A question for those hating on Deathslinger...
First up, I know how bait-y this will sound, but I'm genuinely curious:
The main argument against him I keep seeing is how 'he's boring too face' usually with the explanation that you can not have 'interactive chases' against him.
So, I do wonder:
Facing a killer that requires you to shake up your gameplay is 'boring' while the same routine (chasing, juking, looping, etc) for every killer on every map isn't?
I really don't get the logic here.
Again, I see people argue that 'the chases are the most fun part' as if that is a universal truth, and as if everyone who plays sneakily, gets their objectives done etc is a bad player and not welcome in the community.
That's the impression I am getting each time people call for a massive nerf for Caleb, if not his full removal from the game.
Comments
-
Honestly I think a lot of problems would be solved if they gave Deathslinger a red sniper dot. It'd let people know where he's aiming and let them know if now is the time to wiggle or juke.
7 -
"shake up your gameplay"
Normal chases; mindgame a loop/pallet and use my power/knowledge of the killer's power to outplay them.
Slinger; hope they are bad. getting zoned for free is not fair. Like it or not, the height of this game is the chasing, its where the interactions happen, its where outplay potential happens, etc. Playing immersed is not fun for either side.
sidenote; am i the only one who finds it weird to call killers by their names? (Rin, Caleb, etc)Post edited by BigTimeGamer on21 -
I was a Slinger main til Blight came out. I love Slinger. He's still one of my favourite killers. If I'm landing my shots, there's nothing at all the survivors can do in any way, shape or form and I dont think that is okay.
If the survivors are within about 10m, and they aren't literally standing under a pallet, they're dead. You can't juke a good Slinger, you just don't physically have the reaction time, it's a limitation of human physiology. There's just nothing they can do, I'll hit them no matter what. Break LoS? Guess what, I'll probably shoot you anyway, and even if I can't I'm only 5% slower than normal, so... Yeah. Congrats, you extended your life for 5 seconds.
But the main reason that people seem to hate Slinger is because of what happens when you fake the pallet or window: you get hit anyway. It was a discussed issue even before PH, and PH took over the forums because he's much easier to play, but Slinger still has that damned if you do, damned if you don't vibe.
11 -
I think it humanizes the killers for people. People won't accept that the slasher they're facing is a killing machine for the Entity. No matter what people will always, always try to identify with the bad guy. Yin and Yang and all that.
2 -
That won't help against quick scopes and flick shots. And I guess it would be bad for survivor anyway.
If it's only shown to survivor, that would make him nervous and juking everytime he see red dot on him. Then survivor just lose distance. Red dot from quick scope is too fast to notice on short distance. And on long distance survivor doesn't have problem juking harpoon because it has small hitbox, long travel time and loud audio clue of shot.
If red dot will be shown to killer even if he not aiming, that would help to killer to aim better. Killer doesn't need red dot while aiming because he see exact center of screen already.
2 -
I personnaly think Deathslinger is a B or C tier killer and he doesn't need any rework at the moment. He got too much weaknesses. He can't pressure more than one survivor. He is too slow to control gens. He is only good for chasing one survivor in open area. And I don't know why there is so much complains about this one poor weak killer.
10 -
Personally I'm fine with most killers, although Deathslinger is one of the killers that I really despise. As a survivor, it feels like I have almost no counter play against him in a chase, and that is an incredibly unfun feeling to have. I have to constantly guess whether or not he's gonna shoot me, and with how fast his quick scope is he can easily just fake it and either zone me out or catch up to me. The only real counter play to him is rushing gens and stealthing, but because of his super low terror radius, unless I have spine chill, stealthing isn't an option. Rushing gens is the only real counterplsy to him, but since solo queue is inconsistent, alot of the times that I go up against him my teammates will do anything but rush gens.
My main problem with whenever I play as him is that while in the 1v1 he's godlike, in the 1v4 he's super weak, and more often then not when I play as him, I get gens popping quickly even if I have quick chases, which is really frustrating.
I don't think Deathslinger is OP, far from it, but imo he's incredibly unfun to play as and against.
3 -
Survivors are used to being in control of the game. The only way killer wins is when survivors make a mistake. They hate any killer that takes away that power, when all killers should do that.
