How come deathslinger hasn't been reworked?
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It seems like him and Oni are considered the best balanced killers from release since neither has had any real changes. (Although I think oni could use a slight nerf)
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deathsligner is fine... here is why.
Although deathslinger doesn't have map pressure, He is great in the 1v1 scenario. You should be able to down someone within 1/2 shots 3 at most, if they gave him a like cooldown/warmup to aiming his gun, then yes getting around the map faster would be a great idea.
Originally I've been told he was supposed to get around the map faster by shooting and reeling himself in, but limitations to the game didn't allow this.
In my opinion, he is by far the best ranged killers and one of the top tier killers if you get good with him, no buffs needed, just practice.
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This video is quite a decent demonstration of why The Slinger’s power is balanced or at least not overpowered/too oppressive when out in the open or at smaller loops.
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Demo, also is one of the better killers, his shred is a great power, and map mobility make him strong.
His addons however have always sucked, with the rework we can expect cool new builds and much more lethality.
I honestly believe he is far better than pyramid head, and most people just don't know how to play him.
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His ability does not become unusable. You just have to use it in a smaller subset of situations, like every other ranged killer.
Either give him a much longer ADS, some sort of Huntress-esque charge mechanic, or both, and give him a PH/Huntress-style M1 cooldown after ADSing to go with it. In exchange, allow him to use his gun as a grappling hook for added mobility. Imagine, you can pull yourself up to the second floor of a Haddonfield house, you can jump right up to the second floor of the Saloon, etc. If he's still too weak or not getting enough mileage out of the grapple, buff his reload time so there's less of a downside to using it. You could of course buff him in any number of other ways, though; the point is, it's not like he automatically becomes useless if he can't zone. He just needs to have other changes to his kit.
Dynamic map generation per killer would be cool but it seems like an unreasonable amount of work.
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I'd agree he's in an alright state in terms of balance, but balance is unfortunately not the problem people have with him.
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I agree 110% with absolutely everything that you've said. Deathslinger needs FIXED not NERFED
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Please tell me how you can tell when he's faking a shot. If you could actually tell early enough to dodge reactively he wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. Unless I'm missing something, you can't. If he's aiming down sight there's an audio cue, but If he quickscopes there's no audio feedback for ADS; in either situation, I don't think there's any audio cue when Deathslinger has actually decided to fire until the "bang". There's no visual feedback either as far as I know other than the ADS animation. The projectile is 40 m/s, so you're not dodging it once it's fired. So, your options are dodge preemptively the second you see the ADS, or keep running. The former loses you distance and you eat an M1. The latter makes you a sitting duck for the M2. It's the classic zoning lose/lose.
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A thread about deathslinger that's over 1 page and nobody has said the flawed "He just missed"? New record for the forums :o
As much as I would like survivors to enjoy versing slinger more, you cannot remove the quickscope or he becomes the worst killer in the game.
I would say he's fine as he is now as he has a LOT of drawbacks when it comes to the game in general.
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Everyone who says his power isn't balanced is wrong because the devs themselves haven't changed his power. If you want to go off of the devs intentions why look at another killer they changed? They haven't changed deathsliner who, by the way, is a completely different killer from pyramid head. Seeing as the deathslinger was out when pyramid head was nerfed, the devs obviously felt he didn't need the same treatment. So YOU are the one who is wrong by your own logic.
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Exact reason I don't think Rat Liver should be base kit and don't like the recent movement speed buff while holding shred either. Yes, 100 or 101% speed is far from Deathslinger levels of annoying, but the faster you make him while holding his shred the more he feels like a baby Deathslinger.
I just wish the devs would stay consistent on their ranged killers. Ranged attacks should always require some sort of charge time with an audiovisual tell as a warning and there should always be a short M1 cooldown after using or canceling a ranged attack. Absent one or more of these pieces, especially for a killer who can prep a ranged attack while still gaining distance, you start to get into zoning territory.
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1) Why can't you give him other buffs to compensate?
2) Why is "He just missed" flawed? The best you can do as survivor is anticipate a shot and preemptively dodge at the right time, with the downside of usually taking a quick hit if you guess wrong.
