Hidden Slingshot nerf (it’s a good thing)

[Jakepeng99]

After shooting something once or twice, the creature becomes immune to knockback for a bit.

 

Its a good change to try help Walter’s biggest flaw of “Hold F stand back a bit” by making it more risky and have more action.

 

it encourages using meat shields or setups.

[Lardee]

I disagree.  You're still beating 90% of everything by "holding F and walking back a bit" and you're still never really in any danger, the only difference is you're going to have to move away more frequently which just makes the playstyle more tedious.

 

IMO the way to fix "hold F and walk back a bit" isn't to lower the incentive of that playstyle, but rather to raise the incentives of Walter to fight using a combination of slingshot for debuffs and melee for damage.

[Radicaljoe]

Has no one ever played DST and used a spear? ALL combat is press F then walk back. Its just for melee you walk forward again to repeat.

The "Walter fighting is just 2 buttons" argument is always weird to me because it's just melee pattern at a distance, his situation isn't special, you just see the pattern clearer.

[Jakepeng99]

20 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

Has no one ever played DST and used a spear? ALL combat is press F then walk back. Its just for melee you walk forward again to repeat.

The "Walter fighting is just 2 buttons" argument is always weird to me because it's just melee pattern at a distance, his situation isn't special, you just see the pattern clearer.

 but kiting with a slingshot vs melee is very different in difficulty 

You don’t need to think about kite patterns. You just step back when they get close since you are on the edge of their attack range.

[Steorra]

it may be debatable if this would be effective enough to fix his problem or not, but I do agree it need fix.

And not only for knockback, the fix should also work for the slowing effect.

 

It's pretty strange that the slowing effect from icker ammo would last 60 seconds but the damage effect from the lunar debuff ammo could only last 30 seconds.

I personally think they should switch their duration for eachother.

[Edible Coal]

1 hour ago, Steorra said:

it may be debatable if this would be effective enough to fix his problem or not, but I do agree it need fix.

And not only for knockback, the fix should also work for the slowing effect.

 

It's pretty strange that the slowing effect from icker ammo would last 60 seconds but the damage effect from the lunar debuff ammo could only last 30 seconds.

I personally think they should switch their duration for eachother.

didnt lunar got adjust to 1 minute too?

[Steorra]

18 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

didnt lunar got adjust to 1 minute too?

I guess I got outdated info from wiki, Im sorry

[Arcwell]

2 hours ago, Steorra said:

It's pretty strange that the slowing effect from icker ammo would last 60 seconds but the damage effect from the lunar debuff ammo could only last 30 seconds.

40 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

didnt lunar got adjust to 1 minute too?

Pure Brilliance Rounds debuff duration was changed from 8 -> 30 seconds in the last update.
Icky Rounds debuff duration is 60 seconds and has not changed.

Source:

Spoiler

from tuning.lua:

[renamoe]

4 hours ago, Radicaljoe said:

Has no one ever played DST and used a spear? ALL combat is press F then walk back. Its just for melee you walk forward again to repeat.

The "Walter fighting is just 2 buttons" argument is always weird to me because it's just melee pattern at a distance, his situation isn't special, you just see the pattern clearer.

I don't see why there's an issue with the press F playstyle—that's just tanking, right? Not everyone has to kite, and that's fine. I agree that one can just press F to kill enemies, but only if the cost is fair.

[asdsaax]

Eh but we already have "braindead" designs like Maxwell, Winona and Wurt

Those characters neglect traditional combat but it's okay

instead they offer unique experience and as someone who played 3k hours as Wortox who used to be balanced around Wilson I really enjoyed Winona because I could finally experience something new instead of being like

"Yeah that character has abilities but spear is better tho" exactly like Walter used to be

Not every character is for everyone and that's okay too, Wilson and Wes are still there

[Soul7k]

not a hidden change. they did this in December. I assume to account for the increase in attack speed he got.

[Jakepeng99]

32 minutes ago, asdsaax said:

Eh but we already have "braindead" designs like Maxwell, Winona and Wurt

Those characters neglect traditional combat but it's okay

Wurt is the only "braindead" one.

[Debruh]

31 minutes ago, asdsaax said:

Eh but we already have "braindead" designs like Maxwell, Winona and Wurt

Those characters neglect traditional combat but it's okay

instead they offer unique experience and as someone who played 3k hours as Wortox who used to be balanced around Wilson I really enjoyed Winona because I could finally experience something new instead of being like

"Yeah that character has abilities but spear is better tho" exactly like Walter used to be

Not every character is for everyone and that's okay too, Wilson and Wes are still there

Personally, I think it's fine as long as in the spirit of the character and their playstyle.

