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Deathslinger feels super sluggish
The nerf was 100% uncalled for. I like how I give the survivors a super big terror radius, that the killer wasn't intended to have, so they can hold forward before I even get there. The chases are something else entirely. Survivors can just hug walls and obstalces, even the ones you can shoot over, because his ADS is garbage. Quickscoping is the only thing that made him a threat in chase, and stopped the survivors from hugging walls and immediately turning corners, a weakness Huntress shares. You not only have to lead with your shots, but you also have to anticipate the survivors' dodging patterns, which they can easily do now that he can't quickscope. The zoom in feels so unbelievably slow. I can't believe these survivors are actually letting me get kills with him. He's bad enough even when you play him perfectly, but when you're rusty and miss a bunch of shots like I do, that should definitely be a 4-man escape. If it wasn't for my daily, I wouldn't play him at all. What was once my favorite killer is now a complete joke. Way to ruin a killer on the behalf of an unskilled but loud minority.
Comments
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Yeah, Deathslinger got hit hard by his nerfs
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Hillbilly & Deathslinger were both done dirty imo.
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Slinger is so rare now and he is not threat anymore. He should get buffs but BHVR will look his stats and then they will say "Yeah, Slinger is fine. He has +50% rates."
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Gee, I wonder why I never see Billy/DS/Spirit any more 🤔
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Can confirm EU has plenty of Spirit players.
No Billy or Slinger tho that I can agree with
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*random Billy 'arrrgh'*
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Uncalled for nerfs i agree. He's now slow, clunky, no longer feels fun or even threatening to play as or against. He's just a bad joke now.
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His terror radius should be reduced. That’s it. He’s not weak. He’s not bad like he’s made out to be.
Deathslinger users that played him prenerfed have to get used to his new timing before shooting. That’s all.
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His quickscoping was a problem. His terror radius wasn't though.
Tbh if they reverted his TR and left alone everything else they changed about him (higher ADS speed + shorter stun on chain break) I think he'd probably be fine.
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the funny thing is, he had a perfect 50% kill / escape rate BEFORE his nerf as well! even according to BHVRs own stats he was a perfectly balanced Killer.
there was literally no reason to nerf him other than holding the hand of players who refused to learn his counterplay.
the only change he got i agree with is the attack cooldown after dropping ADS - faking your power over and over to zone people away and into M1 range is boring and very sluggish for everyone involved - so i think its especially hilarious to see how the rest of his nerfs made it so you have to play him this way now.
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Quickscoping was never a problem, Survivors can literally not go down despite being shoot if they are able to break the chain. Obviously if you are out in the open with nothing to latch on it doesn't do anything, but then you got caught out of position.
People's real issues were faking his power which was effective, because there was practically no cooldown on ending ADS so he lost no distance faking. Now it takes slightly longer to fake, but you move faster so it's basically the same and is even better since there's far less risk in faking than attempting a shot survivors can easily sidestep because they move faster than you can adjust your aim.
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Oh the no cooldown after ending ADS was an issue too. But with old slinger you basically needed to expect a shot at any time while he's moving faster than you. It's like if huntress could move at full speed with a hatchet up, with the only difference being that he has to reel you in and a down on an injured survivor may not be guaranteed depending on the surroundings.
His TR, on the other hand, was a nonissue. Being shot from outside the terror radius was easily avoidable by just paying attention, and if you dodged, well now you know he’s there and get a ton of distance on him while he needs to reload.
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I appreciate y'all trying to work with a killer that was nerfed so hard, but no. He needs to go back exactly the way he was before.
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His quickscoping was not a problem. It's what made him a threat. It wasn't too much for experienced players to deal with. It was just the dumb survivors who always out positioned themselves and gave him option selects for free.
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I didn't think the cooldown was necessary either. It's not like old Pyramid Head where that was a guaranteed health state, because Deathslinger is special in that he can land a good shot on you, but not get a down from it.
