So deathslinger is unplayable now
I tried him after the nerf and I have to say that shooting is nearly impossible now. If fps would look like this they would be a dead genre. Seriously u have to take a long while to aim otherwise u won't hit survivor but I won't hit survivor cause u r taking too long to aim. Its like somebody holding ur arm while u r trying to shoot. Idk what caused bhvr to change that but I wont be convinced that It was a good decision.
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Half the point of Deathslinger is that you basically couldn't loop him. Survivors could outpace him in several different ways and beat him that way, but not loop him. To be honest he used to feel like a glacier. Slow as hell but he will run you over if given the chance. That was the power fantasy that he fulfilled. That and him being the only Ranged Stealth killer. Now? Now he feels like a tortoise. Still slow but not nearly as dangerous.
Why is it a bad thing that we had 1 Killer that standard boring looping doesn't wreck (who isn't Nurse)?
I honestly see no reason to play as him ever again. Legion with Trail of Torment and Coup stacks fulfills both being stealthy and being difficult to loop better than the current version of Deathslinger.
Those aren't the same hits buddy. Those are the bottom of the barrel braindead survivors who play and act like a potato.
I haven't seen survivors play that poorly in months against my DS. I don't like to make anecdotal claims based on MMR, but man, you're playing a different game than the rest of us.
The hits we were pulling off to win our games was through holes in Killshack, while falling off of second story buildings, predicting sprint burst jukes, the list goes on.
Your shots...were against survivors who were hell bent on moving in a straight line. Dare I say it, your shots were against the kind of survivors who would complain about Deathslinger being OP in the first place.
I didn't even want to respond and give you that potential "See, nothing will make you happy, aim better." Retort. It's sad that you believe this is how DS operates against good survivors :(
Like I said, my anecdotal comment leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, I know it to be true. I hope you have a ton of fun with Deathslinger, regardless of your misconceived notion that you're playing at a decent MMR.
Someone should get to enjoy the old tycoon.
He's still pretty powerful, you just have to be a bit more strategic now, use LoS blockers to your advantage and aim a little in advance.
Absolutely! He was hated by a lot of people... I hated him too.
You still don't get our issue, I guess.
I am not saying he is worst killer, because he is not, he is far from that. He is not even top 5 worst.
But I just don't like how he feels to play him now. His ADS mechanic is #########, which can tell you any FPS player. It wasn't an issue before, because quick-scope was a thing, so you really didn't have to use ADS.
I hate zoning, it's just cheap and you don't need any skill for it and their changes force to use it more, if you want to have good results and I think that is just boring.
I played Deathslinger for Quick-scope, it was skill I had from FPS games, so it was nice to use it for me.
All I am saying is that after those changes, he is worse, he feels worse to play and there is no reason to play him, when you compare him to other ranged killers, unless you like his hat tho...
And yes, any clips you are going to show will come to details about how bad those survivors are, so it doesn't prove that DS is valid at any point.
I was just thinking about this too.
In most cases that I've witnessed, the injured survivor won't be in a good position to utilize their environment since a good deathslinger won't attempt to shoot if they're the ones at a disadvantageous spot. The possibility of breaking the chain is there, but it's usually so low to even consider.
Well it wasn't because he was overperforming so what is left?
diagnosis: skill issue
Why do survivors need to be able to react to the shot of a ######### gun? It doesn't deal damage on hit, isn't counterplay the whole point of the chain?
I agree most of his changes were ######### overkill, they need to run it back a bit here and remember that someone playing a killer wants to have fun too
If we cared about power we would have played nurse, the objectively strongest killer in the game.
...Yes it does? Hitting a healthy survivor injures them, that's damage on hit.
Regardless: While obviously survivors shouldn't be gifted protection when they're out of position or playing poorly, they should always have the ability to avoid the killer's power, and the fact of the matter is that you do not have an ability to avoid the killer's power when it's a quickscope that comes out faster than you can react to. All you can do is hope the Slinger misses.
That part of the change was obviously fine. The problem now is that he feels way too clunky to play, which imo would be fixed with a simple buff to the ADS speed. Raise the gun faster, but still can't shoot until it's up, and he'll be in an ideal spot. (Save for the TR increase, which I'm still on the fence about.)
An injured survivor can break the chain with only mending as a downside.
Sure, they can, but that's only realistic if there's some object between them and the Killer. Slinger has more than enough time to reel someone in without something else breaking the chain for the survivor, base wiggle time just isn't enough.
He does. So why wasn't that changed instead of "adding counter play" by making him clunky?