His balance in the 1v4 is fine, agreed, but his problems are in the 1v1.
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Deathslinger was released before the devs started systematically revisiting recently-released killers for potential balance changes a few months after release. Given his overall balance isn't an issue, it also makes sense that other older killers have gotten a look before him. I'd be shocked if he stays like this long term.
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He needs no Rework
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Or maybe, just maybe, they don't think he's a problem?
I don't think they're playing the long game here, he's been like this for a year and there aren't that many complaints about him aside from people like OP.
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Do you not remember GF, Legion, Spirit, Clown and many other killers that were getting changes either from their respective PTBs or soon after ?
Devs revisit all killers that have problems that need adressing, deathslinger just isn't one of them in their eyes it seems.
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Maybe, but then you look at the other old things they're changing (iridescent heads, OoO, etc.) that have been complained about for years and you start to gather why their priorities might be elsewhere for the moment. It makes complete sense that buffing/nerfing killers/loadout items that are actually under/overperforming is a bigger priority than changing killers like Deathslinger, who are doing fine in terms of balance, even if they suck to play against.
There are TONS of complaints about Deathslinger on the forum. Like everything else that is constantly complained about, I'm sure the devs will get around to changing him eventually.
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If you nerf his ADS then he will have the WEAKEST chase power in the game, and no amount of mobility will make up for that. He will be weaker by default. Only way to circumvent this is by making his spear hitbox the size of huntresses hatchet hitbox, which is wildly unrealistic and only lead to more frustration.
He just missed is flawed because it implies that the survivor cannot dodge it which is wildly untrue. I've had good survivors predict me correctly and dodge my shot. That's not me being bad that's them predicting correctly similar to a TL wall. Both the survivors skill and the killer skill matters in a chase and any good deathslinger player will tell you that.
Also, his balance in 1v4 is only fine because his 1v1 is good, nerf his 1v1 and as i said he becomes the weakest killer in the game similar to trickster.
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This isn't to say the never made changes to previous killers. They just specifically made a point of emphasis to do so now. I think it was after PH got released that they announced they were going to systematically review their new killers for balance a few months after launch to make sure they're still performing well.
Deathslinger doesn't have balance issues, so it makes sense that changing him is going to be a lower priority than addressing the balance issues that still exist. Killers like Wraith that came with the game are still getting major balance changes and Trapper is years overdue for a rework. It's a pretty tough sell to say that Deathslinger is never being changed because he's been out for like a year and hasn't been reworked yet.
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And if you look at how oppressive iridescent heads and OoO are, it makes complete sense why those things are being changed. The same can't be said about deathslinger. There are some complaints on the forum, sure, but definitely nothing like a community-wide outcry. It's just a vocal minority that hopefully the devs are smart enough to ignore.
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I reallly dont think he needs a rework but something simple they could do is give his ads a little slowdown if he doesnt shoot. This means that you still aim fast, and you can still quickscope if needed, but if you dont shoot, he puts his gun down slower. This way he doesnt get free pressure to make survivors dodge repeatedly.
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That's an exaggeration. If Huntress can still be strong in the chase at 110% speed, an obvious audio tell when she raises a hatchet, a minimum of 1 second required to throw a dodgeable hatchet and a full 2.75 seconds required to throw a hatchet as hard as Deathslinger's chain, a huge lullaby that prevents her from starting chases nearly as close as Deathslinger does, etc. there is no reason to think Deathslinger would not still do well in the chase. It is harder to hit shots with Deathslinger than as Huntress, but that can be addressed by learning to aim and/or shooting while closer to the survivor; that's certainly not the difference between a strong chase power and the weakest chase power in the game.
Survivors can ONLY dodge by predicting. And they need to predict correctly within about a ~.75 second window (.25 seconds for reaction time, .5 seconds for the projectile delay after shooting) or the killer is going to be able to react to their dodge and not shoot. And, even then, the killer can sometimes still adjust their aim and land a hit if you dodge on their high end of that range.
If you can't predict correctly most of the time, which you shouldn't be able to against good Deathslingers, it's usually not worth reactively dodging in the first place because his M1 is much more reliable than an M2. You're better off just spamming A D A D as you run and hoping he misses. This is less helpful now with the new animations, but it's better than eating an M1 for free.