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Honestly, his main strength wasn't taken away, the worst part of his nerf was just his TR change but even then that can still work to his advantage. His chase potential is still just as strong and still has the same advantages as before. The problem with slinger is his design in general. With the large amounts of chase killers being added, why would you play him over like, Pyramid Head which has the same advantage as slinger but also through walls and he isn't 110.
The same goes for trickster, they are just ######### designs to begin with. Whether buffed or nerfed they will always be in really bad spots. That being said, you don't lose every round playing as them lol a good slinger can still destroy just like a good trickster or etc. It is just up to skill and the player behind the killer.
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You don't win every round either. Skill with Deathslinger can only take you so far. Even before his nerf, he was no match for the better teams, so why nerf him?
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He good. You could be good too.
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I'm not gonna put time into practicing a nerfed version of a killer, who was balanced before the nerf, only to get stomped by mediocre survivors just because gens.
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Your expectations of what Deathslinger is, isn’t what Deathslinger is. Still one of the best chase killers.
I think you are missing out. And a little stubborn. You are missing out because you are stubborn.
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I actually made a thread about how terrible he was post nerfed but quickly came off of that. It comes down to two adjustments: 1. Learning the new ADS timing, and 2. Learning not to shoot at every opportunity.
Hes been a blast since.
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your 6 months late on this post. Survivor fun is more important than killer fun. He got slammed because he was not fun enough for survivors.
Hopefully he is extra fun for survivors now.
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Quickscoping is only a problem if he had map pressure.
Which he doesn't.
There was ZERO reason to remove quickscoping against a killer that cannot affect the map in any way while hobbling along at 110% movement speed. Being strong in the 1v1 was ALL he had and he got kicked in the nuts.
Post edited by WesCravenFan on4 -
neven met a spirit for an entire month... all that i saw were blight/huntress/(now nurse again) and some pig (probably for the tome challenges)...
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I see like 3 a day. I like the diversity I'm ngl
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He's still good, even with his ADS slowdown, but the terror radius increase was just unnecessary.
I played against Deathslinger on Grim Pantry and he was on the other side of the map and I heard his terror radius when I was standing by the pantry. That says a lot.
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Heck, let's just make him a stealth killer, it'd be funny to say the least, lol
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I never used either of them, myself, but I agree.
However, Billy was actually borderline S-tier, and a good Billy was a genuine threat to everyone but the sweatiest of SWF teams. Coming across a Billy in solo queue was scary.
On the other hand, it was always just, "Oh, good, it's Deathslinger. Maybe I'll get all three gens for my daily done."
I have no idea how his stats were apparently good enough to justify nerfing him. At least I can see the logic behind the Billy nerf, but DS was mid-tier to begin with.
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Balance question aside, I think Deathslinger isn’t as fun to play now because his turning speed feels super slow while aiming. He’s the only ranged killer that can’t turn at normal speed while holding up his weapon. It’s like walking through molasses. If they let him at least swivel at normal speed while he has his rifle up I’d like him better.
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Again, the nerf doesn't change his strongest attribute, he was so bad against even a decent team because of his design. A killer that has his whole power in the 1v1 when the game itself is 1v4 isn't great design, and it is why most chase based killers are hard stuck in mid to low tier. Even if his gun shot 30 meters and had 0 cooldown for aiming and the chain couldn't be broken, the same thing that good teams did to beat him before would still work (that being just spreading out and slamming gens lol). Again, I'll totally agree the TR nerf was stupid, but his chase is the same as before, it just so happens that being chase oriented and 110 isn't great design lol
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not necessary, but there was nothing wrong with that nerf either.
having a Killer that can slowly but surely zone a Survivor out with their power (without putting any effort into it either) is honestly just bad character design - and yes, if you just continuously force them away from any possible vault / pallet by preaiming it, you will get a guaranteed hit eventually, its just as much of a lose - lose situation as with old PH, just less instant. Its boring, its ineffective and there is honestly not much of a reason to insist on it existing IMO.
not to mention that this nerf did literally nothing to good Deathslinger players, considering that you never wanted to fake your power to zone people out with it anyway - you just shot them instead.
so all that really did was raise the skill floor of him a bit, which i dont necessarily mind.