9 -
Nice strawman. There's probably some people who hate deathslinger for that reason, but most survivors hate him because of the reasons above.
8 -
naw, it's very much that.
because, lbr: the whole 'no counterplay in chases' etc does boil down to 'they don't get to control the match'
just look how an average (fair-ish) match pans out very often against other killers:
killer find survs
1 surv runs, starts getting the killer away from the other, juking, looping etc ensues. (which is completely okay. it needs practice to be able to do that)
killer potentially downs surv A, picks them up.
the other survivors begin swarming the killer (instead of doing gens)
A might wiggle off, and get chased again (in bad cases they'll claim this is tunneling)
finally A gets hooked (maybe there's gens done at this point)
Killer leaves hook
A gets unhooked the killer is barely away, if the others having been swarming the hook already.
etc
Deathslinger cuts that routine short if it's carried out the always same. be it through not letting A get too far away from the group, or by shooting unhookers if they were impatient. (they usually declare that tunneling and camping)
1 -
So tell us how you "shake um your gameplay" vs Deathslinger. There is just no way, so dont tell obvious lies.
1 -
The issue with Slinger is the precision required at any sort of range if the survivor is actively juking. It's the exact same issue with Pyramid Head. You don't have a decent percentage chance of hitting someone with the harpoon if they're rapidly strafing beyond 8-10 meters. Huntress throws refrigerators, so she retains viability through her hatchet range. Not the case with Deathslinger.
Faking the shot and zoning has lower upside but less variance. It's not an issue of quickscope vs ADS. You're trying to hit a fish with a sewing needle on dedicated servers. It leads to boring playstyles. Some players need to be lead with the shot by a mile for it to connect, and others you need to shoot behind them for it to register. You can spend half the game figuring out how much you need to compensate for each player's platform and ping, or you can zone until they're at short range.
4 -
- stop running your second chance perks and get something that actually tells you if the killer's approaching, be it spinechill, ooo or anything like that. run kindred
- pay attention to your surroundings.
- stealth. seriously, show us your sneaking skills.
- know your gens. genspeed/strategical gen popping IS counterplay against low pressure/mobility killers.
to argue 'but the game rewards chases' is faulty logic: by now there are perks that work against the current 'rewards' (e.g. PWYF) so the statement is outdated
4 -
If that’s what you consider the counters to Deathslinger, then I don’t see how you wouldn’t know why he’s boring to play against. I don’t think anyone with more than 500 hours enjoys stealth.
1 -
I hate Deathslinger with a passion, so let me give you an honest answer.
For me he is not only boring but also frustrating to face in a chase, because it only comes down to how good the killer is and not not how good killer and survivor are. When i "outplay" a Deathslinger, i dont feel good about it, because i know a better Deathslinger would have got me there. If he outplays me, i just know it was unlucky and thats it. I thought about it how to trick a Deathslinger, but all those tricks still are only options and its only about the Deathsligner if he falls for them or not.
Whats for me confusing is actually your argument "facing a killer that requires you to shake up gameplay is 'boring' " because that is not true. Every killer is different, and every killer forces you to change the way you play, not only Deathslinger. But Deathslinger and also Pyramid Head forces you to play in a way, that is not very intuitive and extremly one-sided. It leaves you to situations where you can not do anything but hope the killer is doing a mistake.
I think that got explained so many times. Those situations where you either get hit the one way or get hit the other way are completly nonsense and make it only fun for one side. Said that, yes it bothers me that people pick a killer knowing that the survivors have a bad time just for their own fun.
1 -
Many people can't accept and thus don't like that slinger is supposed to be extremely deadly on close range in most cases, just like nurse. The general hate towards him reminds me of the old days when nurse came out during the infinites meta and everyone hated her because she could negate all of the basic looping and forced completely new playstyle on survivors.
With slinger it's a simmliar case of new playstyle called "get the ######### as far away as you can or you'll die" and most survivors don't really like that. I've seen so many survivors who don't have any idea how to play against deathslinger and make the most obvious mistakes in chase and get downed near instantly.
