Deathslinger qol
Some improvements to Deathslinger, mainly focused on some of his bad add-ons to make them more interesting.
Base-kit:
Terror radius: From 32 to 26m
After hooking a survivor the redeemer automatically reloads
Reload time (2.75s to 2.6s) - Reload add-ons nerfed from (0.25 to 0.2s) and (0.5 to 0.4s)
Add-on Pass:
Marshall Badge: Increases your TR by 8m, increases your movement speed while aiming down by 5%, when a survivor becomes speared all survivors inside your TR will scream revealing their location for 4s.
Jaw Smasher: Reduce the basic attack hit cooldown by 20% when hitting a survivor speared by the redeemer. This effect will not stack with other attack cooldown reduction.
Wanted Poster: Every time you hit a non obsession survivor you see the aura of the obsession for 5 seconds and they also see yours. In the end game when the obsession is speared by the redeemer they suffer from the exposed
Honey Locus Thorn: Survivors hit by the redeemer suffer from the Mangled and Haemorrage status effect
Gold Creek Whiskey: You see the aura of survivors speared by the redeemer, this effects extends for 6 seconds after they are no longer speared
Hellshire Iron: You start the match undetectable for 30 seconds, when a survivor looses a health state by the redeemer you gain the undetectable status effect for 15 seconds.
Comments
Doesn't sound bad.
I would be a little afraid of jaw smasher and the condition of not stacking. This one is very important
Lullaby is worse then normal TR. takes away perk synergy. With current slinger, you can at least use M&A to bring him back to his old self. It is just not worth it until they revert his negative changes.
Reload is small waste of time when outside chase. most irrelevant
Jay Smasher turns his basic attack which is called hybrid attack into special attack. this is another nerf because it removes his synergy on STBFl. I could definitely see further weakening deathslinger by turning his hyprid attack into special attack as a global change. I could imagine them calling it consistency pass because deathslinger is only killer able to use instant down and m1 perks with his power.
No opinion on other add-on as they are low impact. Honey locus has most potencial with green reload add-on. Hellshire iron would be better off as being reverted back to an aura reading add-on.
I never intended to turn the move into a special attack, i even call it a basic attack, its just supposed to be STBL if you speared a survivor, but not being able to stack with STBL (it would accept the highest value possible of the two).
The reload is supposed to be a small qol change to save some time not a buff to his chase.
The lullaby is just so you can't attack a survivor with your gun without any warning with just M&A, would you prefer a 28m TR instead?
About the add-ons, i think they are reliable enough to create some build variety and fun situations to experiment, but i would agree that if you want no nonsense add-ons i would still take the reload and missed cooldown add-ons. Still all of this add-ons that i wanted to change felt really uninteresting and that was the intent, give more options and utility.
For example, you can combine Hellshire iron and wanted poster, that way you remove the downside of wanted poster and are able to give reliable surprise attacks to the obsession
Slinger isn't true ranged like Huntress and Trickster, he doesn't need a lullaby. He's more reliant on stealth than other ranged killers, actually, which is why he deserved the smaller terror radius.
Can we also add maybe revert the ADS readying speed nerf upon entering ADS only? And just leave the current penalty if he decides to cancel ADS. This way he can do cool reaction shots again on Survivors, but now he needs to commit to his shots.
Would you prefer a 28m TR, i just don't want him to shoot survivors outside of his TR with Monitor.
The ADS for entering is 0.4 with a 0.5 of firing delay. Comparing this numbers with other killers with similar range powers i think they are on par with them in order to give enough of reaction time to survivors. I just think that it feels bad because he didn't use to have this.
I would only give him maybe additional changes to his reload, maybe reduce the time to 2.5s (from 2.75), or increase his movement speed while reloading. One of the two.
Uh, why not let him do that? Slinger needs to get a direct hit to down, you need to be within a certain meter range to even get shot, and as soon as you see it's a Slinger and you hear his TR radius, you know what's happening.
Stop being scared of decent perk combos.
And as for the "similar range powers", as I said before, Slinger isn't true ranged. It's not just bad because "HE DIDNT USE TO HAVE THIS', it feels bad because it shows on loops and how you have to ADS behind a corner and slow down in the process to get shots at places like shack or jungle gyms, which leads to not being able to get angles because Survivors turn the corner quickly easily and consistently. He has to do the same thing as Huntress and Trickster now, including account for shot travel time, except he has limited range so he can't shoot people when they're shift+w-ing easily.
