Can somebody explain to me how slugging is so effective a tactic against intelligent survivors?
I understand that if survivors are stupid and everybody just immediately races towards a survivor that gets downed, then sure, slugging can have brutal results. But all I do is use the exact same strategy that I always use and it's the easiest thing to deal with.
This is how I deal with killers as they hook. Once a killer downs somebody, if I'm on a gen, I'll look to see if a locker is close enough to validate getting in for 4 secs to counter BBQ. Then when they pick up the survivor, I'll get in the locker if so or just keep working on the gen if not. If I got in a locker, I'll get out and get back on the gen until either the killer finds me, I see a different survivor get injured showing that the hook should be free, or half the hook progress is gone and it looks like nobody else is saving so I'll go do it.
Now if the killer doesn't hook, this just becomes even easier. I don't need to worry about BBQ at all. I don't have to worry about hook progress getting to the next stage. All I do is stay on the gen until the killer finds me or a different survivor is getting chased. If I complete the gen and it turns out the survivor is still in the same area as the downed survivor, just go to a different gen and do that one as well.
And if that alone isn't easier than a killer who hooks and makes progress towards actually getting a survivor out of a match, picking up a survivor at 99% doesn't have any of the down sides that unhooking does. You don't have to worry about any of the hex perks that affect unhooking. Don't have to worry about the killer knowing where you are. Hell the downed survivor can even move and locate himself incredibly conveniently after getting to 99%.
I honestly can't understand why I see so many people complaining about slugging unless it's just that many people that play stupidly. Getting hooked and unhooking carry so many more dangers than 99%ing and picking somebody up real quick. Bleedout timer is far longer than hook timer and doesn't have progress levels.
The only way I could see slugging being effective is via blinding perks or addons, but I've personally tried those and they're really not overpowered.
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Slugging into another down(s).
Slugging in general is useless. If you're slugging just because you can you're wasting your time. If you're slugging because you saw someone so you want to punish them for being out of the open or you have a slugging build then it's usefull.
(also it kinda works like hooks still - 1 person is immobilized while another has to help them)
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I really thought there would be more than a single reply to this considering how many people I've seen complaining about slugging. And the only response so far isn't even saying slugging is so powerful. Is it because I specified that the survivors need to be intelligent? Surely, all these complaints can't specifically be about survivors that just bum rush any downed survivor instead of playing intelligently. I don't want to believe people are demanding balance based on stupid gameplay decisions.
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If the killer is good, it can be hard to counter slugging.
You see this a lot with god tier Billies or Huntresses.
They down one survivor and then chase a nearby survivor. If the killer quickly downs two survivors that slows the game to a crawl because it forces the other two survivors to act. Now the survivors have to make up for lost time.
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Really it’s more about cutting a teams efficiency as a whole each slug is 25% of a team
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Slugging is more effecient than hooking. especially when other survivors are around.
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down a survivor -> go to hook -> hook
survivors likely all get healed and come unhook very safely, or a gen completes.
down a survivor -> leave them to knock down another -> start hooking
both remaining survivors are forced into action to save the other two, meaning no gen progress.
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Slugging takes less time than hooking, and creates the same scenario as hooking a survivor does. You're literally cutting out the middle man - you moving the body to a hook, hooking them, and then losing points for having the hook apart of your patrol. With slugging you can leave them on the ground, patrol as normal, and still get better results if you're good at playing killer - since you're wasting less time.
Playing as killer - every second counts, and if you are moving bodies for 10-20 seconds between 20-40 second or more chases, then you've wasted a lot of time.
Also better survivors are not adept at combating slugging as they are with hooks, because it's believed that you win by hooking and sacrificing all survivors. When really you can slug 4, hook 2, let those two die, then let the last two off. Chase, down, hook exchange, and repeat till you win - basically farming off the last two survivors for easier pip's.
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Slugging is probably at its strongest when you have an instadown/fast moving killer and can chain downs using something like Infectious. Killers like Oni, Billy, Spirit, Nurse, and Doctor can slug really well if they have a build around it. Doctor seemingly being the odd man but because of tier 3 madness, ppl can't pick up slugs until snapping out of it which can work really well if the person your chasing is the one trying to pick up the slug.