His balance in the 1v4 would be fine with a weaker 1v1 if you buffed his 1v4. It's not rocket surgery.
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...so, in other words, you agree with me that these things should have been changed first and changing Deathslinger should be a lower priority? And that the devs not changing him so far is not good evidence that he is never getting changed?
Community-wide outcries are rare. The feedback for Deathslinger has been loud and clear.
I'm curious why you wouldn't change him. Why does he need to be able to zone? It's just as braindead for the killer as it is for the survivor.
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If you want to twist my words, sure. I could also say that by your logic anything that hasn't been changed is just lower priority. Literally anything that hasn't been reworked is just waiting for it's spot in the priority list.
How has the feedback been loud and clear? I've seen more threads complaining about dead hard than deathslinger and I don't think that needs changing either. People will whine. If it becomes a community-wide outcry like with moris then that means there should possibily be a change. An occasional complaint thread isn't 'loud and clear' feedback, it's just whining.
I don't necessarily think that he NEEDS the ability to zone, but I also don't think it's an issue and if changed would probably make him feel more awkward to play like overheating did for billy.
The cons of changing him could be massive. The pros of changing him means a few people will be happy until they find the next killer to complain about. It's a lose-lose situation if he's changed.
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YES! Exactly! I'm sure they have a list a mile long of changes they want to make to the game. They just have a limited amount of bandwidth and have to prioritize. That's how software works.
I would put things like Trickster's balance issues on the level of "community-wide outcry", and things like that have been rare. There was no community-wide outcry against Moris. People had been regularly complaining about them for years, most people accepted that they were an issue aside from the "survivor OP, killers need stuff like this" crowd, and they finally got changed. Deathslinger is similar, but the volume is lower. There have been regular complaints about his power since he was released and most people do accept that zoning is garbage aside from the "survivor OP, killers need stuff like this" crowd. I'm sure he will be changed eventually like everything else that gets regular complaints.
The feedback has been loud in clear in that there are frequent posts about him here. The forum does tend to have a more killer-sided perspective, so it's telling that this still gets talked about a lot.
How is a win/win situation not an issue? The skill of the killer and survivor should both factor heavily into the length of the chase. No killer power should make survivor skill borderline irrelevant compared to the skill of the killer, and no killer power should be so weak that it's on the survivor to make a mistake. This isn't just the killer du jour that everyone is complaining about because they want nerfs. Most people agree he does not need nerfs. He's just annoying as hell to play against.
Any cons are entirely theoretical; this is just a "the devil you know" argument for not addressing an issue in the game. Should we not fix keys because the devs might make them worse, and besides those darned killer mains will just find some other item to complain about after? Like c'mon.
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*sigh................. Here we go again.
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It's not a matter of "complaining" about a killer and begging for them to be nerfed, it's the fact that slingers power is poorly designed and quite honestly unfair in 1v1. The argument "but he lacks map pressure" is all the more reason he needs a rework. He needs map pressure. He needs counterplay other than hoping he commits to his shot and misses it.
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Okay, so by your logic every single thing in the game will be reworked, regardless of whether it needs it or not. We're just working our way down the list. And the ONLY reason a thing hasn't been reworked is because it hasn't had its turn yet. Really weird assumption to make. At the very least it would mean that the devs don't think changing deathslinger is important.
As far as the win/win thing is concerned, you're assuming the deathslinger plays perfectly. If we assume everyone plays perfectly, EVERY situation in the game turns into a 100% for one side or the other. Either the survivor or killer will always have an advantage. So I'd argue that the win/win situation you describe is not a win/win in actual gameplay. It is completely pointless to base things off of perfect play because that just doesn't happen.
And if you think the skill of a survivor is irrelevant when playing against a deathslinger, that's starting to make me think you're just delusional. You also said that no killer power should be dependent on a survivor making a mistake. Well, what other option is there? If there's counterplay to the power that works consistently then the survivor would HAVE to make a mistake in order for the power to do anything at all. If we're assuming everyone plays perfectly and no one makes mistakes, one side WILL win.