If they changed the way backing up with him worked, increased the reeling speed, but made the chain break more easily it would have sucked but it would be better than this.
It does not. It inflicts Injury and Deep Wound on the chain breaking. If Deathslinger shoots, M1's and the M1 doesn't connect, they remain healthy. Now idk why a Deathslinger would ever swing and miss vs a healthy Survivor and not just break the chain, but technically getting speared does zero damage.
Also, the solution to Deathslinger's uncounterable shots wasn't ever to nerf his ADS. That's just going to cause annoyance, frustration, and people dropping him because playing as him became a chore and not fun. It was to nerf the fact that if Deathslinger walks backwards with you while you're speared... you're moving at 6.12 m/s. To put that into context, outside of stacking an exhaustion perk and the on getting injured speed boost... that is the fastest a Survivor can move. Even if you do plan ahead and try and get shot next to a bit of level geometry, the odds of you getting behind it when you only have a 3.0 m/s movement speed to work with and are flying towards Deathslinger faster than you can sprint burst are vanishingly low. Fix those odds to "fix" Deathslinger. And, you've fixed it in such a way that's still interactive for both parties.
Also, the TR increase is actually worse than the ADS nerf. Deathslinger's primary upside to the numerous delays baked into his power was his fast downs. He can't get fast downs anymore because Survivors with even half a brain can start running earlier and Deathslinger has to hold W after them for +10 seconds per chase. It's bad. Also it guts one of the primary reasons to run him over Huntress. Huntress can do a great many things... but stealth is not one of them. Deathslinger is capable of stealth and could partially do it even without investing perks and add ons. Now he practically has to run M&A.
Because the quickscope was the thing that needed changing; as I've said before, the fact that he feels clunky is the core problem here, not the fact that the quickscope was removed.
Swinging and missing against healthy survivors injures them but does not inflict Deep Wound, I looked it up specifically just to make sure.
Anyway: Nerfing his ADS like this wasn't the right call, I agree- they should've made it so your gun raises faster but you still can't shoot until it's fully up, since that was the core problem. Maybe the chain needs looking at too, but the core issue is that you could not feasibly dodge the Deathslinger before if he quickscoped you, and even if he just ADS faked he could immediately swing out of cancelling it and that also put you in a lose/lose scenario. Both of those things needed fixing, and both of those things were addressed- the sole problem with that suite of changes is that it also now feels way too slow and clunky to raise your gun all the way.
Side note: There was never any reason to run Deathslinger over Huntress over personal preference, the same way there's no reason to run Huntress over Nurse, or Ghost Face over Nemesis. They don't play similarly beyond the fact that they're both technically ranged- and even then Slinger is significantly less ranged than Huntress. What is it about Huntress that draws people to make weird comparisons? They do it with Trickster too, it's bizarre.
Lastly: Yeah... I kinda agree with the dev's explanation regarding his terror radius, but I really think that they should've given him a lullaby radius instead, or maybe a midpoint terror radius so it's larger but not normal size...? I dunno, the TR increase really seems like it might be hurting him unduly, I'd support that being changed.
You're missing the point. Why should a difficult to aim ability which you are heavily punished for missing with give survivors a chance to react and avoid the damage both before and after the shot lands.
I feel like you've never played Deathslinger and are trying to act like you know what was best for him.
First you can't say the quickscope nerf was deserved and say that the clunkiness is the core issue, because it's the same thing. The removal of quickscoping made him feel clunkiness and it was underserved nerf.
Second, they literally slowed down his ADS to prevent him from quickscoping. You can't just speed it up with bringing back quickscoping. Before his Activate ADS was a 0.15 second and a firing delay of 0.5 second. Now it's 0.4 second activate ADS and 0.5 second firing delay.
Because they don't realistically have the ability to avoid damage after the shot lands? If there's something between the survivor and the killer, sure, but any good Deathslinger either isn't gonna go for those shots or will go for them with the intent of having the chain break for strategic reasons.
Slinger is very good in the 1v1 because of this- his ability is hard to dodge even when you have the actual ability to do so, and it's basically a guaranteed hit unless the Slinger's being greedy or you get lucky with terrain. Which, like, it should be, that's perfectly reasonable- he got the shot, he should have a solid chance of getting the hit too.