Slugging just to slug will have very mixed results depending on the survivors and what they do.
Slugging when you see someone else nearby can be 50/50 depending on whether or not you can down or injure them quick. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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Deathslinger can also slug really well. Nurses and Monitor allow for some nasty results with the harpoon.
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This post is very passive aggressive.
Dealing with slugging isn't an intelligence thing. I could deal with a four man slugger by hiding in a locker and sneaking around all game, sure, but then I'm not actually playing the game at that point, I'm playing a Metal Gear Solid game without all the fun stuff that goes along with it.
Which, I guess there could be value in that, I could see how some people might find that fun. But it's at the expense of three players who are all laying on the ground waiting for you to either pick them up, get caught, or bleed out. And since you obviously aren't going to pick them up, they can only assume they're about to "play" a very boring game.
It's not about intelligence. You assume the best case scenario for yourself, but in reality no one has a perfect game every game. You mess up constantly, you make careless mistakes, you take a few risks, and sometimes they pan out. Even if you're perfect, the servers aren't, and you're going to get shafted at some point.
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There are mechanical aspects to slugging and you have to look at the metagame.
Others have made excellent points. I'm going to make just a few metagame points and a few mechanical ones.
First we'll ignore 4 solos, or 2 separate SWFs. Both of those situations are easy for a skilled killer to handle unless its a very bad map or they bring 4 toolboxes despite not being a 4 person SWF.
Metagame:
In a 3-person or 4-person SWF situation you either work on one gen until its done (and if the killer comes, he chases one of you while the other 2-3 people get back on the gen)
Or you all split up and work 4 gens.
In situation 1, you down one person, then down another, and another. Taking time to hook lets the other 2-3 people work on the gen OR unhook the person immediately. If you have someone on the ground recovering and you down 3 people, you've basically won the game.
Chase someone, 3 gens are being worked, in all different sides of the map. Drop them. If you hook them thats 10-12 seconds across 3 gens, maybe longer because the meta is to NOT rescue until like 20-30 seconds of a hook state are gone. You run for the rescue after you finish your gen, but if you leave them slugged, someone is gonna get off a gen and come help. That help takes longer than just unhooking someone, and you're chasing a third person while it's happening. And because the team knows if that second person goes down, they lose too much momentum, they have to go help RIGHT AWAY or else the risk is 2 people on hooks and then 0 on gens.
A smart intelligent team is hampered MORE because they know how their situation COULD get.
Metagame strategies differ only slightly, and slugging works because it enables you to, within 20 seconds of dropping someone, be ON a second person, perhaps even intercepting the person coming for them. Slugging can allow you to force 4 people off the gens if you do it right.
This is an important point. The key is: you should ALWAYS be trying to intercept the person going for a hook, or for a slugging pickup. You should never give survivors an easy trade. They should lose 1 health state minimum to get someone up from being slugged.
Also many abilities don't activate off slugging (no borrowed time, no DS, no WGLF, no Kindred)
Lastly, honestly, unless the person has help or unbreakable or something, if you slug someone 8 times they just bleed out on the ground and die before someone can help them so theres a VERY soft death timer there.
Remember, people complain about slugging because, like many other tactics, it is a way of taking control of tempo and momentum. You use it to say "no, you can't play the game you're used to, you have to play MY game which is that I ran this person into the corner of the map and left them there, and if you come for them I'm gonna see your scratches and herd you away from them and if I injure you, you'll end up trading yourself for them, so maybe you need to send 2 people" unlike hook camping where DS/trading/borrowed might be engaged, its a very real possibility you end up with 2 slugs then hook them both then intercept one of THEIR rescuers and have a relaxing chase while the fourth person rescues the other hooked person. And once you down that person, you don't have to hook.