I hope devs won't nerf/rework him since I enjoy playing against him quite a bit so I would miss to play him and play against him.
7 -
I mean, isn't there a major argument against stealth right now though because people find it boring to play against? I know people who bring Moris against Blendettes because of it, and I've seen other Survivors get facecamped for stealthing against killers like Nurse, even though they've been a good teammate and doing gens/saves...
Personally I don't mind the lack of mid-chase counterplay against Deathslinger, though it does make chases against him pretty boring compared to someone like Ghostface at fair loops.
I just dislike him because it feels like every Slinger I go against likes to be toxic in post game chat lol, so I just have bad experiences with him.
0 -
- I run spine chill most of the time, but how does this perk make a chase against quickscopeboy more or less fun?
- How does pay attention to you surroundings make a chase against Deathslinger more fun?
- How does stealth make a chase against Deathslinger more fun?
- How does genrush make a chase against Deathslinger more fun?
You guys simply dont get it. Its not about OP, its not about Genrush, its not about counterplay beside chase... Its only about chases because for most people its the main fun part of it. Without good chase mechanic, playerbase would not be excisting anymore. Without those good chases, nobody would watch this game on twitch or youtube. Chase is all in the game, its the main focus and the most important part by a mile.
0 -
I don't know he has a gun try dogeing a bullet a bullet. Can't exactly
0 -
you just told 4 things that are the most boring types of counterplay,
saying you should run specific perks to face off against one killer
pay attention its not like theres walls and crates that can block los and lots of things
crouching in the corner is just boring for both players
holding down m1 is also incedibly boring for both players
take away chase interaction and no one has any reason to play survivor thats why we need killers to be made/reworked with interactive powers
0 -
I call the shape Michael and I call The nightmare Freddy? Do I think they should be humanized? Hell no. Both of these sickos murdered tons of people, and freddy murdered children before he was a dream demon
0 -
I personally enjoy going againts a Deathsling,he's a fun killer to verse in my point of view,love the feeling when you dodge one of his shots.
0 -
This right here. My main problem with slinger is if they are a bad slinger they stop shooting. Due to his isnta shooting nature you have to dodge because he could still very well shoot at any moments notice.
Also yeah I said that to him before calling killers by their real name.
0 -
Well, I do. I'm not good at looping. I think it's fun, specially when the killer gets completely confused xD
1 -
Kebek I like you but you are prefacing this as a slinger main. People dont like slinger because of his terrible design. The one interaction you have as survivor is completely negated from average to good slingers. The free zoning by just moving is absolutely ludicrous. What killer can make you lose distance by just existing?
I dont see how this does not seem like a problem for some people. These killers only further push towards genrush stealth meta where killers will moan about how gen speeds are to fast. It Is a double edged sword.
3 -
Don't even try to talk to that guy, it's futile, trust me.
1 -
People say he is boring because there is no counter to him other than hoping he misses. The reason is because his ADS time is practically instant, meaning if they know how to play him then there is really nothing you can do except hope he loses you or misses his shots. You can never really dodge his shots unless you have very good reactions and you are at the edge of his range. Even then it is kinda hard if he is somewhat good. Again, he is boring because you have to play immersed against a good deathslinger and always be making distance on him which is pretty stale gameplay IMO.
0 -
So in other words I become blendette and rush gens? Well the gen rush posts are gonna be back. Nobody wants to hold m1, stealthing puts me to sleep, killers have stealth players because nobody wants to check every patch of grass, finally you don't discourage the only thing that survivors have for real fun.
0 -
They were always associated with those names. Michael and freddy but spirit and slinger that's jsut a tidbit weird.
0 -
I think he has the grounds to talk about slinger, because he is one of the top 10 slingers on the leaderboards and playerstats.
1 -
I know he mains slinger and is top 10. That doesnt change anything on how he has an instant shoot and can zone by being there.
2 -
Basically this. But, I think his zoning and ads spam should be nerfed, that's it.
0 -
I know that as slinger main I'll always be at least a little bit biased towards him but my general stance is that not a single killer's power right now is badly designed to deserve huge changes, not even slinger. I agree with a few things that should change aboout him like M2 release spam & possibly also TR but other then those nothing is inherently breaking the game to warrant significant changes.
