death of the deathslinger
the midchapter sucked out all fun he had and turned him into a boring huntress version
he only had his insane chase power and NOTHING else
he cant sprint at high speeds across the map, he cant even have his 24 terror radius anymore(atleats more people can listen to his beautiful terror radius theme music)
thanks for nerfing his already useless ads movement speed addons by the way, it gave me a good laugh before his death
Comments
-
He was completely miserable to play against. He could shoot you 100% outside of TR, and counterplay against him was "weave randomly back and forth and hope for the best." Yeah man, this needed to be nerfed because going against him is one of the most frustrating things in the entire game.
11 -
Not even close. He was fun to play against unlike the damned wraith flying a cross rhe map and body blocking
3 -
Counterplay was pay attention and take advantage of his slow movement speed and telegraphed approach (Approaches that clear out LOS, obviously), NOT weave randomly.
Y'all need to actually play the killer before you spout nonsense.
16 -
It's 2 meters where he could shoot you out of his terror radius with M&A (since no one was running the TR reduction addons while ADS). And he needs LoS so you can still see him approaching you. It's really not a big deal.
1 -
Never liked him.
Only played him to get his Adept.
Like Oni, Deathslinger doesn't usually garner great results for me.
0 -
From mid tier to lower tier
BHVR really knows their priorities
Only reason I still play him is because I like his design, same with Hill Billy.
3 -
It feels like M&A is now a must have on him. It's absolutely ridiculous.
1 -
But they made him completely useless and unfun to play as. I hope you realize that making a killer fun to go against doesn't always mean straight nerfing them.
6 -
tbh they believed wraith was a "wee bit overpowered" so...
2 -
He could shoot you 100% outside of TR
yeah and for that to happen the Survivors had to allow it.
there are a huge amount of measures you, as a Survivor, were able to take against this - this goes from positioning yourself smartly all the way to just having some gamesense. If you, as a Survivor, got sniped from outside of his TR, then that was entirely on you.
You could have positioned yourself smarter, could have heard the bell ring and dodge to the side the second you hear a gunshot in the distance (you got enough time for that on that range) or you could have just opened your eyes and spot the super tall guy pointing his gun right at you in the distance.
not to mention the Deathslinger had to dedicate their entire perk build around that one gimmick.
and counterplay against him was "weave randomly back and forth and hope for the best."
no it was not.
the counterplay to him was to not engage in chases in the first place, be stealthy and do gens efficiently.
you may not believe me here, but this game is actually a lot more than just the 1v1 chase - in which he was quite oppressive, that is true, but that was balanced out perfectly by the fact that he was at the same time the worst Killer at applying map pressure in the entire game.
this isnt a case of Spirit or Nurse where the Killers are not only oppressive af in chases, but also incredibly good at applying pressure to everyone else.
He was one of the most well balanced Killers in this game.
He absolutely did NOT deserve those nerfs, except for maybe the one that gives him an attack cooldown after dropping his ADS (so he wouldnt get any more cheap zoning).
the only "issue" this Killer had was, that he was not "fun" for Survivors - which, in my humble opinion, is a horrible balancing factor, as the latest chapter has proven incredibly well. because "fun" and actual game balance are two VERY different things, especially considering this is a 1v4 game, so its literally impossible for you to balance around 1v1 interactions (or else we are where we are now, with Killer being so miserably unfun that many people, like me, straight up quit).
you are not going to want to hear this, but Killers are SUPPOSED to be oppressive in any 1v1 interaction, thats the whole point of having an asymetrical 1v4 based game. The problem at hand here was not Slinger being "too oppressive", the issue at hand here is a vast majority of the others not being oppressive enough - which then ties into another big issue, being Survivor objectives being miserably boring.