Remember that your goal is to sacrifice them, sure, but mindlessly hooking is as dumb as any other mindless activity. Watch people who're good at the game and playing at rank 1. They don't like slugging, because mostly they're good players and its less fun AND less blood points AND less emblems, but when momentum goes against you you've gotta go "naw, I'm going to leave this guy on the ground".
Example situations you may not be slugging in, but might want to consider it:
-Thrilling Tremors is 10 seconds from cooldown. You just dropped someone, and you see a SECOND someone. If that someone is injured, I'd leave the first person, chase the second. This raises the chances you'll block ALL the gens or narrow it down (as someone comes to rescue the slug).
-You have a Pop ready. Leave the slug and come back if you can, but if you go pop a gen and see ANOTHEr uninjured person, chase them, and let the fourth and final person rescue a hook AND grab a downed person.
-There are 3 people around and you believe you can reasonably down a second one in the next 20-30 seconds based on position, injured status, which killer you are, etc.
-You downed someone in an inconvenient area with no generators in it
-Pressure on you is high and you need the breathing room of one chase + 1 slug.
-You want to lure a specific person out because you can mori them or because you need to hook your obsession for a perk or something
Million reasons. Remember the evaluation you make is not "why don't I put him on a hook its gonna take so long to get another person down"
Its STARTING A CHASE which is the thing that keeps people off gens ,and you can start a chase within 5-10 seconds after you drop someone.
If I know where a second person is, especially if they're a weak link or in a bad position, I will almost always leave the first slug on the ground. Unless I need vision or Pop or Thrilling - though I routinely pick people up for thrilling then throw them back on the ground to go chase someone.
I'm the player who, if you come up to try to flashlight blind me, I'll more often than not throw the guy on the ground and come after you.
Totems, pig hats, Hex Ruin, they're all the same kind of creature: make survivors do more work. Slugging is the same. Its giving survivors a secondary objective that takes more than trivial devotion and which puts them in weird out of the way places at times, and also it grants you 10 seconds. If you could subtract 20 seconds from 3 people's generator repairs in exchange for "when you would down someone, you merely injure them instead", you actually might often make that trade.
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I second this. I slugged a Meg because somebody was looping me near her and then I saw a Blendette picking her up with Nurse's, so I harpooned her straight off and got 2 downs from it. It's not always a perfect tactic and I don't intentionally look to slug, but it can be very effective.
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Sometimes its good to slug when there are 3 survivors left. Depends on situation. Just play more to find out what works the best. But slugging is always effective if you can down someone else in seconds after you downed first survivor.
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So is each hook.
I feel as if I have more time to heal when the killer is slugging as bleedout timer is longer than the hook timer. Also, it only takes one survivor to unhook 2 survivors, not 2.
Hiding all game is definitely not an intelligent way to play against slugging. Treating slugging like hooking really isn't that hard. You don't have to play perfectly. You just have to play at pretty much a normal level of efficiency.
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Oh, it's obvious the best move to leave a survivor downed and jump on a new survivor if you know exactly where another survivor is. But a lot of the posts I've been reading seem to be complaining about 4 man slugging. Going after another nearby survivor you know the location of after a down I can definitely see all the advantages to. 4 man slugging is the one I don't see all the efficiency in unless you just luckily manage to always have another survivor to go after once you down one.
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I agree. Slugging is only useful if you know other survivors are nearby. No point going for the hook when you can get extra downs. I run PGTW in all of my builds, so slugging doesn’t really fit my play style. It’s a situational tactic for me.
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I can definitely understand the time save without spending time hooking. But does that really overcome the advantage of not taking a player out of the game? Killing a survivor is obviously more efficient than slugging, but that does take a lot of effort to where I could see slugging possibly being more efficient. But how do you know where to go after downing a survivor? If you can't find another survivor fast, the slugs will 99% and start moving into convenient positions.
This does make an excellent point that slugging is far more efficient at increasing your gatekeeper emblem than hooking. I don't see why there's any more pressure to rescue a slugged survivor over a hooked survivor though; it seems like there would be less. Is the time saved from not hooking really worth 5 extra downs to rid a survivor?
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