[Slayer] Dodge distance/effective count passive "Unburdened by armor"

I’ve had this idea for years but I finally decided to post it since I’m not sure V2 will receive much support after Darktide’s release so here we go. First of all don’t get me wrong, a disclaimer: I think the Slayer is in a fine place (though not in Chaos Wastes but though no fault of his own) but I’ve always thought he could use something more.

Slayers fight half naked and so wouldn’t it be appropriate for the V2 Slayer to get a passive along the lines of the Handmaiden’s Dance of the Seasons passive (Increased dodge distance by 15%) or perhaps something boosting his dodge effective count? Since Slayers fight without any real protective gear (the eye patch and the nose rings don’t count!), you could call such a passive “Unburdened by Armor.”

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Have also wished for a dodge range talent for Slayer. If you were to put it anywhere though I’d personally think tacking it into “Barge” would be a good place for it. I don’t think that talent sees much use and its current effect is a touch lacklustre currently. Also fits thematically on that row as survivability through mobility rather than DR.

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How about keeping Barge effect and add 10~15% dodge distance on it to make it competitive and distinctive from WHC/Merc talent? I’ve always liked the idea of Barge, Slayer bullying rats with shoulder tackle you know. Combining it with dodge distance makes some sense too as both are related to survivability and dodging.

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Yeah that would be terrific. I’m rooting for a passive like the HM’s because I like the talents as they are and wouldn’t want a dodge distance talent like the merc’s Stand Clear or the WHC’s Charmed Life to take the place of one of the Slayers penultimate row mainly because a dodge distance only talent would be kinda bland and would probably go mostly unused against Oblivious to Pain and Grimnir’s Focus. Adding such an effect to Barge would be aa great way to make Barge relevant and a real contender in this row.

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I’d like a slayer-specific response for getting hurt, the ‘straight through my armor’ line makes no sense when he’s not even wearing a shirt.

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Yeah tat one line annoys me too when I play as Slayer so I like to pretend he says that ironically with a smirk to taunt whoever got a hit on him.

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Yeah that’s pretty much exactly what I was thinking. I’d probably use it in a good number of loadouts with that effect, even double 2h weapons that spam heavy attack it’d be a serious consideration since their dodge effectiveness is probably those weapons’ biggest weakness. Would be super fun for a hyper mobile dual axe setup as well.

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I feel like his mobility is unique, since he can pretty much walk out of attacks with the motorbike build.

I fight the urge to main Slayer with a similar build, soloing the maps at 200mph every hour of every day. The only thing stopping me is Bardin’s headshot angles and having to play higher sensitivity to land headshots while strafing.

Just thought. If they add Chain Swinging Axes, please give them a continuous helicopter blade attack with no movespeed slowdown just for this build. lmao. Make it the Heavy ‘Charging’ or something.

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That’s a fun build and a great run but I’m not quite sure I understand the relevance to the rest of the discussion? Are you suggesting that a dodge range increase on Barge would be irrelevant because the build you’ve linked here dodges attacks by just strafing/walking away with high MS? Or is there no particular relevance and that’s just a somewhat tangential point regarding Slayer’s form of mobility generally?

@Velsix unsurprisingly shows how effective that build is in true solo but I struggle to see that setup used much in a group, where it’d probably be preferred the Slayer actually frontlines rather than running around in circles at high speeds.

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Yeah, sorry. Back to my posting after being up for 24 hours bs.

My point was that it does a similar thing and the movement essentially does effectively act as an extended dodge.

It obviously doesn’t feel the same though.

It’s down to playstyle really. If you’re tryharding as that build, you can kill the majority of enemies on the map solo, before your team reaches. Unless they’re playing ranged stuff, it’s a map clearer.

Just see it as similar to Shade or Zealot, where you can just ignore them and they’ll solo half of the map. You just have to try harder to accomplish it, due to movement speed and timing requiring way more focus.

I tend to use more heavys and go for the heavy DMGR Talent though. Parry/Opportunist on an offhand helps.

You can also still play frontline stuff as it, or just CC Weapons in general.

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