Walter using only slingshot doesn't stray too far from the playstyle, and is fine in my opinion. Since I'm pretty that slingshot+melee is his highest damage output. So the player is still encouraged to not just spam F

1 minute ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Wurt is the only "braindead" one.

Maxwell depends. Depending on the boss, sanity food, and nightmare fuel. He can be pretty braindead. 

[Jakepeng99]

2 minutes ago, Debruh said:

Maxwell depends. Depending on the boss, sanity food, and nightmare fuel. He can be pretty braindead

Its mainly the cage softlock.

[Debruh]

Just now, Jakepeng99 said:

Its mainly the cage softlock.

That's 1/3 of his combat abilities.

.. and let's be honest, more like half

[Mysterious box]

On 2/8/2025 at 5:50 PM, Lardee said:

I disagree.  You're still beating 90% of everything by "holding F and walking back a bit" and you're still never really in any danger, the only difference is you're going to have to move away more frequently which just makes the playstyle more tedious.

 

IMO the way to fix "hold F and walk back a bit" isn't to lower the incentive of that playstyle, but rather to raise the incentives of Walter to fight using a combination of slingshot for debuffs and melee for damage.

I'm going to be real it's really strange to me that there's this narrative that dst's melee combat is more satisfying despite it being one of the biggest turn offs to newer players and I'd argue people would be jumping for joy if Klei said they were going to change it as it's more so something we just begrudgingly accept. The melee combat isn't special it's just a variant of the slingshot's base hold F and walk away when your in trouble the main difference is the slingshot offers more layers in how you attack by way of choices and makes it feel far more satisfying.

[Crimson Hollow]

On 2/8/2025 at 11:50 PM, Lardee said:

IMO the way to fix "hold F and walk back a bit" isn't to lower the incentive of that playstyle, but rather to raise the incentives of Walter to fight using a combination of slingshot for debuffs and melee for damage.

Please, let us have one proper ranged character. This playstyle doesn't need to be fixed.

[Walrusst]

Honestly the scrapshot just has me asking when will we get more melee weapons that do stuff like sacrifice DPS for a fun right click, like a charged cleave for the ability to hit 2-3 targets. The AI needs to improved to handle long range aggro for the scrapshot to be fair, but the demand for more involved weapons... I can't say I'm alone here, 

Since like, I've been playing for about two months with newer players who have almost only fumed at the melee combat but celebrated stuff like the alarming watch/willows spells/anything that isn't a single target melee weapon with standard reach. (One of them even went on a tangent of if the fencing sword has to be slower then a spear, why can't it get like 33% more range, or why can't there be something like a machete that is weaker then a spear but has a right click that swipes with a charged delay, so you can make risky called shots at groups of 2-3 enemies. In adventuring guild terms:  A big block of D through B players wondering why the weapon variety at the alchemy engine feels so bland. Mind you, I've shown them shadow manipulator crafts. All but one of them were just sort of disappointed that they swung like spears and then went off to use almost exclusively character unique weapons like the ligher/elden spear/shield/beefalo+bramble vest. (Or sometimes even plain weapons that were cheap because they enjoyed grinding everything down with spam fighting, like one who found they actually enjoyed the more dangerous spider biomes as wortox cause he could replace his knapsack with just spider drops, and wortox's teleport was enough of a gimmick to keep them happy.)

Basically all the demand I've seen is for weapons that are less standard.

Pretty much the only form of alternative combat they had a viscerally negative reaction to was the catapults/wendy clearing hordes on her own (Catapults because it felt like watching the game, wendy because it made them aware of how limited they were with pure single target namelock attacks..)

As for ranged combat as a whole, while its one character, and theres only a tiny handful of fast enemies in the game, its going to feel a little odd. The windup on kiting means high speed enemies can get your heart racing when you aren't cheesing beefs or slows.

[YouKnowWho142]

13 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

Honestly the scrapshot just has me asking when will we get more melee weapons that do stuff like sacrifice DPS for a fun right click, like a charged cleave for the ability to hit 2-3 targets.

That's a huge change and I think it would require basically an entire overhaul of the combat system

however

It's an interesting idea since it is clear that Klei is taking DST in the direction of a more boss oriented game like terraria (which is fine by itself, I think most people are put off by their current implementation of it) and so making the weapons less linear would help a lot for engagement. It is very hard to justify using any weapon other than a ham bat until late game, so it would be interesting to see weapons be more unique in general

[Chewabacca]

2 hours ago, kroban said:

Look man I think YOU are the one that acts with malice when it comes to Walter, be real for a second, you have barely played him other than for a couple hours on a solo world with commands only to fight bosses, yet you are out there making videos trashing on the character and acting like if you were a main that "studied his entire kit" when that's clearly not the case, hurting the community's perception about him A LOT by intentionally portraying him in the worst light possible.