Ratio
If they don't have the ability then what the ######### is the point of the reeling mechanic? Yes, he can back up and remove interactivity, do why did the nerf ignore that unfavorable of making him clunky as #########
SOMEONE CAN SHOW US A MATCH WITH THE DEATHSLINGER IN HIGH MMR? THE DEVS THINK VERY STUPID THEN THE KILLERS IS 1 VS 1 TO NERF HIM, WHEN A KILLER NEED TO PLAY 1 VS 4
The reeling is a balancing mechanic to make sure the Slinger can't get crazy weird shots on off angles and around scenery, it's to shape where he can get a hit, not if the hit results in something. At least, so I'd assume- it's definitely working that way currently. It also weakens him further against teamwork, since a teammate can walk into the chain and break it faster.
I won't lie and say I do play a ton of Deathslinger, but that's hardly a requirement for talking about his balance.
Regardless: I really and truly believe there's a middle ground there. Some number shuffling to make it not feel like an eternity to raise his gun, without making it too quick for survivors to dodge. Hell, maybe the animation just needs to be tweaked to trick the brain into not thinking it takes forever, since his actual balance is fine right now- outside of the TR change, anyway.
They nerfed him because he got free zoning by not committing to using his power. The moment I see his gun go up I had to start trying to juke, so he could just tap ADS and get me to lose speed for no cost to him.
Plus, quickscoping removes agency from the survivor; if the Slinger missed a quickscope, it was solely because the Slinger missed.
I... really don't think that it does injure if you miss your swing, but tbh this was just me being pedantic so I'd be ok with dropping this.
Why are you or anybody else expecting to be able to reliably dodge a gun? I don't get that. He did probably need a bit more counter play, but that's why I think they should have left Quick Scoping alone and messed with the chain. So yeah you're going to get shot but the chase with DS becomes all about jockeying for position around terrain where the Survivors are trying to be in spots where they can't get reeled and Slinger is trying to get them into a position where he can reel them. I do agree that the ADS fake was dumb and making him unable to swing for a bit after lowering the gun was a good call. Fully on board with that nerf.
Response to side note: There was in fact reasons to run old Deathslinger over Huntress. Deathslinger can use Stealth, can use M1 based perks, and can handle maps like Hawkins and RPD significantly better than Huntress can. Is Huntress overall stronger than old Slinger? Yeah probably. Is Slinger stronger than her on her bad maps? Honestly, I would guess the answer is yes. Also... remember how I said he could do Stealth? Old Slinger was arguably more powerful than all the other Stealth Killers in the game. He was definitely better at it than Myers or Pig and probably Ghost Face too. The only one who was close was buffed Wraith but even then, it was debatable.
Response to Lastly: Honestly their rationale for that sounds like they don't realize he was a ranged stealth killer. Surprising and getting free hits is what Stealth killers do. Deathslinger is 100% one of them. If you don't like how M&A makes Slinger's Terror Radius smaller than his range... maybe change that so it is +/-25% of the Killer's Terror Radius. Then it's still 8m for 32m killers, 6m for 24m killers, and 4m for T2 Myers.
Edit: Actually that sounds like a perfect fix for M&A Slinger. Change M&A and then if necessary, nerf Deathslinger's max range to 16m. Heck even leaving M&A alone and making his max range 15m would probably be preferable to what they did do.
How dare a killer's skill factor in whether or not they hit you with their power.
To anyone who says this Deathslinger change is fine just picture yourself when playing shooters from now on thats how your ADS works AND you can't shoot at all until you are fully aiming. Even in Overwatch with Widowmaker they have it the longer you ADS you stronger your shot gets so you can still at least quick shot to some form of extent to at least do some damage.
Removing quick shot from the shooter genre entirely will definitely kill off a lot of the shooter playerbase
myers and freddy were better than slinger even before the update
Freddy was before his nerf. I think he sucks now, mainly because of useless add-ons, but that's for another debate.
Myers also depends how you look at it. Myers with best addons (tombstone)? Yeah, that is super good. Base-kit Myers? Yeah, not that good anymore...
Green stalk addon and rabbit or whatever and you storm the game, his early game sucks but he can end games in minute if played correctly.
Also Myers has extended lunge and faster vault speed and an instadown. Myers gets 4 downs sooner than deathslinger reels his first survivor to then see the chain break and survivor deadharding away.
Freddy, despite not being as good as before, still has the teleport which is kinda epic map pressure tool.
Snares are weaker clown bottles that force survivor to drop the pallet 1-2 loop runs sooner which is great.
With specific perk builds freddy can for sure outperform old slinger.
I think only thing going for Freddie is his teleport now... So I really don't think he is good, nor fun killer now.
Myers is good when you are against survivors that will give you free stalk, but if you play against team looking around and they make it as hard as possible for you, you can easily lose multiple gens before you get to tier 3 / first down. I think Myers is just weaker Oni to be honest. Oni has also weak early, but you can snowball with his power way better.