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Every ranged killer can zone you out with their power. There was nothing wrong with how he was. He actually needed buffs. The nerf absolutely did something to good Deathslinger players. I considered myself one of them before the nerf. Got downs so fast, I started running Dying Light for goodness sake. All this nerf did was say "screw you" to people who played this killer, which pushed many people like myself away from ever playing him again, and discouraged new players from even buying him because they've seen and heard that he's a joke.
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Survivors used their code word "Unfun" and stuff like that and the developers nerfed the hell out of him.
They didn't hold back.
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yeah i feel the need to remind you that this is soley about the nerf that added a slight delay to M1 attacks after dropping out of you ADS and NOT about the increased TR or the forced .4 seconds of ADS time prior to taking a shot - i fully agree that those were complete BS and need to be reverted ASAP.
Deathslingers faking their power over and over to zone Survivors away from things were neither playing the Killer well, nor were they a common sight.
If you considered yourself a good Deathslinger player you will have to agree that a zoning Deathslinger was about the least effective way you could have played him back in the day because of two main reasons:
- you could just, you know, shoot them instead of faking it.
- continuously faking your power to zone them awayy from pallets / windows means they run out in the open - which is exactly where you dont want them to be. you WANTED them to go for vaults or pallets, because they would either lock themselves in an animation, or ran through a tight corridor / doorway that made it very easy to shoot them out of - while hitting someone in the open field was significantly harder to pull off.
in addition you will have come to the conclusion at some point that you actually didnt need to enter ADS to zone people out, given that you could just enter your ADS and shoot in ~.1 seconds, meaning that faking your power was utterly useless to begin with, as it had literally no positive effect on you and you even warn Survivors to not be doing what you actually want them to do.
In other words, a Deathslinger repeatedly faking out his power to zone people away until they were in M1 range got downs significantly slower than a Deathslinger that just went for the shots (and hit). so your whole point of bringing in Dying Light (terrible Perk btw) makes no sense either.
This nerf has had absolutely no effect on players who were actually good with this Killer. All it did was raising his skill floor a little by making chases less cheesable for inexperienced Deathslinger players.
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You're making this seem way more complex than it actually is. The killer, who didn't need nerfing and was fine as is, got nerfed. I'm not entitled for not playing him anymore, because compared to his old self, he sucks imo. It's like supposed Hillbilly mains who said "He's no different after the nerf. Takes more skill." I've heard it all before. It's just a weak justification of nerfing killers, which is all the justification there is really. The fact still remains that when you put survivors and killers of equal skill against each other, the survivors should always win. And nerfs like this cement that status quo.
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I though the times were 0.15s for the ADS, then 0.5s for the spear to go from 0 to 18m. Now it's 0.4s for the ADS and then 0.5 for it to go from 0 to 18m.
My granddad could react to something in 0.4s easily, and that's not even talking about being further away than 0m from him.
No matter the times he is NOT more fun with a slower ADS against good players as it incentivises zoning a lot more. The added MS when ADSing pushes you to do in any more.
So no, quickscoping is not a thing when you have survivors who actually look behind them.
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Survivor's turning rate is like 2-3 times faster than ADS turning rate. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Quickscoping isn't viable in most cases anymore, ADS isn't viable in most cases anymore.
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I do not think you understand why deathslinger player's was faking shots in first place. His harpoon has super tiny hitbox. He has 1 shot and when he misses his 1 shot, he has to reload. Survivor that wiggle erratically are extremely difficult to land shots on.
