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Dear Deathslinger players, may I ask you for your attention?
So how is the nerf to him? Is it really that bad as it seems in the Patch notes or is it just an exaggeration of ppl saying he is "dead".
I dont play Deathslinger much and probably never will thats why I would like to know it from ppl who actually do it...
if there are any of them left.
*Edit: I do think that the nerfs where abit over the top, especially the TR change.
Comments
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As a deathslinger main I will admit.
He’s not as bad as everyone says he his. Yes I will admit he’s very weak now cause of his ADS nerf that was his biggest strength. But he’s still good in chase you can still play him he’s not as bad as everyone made him out to be. I knew he needed a nerf I stopped playing cause he felt cheap. I wish he got some buffs to compensate though
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I have done all of the research for you. Ahem... Slinger mains hate it. No need to thank me. Knowledge is free so we can better the world.
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I'm not a main, per se, I've only played a moderate amount of him pre and post nerf, but my read is this:
He's no weaker than he was before - people like to pretend he didn't get any buffs to compensate for his nerfs, but he did, and those buffs helped him just barely break even - but he feels a lot clunkier to play. The changes I'd personally want to see are his Terror Radius either being reverted or converted to a lullaby, and something to address how sluggish he feels. Whether that's adjusting his ADS animation, or just making him 115%, I'm not sure, but he definitely needs something.
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He is in the top 3 worst killers in the game, if not THE worst killer in the game right now (without exaggeration). There's just no reason to play him over huntress, trickster or artist. Hell, even plague has a more powerful and fun ranged attack.
His quickscope was what made him powerful, combined it with his low TR and he was really a threat unless you were paying a lot of attention. All the tweaks he needed was a slight number touch on his ADS in/out, to avoid quickscope situations outside vaults. A small number change in his ADS would've made possible for survivors to go 2-3 times more in a loop around a corner, which would've been enough to move deathslinger down a few tiers. But with his current speed, unless you're playing against a player that only has W on their keyboard you'll be missing many shots. Which wouldn't be a problem if you didn't had to reload every single time.
To put in perspective
- Huntress: 5 shots before reloading, extremely controllable (flicks in case survivors try to dodge), "infinite" range that can go across the map.
- Deathslinger: 1 shot before reloading, once in ADS your sensitivity drops to 0 and a survivor can turn faster than you can move your aim, 15 meters shot max.
That's kinda the simplified version, but I've mained Huntress for years and when Deathslinger was released I started maining him, even though he was always WAY weaker than Huntress he was a lot of fun. Even trickster (which many say he's really bad but I've done pretty good with him at red rank) is stronger.
But consider this, if old deathslinger with quickscope and tiny TR was B-C tier, where would a nerf of the complete of his basekit put him? He's on his special spot below everyone else, the old F for Freddy tier. (F for ######### deathslinger mains I suppose).
They should revert the nerf, I don't think anyone would complain. He was really strong but there are way more stronger killers so why cant he still be strong?
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Ye I feel the same way with Legion and Spirit xD
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"He's very weak now" "He's still good in chases".
Just found that weird lol
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As probably the slinger main with the most hours on him compared to any other poster I can completely say your wrong
I'm more then fine with the slow aiming that doesn't bother me I've probably played 5k hours just on slinger aiming isn't the issue
But against a good team or a swf man does that tr nerf hurt bad he's a 4.4 with a 32m radius he's the only killer like that
Hag moves at 4.4 24m tr
Trickster moves at 4.4 24m tr
Why'd they have to go and kill my boy
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I agree with this 100% everything you stated is facts
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Ye I can understand that the slowed animation makes him feel very clunky
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Can't play him anymore. Just can't do it. Call me entitled. I'm not playing a worse version of a killer who already wasn't that great. He was just fun to play as, and that's enough reason for a nerf I guess.
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The nerf wasnt about his pure streangth, it was about the spam aim and not aim situations where you literally cannot react as survivor to it. You just had to guess when he is about to shoot, but visually it didnt matter at all which I totally agree with the devs there. However the current version is way too slow.
