Deathslinger Buff Idea - Sharpshooter

AnnoyingNarrator

The Problem

Deathslinger is in a weird place when it comes to balance. If DBD was a 1 on 1 chase game, he would be amazing. Sadly, it is a 1v4 and all of Deathslinger's weaknesses come into play almost every match. His main weakness is his ability to deal with groups of survivors. While Huntress and Trickster can usually get around health states at least, Deathsligner is stuck with one thanks to his reload mechanic.

This is not something that should be changed. Deathslinger needs to have a weakness after. The problem is that Deathslinger's strengths are not good enough to justify his weakness. So how can we buff his power without making him a nightmare (or more of a nightmare) to play against?

Part 1:Sharpshooter's Eye

This change is simple, but gives him a way to be more of a threat than huntress when it comes to skilled shots.

When a survivor is within an 18 meter radius (or in other words the range of his gun), they have their body lit up in the same manner as when in Dredge's Nightfall. On top of this effect, there will also be a smoke effect that covers their actual hit box, letting the Deathslinger know if they can hit actually hit that survivor. The survivor cannot see this effect.

Part 2:Sharpshooter's Shot

This addition is something not commonly used but gives Deathslinger a new tool to get the drop on survivors. If Deathslinger holds ADS for 2 seconds, his TR radius is replaced with a map wide Lullaby of a very quite gust of wind, with the wind being louder in a cone based on where the Deathslinger is looking. Sharpshooter's Eye now covers the entire map. He can move after entering this state but at the same speed he moves when he is ADS. When Deathslinger fires his gun, it will fire after a small delay and a global click noise but goes twice as fast as a normal shot, has no range restrictions, and deals a health state of damage. This is something that is rather hard to pull off, as after you press the trigger you can't adjust your aim, making this an ambush tool rather than a something that can be consistently pulled off mid chase.

AnnoyingNarrator

@[Deleted User] said:

Seeing the aura is interesting, but if you've played deathslinger enough you have the muscle memory for the range, maybe an add-on that replace's one of the more worse add-on's like the speed increase ones when you ADS.

The part 2 effect Sharpshooter's shot, is interesting, but sort of make's the reel effect redundant. I understand the risk/reward being suggested. I generally don't like the idea of having to take fast shot's because in 2 second's the aim will be locked, that generally wouldn't feel nice having movement suddenly being interfered with when your taking a little bit of time to get the shot.

I would suggest to keep it the same, while ADS a meter build's around the slinger's power icon (let's keep it at 2 second's for this example), this is basically the gun building pressure for the damage and range effect in a sense. Once full the slinger can switch the firing mode to the one you described, where the only movement is forward, backward and strafing. I would also add a power meter depletion for when in this mode, once the meter run's out the gun fire's regardless. Coming out of ADS in this mode, without firing, would put the redeemer on cooldown for a small bit.

There would be a taken issue to deathslinger getting injure's or downs from long range, but considiring all of the condition's and setup it feel's warranted, not sure about giving slinger more setup and condition's like the amount he has. Not sure how useful getting the damage state would be, it would be very map and situation reliant, but it would make those terror radius add-on's feel like they have a place.

Edit: spelling

The first part is more so for newer players than for experienced deathslingers.

Also for my idea it would not be just ADS for two seconds that triggers the mode, but rather ADS and standing still for two seconds, but that could be reduced down to just a second.

I do like your idea of having the meter build around the slinger's power icon.

Also the Terror Radius Addons would not be that useful because when in this Sharpshooter mode the slinger would have no Terror Radius instead having a lullaby.

RonMan32

Pretty intriguing idea. Sure would love to see a decent buff to him in some form or another! Attached is a link to my idea for how to bring the 'slinger back to his former glory. Check it out and let me know what you think!

@RonMan32 said:

I'll start off by saying I'm pretty new to this game and it's community. I yoinked it on the last day of the Steam Summer Sale (2022) and have been playing it almost everyday since. Currently at 89 hours according to Steam so I won't claim to have an at all expert level grasp on the game's mechanics or balancing.

With that said the Deathslinger in his current state is my favorite killer I've tried. I think he's really fun to use, it's really rewarding to pick your shots and shut down simple loops. But apparently he's not worth using anymore. I've only faced him as survivor once and we won all 4 in that game.

I won't pretend to know exactly why that is but I've boiled it down to people despising the nerf he got last year. So maybe he could use a tiny buff. Some people are just calling for the nerf to be removed. As someone who never used old 'slinger I don't see the big deal with the quickscope nerf (maybe the ADS animation could be a TINY fraction of a second shorter but I think that was a necessary change). I get about 2/3rds of my shots in a game with clearly experienced players. So instead of making a call to revert that change I have a different proposal:

What if he could move faster (perhaps just slightly, and not while carrying a survivor) if he kept The Redeemer unloaded. This would give him an option to search around the map with more haste, at the cost of not being instantly ready to chain someone should he come across a target before he reached his destination. I think it would be a decent way to give him back some "Map Pressure" if I'm using that term correctly.

In addition to that, give him *some* of his ambush-ability back. Reduce his terror radius to 28 or perhaps even the original 24 meters and give him a non-directional humming huntress equivalent sound outside that with him whistling some western or Irish tune.

That's it for the buffs. Finally I'd like to propose a small nerf to the chain of The Redeemer. In my experience it's way too hard for the survivor to break off if you catch them in the open with no objects to use. I think the struggling on the chain w/ out any props to break off of should progress slightly faster in general, with the object collision break being left alone.

And that's all. I think for the most part everything else about him is good as is. *Maybe* it would be nice if The Redeemer projectile was a tad faster so a longshot is harder to dodge. You can kinda only get those if you're lucky or the survivor isn't even trying to dodge and is just W-ing foward in a straight line. Although that might be best left alone as that's probably the intended drop off at range.

Vets and fellow newbies alike, please let me know what you think.

P.S. I copy pasted this from my post on the reddit just because I figured it might get more interaction on here.

squbax

I aprecciate all these slinger threads on how to make him better, but you have to remember bhvr wont put too much effot into new mechanics that they cant just recode.

Imo a good change is making it so the furthest he shots trough, the more charges the chain gets, this way snipes actually will more often than not lead to injuries/downs and not just a broken chain.

And of course reduce his tr to 24 meters again.