Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on this and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
Deathslinger feels so bad to play
Playing him now he just feels slow and clunky with the wind up time before he can shoot, pair that with his 32m terror radius and the fact he can’t down over pallets.
Slinger was always a “worse Huntress” anyway pre nerf, but he had his small TR and quick scope which made him somewhat of a threat, especially in the 1v1, but now that’s all gone
it’s no wonder you never see anyone play him anymore :(
Comments
-
His aim is awful to shot, clunky, slow and predictable, big terror radius, slow movement, simply awful, a shell of what he was (even if he wasnt that good before either)
3 -
I think he’s better in chase than Huntress. I only agree that his terror radius is too large.
1 -
I rarely play him anymore after they ruined him. It is really sad that I would rather play Overwatch than Deathslinger when I absolutely hate Overwatch and what it has become. But still better than Slinger...
4 -
Slinger main here, despite some flaws that should be addressed like his terror radius, he isn't that bad. His power just takes a lot of practice and people aren't willing to put that much effort into this killer for some reason. Everyone keep saying he is bad and a "worse huntress" when in reality, he plays way differently. If one of your complain is that you cannot down over a pallet, you're clearly not understanding how to play him.
5 -
He isn't worth playing anymore.
Post edited by Bran on10 -
I used to love playing him.
I got a daily for him today and thought wow, damn I miss old slinger. I actually forgot all about him. I never see him, nor do I play him.
Thinking of rerolling the daily.
4 -
Actually, pre-nerf I considered him more of a sidegrade to Huntress.
He was undoubtedly weaker than her overall, but he was not far behind and filled a completely different nieche than she did (like you said, great 1v1 and ambush potential), which made him a viable and unique pick.
Now though since both of these aspects got removed, he lost his entire identity as a character. Right now he is literally nothing but a worse Huntress and seeing him in this horrid state upsets me.
But this is BHVR we're talking about - the same people that have been continuously doubling down and defending Hillbillys Overheat for the past two years now, despite everyone unanimously agreeing that it was one of the worst changes ever implemented. And with this history, I honestly don't have any hope for Deathslinger to ever be in a good state again - they'd rather have a Killer go extinct than admit a mistake.
5 -
I’ve never understood why people think Slinger is a “worse Huntress” when they play differently
1 -
It baffles me to this day on why a weaker huntress needed those nerfs to begin with - and then leaving him in this barely played status.
2 -
I think a lot of people aren't willing to put in the effort when they remember it actually being responsive, and the buff actively hurt the ability's feedback. That sensation you get from doing something in a game and your brain thinking "yeah, that feels right." Its the same feeling you get when your hear weapons have satisfying sounds on impact, why anyone would ever want recoil in fps, and so on. His weapon feels less satisfying to use, and it was done by purposely removing responsiveness. Its why QoL nerfs are never received well, you're going back to hamburger after a filet mignon.
6 -
I started playing after Slinger was nerfed, and honestly he feels pretty solid. I wouldn't call him a main as I rotate through most of the killer's, but he's kind of my go-to killer when I need to get something done. For me a lot of this is simply perception differences from people who played him pre-nerf. Sure, a lot of the wishlist changes would make him better, but he's nowhere near the worst killer ever, absolutely worthless, etc that gets spouted by the extreme hyperbolic posters on the forums.
2 -
I've argued numerous times that he should never have been nerfed, and... Well, I'll leave it at that.
3 -
I like playing against him because he has a knee brace and a fishing pole and it's good for a laugh. Legion still takes my first place for least scary killer but Oldzinger is a top 5.
1 -
After streamers and survivor mains targeted him for 'not OP but unfun" BHVR reacted and nerfed his terror radius and put two animation limits in place.
Is he functional? Sure, so is a powerless nurse in that she can traverse the map and m1 still. He feels Clunky and terrible and to me I would consider him one of my least favorite killers to play along with Freddy, extremely weak ineffective powers and the only real reason to play them is you personally enjoy their asthetic/lore/visuals.
3 -
I just think he needs something like a 26-28 TR instead and he would be solid
0 -
I still want an ultra rare addon for the Deathslinger that removes the chain entirely and allows you to shoot the spear mapwide, but at the cost of a 4 second reload.
0 -
i hate that ads-ing turns your turning into pretty much what billy steering is. it feels awful and clunky
even if they gave him the ability to turn his head, hed be fine as a 4.6 since his power isnt exactly a ranged attack since it cant hit over pallets or anything crazy, and he wastes time bc of the reeling and hes often denied hits by survivors who just block the chain, and the reload also puts him in a neck brace until the animation is done
and yeah he has a broken leg but wraith has 2 chicken legs and can move at 6.0m/s, and victor is the size of a soccer ball and moves at like 6.0m/s or something like that, so lore-wise i think entity steroids would be able to make sling sling move at 4.6 even with a broken leg without a problem
0 -
I agree with that, but the thing is people never even considered him good to begin with, so I really don't understand those complains despite the fact that I also think he is less satisfying to play than before now. The problem here with the "he feels bad to play" is that it targets mechanics that you have to learn to get value from them, it's judged on his performance more than just the feeling of using his power. It would be like saying "Nurse feels bad to play" because she requires you to learn a mechanic that severely changes the way you play her as a killer. I understand the whole "it feels right" idea, but in my opinion, people often mix the feeling and the difficulty to play a killer. Sometimes, the fun is hidden behind the efforts you have to make and this is the case with Deathslinger.