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But the issue with that logic is many other chars have fakes and they are removed
Huntress can fake a hatchet
Demo can fake a leap
Phead can fake a judgement
Doctor can fake a shock
Billy can fake a chainsaw
Plague can fake a vomit
Trickster can fake his knives
Pig can fake a ambush
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as someone who plays against him, i haven't noticed much of a difference in performance, he still does exceptionally well in chases and doesn't have jack for map pressure
i don't like the nerf still, they took a lot from him and didn't give him anything in return
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Glad that even a survivor player thought it was to harsh if you don't mind I make a lot of deathslinger posts in various forms so please fellas if anyone ever sees one give the slinger some love he needs it
Same with threads about Billy and Freddy
They've been in the dirt for years
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Ye but none of these Killers could use their ability as quick as Deathslinger, all of them need atleast 1 or more sec to charge it up which Deathslinger didnt had to, he could shoot right away after a 0,4 sec aim animation (not sure about the number but it was definetly short as hell).
Phead could do that but that also got removed.
Also no Plague cannot do that, if she cancel her vomit then she gets slowed down ALOT where you lose a tone of distance, you cannot really call that a fake, also there is no reason for her to do that.
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When was the last time you played any of the killers I mentioned? cause Ik for a fact demo shred takes like .5
Doctor can swing immediately after a fake shock
Pulling out and putting away the hatchet takes like .75
Plague fake vomit takes literally .25
Billy can rev the saw for like 1 millisecond and fake
And yet still all of that is fine like I've said numerous times it's not the slow aim that killed him that's fine
It's the fact he's the only 4.4 with a 32 meter tr radius
Only one in the game
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Alright. In terms of raw strength... if you run him as a chase focused killer with BBQ, STBFL, M&A, and Corrupt/Pop he probably is still decent. Definitely better than the killers who are most affected by the introduction of CoH. Slinger always functioned with a 24m TR, so in this build M&A makes it so that nerf doesn't hurt near as bad. STBFL actually got buffed for him since you can break the chain on the obsession to save stacks with less of a stun. The rest of the build is just good so it works.
That said, there's two massively huge issues with the nerfs he got from my point of view.
First... chasing is all he can do now. He used to be able to do so much more. He used to be "The _____ Killer who didn't put all his eggs in one basket." You could fill that blank with any 1 of 3 things. Ranged, Stealth, or Split Pressure. He was a Ranged killer without a preshot wind up so indoor maps weren't painful, who also didn't announce his presence to literally everyone always with a lullaby, and could use M1 based perks. He was a Stealth killer who had range and anti loop, meaning that loading into wide open maps where stealth just doesn't work like Shelter Woods or Rotten Fields isn't a recipe for having an absolute garbage game like it is for Myers or Ghostface. He was a Split Pressure killer who isn't as hurt by Survivors splitting up and didn't need to rely on basic M1s for downs. In some ways, that made him better at that play style than Legion or Plague. Or at least it was debatable who does it better overall. The nerfs essentially deleted all of those alternate playstyles off of him and it sucks as somebody who rather liked them.
Second... ok... he's still a good chaser. Is he better than either Huntress or Pyramid Head? or Nurse/Spirit/Blight if you're less picky about the ranged attack? No. No, he isn't. So, then you have the question of why would anyone play him over them? I don't see any compelling reason to do so anymore. I did. Not anymore. I haven't touched him after my 2 games where I tested out just how bad he was. I suppose it didn't help that I was fighting my quickscope muscle memory but still.
tl;dr: He's not all dead, but he's dead to me and anyone else who didn't just spam his chaser build every game. But even then... why pick him over Huntress?
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I mean you are right in terms of numbers but i dont get it what you are trying to say here? Why would you fake a vomit or rev the chainsaw for 1 sec? There is literally no reason for that, you cannot compare these things with deathslingers fake.
The only one which comes close is Demo and the reason why demos is fine is because his pounce speed (how fast he travels) is slower than the shot of deathslinger which means you can react to his shred.