Saying that Walter's combat is "just holding F and walking back" is a bad faith argument. As many have already said here, melee combat isn't that different and extravagant, there are only a few rare exceptions for this, like Wormwood, Willow, and maybe Wigfrid, and this only began to happen because of skill trees . And YOU already know this, you've made entire bossfights where you are basically holding F on an ornery while kiting, and thats usually it. Animation cancelling doesn't make it that much more interesting and its something very few people do.

Walter's current combat is far from "just holding F", first because, even pre-skill tree, you were already able to play him as an hybrid, using slingshot for freeze/slow/ranged damage at times while using melee as the main source of damage. This is how many people used to play him before, myself included, and mainly because his previous slingshot dps sucked. His skill tree has significantly improved this, you have aoe damage, freeze, slows, DoT damage, debuffs, specialized damage (electric rounds) and special attacks making the slingshot a pretty good support weapon. Going hybrid is legit now more than ever, its why jelly grip was added, and its a choice the player can make if they find the ranged combat to be "boring".

Secondly, even when it comes to him being a full ranged, he still varies quite a lot compared to melee. On top of the things I've already mentioned above, switching ammo while in the middle of combat to keep up certain effects is a thing. Best example of this is the "slow rounds + cursed + pure horror" combo for pre-rift, or Lunar's "slowrounds + PB debuff + damage". Carrying different types of ammo for different scenarios makes his combat far more varied than that what "average Wilson" or an Ornery user does. Also, since I know you find anim cancelling to be "super fun", Walter can also do this now, so even in that sense one could argue that he isnt "just pressing f".

Theres even another factor to consider, which is Woby. She has dashes/teleports (with alledged iframes), which is another thing that makes Walter's combat more varied than other characters, since you are incentivized to use dashes to dodge attacks.

I can agree that yes, IMO Icker Rounds ruin a lot of bossfights, you slow the target to an insane degree, which is why I hate those, and I also think that many other people will (kind of like what happens with Maxwell's cage). But Icker's rounds are literally an endgame's aligment the player CAN choose. Many people will prefer lunar. Up until that "post-Icker" stage, Walter's fights demand way more, and this "slingshot inmunity" has done quite a lot to improve this.

Saying that all this is "just holding F" is straight up argumenting with malice, its at the same level as the meme-y "perk soup" many content creators used to say to trash on Walter. I dont know if you think that hating on Walter is still popular or what, but its getting old fast.

 You think this affects only Walter? this is something all characters do, its called kiting. How is this more tedious on Walter when you are kiting way much more as melee ? 

Walter's combat now incentivizes to use Woby, who currently still has no HP bar to tank damage. Even with Marble Armor, if you get hit multiple times (or hit by a knockback) in a bossfight, you are dead. This is specially noticeable if you are fighting BQ or no-walls DF, and this only gets worse post-rift due to planar damage. Not only that, Walter's sanity main disadvantage is still there. He is, in many ways, pretty much a glass cannon with whom you shouldn't be taking damage freely. In all honesty, I can't tell if this argument is either because you don't have much experience with the character, you think that everyone has perfect kiting and skills, or you think that everyone just rushes for shadow rift Ickers at day 22.

 

 

I think it’s also: yes, Walter absolutely has an easier time than most in a bunch of boss fights because of the slingshot. But that doesn’t apply when you’re not fighting against a big, often already kind of slow, single target. “90% of everything” is going to be more spiders and hounds than it is bosses. Yes, he has a pretty easy and simple fight against Klaus compared to most other characters. He also will get bucked off if he’s only wearing a football helmet and two spider warriors or hounds jump him on Woby (with marble armor it’s 8 but even so, plus most people don’t use marble armor outside of bosses). And if he gets thrown off, the slingshot’s comparatively slow speed will mean that the swarms will stunlock him to death before he gets an attack off, and Woby running away means you don’t get a ton of second chances. The claim that Walter never needs to learn how to bait out attacks rings false when I know that I have in fact had to do that for hounds (for spider warriors, if they come out in a group I usually just run away and lure them away from the horde one at a time because I don’t want to deal with the jump attack).