The drawback of wiggling for survivors was that survivors are not moving in perfectly straight-line therefore they're making less distance overall where as deathslinger canceling his rapidly still moves at 110% for most of the time. They described this as lose-lose situation for the survivor. I would describe this as risk vs reward situation. The survivor is mitigating risk of making his gun harder to hit but losing out of the reward of maximizing the distance.
With current version of deathslinger, Survivors can endless wiggle erratically and the deathslinger gains no distance because he is forced to commit to staying in scope from cooldowns+movement speed slowdowns. As survivor naturally gain distance even from moving erratically, It eventually allows the survivor to use objects to LOS block the deathslinger at which point deathslinger is unable to shoot.
I would not say that his skill floor changed. His gun was never designed around survivors wiggling that much in the open. The shots are harder to land than any normal fps game. many of pallet loops that have tiny holes that he could fire through are now impossible to fire through because his ADS is too slow and the survivor can easily avoid the little gaps in loops that he can fire through. The high wall loops are worse for him in regards to survivor that loop more tightly around them making it more difficult to use his gun from constant LOS block as they turn around corner. The loss of fast ADS is destroying his ability to land shots that he could previously make. The result of his power-level being reduced is loss of skill-ceiling being lowered because trick shots are not possible.
5 years ago, I want to say around patch 1.5.0, There was a patch that reduced Huntress hatchet hit box to better match the size of hatchets and to improve latency hatchet hits. The reduction of hatchet hit boxes was quickly reverted because it destroyed huntress ability to land hatchets from a distance. Current deathslinger is literally in a worse state than reduced hitbox huntress 5 years ago. He is 1 shot tiny hitbox huntress with 32 meter TR.
He desperate needs revert on his changes. His changes are about as bad as Huntress hatchet hitbox changes years ago.
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Spitting facts.
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Now say that it doesn’t affect his gameplay on a map like the game or any map with endless loops.
With the old ADS you could quickfire on a loop and hit but now by the time the gun is up the survivor has already crouched.
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have you not read the very first sentence i wrote?
you are, once again, putting words in my mouth i literally never said. i am NOT defending his nerfs in the slightest, what i am saying is that an attack cooldown after dropping ADS is such an insugnificant thing that it literally does not impact the gameplay of any decent Deathslinger player at all.
its not even a nerf! again: the only Deathslinger players who used to fake their ADS to zone people out were playing the Killer wrong in the first place.
YOU are the one making things needlessly complicated here because you refuse to actually read my comments but are still dead set on disagreeing with me.
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it doesnt, because you are refering to a completely different nerf than i am.
what you are talking about is the forced .4 seconds of ADS time prior to taking a shot.
what i am talking about is the slight M1 attack cooldown after dropping out of ADS without taking a shot.
i literally said in my very first sentence that those nerfs are not what im talking about.
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i mained this Killer from his release up to the point i quit this game.
Trust me, i know exactly what i am talking about when it comes to Deathslinger.
His harpoon has super tiny hitbox. He has 1 shot and when he misses his 1 shot, he has to reload. Survivor that wiggle erratically are extremely difficult to land shots on.
correct. that is why you dont just blindly shoot at people out in the open. as i said before, you want to shoot them when they are in places or scenarios where they can not do this exact thing.
In other words, them going for a window vault is significantly more beneficial to you than when you zone them away from the window, because they lock themselves into an animation that you can very easily shoot them out of as Slinger and get a free hit from - if you zone them away however, you enter exactly the scenario you were describing where your gun gets unreliable and you gotta 4.4 m/s your way over to them to M1 them normally, which is a huge time loss in comparison.
it is a similar story with pallets or doorways, even though they dont animation lock themselves there. the second they enter a doorway or pallet is when you want to shoot them, because its an enclosed space where wiggeling to the left or right is basically impossible, so, if you time your shot correctly, its another free hit for you. Once again, zoning them away from the pallet means they run out in the open and we return to your scenario.