I think the real reason people dislike deathslinger is that the person who has to make the mistake is usually the survivor. Against most killers, if the survivors play perfectly, they'll win. So yes, the deathslinger can create some situations in which perfect play will guarantee their hit. But if they don't make mistakes, why shouldn't they get that hit? Is being rewarded for playing well just a survivor privilege?
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It's not unfair. There are things you can do to help avoid getting shot.
Also not every killer needs map pressure. We don't need every killer to have the same strengths.
Variety is good. Deathslinger isn't overpowered and just because you don't like getting shot by Deathslinger does not make it a problem.
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Difference between huntress and slinger is that his projectile is the size of a needle, and huntresses is the size of a train. You cannot "aim better" when the survivor can dodge the bullet if they predict correctly in the travel time it takes for the spear to reach the survivor from the gun. Meaning no there is no chance for the slinger to readjust, especially considering the slingers reaction time as well.
You should be always predicting when he will and wont shoot. That's not a bad thing. People don't seem to understand that he might not shoot sometimes.
About the prediction thing, if the slinger predicts you right most of the time, chances are he's the better player as he could read you more times you could read him. Think of it like a nurse who just reads you every time because they're good.
Actually spamming a d a d is how you counter slinger in the open, it is borderline impossible to hit a survivor who is completely random in their movement and if you do manage to spear them it was a complete guess.
The job you have as a survivor is to spam a d a d enough to make it to another loop, but not as much to get zoned for free. This requires predicting when he will and wont shoot. If you got over zoned that's your own fault. That is literally EXACTLY how you counter slinger in the open.
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Having some Killers good in the 1v1 but minimal map pressure and some Killers good in the 1v4 but lacking in 1v1 strength is a good thing. I'm sure some Survivors would get very bored if every Killer was a 1v4 king like Legion.
Also... this might be a weird take... but have you considered that you aren't supposed to be able to dodge Deathslinger's shots? It is a freaking gun, it'd be weird if you could react to it. However, to balance it that's why the harpoon cannot down by itself. The counter play to Deathslinger is supposed to be get speared in a position where you can prevent the follow up swing. The one aspect of Deathslinger that is actually broken is that if Deathslinger walks backwards while reeling, it basically prevents Survivors from moving. It shouldn't do that. Nothing else about him is broken.
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Hes balanced and decent. Not every killer has to be nurse tier.
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No. Just the things that are unbalanced, unfun, hurting profits, etc. Deathslinger has gotten a lot of hate for his zoning and BHVR is on record saying that they consider zoning to be an unfair lose/lose, since this was their main justification for the Pyramid Head tweaks. It would be a bigger stretch to expect it's not going to happen.
Deathslinger doesn't need to play anywhere near perfectly to be able to zone and force a win/win. Part of the issue with it is how stupid easy it is to do. Occasionally missing shots and letting the survivor off the hook does not make the problem go away. The survivor still has very little input on the length of the chase.
Most killers in the game are not dependent on the survivor making a mistake. Most killers have some sort of chase help in the power, but it's way beyond that. Even if you're playing flawlessly as survivor against a killer that's relatively weak in the chase, there's always going to be a certain level of randomness and guesswork necessary due to incomplete map knowledge (e.g. Is this broken wall intact? Has this pallet been used? Did the pallet spawn on the near corner or far corner of the tile? Is my teammate repairing a gen in this jungle gym or is this a productive place to bring the killer? Is the killer running a perk like STBFL or Coup de Grace that might prevent me from making it to a tile that I otherwise would have been able to?). Not every tile is going to be close enough to another safe tile to get there without taking a hit if the killer is also playing well. Then there are techniques like moonwalking that can force a survivor to guess where the killer actually is on some tiles. There isn't always enough visibility in loops to know where the killer is and ensure you'll make the pallet.
Meanwhile, on the killer side, there aren't many powers in the game that are strong to the point where survivor skill doesn't matter much if the unless the killer is misplaying it. I'd put Deathslinger in that bucket. Spirit is borderline, but I'll take a 50/50 over a "let's hope he misses".
If it were the case that survivors were always in control through clean play, I'd want that changed in addition to Deathslinger. I just don't think that's the case.