He's literally a worse Huntress at this point. No lullaby but so what? His TR is so massive that Survivors can run so far before Slinger can get a down, or a shot, with his power. Huntress deserves the lullaby, Slinger does not.
His reload isn't the issue with him, at all, it's him being a paid Killer while having the same or less chase potential as Huntress+Trickster but with less strengths than those two. But if you want to do BHVR-style changes that don't address his issues and just make people upset, sure go ahead.
Slinger has shots that no huntress could ever dream of. Like sure. Huntress is tough (especially with her across the map shots), but slinger can find shots in places that huntress would not even consider.
Saying that ds is just worse huntress is just pure unfair and wrong. It's just that slinger is harder to learn (try to look at all the tiny holes in the map and go for those cool shots - slingers can do insane stuff if you put in the time).
Instascope was pure BS. There was no counter to it (only macro play and dying in map corners). Current slinger is much better. But it's still true, that he could get some tweaks to make him feel better. Most of the stuff @BlueHorkew mentioned goes in this direction and it sounds reasonable.
You mean those small holes that don't secure downs because Slinger is not true ranged... again?
No, he IS weaker, 100%. Lower range to use his power, needs to get a close hit to down someone, has travel time like the others, etc.
And of course, the focusing on instascope because if I am complaining about current nerfed Slinger, it must mean that I want instascope back. Surely I can't want a Killer buffed without bringing back what the playerbase complained about, surely?
"Current slinger is much better."
Don't talk up a weak Killer please, it's spreading misinformation. Everything I said still stands, you just brought up the fact that his shot can go through holes and get those INSANE shots (if the Survivor isn't paying attention) that only allow for injures and don't get downs (which is what truly matters).
And it sounds reasonable because you don't see anything that could make him actually dangerous, that's all. "I can accept these changes because they won't actually buff him at all."
Which is pretty much proof of what the community sees as "balanced"... and most likely why the devs don't listen to the forums. :)
if you want to do BHVR-style changes that don't address his issues and just make people upset, sure go ahead.
"I can accept these changes because they won't actually buff him at all."
These two sentences made me laugh.
I think you are underestimating Deathslinger.
Yes, he is weaker than huntress, nobody here is trying to say otherwise.
He is good and viable, but needs a few qol changes, his kit is good.
What are his problems, he is slow 4.4 and has normal TR which makes survivors run early against him. He is punishing if you miss your shots, he has a lot of useless add-ons.
His kit is good, tons of deathslinger mains that stuck with the character also think he is strong. So no, he doesn't need the ADS change, he doesn't need crazy changes, his design and kit is solid, he just needs a few polishes to become a solid A tier.
Those holes can be hits a lots of times. Best example for this one is his own map - saloon. He can shoot thru carriages and convert that into hit. He can do the same at short-wall gyms. Heck I saw some insane slingers that can convert the hits even in long-wall gyms and their miniature holes. Last time Otz (someone who does not play DS that much) showed how he can do the same at LT wall. Lots of rocks can do the same.
So again - in the end you are selling him short. And one more thing - even current DS is not weak by any definition of the word. Even by Otz - the killer is in the middle of B-tier. Making him the perfect average killer. So overall complaints about the killer sounds funny compared to say Freddy or Trapper.
So I will say it again - he can get buffs, but they should be in a way to make him feel better to play (and maybe even make him easier to learn). Not necessarily to make him stronger.
All sounds good to me.
I’d remove the lullaby as well though, unnecessary.
Id also increase the range of his redeemers shot a bit.
Ok, what about this. I still don't like the idea of snipes without warning with simple Monitor and abuse. Do you think it solves the issue?
Also gave him part of the reload add-ons as base kit
Snipes without warning isn't a real thing in the first place. Opening eyes and looking around stops that.
Was still the reason they nerfed his TR in the first place, don't want to push luck.
If bhvr thought it wasn't ok, i want to make him better while guaranteeing that this won't be an issue
Still enables him to get closer and won't change his chases, as this only applies when not in chase
Actually, someone here IS trying to say Slinger is not weak, you seem to just be reading my replies and not checking theirs.