Chase experience/skill still matters a lot vs slinger, I would know since I've seen soooo many horrible survivors who have literally 0 idea how to play against slinger. Even the basic things like "if you get hit by his power in open loop you should leave it insted of deciding to waster your hit SB and stay there" among others more complex.
Many killers have in-build zoning that can benefit them to gain distance, slinger just brings it one tier higher, it's annoying sure but not broken.
Tbh it's a matter of preference. I love playing against killers like slinger and hate killers like trapper other people don't have a problem with. And every killer is beaten by doing gens, it doesn't have much to do with only slinger, especially since many people can't play him so you hava more time then average to do gens anyway.
1 -
"You can't do anything"
You can do LOTS. Looping a DS isn't possible at some loops but very easy on others. Dropping the pallet early stops him dead in his tracks
"You didn't juke him, he just missed"
Yes you can, when he misses.. that's called juking. It's the same thing in First Person Shooters - when someone bobs and weaves to dodge shots that are hitscan (literally 0 projectile travel time) that's juking.
"If he starts faking his shots and I juke, he just gains distance and hits me"
Then don't juke. You have to adapt to how the killer is playing. And like I mentioned earlier, you have to play differently to the other killers. Just like... nearly all the killers. No you can't loop him like a Wraith, but that's not the Wraith's strong suit. DS's strength is (close range) loop ending - and he's not even the best at that.
1 -
As soon as you said you could juke a hit scan, 0 travel time in your words. I stopped reading. That is litterly you didnt juke hr missed. I'm pretty sure at max range you can possibly ju see a slinger because I find myself leading if far away.
3 -
Maybe it’s because there’s very little skill input from the survivor side in a chase with Slinger? There’s some, like you’ll last a bit longer if you’re not totally predictable, but there’s ultimately little difference between a survivor that just runs away in a straight line using trees to block LoS and a survivor with thousands of hours who knows every map, has learned how to loop every tile, and has impeccable reactions and timing. None of that matters. Against a Huntress (with good ping) for example, you can use your experience and knowledge of how her kit works to predict and avoid shots, and if you mess up or she outplays you you’ll eat a hatchet. It feels like a back-and-forth and like both sides have input on how the chase goes. But with DS it’s basically down to how good the killer is and the input from the survivor side is meaningless.
DS isn’t overpowered by any means, he has weaknesses and he’s beatable. But if you’re playing survivor for the chase then you don’t want to play games where you rush gens as fast as possible and have short, uninteractive chases.
I mean, most killers hate it when survivors just run from pallet to pallet, dropping them instantly while their team rushes gens, right? It’s because it’s totally one-sided and DULL. What can you do about it? Well, in killer’s case you can stop chasing that survivor and go for someone more interesting. Survivors don’t have that option.
1 -
I like playing killers like Caleb, default chases are getting really boring for me in 4 years and killers like him bring something new. Of course it feels extremely difficult, as I have much less experience against them, but that's where the fun is.
2 -
Juke
/jo͞ok/
verb
- 1.
- INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
- (in sports) make a sham move to mislead an opponent.
- "Howard juked left, sending three defenders leaning as he went toward the center of the field"
- 2.
- SCOTTISH•NORTHERN ENGLISH
- turn or bend quickly, typically to avoid someone or something.
- "I jouked around the corner"
Faking your movement to lead someone in the wrong direction is juking
1 -
In a sense the base of chase skills/experience matters verses slinger. You provided a good example of instead of wasting hit sb you make distance to a better tile. However that's the basics and you also still got hit.
Killers with zoning such as demo slow down and have a better telegraph. He doesnt zone by existing and his zone is way easier to read at loops. It isnt just insta shoot it actually has more boundries rather than shoot over this and pull around cause loops are short. Slingers zoning is just gross. I struggle to find out how he got past ptb.
Yes preference is the only thing at the end of the day. You may enjoy killers like slinger but u enjoy killers like billy. A killer who can punish you and aldo provides equal opportunity to outplay.