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Mettle of man is his counter.
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We're you high whan going against him or was your internet trash or something. Because hes the funniest killer to loop
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Have to ask... how many do you kill when those matches come up and you get that message?
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The travel time is almost nothing. It takes 450ms for the projectile to reach the edge of its range, and regardless the projectile is too small and dark to easily see. Even on excellent ping at max range the best you can hope for is starting to dodge in a random direction the moment you hear the "bang". If he was going to barely hit you and you guess well, maybe he'll miss. If he was aiming for center of mass, you're probably taking a hit regardless. In almost all cases you have to guess when he's going to shoot.
The difficulty of hitting shots is not as bad as you're making it out to be, and again, it has nothing to do with the core problem that survivor skill doesn't matter much in determining chase length.
The Deathslinger hardly needs to predict if a survivor will dodge. He can just repeatedly spam ADS. If the survivor never dodges with repeated ADS, they're almost certainly not going to, and you can easily quickscope them. If the survivor does dodge, walk up and M1 them. Meanwhile, the survivor does need to predict when Deathslinger is going to fire and each inaccurate prediction typically results in a quick hit. It's unreasonable to expect any player to be able to do this as a counter, unless the Deathslinger is a potato and tries to shoot every time the survivor rounds a corner, or something.
A D A D doesn't help nearly as much with the new animations, as I said, and it has never helped if the Deathslinger actually aims for center of mass. You can't really attempt to move randomly beyond A D A D spam or you're losing distance and allowing an easy M1. Even with the new animations, A D A D is the best thing you can do against him. It is not a counter against anyone with a head on their shoulders, much less a skill-based one. It just makes his life a little bit harder and can force some misses if his aim is bad while not losing you any distance, so there's no reason not to do it.
Who cares if you're good at mindgaming, looping, dodging, hiding, etc.? Just hold W, spam A D A D, and hope he misses so you can predrop the next safe pallet. What exciting gameplay... This is exactly why he's so annoying to play against.
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...such as? A D A D spam and saying a quick prayer?
I agree that not every killer needs map pressure and that variety is good, but a 1v1 chase power that all but ignores survivor skill is not healthy either. I would not have no problem getting shot by him if I had a reasonable opportunity to counter it. In practice, your only option is basically to hope he's bad.
Huntress is a model killer in this regard. She's solid in the 1v1 despite having basically no stealth, 110% speed, and a hefty charge time before her hatchets can be thrown too fast to dodge. This is what DBD should be striving for: reasonably powerful killers with a high skill cap that give skilled players options to counter them. Chases should always be interactive.
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Reading through this is laughable and shows how many only play survivor. But I'm willing to bet those complaining about not fun are the same types to be on a toxic gen rush squad and play heavy survivor sided maps. Like seriously, both sides have tools and playstyles that are less than desirable.
Do yourselves a favor and stop trying to loop and mind game every killer the exact same. It will not work.
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Use walls to block LoS, keep distance as it's harder for Deathslinger successfully reel you from a distance, fake your direction (i've caused a few Deathslingers to miss by pretending to take a window or pallet), when take advantage of safe pallets and pre-drop unsafe pallets when he's not in LoS. If Deathslinger has missed his shot take advantage of the reload time to get distance or move to a safer area.
All chases are interactive. Some killers just demand different actions from the survivors to avoid being caught out. Complaining that Deathslinger is uninteractive just means you don't want to adapt to play against his power.
If at the end the day the only take away is that YOU can only escape a bad Deathslinger, then you just need to get better.
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What I would Do
1 he has to be aimed for .3s in order to shoot holding it for 2s will increase the range cap from 18 to 22m he will hear a noise indicating that he can shoot that range
2 he can shoot breakable walls and pull them down by realing his gun for 1s.
This is optional he can search lockers to get 2 spair scraps reloading with one of these will cut reload time in half but consume one the reload addons will increase the limit he can hold if he reloads without one it will take normally time
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Guess right. How is a situation in which one person wins, one person loses not fair?
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Not to intrude into the heated discussion happening here but I got to ask. What skillful action do you do exactly to counter huntress ?