in other words, faking your power was the most ineffective way you could have played this character. adding a slight attack cooldown after dropping ADS did absolutely nothing to him in terms of balance other than raising the skill floor by making it harder for people who have absolutely no experience with the character, who dont know how to quickscope properly, cant judge the maximum range or predict Survivor movement and compare that to your projectile travel time to know where to shoot, to so well in chases with him. I wouldnt even consider it a nerf to be honest, thats how insignificant of a change this was.
and then you're going on about the other nerfs he received (forced .4 second ADS time + TR increase), all of which are not at all part of this debate. This is soley about the M1 attack cooldown after dropping out of ADS without taking a shot - which i stated literally in the first sentence of the comment you are commentin on.
i have never once tried defending any of those. in fact, i have openly disagreed with those nerfs from the very day they released and have been asking for a revert of them ever since.
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I guess I just wasn't a decent Deathslinger then, or was playing him wrong. Whatever. If it wasn't such a big deal, we wouldn't be complaining about it.
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Lotta people defending quick-scoping in here. It was absolutely a problem and 100% a deserved nerf, and I say that as someone who played Deathslinger a ton. The only problem is they didn't buff him in other areas to compensate. Give him some mobility and/or map pressure and he would be fine (Also increase his ADS sensitivity for pete's sake).
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Spirit pickrate has barely changed. Also, she actually is even stronger but most people don't seem to realize that.
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It absolutely wasn't. It was a unique strength attached with plently of downsides and even a built in counter mechanic.
Quickscoping rewarded you for getting good with his power and in a 1v4 game it's fine if the Killer with skill is capable of having more sway in a 1v1 chase.
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She's absolutely weaker.
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"correct. that is why you dont just blindly shoot at people out in the open. as i said before, you want to shoot them when they are in places or scenarios where they can not do this exact thing."
There is never point where the survivor cannot do this which is the problem. As I said, his harpoon hitbox was not designed with that gameplay in mind.
"it is a similar story with pallets or doorways, even though they dont animation lock themselves there. the second they enter a doorway or pallet is when you want to shoot them, because its an enclosed space where wiggeling to the left or right is basically impossible,"
This I will disagree with on multiple levels. I am going say that. if you approaching a doorway, 9/10, a pre-changed deathslinger would just shoot at doorways expecting you to try to drop safe pallets for shift+w(Like shack). The reason why most slingers shoot is partly due to latency because killers see survivor actions late and the killer player did not want to be late where the survivor drops pallet with chain attached to them on other side of the pallet.
What you are describing is what I refer to as ranged bottle-necking. It is a form of zoning. Many killers utilize this such as pyramid head with POTD, Demo shred, Nemesis with dragging tech, Artist crows, Huntress hatchets etc. Those other killer are successful with this strategy because their attacks largely cover entire doorway/pallet area when utilized correctly. Deathslinger's harpoon is so thin that I have in the past dodge/juked his gun within doorway. I was greeding pallets heavily on occassion because sometimes I would not get hit by his low TR so I would be healthy in an opening chase and you as deathslinger main must know that shooting survivors during animation lock is free injure because the deathslinger does not need confirm the m1 hit when a survivor is healthy.
In the current iteration of deathslinger, his reduced ADS often makes it that he does not even get shot off in time in these pallet situations so there is barely any requirement to make predictions on his gun right now. I disagree that this gameplay is a free hit for deathslinger.
In term of windows, I would say that he is stronger at window simply because window vaulting is forced animation lock compare to running in a pallet doorway. In old iteration, he never really needed to shot because he could cancel out of his gun. In new iteration, he can hold his gun and walk towards the window+survivor, sometimes force bodyblock the window and if the survivor went to far away from it, he could cancel into m1 hit but largely speaking, he is mostly forced to take shots. point-blank shots are relatively easy in my opinion(No offense to huntress mains that miss point-blank hatchets). I would agree that he largely is not affected by windows post-change. At the same time, I feel like there is more time-sink to win windows with deathslinger than in the past which I would count as negative.
