Deathslinger

hmeekins

I know this happened a while ago and I've made a post about this before but I'm honestly still pissed off about this deathslinger nerf. I hope some people read it but I understand if you don't because it's going to be long.

I didn't bother to proofread this post as I spent a little over half an hour writing it so there are probably some errors.

Issue #1

Deathslinger has absolutely nothing going for him at this point. He lacks any sort of map pressure whatsoever and his chase is mediocre at best. I know people want him to be reactable but that doesn't work with his power at all. For comparison huntress is reactable but her hitboxes are a lot wider allowing for more room for error compared to his tiny hitbox allowing juking to be easy if you know he's aiming. He can't take advantage of the small hitbox much anymore because you can no longer quick scope windows or behind obstacles. Even if he lands a shot it's no guarantee it will lead to a down vs huntress who gets a guaranteed down as long as it hits. So he is going to have a harder time hitting shots while also not getting guaranteed value out of them. Not to mention every time you hit a survivor you still have to face the cooldown animation after a hit unlike huntress who gets none. The problem is this nerf seemed like an attempt to make him more like her when they are completely different aside from shooting projectiles. She is a snowball-oriented killer while he was originally meant for 1v1. Hell you could even play demogorgon who I believe has a better projectile-like attack, for just .25 seconds more you get about the same effective range (I'm not entirely sure but I think demo's shred is something like 12 meters at max charge and 8 meters at partial. Lets be honest your not going to hit many deathslinger shots beyond that because they are too easily avoidable at that range) His shred gives a wider hitbox and pallet destruction with the exception of being able to hit over obstacles. You may argue there is a longer cooldown if you miss the shred but demo still gets the distance that he shredded even if he missed while deathslinger is stuck in one spot. Demogorgon also had map mobility and tracking on top of his shred while deathslinger only has his gun.

Issue #2

It removes a lot of skill from his kit. Yes, I said it was harder to hit a shot now but that doesn't mean it requires more skill to play him, just that his power is less usable. With his previous power, you could hit cool shots between crevices or windows or over obstacles but now that kind of stuff is a lot more limited and reliant on survivor mistakes rather than your own skill.

Issue #3

The nerf was unnecessary. He was never OP, never even incredibly strong, very middle of the road. People just thought he was annoyed because they felt as if they had no control. No you may not have control if your caught in an open area or some loops but you don't always need to have a direct counter to a killers power in every scenario. Waste his time by simply running straight, dropping pallets early, taking advantage of obstructions on the map, etc. while your teammates do gens. Even if you find that boring you're not going to go against him as often as you think you do. If you look at the recent killer stats you'll see that his use rate is about 2.5% (5th lowest in the game rn. Wonder why that is) if I remember right. Now I know that's probably inaccurate to how often he was picked pre-nerf so I'll even up the pick rate to the same as huntress (the most picked killer) just to be generous. This is about 8% of matches. Let's do some quick math 100/8 is about once every 12.5 matches. Let's say every match has an average time of 8 minutes and we completely ignore the time waiting in the lobby in-between matches. This means that you would go against him on average every hour and 40 minutes. So even with giving him the highest pick rate and ignoring time between matches you'd only have to play against this BORING killer once every hour and 40 minutes. Killers who mained him would obviously play him almost every match. So they ruined the fun for the mains who play him every match to give survivors a slightly more fun match every so often. I just don't understand how that is seen as fair especially considering he was never very strong in the first place.

That's about it, I just think this entire change was lazy and they lacked any care for how it would actually impact the killer as long as the survivors have fun. If you have any differing opinions please feel free to comment them I'm open to hearing the other side. If you actually read all of this I appreciate it.

hmeekins

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2784509#Comment_2784509

I agree and disagree with some of your points. I never really took into account the way you said to play him which is pretty smart. However, I don't think he gets very much value from mending because in order to get use out of it you have to abandon the survivor which I personally don't think you should be doing too much with deathslinger unless you have another easy survivor within proximity of the one your chasing or the chase is going on too long. He's kind of like clown now, his chases aren't terrible but if the only power you have is mediocre chase your going to be weak. It's just too slow, shoot, pull chain in, swing, cooldown, reload, shoot, pull chain in, down, reload, hook. It just isn't efficient. I know your goal should be to try and m1 first but as a 110% killer that isn't going to happen super often unless you catch a survivor off-guard which is a lot harder to do considering they made his terror radius larger. I'll say it again he wasn't incredibly strong to begin with and they almost completely removed the stuff he was good at with this nerf.