The genius solution to slugging
As many of you feel that nowadays, hooking has become such a punished strategy for killer, some killers have shifted towards slugging instead.
This post is about how to solve excessive slugging playstyles, yet keeping slugging as a valid strategy for killer.
We have seen many excessive solutions to slugging too, like built-in unbreakable, etc.
But what really is the problem with slugging?
Slugging should seem inherently weak, because of the long 240 ish seconds slug timer. That should theoretically give survivors ample time to reset and pick up the game again if they play well, right?
Well, that's where the problem comes in. Many times when there is excessive slugging, all players will be injured, and typically, won't be able to get back into 1 piece due failing to be able to reset. Which is where they can use the 240 second slug timer to their advantage.
So how do we solve slugging?
SOLUTION:
Whenever you pick up a survivor from the dying state, both survivors gain elusive for 15 seconds.
So what does this accomplish? It keeps slugging a fair strategy for killer. BUT, if the survivors manage to pick up a survivor, let's say, in a 3 slug scenario, they now have a significantly better chance at breaking continuous killer pressure, allowing them to reset and break the slugging cycle.
In cases where survivors manage to pick up successfully, it'll be way more likely that the killer then instead hooks 1 or 2 of the remaining slugged survivors, due to not being able to find the other 2 survivors, and only ending the slugging scenario if the other survivors have been playing well.
This makes it so that there are no built in tools to help end a slugging scenario, like built-in unbreakable, and still requires the survivor's gameplay to be the deciding factor on whether the slugging scenario turns into a success or a failure ❤️
Comments
Sounds like a fair option imo. Endless slugging needs to be made more unattractive.
A perk that grants unbreakable to teammates for a duration when a gen pops might be a solid counter instead of going straight for the killers bait in trying to get them up.
On the killer side a perk that grants haste for a duration per hook (like Furtive Chase but without the undetectable and not exclusively to hooking obsession)
Some little band aids I know
I don't really buy the "hooking is dead" arguments I've been seeing lately. Weaker than slugging sure but I think both options are still completely viable.
1. While survivors get a lot of their strongest perks from hooking so do killers. Pain Res, Turn Back the Clock, Pop, Friends till the End, DMS are all perceived to be some of the strongest killer perks in the game and all of them rely on hooking.
2. It's perceived to be not time efficient as time spent hooking is time spent where 3 other survivors can work on gens uninterrupted. But this logic has a couple problems.
3. Basement is a thing. I swear people have forgotten how strong basement is, stronger for some killers than others but it's never a weak option and you're pretty much guaranteed a couple of hook trades if you do it right.
4. Slugging only seems stronger because survivors expect hooking. If survivors actually expected slugging and brought WGLF, Unbreakable, Exponential, Conviction, Plot Twist, Made for This, For the People, Buckle Up or any of the other perks that makes slugging worse slugging would all of a sudden seem a lot weaker than hooking.
5. Most killers don't slug and do perfectly fine, we would be seeing far lower kill rates globally if hooking was actually "dead" or "unviable".
If we're being so for real this debate has been created by CCs playing at the top 5% of MMR because slugging made their kill rate go from 90% to 95%. It's incredibly goofy and if you tried to make this argument in any other competitive community for a game you'd get laughed out of the room while they went back to discussing if something with a 54% win rate was broken or not.
Tunneling is the only thing that makes hooking still appealing but anti-tunneling perks are the strongest ones and most annoying to deal with so that's why killers slug.
Basekit makes slugging too effective, too easy, and too attractive.
Killer Perks should no longer work in the Dying State; instead, require them to use Perks or Add-ons that build into slugging and extend the info to the Dying State.
BBQ: After hooking a Survivor, all Healthy or Injured Survivors who are at least 60/50/40 metres away from that Hook have their Aura revealed to you for 5 seconds.
Infectious: Whenever a Survivor is put into the Dying State by any means, all other Healthy or Injured Survivors within your Terror Radius will scream and reveal their current location to you for 4/5/6 seconds.
They could add some new Perks and Add-ons that make slugging as viable as it is today, like one that makes Screaming and Aura work in the Dying State. Something that increases Pools of Blood and noise in the Dying State too. Slugging should always be an option, but without Perks it should be highly risky and more difficult for The Killer.
Improve Basekit for Survivors too. Survivors move too slowly, make too much noise, etc. They could move a little faster or perhaps increase speed over time. The current snail's pace encourages and promotes slugging since Survivors cannot go far.
The problem with elusive is the same problem with elusive off the hook - if the killer is right there it doesn't matter, if the killer is far away it doesn't matter. It's only addressing the situations where the killer is coming back, but not close enough to be right on top of the survivor.
I doubt BHVR would ever do it, but the idea comes up every now and then to allow slugs to do gens and/or hexes at a significantly reduced rate. That would put some pressure on the killer to do a pick up, but not so much pressure that they always have to do it.
That's a real good post.
I will add that slugging is also one of those things that gets defended, even though its strongest against uncoordinated soloq. It still is usable against SWFs, but they have a much easier time adapting quickly to the killer strategy and/or having a single survivor with a perk to counter it.
I enjoy laying on the ground waiting for the "tab abandon" option.
Great game!
A genius solution? This isn't even a meh solution.
I don't mind the idea, but I also don't really have a problem with mass slugging. It's boring, but you can still play and fight back.
I take more issue with slugging for the 4k with two people left since the game is over at that point. I think in that scenario, downed survivors should be given a weaker version of Unbreakable.
As far as general slugging, if there had to be a change, I would make a weaker version of We're Gonna Live Forever basekit. So something like,
1 Dying Survivor - 0% Global Healing Speed
2 Dying Survivor - 50% Global Healing Speed
3 Dying Survivor - 100% Global Healing Speed
This lets survivors reset faster the more people slugged and really only effects mass slugging. EGC would also remove this bonus effect. I doubt anything like this would actually come to the game, but I could see an Invocation perk similar to this eventually.
wglf is the goat tough and after the calrophobia nerf i don't how a good team will have issues with slugging . Maybe make infeactious a default 32 m radius no matter which killer it's on both otherwise that should fix it .
Why is it that I always have the feeling that I am repeating myself….
In every PvP game I played the meta goes through many shifts.
Example: Hey Tanks are to strong because no one builds anti Tank so everyone buys anti Tank and like a miracle people don´t play Tanks anymore.
Same thing for DbD. "Hey Killers don´t hook anymore and only slug, maybe I should go away from my anti tunnel perks and go for anti Slug.
Nearly no Killer in this game would try to slug a team if they know that 4 UBs are in play.
Yeah it sucks in Soloque i understand that but in all the other plays I went through in my life Solo Players understand after a time that they have to forge a new meta against the current one if they want to climb the rank ladder. While the rest was hoping for the devs to change the game for them.
All what I want to say is. Try to take Anti Slug if you claim that every game is Slugging. You will be suprised how often you profit from it or realize that slugging isnt that normal as you think it is.
Slugging is fine. If you get slugged 3 times, you can abandon.