If you care about tier list, I would never put Myers above C and I think DS is there now.
Ok they remove quick shot, but he fully aim to slow. Hitbox is little and he has no map control like arpon walls and stuff to fast move.
I use to main deathslinger so I feel you... They destoryed my fun even though my killer was only considered B tier. People whine about counterplay meanwhile Deathslinger has always been a worse Huntress.... Limited range, the chain can break before you even get your hit, pre dropping pallets denies a down and shots have to be more accurate with Deathslinger.
So yeah I'm not playing him anymore, he's terrible. Just play meta or basically quit the game is what this game has turning into...Nerfing Wraith and Deathslinger was such a joke for balance.
I just been 4 man slugging with Leatherface lately for my own fun.
He wasn't OP, people are just lazy and can't be bothered to try.
Negative press is still press.
im willing to bet it was toxic survs teabagging at the exit gates
They cant react to the ADS and got killed by NOED
But they wanted all teh time to react and leave :/
Slinger was gutted and can now join Wraith in the “wee bit OP” category of B tier killers being nerfed for no rational reason.
Limited range. Slow TTK. Terrible map pressure. Countered by holding W, pre-dropping and body blocking. Can only deal 1 damage state per reload/has to reload after every shot. Successful shots can be countered by objects/structures/survivors in the environment. Feels clunky and awkward to play. So on so forth.
Very poorly conceived changes that break the killer’s fundamental design.
Guess zubat just a lazy killer player then. Obviously im joking but much like the billy nerf defenders your preaching a sentiment that is uneqivically hated by the majority of the community that actually played deathslinger.
Rather then just own up and say maybe they need to add some power to slinger continously stating slinger is a good killer with stong unique selling points is a blatant lie. He is inferior to a lot of killers and has some deeply problematic gameplay issues.
His limited range makes no sense. His reduced movement speed only serves to worsen his abiliy to traverse the map and apply pressure and his entire reeling mechanics makes no sense considering huntress and trickster can down with significantly less fuss.
Its very blatant that more players would rather see slinger be in an overnerfed state then actually have to play against him. But behaviour has a responsibility to respect and provide a fun killer experianceif they insist on massively downgrading the fluidity of his gameplay. How can you trust behaviour to not rip wholsale mechanics out of perks/killers.
Imagine if boon totems had a time duration. Would that not be frustrating setup for low payoff.
Just play Huntress or Trickster.
I play a lot of FPS games and his ADS mechanic just sucks so much :D That lower FOV and sensitivity...
It wasn't an issue before, because quick-scope was a thing, so noone really used ADS.
He's a complete joke now, people will argue but I'd say he's a bottom 3 killer now. I'd rather play trickster and that's just sad beause I hate playing that killer but at least he can down fast when they run out of rocks to loop.
I play Trickster a lot after Deathslinger nerf. He is actually quite fun and not that bad after those buffs. I have created super gay outfit :D it looks terrible, but killers play from first person, so I don't have to look at it, survivors will suffer for Deathslinger nerf!
Thanks for proving my point. Survivor Waa Waa, bhvr bend over, cosmetic store this way.
There are countless examples from streams and youtubers showing survivor and killer players countering Deathslinger in chase.
Thanks for proving that you're a waste of time.
"the killer that got changed by buffing other mechanics and nerfing his quickscoping and thus plays differently, no longer plays the way I used to play him"
Guns in DBD should never work the way they work outside of DBD because DBD isnt balanced around having guns. Slinger plays differently now in the sense that you want to use ADS to quickly manouvre around a corner and then shoot, then force the chain to break quickly if they are healthy(its faster to break the chain and injure+deepwound the survivor than it is to fully reel them in. Why? because they buffed his stun duration from succesful shots from 4 seconds to 3 seconds and breaking a chain is often faster than reeling someone in, while hitting them after reeling them in gives you a 3 second cooldown while reeling them in takes longer than breaking the chain too).
Use addons like Bayshore Cigar and Chewing Tobacco, and that stun duration is only 1.5 seconds. You could pick up the chase much faster than you would before if you just focus on breaking the chain when they are healthy and going for downs when they are injured. Heck, Bayshore Cigar and Warden Keys might even be better, as warden keys save you 0.5 seconds on each reload, giving the same total amount of time if you reload after breaking chains, but benefits you even more over the course of the trial.
Deathslinger has access to different strategies now and is no longer a one trick pony. They arent always as effective as the quickscope, but it's a step in the right direction.