So instead of continuously nerfing Killers to make the only exciting part of the Survivor gameplay (being the 1v1 interaction with the Killer atm) "equally fair for both sides", what the Devs should be doing here is reworking Survivors objectives from the ground up, so they have more fun and interactive things to do, meaning there no longer is an issue with Killers being oppressive in chases.
instead right now they are wasting precious time and ressources on unneeded nerfs such as Slinger and Hillbilly (who, fun fact, got gutted for the exact same reason - not because he was "too strong", but because it was "unfun" that he could launch chainsaw attack after chainsaw attack at you when you were out in the open, hence the overheat was born to limit that and "reward good gameplay by the Survivor" alias dodgeing the hits), turning the game more and more into a miserable experience for the supposed "power role", because Killers have essentially no power over anything in the trials anymore, unless they facecamp a hook as Bubba.
12 -
You act like he's the only Killer in the game who could do that. Fun fact, Plague, PH, Nemesis, and Ghostface can all hit you when you're outside their terror radius with the right setup (usually undetectable perks). Ghostface doesn't even need any perks or addons to do it. Actually, now that I think about it Huntress doesn't either since she has functionally infinite range. 40m long shots aren't easy and are helped immensely by Aura Reading but they are possible at base and your only warning is the soft metallic sound she makes when she's got a fully charged hatchet.
2 -
they seriously need to revert on some of these changes, it's overkill
5 -
Old Doctor was completely miserable to go against as well and they reworked him to be stronger and more fun to go against. Making a killer fun does not mean making him weak, or do you only have fun against Legion and Myers?
3 -
Tried him for the first time after the changes and it felt TERRIBLE to play as the fun that he had is completely gone now with such a long wind up to fire. I never had any issues playing against the cowboy, but giving the survivors even more time to avoid the shot just ruins it for me. Why would I ever play cowboy when Huntress and Trickster is better and more enjoyable to play as?
6 -
the counterplay to him was to not engage in chases in the first place, be stealthy and do gens efficiently.
"The counterplay is to avoid engaging or being seen at all by the killer all game" is not a realistic strategy. I'm confident you understand this about Dead By Daylight.
2 -
I really want the terror radius back. Stripping him of what makes him unique is not very McCash Money of them.
1 -
"The counterplay is to avoid engaging or being seen at all by the killer all game"
i didnt say that though.
i said you should avoid chases as much as possible, meaning you shouldnt unnecessarily harass the Killer when they got nothing to do (as you would do with Killers like Trapper or Hag), to play stealthy so his search times are as long as possible and be efficient on gens, because he cant cover the map quickly to apply pressure.
i never said anything ridiculous like "just never get spotted", those are your words, not mine.
EDIT: had "chases" twice in the first sentence, idk why. so i removed one.
2 -
Sure that was the main one, but it wasn't by any means the only one. Here's some other ways to counter Deathslinger.
- Force him to use his gun. The most powerful win condition Slinger has is M1 -> Redeemer combo to get fast downs. Don't give him that ever. Force him to use his Redeemer for both of your hits so he has to reel and reload as often as possible.
- Hold W as early and often as possible. Especially after his first hit. He's a 4.4 killer with no mobility and hard capped range so doing that against him is ridiculously effective. Getting to a measily 22m away from him means he's got 10 seconds of walking before you're in a lick of danger.
- Be aware of the terrain around you. Once he's close enough to be in range, put something, anything, tall between you and him. You want him to have to hold W after you for as long as possible.
- Ignore short loops unless desperate. It is way easier than you think for Slinger to shoot you over a loop and pull you around and still land a hit. Seriously, a tall rock is stronger vs Deathslinger than some short pallet loops.
- *GET HEALED*. This one isn't as important anymore, but the main counter to a stealthy Deathslinger is to not go down to his first hit.
- This last one is an advanced Tech. If you are injured and have a piece of terrain you can quickly get behind or are at a pallet you can throw... you can attempt to bait him into shooting you then make him fail to reel you in. I don't recommend this unless you've played enough DS to know what the limits of his chain are, but it is super effective when you pull it off.