Now, I do agree that he feels less responsive than before, which is why I personally find him less fun. However, this barely affects his performance, which seems to be one of the major complain here. And this is also why I talked about putting some effort into him, because in the ends, it's still the same mechanic and it does exactly what it was doing before, it's just more difficult.
0 -
slinger is still extremely oppressive in 1v1 if you know how to use him right. you'd be surprised how many loops are unsafe against him
0 -
He's just a much weaker huntress after the nerfs.
1 -
Only fix now is to remake him into Slinger 76
1 -
Responsiveness and controls are something you never handicap on purpose if you already released them in a fluid state. I don't know how much I can really explain that point further.
If slinger always felt like ass, it wouldn't have impacted people from dropping him, because they wouldn't have used him past their initial assessment in the first place if it was going to be an issue. Then nobody would be complaining how bad he feels comparitively, since they would not have seen that he is designed to work better and then had that taken away.
Its irrelevant whether the good version or bad version is healthier for the game, you're actively downgrading someone's experience because of your own incompetance if you do something like that to a core aspect of a character. You see it in fighting games all the time, people are more likely to just switch off that character and never look back unless they are a specialist with said character. We even saw it in this very game with Billy. Honestly you can even apply it to dead hard, since the period it was 1 second similarly spoiled a lot of people from being ok with the 0.5, even though many others have learned to make it very strong by changing their usage.
Post edited by Ryuhi on0 -
He just needs his terror radius reduced and maybe -0.25 seconds on reload and he’s fine.
Quickscope had no place in DBD and never will.
0 -
Yeah I think you are absolutely right, it's just that my point was more around the fact that people often blame slinger more for being weak than unresponsive, two different things that are mixed up too many times. But I agree that core mechanics that define a good chunk of the gameplay of a character shouldn't be the one being nerfed.
I definitively see why people would drop this killer just because his ADS was changed, he went from being a fast paced killer to a slower, more mechanical one. However, I still don't think he is unresponsive now. Compared to his former version, yes, but he is still in my opinion one of the few killers in DBD with a power that works correctly without any awkward gimmicks once you can use it well. His power still feels really smooth when you adjust to the new timing, however it's definitely not the same gameplay as old deathslinger.
0 -
The fun part about the terror radius is that they increased it to avoid the synergy with MnA, but they also nerfed his ADS. Survivors can hear the ringing noise when he aims on them now, rendering the terror radius nerf completely useless as they would still be alerted outside of it anyway.
As for the quickscope, I don't think it was really the problem. I mean he still can prevent anybody from playing the game despite that nerf but somehow people think it's more fun now. Now, I wouldn't ask for a revert considering how drastically this has affected his gameplay, but the real problem was the lack of cooldown when cancelling ADS, which means you could just bait survivors into getting in a bad position and immediately shoot them without penalty. The worst part about it is that they literally buffed this aspect of the killer by buffing his movement speed while aiming. Since shooting is more difficult than before, people tend to zone a lot rather than committing to a shot, which is lame.
0 -
It wouldn't matter if his chain wasn't so easy to break with environment, and it actually gave him something if he trades at pallet drops. Its possible to get the hit around very short loops if you start going around the side preemptively instead of waiting for the hit and reacting, but it takes extremely good positioning and compensation to even have a chance of making it around. He's one of the few killers where trading at pallets is extremely survivor sided, and can lead to his power being nullified by a bad survivor play.
Him being able to hit through windows is cool, but the way his power interacts with pallets (and loops in general) was a downside big enough to not need these kinds of nerfs. Since he's already a 110 with a large TR (now) its not very difficult to be in position before he gets LoS in most scenarios, which basically allows you to zone him at loops with pallets exceptionally well.
0 -
I mean I play a lot less than I use to, but I haven't seen this man in awhile. It's to the point I don't recall loving or hating going against him. My aim was never amazing with him, so I didn't play him often. I feel his low popularity, low skin sales, and Zarina likely not fairing too well compared to other female survivor's popularity and profit makes his chapter one they don't really care too much on anymore.
0 -
Absolutely agree with the ADS nerf's impact, it was one of bhvr's patented "don't address the problem, do a blanket nerf to it and hope it doesn't make other things worse" responses. They wanted to get rid of slinger being able to zone people with his ability like Demo and other killers, instead they weakened its correct usage and made that zoning ironically stronger. Why take the shot and risk missing when you can just ads shuffle to convince them to more inefficiently and catch up faster? tbh if they had just done like you suggested and gave aiming more of a cooldown instead of making it less responsive at the start i think everyone would have liked that more. Isn't that basically how they handled it with pyramid head?
Come to think of it, i think that might be part of why a lot of his changes feel so bad, you could compare his and pyramid head's m2s in a lot of ways (having to start up a separate stance, medium ranged attack, large cooldown for missing, able to option select at windows, etc) but pyramid head's (which is only part of his overall powers) Is kinda better at everything slinger's wants to do. Only thing it's really missing is inflicting deep wounds instead of just hits and the fact it has a short travel time instead of a (near) instant one... but otherwise it definitely makes slinger's whole kit feel weaker by comparison.
0
