all come with learning curves, and some of them are far steeper than others.
Dead By Daylight: 21 Fun Survivor Builds
Players should take these fun Survivor builds into Dead by Daylight to further enjoy toying with and competing against the Killer.
Sally Smithson happens to be one of the hardest free characters in Dead by Daylight, and newcomers who are just starting might find themselves feeling very lost and unsure of how to act. As so much of her viability relies on her ability to teleport through walls, The Nurse requires you to be familiar with a map’s layout and to also gain a second sense of predicting Survivor behavior and movement, which is something that only comes with experience. Most Survivors know strategies for dealing with The Nurse’s Blink, and they will often try to loop the Killer to remain out of her way.
Is The Nurse Worth It In 2026?
So, we know that Sally is not a great Killer for new players looking to learn the game’s basics; however, is she viable to use as a main? If you are willing to put in the time and sweat to master her abilities, would you be competitive?
Well, yes – The Nurse is and seems destined to always be one of the best Killers in Dead by Daylight. Honestly, she might just be the strongest, which is absurd considering her age and, more importantly, cost. Going by Nightlight.gg, Sally is the 9th most used Killer in the game, trailing behind the likes of Ghoul, Blight, and the revamped Shape. However, her kill rate puts her squarely among the top 5, and she tends to wipe out all Survivors. Basically, there are a lot of Nurse players out there, and most of them have likely been using her for years by this point. If you are a complete newcomer, you will struggle to get wins early on, as Sally’s learning curve takes no prisoners.
The thing about Nurse is that she almost feels like she belongs to a different game than all the other Killers, so your experience playing other Killers will not help you all that much. All the DBD basics that hold for most Killers do not really apply to Sally. That means, a veteran DBD trying Saly for the first time will only fare slightly better than a beginner with only a couple of matches under their belt. Survivors also need to have quite a bit of experience going up against her to counter her Blink.
Ultimately, yes, The Nurse is still very viable in 2026.
- Released
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June 14, 2016
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language