And he's not good and viable lmao I already explained why, you haven't actually debunked anything I wrote. Just doubled down.
"What are his problems, he is slow 4.4 and has normal TR which makes survivors run early against him. He is punishing if you miss your shots, he has a lot of useless add-ons."
You need to not post at 2:50AM, because it results in logic like this.
So now his normal TR is an issue to you? YOU were the one defending his current TR, now you're saying it's a problem?
His kit IS bad, the 4 Slinger mains that agree with you doesn't refute his weaknesses and how he is still weaker than Huntress, a FREE ranged Killer.
And just in case since you brought up ADS: "Can we also add maybe revert the ADS readying speed nerf upon entering ADS only? And just leave the current penalty if he decides to cancel ADS. This way he can do cool reaction shots again on Survivors, but now he needs to commit to his shots."
Just wanna point out the fact that I said "readying speed nerf only".
I don't care. They do the game, they have their reason and explained it.
So i want to give improvements and ideas that without being brute force approach and going against the concerns of the devs.
Oh, so... one map and weak loops? Short-wall gyms don't have those holes iirc, unless vaults count.
No, you mean miniature walls... which long-wall gyms have holes in them then??? I have never heard of those before.
And... so what? As soon as he shoots through a hole once, the Survivor will never let you do that again. Not to mention that would make him map-dependent, which is still a weak Killer.
EDIT: You did give me something to look up though, will admit that. But it's still map dependent.
"Can we also add maybe revert the ADS readying speed nerf upon entering ADS only? And just leave the current penalty if he decides to cancel ADS. This way he can do cool reaction shots again on Survivors, but now he needs to commit to his shots."
BTW, I said this. Instascope was never a problem, ADS zoning was the problem, I remember the complaints. That's why he should get a big cooldown upon leaving ADS. Easy.
Dude, i don't know what you want. I do think he needs a smaller TR, but i don't think you should be able to damage survivors outside your TR with monitor without any warning.
About the ADS, every semi range killer has a delay before they attack, i already told you that. Deathslinger numbers are 0.4 to ADS and 0.5 delay to shoot. This numbers are very in line with other killers. I understand that quickscoping with him was fun and required skill, but it wasn't good for the game as made him too powerfull in chases and gave way to short time for survivors to react.
This is not unique to slinger, every other semi ranged killer has numbers similar or bigger than slinger. The only one that has better number than him is nemesis, but his whip is shorter and has to work with a 3 hit chase.
So no, if his numbers were drastically bigger than other similar killers like for example Victor post hit cooldown, i would give you reason. But he doesn't.
So what? Their reason isn't right if they're worried about Survivors staring off on gens when they know it's a Slinger.
And your ideas aren't effective enough unfortunately, and are just going to make people upset because they're micro buffs that don't fix issues. Look how people talked about Skully and the changes she received on PTB. People didn't like them because it didn't fix her core issues. You'll get the same reaction if your changes go live.
People have told you multiple times now what to do: Pay attention while on gens. You HAVE your warning, start doing it.
"About the ADS, every semi range killer has a delay before they attack, i already told you that. Deathslinger numbers are 0.4 to ADS and 0.5 delay to shoot."
So, we're going in circles now? And I already told you: Slinger's weaknesses means that he shouldn't need to be "consistent" with other Killers. You keep trying to make him "in line" with other killers while ignoring why he can't be perfectly in line with others. Range limit, etc.
You also said "similarly ranged", not "semi ranged", I assumed you meant Huntress and Trickster. Unless now you're changing your argument because of what I said earlier.
"I understand that quickscoping with him was fun and required skill, but it wasn't good for the game as made him too powerfull in chases and gave way to short time for survivors to react."
If Survivors always get plenty of time to react to everything a Killer does, that makes the Killer weak because then they will never get downs. Simple as that. You shouldn't have several seconds to always make the correct decision, not putting yourself in situations where you have to react is kinda a thing in this game and it always has been. It's why you should position yourself correctly like how using loops instead of running into the middle of nowhere is Survivor 101 because then that gives M1 Killers easy hits.
And no, ADS zoning was the problem, not quickscoping. You're forgetting the complaints.