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I see, well I personally wouldnt touch him anyway cuz he was never a thing for me tbh xD
I do have to say that I can imagine that bigger tiles like shack may be a problem for him against good survivors.
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And all the relevant ones on that list have to commit to that fake. Huntress has a cooldown before she can M1, Demo has to commit way more to a "shot" than anyone else on the list except Billy, Phead has a cooldown before he can M1, Doctor shock isn't damaging so isn't relevant, Billy has the Overheat mechanic (lol) but more importantly has to commit more because using his power hurtles him forward and missing is more punishing, Plague vomit isn't damaging (or it is but at that point the fake also incurs a cooldown + slows her), Trickster got given a cooldown before he can M1 (noticing the pattern?), and Pig... I guess technically Pig can fake an ambush, but that isn't quite the same thing, you can't make survivors lose distance by repeatedly faking an ambush due to how slowly she moves.
None of that to say the devs didn't overkill with the nerfs that Slinger did get, but the examples you gave actually support the ADS fake nerfs.
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I personally would recommend continuing with that and staying far far away from him. There's just... nothing interesting there anymore.
Bigger tiles... honestly it depends. It is possible to make his power still function on tiles like shack and jungle gyms. In the few games I played as post nerf him I did manage to get some easyish hits with him by timing it so he was finishing raising his gun as I stepped around a corner. However, it did annoy me to no end that I couldn't quickscope a Survivor as they ran past a window anymore.
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Wish I could explain things like that xD That was what I had in my mind but just didnt know how to word it rip.
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To be honest, the only nerf Deathslinger got that I was OK with was the added delay between having his gun up and lowering it and being able to M1 again. I always found his ability to freely tap M2 to get the Survivors to start dodging and lose distance to be really dumb. So... I personally didn't do it. I'm glad they nerfed that... I'm just... not happy with anything else they did.
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It was definitely the one unambiguously necessary nerf on the list, no complaints about that part.
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Agree, I think maybe lowering the cooldown just a little bit would be justified to make it feel more smooth though cuz currently it feels like the deathslinger is trying to aim with an ######### anvil instead of a gun.
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he doesnt feel right or fun. but hes not bad.
he is "dead" because he's not that exciting or fun if you enjoyed quickscoping.
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Survivors shouldn't be able to play around everything the killer can do. Deathslinger was unique with his chases and had good 1v1, as did Spirit, which is why they got nerfed because they required survivors to think.
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I don’t know how good or bad he is but his turning speed while aiming feels annoyingly slow, I just don’t enjoy playing him that much at this point because of that. (Prior to the nerf you could shoot from the hip, sp you could “aim” by walking toward where you wanted to shoot and then just fire in that direction. It felt a lot more fluid.)
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And yet even with all that all of it is still way faster then lowering and raising the gun :/
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On the DS map they added tons of holes where you could shoot survivors but now you can't even use them in a chase
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People only really complained about his zoning. I never heard people complain about how fast he could shoot.
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He is not as bad as everyone says. The aiming is more muscle memory than anything and the faster ads movement speed it nice. His biggest problem for me is that monitor is practically mandatory on him to get closer for a short.
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I disgree with Deathslinger but agree with Spirit. I have nothing against Spirit beeing able to force survivors to think but on deathslinger it has nothing really to do with think cuz the deathslinger could shoot you at any second 24/7, this has nothing to do with thinking. Meanwhile the you see that the Spirit phasewalks so you just have to "prepare" or think about it for a specific time and then she has a cooldown on the phasewalk where you can play normal again, so its a up and down. However on deathslinger there is no cooldown whatsoever so you had constantly to be aware which was just very annoying.
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Ye I dont get it whyt he devs just didnt make his TR to a lullaby, that would be a much smarter change.
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Don't worry, the nerfs for all of this will be coming :P
Jokes aside, after the rank reset I played him a few games to finally get his Adept achievment, and I found him quite fun to play, so I can't imagine how he must have been before the nerf.
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