was the death slinger nerf really needed?

Dude. A better post on the same topic is literally still on the front page of the General discussions: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/290609/a-calm-discussion-on-why-i-feel-deathslingers-nerf-was-too-far#latest

I mean, a killer needs to be enjoyable to face. Frustrating, but enjoyable. People hate doctor because he is frustrating, but you can still enjoy yourself against a doctor. Against a slinger? Well, no enjoyment to be had. It was literally just waiting untill Deathslinger closed the gap enough untill he could shoot you.

That's like a Demogorgon always being able to hit you once he is in range. That is like a Bubba always being able to chainsaw you once he is in range. That is like Huntress always being able to hit you once she has vision on you.

Any killer who can pretty much guarantee a hit when using his ability is a boring killer to face. Because what can you do as a survivor? Not much.

"B-b-b-b-but Deathslinger has a super weak 1v4" So? that is assuming survivors are always working as a team, which they are not. Most lobbies are 1+3, 1+1+2 and 2+2.

Yeah, Deathslinger is gonna need a buff elsewhere in his kit(heck, he recieved quite an underrated buff by reducing his cooldown from a succesful chain break to 1.5 seconds rather than 4 seconds, meaning he can very quickly pick up the chase again), but his quickscope needed to be nerfed.

Oh, tell me oh wise person, how can you predict when a Slinger is gonna shoot when he can aim at you 3 times per second without losing distance?

That was the issue with Deathslinger, if he does that ######### now, he loses massive distance.

"They also made it so that the 50/50 is now on you. Now it's your responsibility to not only aim, but to also predict if the survivor is gonna twitch to the left or right, if the survivor is gonna run in a straight line, if the survivor is gonna move a little to the left and then stop, etc. Your weapon isn't hitscan. It's not just your aim that counts, but also your ability to predict survivor movement."

Except, it's not a 50/50, the projectile is still very fast to the point that if you aim to the center of the survivor, they would need to use an exhaustion perk or at least need a haste effect to dodge it. Survivors would need to move before you decide to shoot. But predicting the opponents movement to deal a hit must always lie at the person being able to deal damage. Not having that responsibility gives you essentially free hits. Free hits are always a problem, because the opponent's input doesnt matter. When the opponent chooses to put themselves in such a scenario, that's fine, they knew they were gonna give a free hit, but if that choice was forced upon them? That's an issue. Not a single other killer has the 50/50 on the survivor side. Every single ability from the birth of this game has given survivors room to respond. Deathslinger and Spirit were the odd ones out.

So yes, the nerf was needed. It's not done properly(yet), but it was absolutely essential. Killers need to be enjoyable to face, Deathslinger wasnt fun to face unless you were a premade 4. Desicive Strike literally recieved a nerf that was, in terms of in-game effect, unimpactful on escape results(I think it even increased). The biggest impact the nerf had, was removing the annoyance of having to deal with DS early game, but in return, DS survives untill late game a lot more often. Yeah, you read that correctly, the DS nerf didnt change the outcome of the match, 99% of it was changing the experience for the killer.

Deathslingers numbers, well, we'll see that in 6-8 weeks from now. If they dropped or stayed the same, he's gonna recieve adjustments in other portions of his kit. If it increased, well, nothing is gonna change since he would be an objectively better killer that now plays differently.

Personally, I do agree with his TR being 32 meters while he is 110% is a bit of an odd decision, and I dont understand why his ADS movementspeed addons were altered that much from the PTB, but I do know why they were changed(the 10% wasnt really 10% increase of his movementspeed, but 10% of the movementspeed multiplier, meaning he went from 0.85x to 0.95x, while in % thats going from 93.5% to 104.5% and when combined with the other addon it would be 110%, also, its the 10% addon+cold creek whiskey+monitor and abuse that made them change it the ADS speed addon, which is still weird, but whatever)

You can cry coinflip until the cows come home. People who actually play Deathslinger aren't gong to fall for that disingenuous branding.

Except, it literally is. Just because you dont think so because "He Is WeAkEr In OtHeR aSpEcTs" doesnt make it not a coinflip. If your input doesnt matter, its chance. Any chance where survivor input doesnt matter that ends up removing a healthstate being lost is an issue.

"But lots of people didnt get hit" No, they didnt, and that is because you missed, not because their input mattered. So its a coinflip for the survivor. This is like Survivors vaulting a window, and your input doesnt matter whether it is a hit or not even if you are in range of an M1. You would complain for days if that was the case.

"Let alone that I am not even talking about latency and hitboxes here." Literally what I said before the clip. I was calling out the issues of Slinger without even addressing the issues with latency and hitboxes. Having latency and hitboxes being on top of coinflips is a bit too much.

Im not saying Slinger is fine right now, but his quickscoping needed to be changed. DBD isnt really a game where quickscoping fits into. Survivors need to be able to dodge abilities unless they are in a position where there is absolutely nothing to be done anymore, and the range of absolutely nothing to be done anymore isnt "be within 6 meters of the killer". It's essentially "animation locked or bodyblocked into a corner". Not that things they can do is to gain distance, but avoid hits as long as possible.

There is 1 other killer right now that has a similar issues where survivors cant really do much to avoid hits, which is Clown, but at least Clown's vision also gets reduced a bit and a survivor could still make a play by going to a pallet and fast vaulting the pallet, let alone that Clown needs to be closer than 6 meters to get a hit.