Dude, relax. I don't work at bhvr. My changes aren't going live. Honestly, for as much i would love for Deathslinger to receive a few Qol update and an add-on pass on some of his worst add-ons.
I doubt bhvr is doing that. I honestly doubt bhvr will update slinger, this year.
I just wanted to post some safe qol changes to Deathslinger and some ideas for new add-ons, because let's be real. If we are talking about heavy changes we have characters like:
Like, do you see the amount of killers that probably need bigger changes?
Ahh, believe what you want. I doubt they will mess with the ADS change. He works on the same rules as the other killers, so i doubt they will ever go back on that.
And Bhvr even promised that they would give him that delay before it was released.
You might think its unfair, but this is how the game works for every killer and i doubt they will ever go back on that decision for him.
This is my opinion. If you want to make another post with your changes you are free. You can even use some of my ideas if you liked any of them. Or if you just want to post your ideas here, you are also free.
I would be interested in seeing what you would come up with.
Still, i appreciate the feedback, the TR i might go back and just give him the 24m and remove the warning and stuff. But the ADS i will not change it. That is my opinion.
Ok, i went back on the TR.
Just say what do you think of the Marshall badge and if you like the reload base kit changes.
Again, ADS is a no for me.
If he ever gets 24m TR, I want him to not be able to fully utilize M&A. We have hiding killers and all of them don't shoot. There's a good reason for that.
If you want super easy games, go play against bots.
I like the idea of improving on the deathslinger, its a cool killer and its a shame that it is in such as low power state as it is now.
I am honestly super scared of that. I also don't think is the best idea, but i seem to be in the minority.
I don't know.
Less @ OP, more @ entire thread here.
It's kinda funny that Deathslinger is one of the most controversial killers. People think he's either A tier or D tier. The people that actually put a lot of time into him say he's A tier, and I don't think someone who has 1k+ hours on Trapper will try to tell you he is A tier...
Here's the funny thing about Slinger's TR change: it didn't change the fact that he can equip a single perk and shoot you from outside his terror radius. Any Oblivious or Undetectable perk lets him do the exact same thing that M&A let him do, except it also made him way more difficult for anyone that isn't relying on stealth perks.
They nerfed his TR because of a single perk, when there are dozens of other perks that let him stealth snipe anyway lol
M&A is very free tho, compared to something like Trail of Torment or Plaything. You just slap the perk on and you're good to go.
But also, why is it bad that Slinger can shoot you from outside his TR when Huntress can easily snipe you from outside her lullaby? Slinger isn't even guaranteed a down, since you can break off the chain.
idk, I think his TR should go back to 24m. You can use your eyeballs and see if the killer is coming even well beyond 16m, 24m, or even 32m. He needs a straight line between you and him to land a shot, and anything he can shoot through or over you can SEE through or over.
I guess it's because Monitor is permanent, while the other oblivious and undetectable perks are temporary.
I don't know, he needs a smaller TR so survivors don't run earlier against him. But still, if before 24m the devs looked at it as a problem. I am not sure, i am on third idea to try and make this work.
I hope this new lullaby range can make both sides happy.
A 28m TR would be fine, without giving him a weird janky disappearing lullaby. Just that no other lullabies disappear with undetectable or oblivious so it would be strange and confusing.
A better fix similar to what you want would be that his ADS warning audio queue is no longer bound to his TR. So if Slinger is aiming at you while undetectable or while he has a small TR, you still hear the ringing sound. But that would also remove some of his unique synergy with undetectable and oblivious.
A 28m TR is the right fix, I think. 20m with M&A, so you have some warning that Slinger can make a shot at you, but not so much warning that you can hold W to Narnia. He still has to burn a perk slot on something that isn't a top tier meta perk so he can MAYBE get some stealth shots in. Even back before his nerf, a lot of the best Slingers dropped M&A so they could have more slowdown. I personally never stopped running it until he was nerfed, and the value from M&A became basically non-existent.
Yeah, i would love the second fix, but i don't want to ruin his synergy with undetectable and oblivious.
I will put it at 26m for now.
I really hope he get a small update. The character is good and really cool, he just needs a few tweaks.