1 -
Well, other examples would include a lot of predicting which as it seems isn't generally accepted as valid counterplay vs sligner since he forces far more predicitons and more often then other killers do. Universally staying near him is bad idea so whenver I see someone who doesn't leave a unsafe tile for a safer one after slinger misses just makes my head hurt.
Other killers have slowdowns because their powers are more lethal in a sence that their projectiles deal damage and/or have much faster reload/recovery for snowballing besides often having some kind of another alt power. Slinger needs much more time to confirm his hits and has no other alt power or normal MM speed which is why his power doesn't have other "average" slowdowns.
Also I wanted to ask, were you playing DBD already during slinger's PTB ? Since there was liteally no one who complained about him (chase fun/fairness wise) during his PTB and a small period of time after his release. I though someone like you would offer a lot of feedback on killer like him during the PTB when any changes were most likely to happen.
1 -
His predicting aspect just makes game boring. It either I guess right or die. No real skill involved there. Making distance works and using that sb from hit is good. Then you gotta pre throw tour way to victory. The problem is in solo you need teammates to be actively doing gens because you are going through alot of pallets.
Sure slinger has to take a bit more time to get hits but it really is not that long. He gets guarenteed hits at window in open and iij n most short wall loops.
I was playing dbd during his release. During ptb I watched he didnt look too bad but playing my matches on live servers I already said he was a problem since day one. same with PH a problem since day one. That zoning and insta shoot. He can shoot over a lot of tiles.
0 -
My favorite is when survivors run past the high rock pallet to try and play an L wall/T wall against Slinger, go down immediately, and then d/c. Like, are ya'll giving any thought to what this killer does? Or they try to play shack and I shoot through one crack for the first hit, then another crack and pull them to the window for the down. So many players don't realize they need high walls, LOS blockers, and need to avoid windows like the plague.
2 -
If someone is strafing beyond 8-10 meters that means they are giving up distance. just hold W for a bit and then M1 them.
I also really don't care how hard his shot is to land. To a survivor, it doesn't matter if the Deathslinger is missing because of lag, or servers, or bad aim, or all of the above. To a survivor, the important thing is being able to make skillful plays to counter the killer. That's not really possible against a decent Deathslinger. You have to hope you're on a perfect tile when he shows up and that he somehow misses his shots. Killers that can zone create a lose/lose.
He's a pretty average killer in terms of strength, so I'd be perfectly happy buffing him in other ways. Give him a more generous hitbox so you feel like you're fighting the game less, sure thing. So long as he can zone, though, he will be a massive pain in the ass to play against.
0 -
Another absurd thing I observed:
The majority of survivors that complain that you 'can not dodge his shots because instant' are the SAME that will stand in the open gate/hatch WAITING for Deathslinger, tbagging, flashlightclicking etc... and then wonder when they get pulled away and downed.
It's like they don't make the connection between
'if i can not dodge him in a chase I can't react fast enough to leave at the gate either'
1 -
Am i the only one that loves going against nurse but hates slinger, even though he's weaker? Nurse has counterplay, but he doesn't.
0 -
But you didnt dodge. He missed. His shot isn't reactable.
1 -
That‘s not the case anymore with the strong Killers. They don‘t have to hope that the survivor Messes up anymore. The Problem People have with slinger isn‘t that they aren‘t in control of the chase, but that they don‘t have a fair amount of counterplay to have any effect on the chase, making the chases so uninteractive and unenjoyable.
1 -
Dunno, I love facing both due to their different chase mechanics and many predictions per chase. They are very similar in that manner.
Tbh nurse has only as much counterplay as the person playing her allows it, just like slinger. They both are unbeatable if the person playing them plays 100% perfectly which is impossible thus they do have some reasonable amount of counterplay.
1 -
For me, nurse isn't. I'm a nurse main, and I know what a good nurse will do. I can run nurses as easily as any other killer now.
0 -
I highly doubt that you can consistently outplay really good nurses on any tile in the game, especially the open ones. I do agree that you (since you know how nurse is played) can run general rank 1 nurses since most of them aren't that good.
Still, I wonder (since you've claimed nurse has counterplay and slinger doesn't) how are you consistenly counterplaying good nurse other then her making mistakes/bad predecitons which applies to slinger as well ?
2