2 -
As a former Deathslinger main, the major reason most players didn't know how to counter him was because no one played him. It was less that 6% pick up rate from all Killers.
I will always agree he needed changes, but this was just overkill. They took the few things that made him unique and gave him nothing in return.
4 -
He used to be my main, I don't play killer that much, and I played him yesterday and it feels like he's holding a bazooka now lol.
But seriously it's not that bad if It wasn't the hook travel speed imo.
Now you need to: aim sights, think where the surv is going to land and then boom...wait to see if the hook hits where it's supposed to.
Idk, he's Fun but against a coordinatee group it's too much of a headache for me lol.
3 -
I loved Deathslinger before. I still play him. I don't think he's unplayable now, but I'd be lying if I said that I have more fun with him now than before. I just have to relearn how to play him.
But I have friends who say all the time they hated playing against the old Deathslinger, and it seems like it was a prevailing view among survivor players. I didn't feel that way, personally. I was still able to dodge Deathslinger shots as survivor. But to each their own.
I also feel like "Save the Best for Last" is basically an essential perk on him at this point since his cooldown for pulling up and down his sights feels really slow, so need to save as much time as possible.
1 -
You said "the counterplay to him was to not engage in chases in the first place."
Maybe I am being overdramatic in my interpretation. But nevertheless, it is inevitable (unless you're playing against a very inexperienced killer) that you are going to get found and chased, at some point. At which point, the counterplay as I said was to just weave around and cross your fingers. When I think of counterplay, I mostly think of it in terms of "here's what your course of action ought to be once the chase has started." That situation is what these nerfs are trying to address.
0 -
you are right, being found and chased eventually is pretty much inevitable.
What i was trying to say with my original comment is, that you shouldnt be one of these guys that stay within a short distance towards the killer clicking their flashlight because they wanna loop him all game - he used to absolutely destroy this playstyle, so instead of doing that what you actually want to do is to stay hidden for as long as possible to minimize the amount of chases he can get going, while being efficient on gens. maybe i worded it a bit poorly though, my apologies for that.
and yeah, you are also right when you say that he had essentially no counterplay on a short range towards him, so if you ended up there (which would inevitably be the case at some point), all you can realistically do is to hope he doesnt hit his next shot, meaning at that range you are entirely at his mercy.
However, another thing to sort of keep in mind here is, that another factor of "in chase counterplay" would be to keep your distance towards him. Not to loop him like you would with other Killers, but playing every tile safe, keeping as many LoS blockers inbetween you two as you can and staying as far away from him as possible - because even just at a medium distance, his shots become a lot more managable (meaning he will not be shooting at you at random times anymore, but rather try to hit you when you are in a position you can not dodge in, e.g. vaulting a window or running through a doorway / pallet, which means you can preemtively dodge and watch him shoot the empty doorway, losing him tons of time on the reload) - at a long distance you can outright dodge them like a hatchet. That way you can delay the inevitable long enough to buy your team precious time on gens, meaning in combination with the first strat against him he now takes long to find people, to cross the map and to get any earlygame downs (at some point the tiles will be used up, though the "holding W" strat is still extremely strong against him here, yet somewhat countered by his stealth ability, if you positioned yourself poorly to allow for an ambush).
I mostly think of it in terms of "here's what your course of action ought to be once the chase has started." That situation is what these nerfs are trying to address.
this is correct.
however, this is also what i think is a fundamentally flawed balance goal.
i genuinely do not believe Survivors should have counterplay to everything the Killer does. I know that makes for "fun and interactive" chases, but then we are stuck at a huge problem: this game is going to be incredibly unbalanced, in the Survivors favor (we can not make this a 1v1 game and simultaneously have one player go up against four at the same time)
we can not balance this game around fair 1v1 interactions, this goes straight against the nature of this game, that being a 1v4 asymetrical game, meaning one player picks the power role which is supposed to dominate every 1v1 interaction with the opposing team, forcing those 4 to work together to overcome the "impossible" odds.