[Walrusst]

16 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

That's a huge change and I think it would require basically an entire overhaul of the combat system

however

It's an interesting idea since it is clear that Klei is taking DST in the direction of a more boss oriented game like terraria (which is fine by itself, I think most people are put off by their current implementation of it) and so making the weapons less linear would help a lot for engagement. It is very hard to justify using any weapon other than a ham bat until late game, so it would be interesting to see weapons be more unique in general

 

I mean I've quietly had a private mod I've used running on my servers for 25% more fencing sword range, given its modest compared to what a cat of 3 tails gives but in my experience it helps lagging players out a world and a half without having an especially exotic cost. Its balanced by the poor attack speed, but it still does a lot.

Still, more weapons which adequately diversify how people hunt and play would likely just result in players experimenting more. It fits with how combat heavy skill trees are. Otherwise, the limitations of being at the alchemy engine made people I introduced to DST complain about needing "Wiki level knowledge," to continue progressing. Slightly more content at the alchemy engine level to braven them up, they start experimenting and exploring new areas immediately. Most of this was simply "Adequate" character unique weapons that the forums complain about being useless, but it was what the doctor ordered.
Since more or less the trajectory says our current DST is akin to terrarias 1.2 updates. We have new hardmodes, we have content gated behind cryptic bossfights which make survival noticably more painful. Many players are unsure if its actually a decent experience to try and cross that threshold.

What it took to make players move from being divided and feral on the prospects of terrarias hardmode was a lot of accessories before hardmode that let them buff up and feel confident they could actually gain a foothold, and a lot of stuff after hardmode that gave it substantial content after you hit hardmode.
If kleis trying to go down terrarias path of explosive growth, the skill trees and the combatification of characters serves this goal well, but the missing piece of the puzzle is making the bridge between alchemy engine combat and shadow manipulator combat interesting to your average new player.

[hoxi]

I'm not too interested in discussing the topic of stun immunity to projectiles, but I do have something related to it I wanna mention.

You wanna know what was hidden and I've been wondering if someone would notice or point it out? Bee Queen and Celestial Champion (phase 3) being more vulnerable to stun from non-projectiles (so mainly melee) when their attack is on cooldown (and in the case of CC, when also not too far from the "home" location set on starting the fight).

Both became way less annoying to fight for non-Walter players due to the changes, once you get a hit in, they can't just simply run away anymore for a few seconds if you keep hitting them, provided you're not barely at melee range, be slightly closer than that. Kinda funny, another great QoL change added along with something added mainly for Walter.

[Crimson Hollow]

48 minutes ago, Lardee said:

In order to fight a boss with melee, you need to know and interact with it's unique kiting pattern. That means attack range, movement speed, cooldown, wind up, conditions for the boss to initiate its attack, damage and you need to know and have the skill to frequently interact with these elements while constantly putting yourself in danger

This is exactly the reason why I main Walter and enjoy playing characters who don’t require direct engagement in melee combat. I find no enjoyment in melee combat whatsoever, and I can confidently say the same for many other Walter players. I understand why some might consider this playstyle tedious, especially those accustomed to and fond of the thrill of melee combat, but ultimately, it comes down to personal preference.

48 minutes ago, Lardee said:

grant greater incentives to the hybrid playstyle

Gosh i hate it. 

He was already doing it before the skilltree update, using his slingshot as a utility tool, mainly because of his bad slingshot dps. This hybrid playstyle is still an option after the skill tree, mainly on that pinetree pioneer hat upgrade that grants you 75% sanity loss resistance, and is even stronger than before with all these slow down rounds, aoe freeze and all that Kroban has already mentioned. 

48 minutes ago, Lardee said:

What does the highlighted say?

How would you modify the skill tree to "encourage hybrid playstyle while still maintaining the appeal of a full ranged playstyle"?

[AliceShiki]

48 minutes ago, Lardee said:

This is why if you want to melee a pigman, you're going to have to learn how to fight a pigman. You can't fight it the exact same way you fight a treeguard, a spider warrior, a clockwork knight, a frog, deerclops etc. 

Those are all Hold F enemies.

Just put in the armor and hold F. They die pretty easily.

Well, if you spawned a Treeguard by accident and don't have enough armor on you, you might want to kite it, I guess. It can happen.

[Lardee]

3 minutes ago, Crimson Hollow said:

How would you modify the skill tree to "encourage hybrid playstyle while still maintaining the appeal of a full ranged playstyle"?

Off the top of my head:

Give him more utility/debuff rounds.

Give a slingshot upgrade that increases the effect of debuffs, but is slow as hell if you just hold F.

Give the slingshot upgrade that lets Walter fire off the first pellet really quickly.

Give the slingshot upgrade that lets Walter fire off three shots at once but with a cooldown.