But it's fun imagining.
his low tr had little to do with being able to shoot out of terror radius. it had everything to do with his ammo capacity and yoyoing generators. 1 ammo count means that if he shoots a healthy survivor, he has to shoot, wipe his weapon/self-stun, reload, speed boost and then shoot again. that is time consuming for the killer. Low terror radius was clever way to preserve his ammo count by potentially getting an initial hit which would result in a survivor starting injured in the chase.
The other aspect of low terror radius to make yoyoing generators less effective vs soloq. soloq relies on heartbeats to measure distances for how close/how far a killer is from a generator. the more intense heartbeat, the closer the killer is near you. the less intense the heartbeat, the further away the killer is. most survivor do not understand how heartbeat works and do not yoyo effectively anyway. yoyoing is most of SWF concept more so then soloq one. that is kinda why even with deathslinger was stronger, he was not that good vs swf because low terror radius is not that helpful vs strong swf that proper yoyoing because they call out the killer's position despite having no terror radius.
*** I will avoid explaining yoyoing as concept in this thread.
About the ADS, every semi range killer has a delay before they attack, i already told you that. Deathslinger numbers are 0.4 to ADS and 0.5 delay to shoot. This numbers are very in line with other killers. I understand that quickscoping with him was fun and required skill, but it wasn't good for the game as made him too powerfull in chases and gave way to short time for survivors to react.
The quick ADS timing for deathslinger was there because of the travel time of his harpoon and his tiny hitbox on the harpoon. At further distances. His gun had a lot of shot leading which gave more experienced survivors time to react to his shot allowing them to easily side-step out of the way. Survivor was always in control of his gun in terms of whether shot hits or not but it took a lot more skill to predict when deathslinger would shoot and there was a skill towards using line of sight and meticulous prediction in avoiding his harpoon gun. Fast ADS time increases skill-floor for survivor to avoid his gun. I wrote thread around 6 months ago explaining this concept in regards to his gun.
Now the survivor control is like free. With current iteration of his gun, I feel like survivor do not earn control over his gun. There is no real skill-cap towards playing against deathslinger gun. they just get control without much effort.There is more odds for him to miss a wiggling survivor then there is for him to hit a survivor which artificially creates long chases for a killer who is designed to be a strong chasing killer. Luckily, most survivors are not that good so you can still 4k with slinger against not so good survivors.
If you want my opinion on this topic, I would recommend raising his harpoon gun velocity to 1500 m/s from 1000 m/s. Make his gun near hitscan. Now survivor can have their longer ADS time and Killer can have a more effective gun if the slinger player has good aim.
I support that, it's a well articulated point and I'd love to see better velocity on that harpoon.
I want to suggest changes that i know won't cause problems. Since his projectile is already the same speed of max charge Huntress hatchets, i have no idea what implications a change like that would create, it might be ok or not, i can't test it or visualize it.
You might be totally right, but because i can't get a point of comparison i don't want to add it to the suggestions.
I hope you understand, i think you explained your points really well.
In your first post you made some points about my add-on choices. My ideas for add-ons were a mixture of utility that he needed or flavor from his lore and western imagery. His hunt for his obsession like in his lore, the badge making an entire town stop in fear of the outlaw.
There's a reason why skilled (with this killer) people consider him A-tier. The amount of little gaps he can shoot thru (and there are these things on like every map and "buttload" of them) and surprise survivors is insane. Skilled DS will know them and will be able to abuse them - making him nightmare to face. But beginner DS will struggle to get a shot in the open if survivor is juking.
The killer in fact IS strong, but he's just hard to pick up (definitely harder then nurse). This is also the reason why many ppl perceive DS as weak killer.
Making him true stealth killer (16m TR) or win-win killer (returning insta-scope) would just catapult him into unfair territory - where the only counterplay is genrush and going to die into corners. So no - none of these 2 things can ever return. Also plaything is fine - it has it's conditions and is not permanent like just lazily equipping M&A.
He definitely needs to be careful, DS used to be hated because of those things, i want to improve him and know that he needs a smaller TR, but the true stealth slinger from his launch is best to not return.
in my opinion, his stealth was only a problem because his insta-scope and spam ADS ""mindgame"" were also problems.
Current Slinger could have his stealth come back, and it wouldn't be too much of an issue.
I'd be interested in seeing it in a PTB, at the very least.