I mean, it was either the quickscope being nerfed, or the chain breaking mechanics for survivors getting buffed so they can break it after being pulled for 3 meters. And personally, I rather have the quickscope being nerfed, since that would validate Slinger hitting a survivor with his ability more, while nerfing the breaking time would lead to Slingers not being able to down survivors if they are further than 7 meters away, effectively halving his range.

"If i hear a single [BAD WORD] arguing from "FUN" when the discussion is about balance I'm gonna flip every single table in the universe with fury. How can you not get it through your skulls already that fun is subjective. I had a lot of fun facing Deathslinger precisely because, if I was constantly and consistently avoiding his shots, that that meant that I was 100% in the slinger player's head and I understood what he was going to do. This is the most advanced for of counterplay that exists."

He doesn't get it man, and I don't think he will.

Since you dont seem to understand, ill keep things short by replying short:

"He does lose distance even when doing this" Assuming survivors still run in a perfectly straight line, otherwise you gain distance, do the maths You're zoning, so they are obviously adjusting their path.

"You, as a survivor are left in almost the exact same position as before." No, because constantly ADS'ing in a means to zone a survivor actually makes you lose distance, while ADS'ing around corners give you an unexpected shot.

"In the open, you should be Fd anyways" Even against a Bubba, you can do something to avoid getting instadowned as it takes 1 second with gained distance to find the nearest tree, locker or pallet. Even against a Trickster, who thrives out in the open, you could still last long enough to force Trickster out of knives. Against a Nurse you could run back into her. Against a Spirit, you could walk, crouch or run in the opposite direction to confuse the killer enough to make an escape. Literally any killer on the roster, there is something you can do to avoid being hit or downed even out in the open. It might not gain you distance, but it gains you quite a lot of extra time if you can pull it off. Deathslinger is the odd one out here.

"Because Slinger's projectile is so thin, minor movements from the survivor at medium range can absolutely evade your shot." But with a projectile so thin, you also dont see which direction it's going untill it's already too late. You can dodge a huntress hatchet because you can see it and see where it goes. Cant do that with slinger. So again, Slinger missed, survivors didnt evade. Let alone that hit verification isnt a thing on projectiles yet.

"I completely disagree with what you said about the attacker needing to have the responsibility of predicting their opponent, this literally gives "free evasion". Both roles should have to predict what the other is going to do, period. Putting that all on the attacker is hypocritical." Not what I said. I said "predicting the opponents movement TO DEAL A HIT must always lie at the person being able to deal damage". Context matters. Predicting when your opponent attacks is a different thing, but acting to avoid a hit requires the person dealing a hit needing to predict. If there is no prediction from the attackers point, there is no counterplay from the defendants point. No counterplay from hits in a game where hits matter quite a lot is a problem on its own.

"This garbage of "the opponent's input doesn't matter" is complete and utter bullshit. Any Slinger player, could tell you 100% that a survivor that knows what they are doing is way harder to hit and can lead you on a way longer chase consistently compared to a survivor that doesn't know what they're doing."

I'd like to point out that you stated that they are harder to hit and lead you on longer chases consistently, which is a common thing against 110% killers in general, rather than saying their input mattered against Slinger's power. No, there is no counterplay against Slingers power, there was only counterplay against Slinger being a 110% killer. And there lies the issue, your input doesnt matter as a survivor, Slingers input does.

"It only ever tried to cater to survivors that don't know what the [BAD WORD] they're doing, as so many [BAD WORD] things in this pile of trash of a game do."

Want me to give a list of things that were changed to cater to killers who didnt know what they were doing? Window blockers were added 1 year before bodyblocking an unhook was changed. Pallets were changed 2 years before Dying Light was. Killers recieved consistent buffs the first 2.5 years of the game, where survivors were consistently nerfed. And now there is a position where you cant really nerf survivors anymore without creating a powercreep. And killers cannot really recieve consistent buffs anymore without a powercreep.

"If i hear a single [BAD WORD] arguing from "FUN" when the discussion is about balance I'm gonna flip every single table in the universe with fury. How can you not get it through your skulls already that fun is subjective. I had a lot of fun facing Deathslinger precisely because, if I was constantly and consistently avoiding his shots, that that meant that I was 100% in the slinger player's head and I understood what he was going to do. This is the most advanced form of counterplay that exists."

DBD is a party game, fun matters. You cant expect every player to master every single killer just so they can play survivor. Doesnt work like that.

"The nerf to DS was massively impactful, what the [BAD WORD] are you on about?! It literally means you can no longer save your teammate in the killer's face cuz you have a shield?! It was not about annoyance. It was about the survivors being able to do pretty much everything to advance their objective and still have a safeguard. it's a balance issue, not an annoyance issue."

Impactful? In the highest ranks, the DS escape rate was 47% when it was 48% before, that isnt impactful. If it was a balance issue, you would see the escape rate of DS drop very significantly. 1% change isnt that significant. Why do you think DS didnt recieve changes for 2 years? Because from a balancing perspective, it was slightly below 50% escape rate across all tiers(both cumulatively and seperately). That's literally the definition of balanced. It was 100% an issue of annoyance. Because if you slugged someone with DS, even if they used unbreakable, they wasted time. If they did gens and you slugged them from there, they lost time. If they hopped into a locker, sure, they would gain some time, but that was the only way to gain time with DS, and people still do this. If it was a balancing issue, you would see DS have an escape rate of 60% before it's changes and an escape rate of 48-52% after it's changes.

Sometimes you can tell when others are no longer arguing in good faith and you move past the pleasantries, but I thought that was obvious as my ad hominem /shrug.