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i am going to completely ignore everything you say about the forced .4 seconds of ADS time from here on out.
it is not part of this discussion and i have stated that, as well as my stance on it, multiple times now. if you keep ignoring that, i cant help it.
when i talk about Deathslinger not being any weaker with this nerf, i am refering to old Deathslinger who ONLY received this specific nerf this is about and NOT the 32m TR increase or the forced .4 seconds of ADS time before being able to shoot (he also has none of the compensation buffs they gave him - not that those mattered anyway, but im gonna mention this just in case).
There is never point where the survivor cannot do this which is the problem. As I said, his harpoon hitbox was not designed with that gameplay in mind.
that is, simply put, not correct. all you have to do in tight corridors is to aim down the middle of them and the Survivor will not have the ability to dodge to the left or the right, as their own hitbox is 50% (or more) of the available space, meaning a harpoon passing through the exact middle is always going to collide with it.
in other words, if a Survivor is running through a pallet and you timed your shot right, as well as aimed precisely down the middle of the available space (as well as slightly down, so they cant duck under it) they are running through, it is impossible for the Survivor to dodge the shot.
in those enclosed spaces dodgeing to the left or right is not an option. There was however one option they did have: fake the doorway and not take it / delay entering it. If they run towards a doorway and then do a quick 90° turn (or 180° turn if you approached from the side) away from it right before they would enter, its entirely possible the Deathslinger is gonna whiff the shot - but that doesnt mean you juked the shot in the doorway, because you never entered it in the first place. the same applies when the Deathslinger either misaimed and shot to the far left or right of the doorway and you dodged to the other side or when the Deathslinger mistimed the shot and hit you after you already ran through the doorway and had time to drop the pallet or quickly dodge to the left or right - those scenarios are the Deathslinger making a mistake, not you outplaying them.
and you might say something along the lines of "you see, THIS is where dropping your ADS and going for an M1 is the correct play!" here - to which i respond: no. it still is not - because you should have never entered your ADS in the first place.
you made a whole point in your comment comparing his fake out ability to many other Killers:
What you are describing is what I refer to as ranged bottle-necking. It is a form of zoning. Many killers utilize this such as pyramid head with POTD, Demo shred, Nemesis with dragging tech, Artist crows, Huntress hatchets etc.
but here is the very big difference between those Killers and Deathslinger - and also one of the main reasons why i keep calling ADS faking a bad thing:
Deathslinger does not need to enter his ADS to zone Survivors out. The fact that he could take aim and shoot within like .1 seconds meant that the only time you would ever want to enter the ADS state was when you were actively taking a shot. Deathslinger doesnt zone people away from windows by faking ADS - he does so simply by them entering your LoS. A Survivor inside your direct LoS knows to never take a window, otherwise they get shot (same for running through narrow corridors (e.g. pallets or doorways)) - Survivors in this scenario have already lost. The counterplay to Deathslinger is to keep him at a distance and break LoS to him, because the second he is close and has LoS on you, the chase is over (considering they can hit their shot ofc).
In other words, you gain literally nothing from faking ADS. all it gives you is something you already have without it: they cant take the vault or go through the palletwithout getting shot out of them - which was already the case due to the fact that you could enter ADS and shoot them so quickly.
Deathslinger was a character who could zone people out without having to fake his power to do so. That was one of the big reasons why he was such a strong chase Killer, because he forced Survivors into lose - lose situations all the time simply by existing (and i make it sound like that was a negative thing here, when it really wasnt. He had a multitude of downsides attached to his kit that balanced this fact out - but since this is entirely chase focussed they wont come up).
all faking your ADS does in those scenarios is dropping your movementspeed further down. thats why good Deathslingers didnt fake their ADS - because they knew that they achieved the exact same effect that faking ADS had without doing it anyway, its was just pointless.
in a best case scenario it did nothing, in a worst case scenario it cost you free hits.
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