This is what old Daddy Slinger did extremely well - while also being incredibly well balanced (unlike a Spirit or Nurse, who also do this but at the same time have insane map pressure, meaning they can very easily take on the 1v4 team as well).
i think this game has one overwhelmingly big issue. That issue isnt any specific Perk, loadout, character, bug, playstyle, etc.
Instead, i think this issue is Survivor objectives.
and not in the way one would expect me to say it (regarding their completion time), thats a completely different topic.
No, i think the main issue this game has is, that the main Survivor objective is just incredibly boring. all you do is hold M1 while sitting still and occasionally hitting space. its boring, its not interactive and i cant blame people for not wanting to do that all the time.
This leads to Survivors, who obviously play this game for fun, looking for something more fun and exciting to do - and the only option that isnt "hold M1 while sitting still next to something" right now is the interaction with the Killer. In other words, many only play this game to be chased - thats whats fun, thats what they want to do. And i think the Devs realized that as well, so to cater to the larger audience they tried improving this aspect of the game for them more and more, to ensure they can get the maximum excitement and fun out of it.
However, this comes with downsides. As mentioned previously, the Killer is supposed to always hold an upper hand in a chase against the Survivors - but for Survivors that would be a boring experience, because they got downed quickly without much say in the matter and then put on a hook, just to return to more boring M1 holding. This lead to the Devs continuously adjusting a Killers ability to 1v1 a Survivor to the point where we are at right now: with a good 95% of the Killers being literally unplayable in high MMR gameplay, because Survivors have so many options to dodge and evade their attacks and powers, that downing one takes so long that the game is essentially over after that one hook, meaning if you want to kill someone you have to hardcore focus them out of the game. The Killer is at an overwhelming disatvantage from the very start, simply because he cant win a fair and balanced 1v1 against 4 people at the same time.
this leads to chases taking up way too much time, time that the other 3 players are gonna spend on their boring objective, meaning to the Killer it feels like before they got any real chance to do anything, 3 gens pop and the game is over.
There is more to this, but i think this post is long enough already - i hope i made my point clear.
long story short, the root of all of this is a boring Survivor objective.
So instead of continuing this needless nerfing of Killer 1v1 abilities, instead what the Devs should be working on is new, much more enjoyable and interactive Survivor objectives to replace gens with, so they no longer rely on Killers chasing them to feel any sort of enjoyment - in fact, it would even be beneficial to this game if being chased by the Killer was the less enjoyable interaction, so Survivors actually want to do what they are supposed to, that being trying to avoid any unnecessary Killer contact and seeing the Killer as an obstacle that is standing in their way which they will need to overcome.
1 -
He is being intentionally dense, he continued to boil down the argument until it was straight up "I don't like losing once I'm in a close distance chase."
1 -
honestly, if you think about it he has a valid point of critisism there (the "fun" argument i mean) - in the current state of the game at least.
as i explained in the last paragraph of my monster post above, i dont think the issue here is really with Slinger though, but with the way the game is currently structured for Survivors itself, which lead to many thinking Slingers close range oppressiveness was a problematic thing in the first place.
so he isnt really wrong with what he is saying, its just that i think what the Devs did and what he is defending is not the right solution for that problem at all.
EDIT: i shouldnt be writing while tired. forgot a "not" in the last sentence, so i accidentally said the opposite of what i intended to say. whoops.
Post edited by Mister_xD on0 -
I actually don't see his increase TR as a big nerf , instead it makes the perk combo Agitation and star struck stronger. But besides that they should have given him a buff to offset his ADS nerf
0 -
I hardly see that combo as viable on him. If you expose someone 40m away there's no point because you'll have to hold W for 22m before you're able to do anything, and by the time you catch up the exposed faded away.
0 -
here yes!
1