Her biggest counter is to abuse high wall loops that you tight loop so that her wind up doesn't allow her to throw at you, basically you use loops that favor you because low wall loops are free hit for her just like slinger. Not much all that different skilful interaction there, you just force M1 or make a 50/50 guess at pallet if she's going to throw.
If you're in the open or just a bit out of position so that she has time to throw, she's much harder to dodge as good huntress who know how large the hatchet hitboxes are won't miss you right, that's just her missing, not you dodging. At least I never see any survivors actually dodging mid thrown hatchet without predicting good huntresse's shot before it's thrown.
The biggest difference between these two in terms of chase counterplay is literally that slinger has more chances to shoot and outplay even the high wall loops thanks to the fast ADS forcing more predictions then huntress does. You do the same vs both, stay out of loops that favor them and gain as much distance as possible while prediction their shots.
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Ah and I bet you're the same person who thinks it takes skill to fake using a power in order to get a free hit. Deathslinger is not loopable unless you're staying at a main building and abusing the same window vaults that he has no line of sight shots on.
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These counters do not work against good players. His TR is 16m with Monitor, which is commonly run, and it plays smaller than that because of how soft and slow it spins up. Breaking LoS isn't going to happen for long once the chase starts. Successfully reeling from distance usually isn't a concern; breaking the chain is hard and is borderline pointless if you're healthy because you're deep wounded regardless (it just gains you a little bit of distance), and the vast majority of hits come from close enough that you have no realistic chance to break the chain. Pre-dropping unsafe pallets does almost nothing.
Pre-dropping safe pallets can buy you some time, but most maps don't have enough of them for this to be a reliable strategy, especially when you consider that his TR means you often get very little warning before he's on top of you and therefore often can't make it to a safe pallet. You can certainly fake vaults and pallet drops against bad players, but it rarely works against good players. If he waits for the pallet animation to start before quickscoping he can still hit you over the pallet, for example, so there's no reason for them to get baited on a pallet drop. Bad Deathslingers love to shoot just as you're rounding corners too, which you can exploit, but good players will just keep chasing. If you dodge you eat an M1, if you don't you'll usually take a hit at the next pallet or window.
The only tactic that is reliable against a Deathslinger who knows what he's doing is pre-dropping safe pallets, but that is often not an option given his combination of a tiny, soft TR and a ranged attack + zoning. You're almost always taking a pretty quick first hit when he shows up, barring a gen right next to a safe pallet, and from there you just have to hope you can A D A D far enough to reach a safe pallet you can pre-drop. It's just boring and frustrating.
I would love to get better at playing against Deathslinger. There is no counter to zoning, though, baiting misses relies on the killer being bad and/or tilted, and stealth or "just break LoS" is not really possible unless you're lucky enough to know if / where he's approaching from before you're in his TR. Without advance warning he's so close to you when the chase starts that you're already in zoning range. Predropping safe pallets is all well and good, but I've gotten into its limitations already. At the end of the day you need to follow the objectives, so you're regularly forced to spend lots of time in parts of the map with no safe pallets.
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Huntress you can punish for pulling up at every loop. Deathslinger can fake hit power at every single tile and gains distance because of it. Huntress is significantly slowed
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Also Deathslinger has 1 shot vs Huntress 5. Meaning he misses a shot and he has to reload giving you time to get distance.
Huntress can miss a shot and start up another hatchet.
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But that's what bad huntresses do, good ones just throw when they are in range, you don't have any control over when she decides to do dumb stuff. If she's got LOS on you be it open space or low wall loop, good huntress will hit unless you predict her.
Slinger can shoot you whenever with quickscope if he has LOS and no obstacles between you, spam raising M2 is just to make you think he's going to shoot so that you slow down and give him easier shot or even M1, you're better of making a dodge based on your own prediction then slinger's faking at that point. And in loops if you're at a low walls loops, half the killer roster can down you there easily so that's not slinger specific issues either.
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One person winning and one person losing says nothing about the fairness of a competition. The survivor is the only one who needs to guess against a killer that can zone. The killer can just react to the survivor.
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Not true at all. DS has to guess if you are going to go around a corner or swerve out. He has to take the shot or he will lose his chance.
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