Deathslinger not fun to play against?

If there's no cover, jungle gyms, or moderately safe pallets within that 5 seconds with the speed boost you get from being hit, and he doesn't fall for your attempt to dodge, your problem isn't necessarily Deathslinger.

I wasn't trying to imply that. What I was meaning was if you're in a wide open area, or there's no safe pallets the Deathslinger can't just swooce around, that's either a problem with the map, the RNG, or your teammates. Or perhaps the game's gone too long and there's little resources around. Deathslinger's power would be an issue, but any killer would have an easier time if you're screwed by the map.

and tbh dodging is either a 1 in 2 or 2 in 3 chance of success depending on how the 'slinger runs.

The one trouble with all this is Monitor. A 16m TR and an 18m chain means that you're going to be starting chases when he's very close to you. If you're not repairing a gen right next to a strong pallet you're very likely to take a quick hit. You just can't really effectively mindgame against a killer that can zone. If he raises his gun and the survivor dodges, he keeps walking forward and M1s. If he raises his gun and the survivor doesn't dodge, he shoots. If you had more of a warning that he was nearby, sure, you could try to stealth him, or try to scratch mark juke or something. None of that is possible if he's already very close to you.

Speaking of Huntress, BHVR should take some serious cues from her for Deathslinger. Huntress has a 40m lullaby to alert survivors she's in the area. She has to walk at 77% speed for about three seconds in order to fully charge a hatchet. She makes a very clear noise notification when raising a hatchet, throwing a hatchet, and when the hatchet is fully charged. She cannot instantly raise and put away a hatchet, and she cannot instantly attack after putting away a hatchet - there's a short cooldown. She cannot reload on the fly and must instead find a locker. So, Huntress cannot zone, she can't sneak up on survivors unless they're not paying attention, she has to slow down and telegraph her intentions when she's preparing to use her power, etc. All of this means that survivors have a wealth of counterplay options against her. Deathslinger can zone, he can sneak up on survivors even when they are paying attention, he can quickscope a survivor and fire a projectile at the same speed as a max-charge hatchet in .65 seconds. And, to boot, he deep wounds you when he hits you with his power, meaning that you now need to chase through Deep Wound VFX if you take a hit.

Huntress is substantially stronger strictly because she can deal damage very quickly, and from longer range if the killer's good. Deathslinger has to reel a survivor in and reload before his power is ready again. Huntress can just wing hatchets right and left at a few different survivors. That's enough to make her a much better killer than him. Still, he's stronger in the 1v1 than she is and is way more annoying due to limited counterplay.

I would be thrilled to see him get a 115%/32m TR change, at the expense of a Huntress-style charge up time for his projectile and slower ADS times. That'd make him less unique, but way less annoying to play against.

The only change I can see to Deathslinger is:

You can only fire your weapon after ADSing after 2-3 seconds. Imo

The TR argument is valid. Think about it - if you're on Blood Lodge, yeah, you'll see anyone coming from a mile away. Stealth counts for nothing. If you're just repairing the average gen inside a jungle gym, though, you can't see much outside of the jungle gym. With a 16m TR, a killer running right at the gen is going to be within swinging distance in about three seconds. There is no time to prep. All you can do is guess which side of the jungle gym he's most likely going to approach from and scramble as best you can.

I'm going to be honest - I don't really care about lore or identity so long as the killer is a pain in the ass to play against. I'm at the point with Deathslinger and Legion where I would legitimately rather them be unceremoniously removed the roster than remain in their current state. If we can change their powers to be fun to play as and fun to play against, awesome, even if it ends up not being that unique. We already have killers with quite a bit of overlap in their powers that still somehow feel like they have their own niche. Ghost Face and Michael, for example. Pyramid Head will be in this bucket soon too, but he's at least new enough that I've had less time to build up resentment lol

There are other killers on the roster who need balance changes and QoL updates, but these are the only ones that have irritatingly low counterplay. Spirit could be up there too, but she's vulnerable to perks in ways that PH really isn't. Iron Will, Quick & Quiet, etc. can do wonders. For players close to the skill ceiling, yeah, those sorts of things won't really stop them, and that's a big reason why she needs work. For most Spirits though, even in red rank, those are powerful counters and can let you frequently prolong and even survive chases.

All other stealth killers have weaknesses, some of which you called out directly in your post. Myers needs to stalk to even get up to 115% speed, and once you see him he's just a basic M1 killer. So, even if the first hit is easy, he will have no help on the second. Wraith is in a similar boat. He has loud footsteps and the bell, but first hits are still usually easy enough. After the first hit, though, he has nothing. He's just a basic M1 killer. With Windstorm add-ons you can zoom around and maybe get some cheeky body blocks, but that's a bit map dependent and also not part of the base kit. Pig moves slowly while in stealth, as you mentioned, and her dash is only useful in small loops. Other than that she's a basic M1 killer. Ghost Face's stealth is extremely strong and that first hit is very free, but yet again, he has nothing else to help him out in the chase. When his power comes back he may be able to re-stealth for some mindgame help, but other than that he has nothing.

Deathslinger has a ranged attack that he can zone with. Once he lands the first hit, which is easy with his tiny TR, an M1 is fatal and a Redeemer shot is almost always fatal, unless it's over a strong pallet. Both are easy to land unless the survivor is able to get behind a dropped pallet, or to a relatively strong loop Deathslinger can't shoot over. But, because you don't get to pick where you engage him, there are often no such resources in the area.

I've commented this in more detail elsewhere and mentioned this here, but the principal issue with Deathslinger and PH is that they can zone with their power. Deathslinger can flash his gun up, and if the survivor dodges, just walk forward to gain distance quickly and M1 them. If the survivor doesn't dodge, he can quickly shoot and hit the survivor. Pyramid Head works exactly the same way, except he's a much stronger killer overall. His power goes through walls, he can down with it directly without reeling, he doesn't need to reload it and can fire multiple times in pretty quick succession, and he doesn't even need to bait a quickscope to zone because his movement speed is 110% while laying trails. If the killer knows what they're doing, there is very little the survivor can do to counter him. Rather than the killer and survivor both having chances to outplay one another, the killer basically needs to mess up. Of course, this is talking about good players. Bad players will make enough mistakes that this isn't really relevant.

Edit: This is why I hold up Huntress as a good example of a ranged killer. She's a strong killer, but she cannot zone with her ranged attack because she's locked into a slow movement speed while holding her hatchet and it takes a bit of time for her to raise and lower the hatchet. She also needs to hold it for ~3 seconds to charge it up to the point where it can't be reactively dodged. That lets survivors try to dodge without risking an instant follow up M1. On the contrary, she'll actually lose distance as she charges her hatchet.

First of all I read the whole thread but wanted to answer to this specific post.

So you would to suggest to give DS 5% more movement for 33% more tr, ads slowdown/CD AND Huntress-like windup?

Additional to having to reload after each shot plus the small projectile and the already existing slowdown being more impactful by increasing ads time.

Sounds like a hefty nerf with no real profits and a 32 TR would make monitor not beneficial but mandatory on him.

I am not good on him and survivor can easily dodge behind tires and whatnot. The hitbox for his projectile is really small, I already scratched some butts with it without a confirmed hit.

I'd hugely prefer that to the current Deathslinger, yes. That's not the only way to change him, but I think it would work. Much in the same way that Huntresses should rarely miss fully charged hatchets against survivors in the open, Deathslinger should rarely miss fully charged shots against survivors in the open. He'd be even more accessible than her too because of his iron sight; there's no need to get good at figuring out where the middle of the screen is and such.

I wouldn't want to significantly improve other characteristics of his power, like reducing cooldown or reload time. I think that would make him too overbearing at 115% speed. With that said, I would support increasing the length of his chain a bit (but absolutely no longer than 24m because of Monitor). That wouldn't matter to average Deathslingers, but it would raise the skill ceiling and allow for some crazy snipes that aren't currently possible. I think that would also make him feel more like Huntress, in that being out in the open when he's nearby would be a bigger risk.

If survivors are trying dodge you, just don't shoot. Just keep walking and they'll lose distance on you because they dodged instead of running. If they don't dodge, it's an easy shot.

I don't think he's OP or anything, he's just boring to face. I don't think I've ever had a memorable Deathslinger match.