Skull Merchant PTB changes Net NERFED Skull Merchant?
the Skull Merchant's power:
hot take, but I actually prefer when survivors could see that they were being locked on as it's actually an object of obsession mind game where it's like, "I know the killer knows my location, so I'm going to run in this direction and switch once the eye is not on me. " and the killer can know the survivor is thinking that and zone them into the position they want the survivors to be in, but well you know that requires half a brain cell, and I didn't expect people to understand that first time around. Next, why did they make it so that survivors with claw traps on can disable multiple drones? I ready hope that was a mistake in the patch notes. Me knowing that a survivor has a claw trap on gave me information that, "hey this survivor can't disable a drone if I set up a drone." or just gave you a sort of read to how the survivor would play if they had a claw trap on or not. Her being able to see the metre is a little concerning cause I feel like that promotes tunneling, but alright I guess that's a decent change.
Personally, I USED to sorta like the Skull Merchant area control mechanic, but I do agree she is very weak in chase, personally, my recommendation would be to add a secondary power to her drones where is charges like doctor's static blast. Where when activated, survivors will get an audio que when she is charging said blast, and getting caught in the drone's radius makes survivors lose a health state and become broken while in the radius of the drone, whist injured survivors are inflicted with deepwounds, and a new debuff, "Shock Stasis" where survivors cannot mend themselves without the help of a teammate, and also remain broken whist in range of the drone radius (the status effect Shock Stasis and Broken would last 30 seconds after leaving the drone's radius). Survivors disabling drones while she is "charging" said power are forced off the drone, scream and are hindered for 0.5 seconds. Next thing I would do is give her a, "Deathslinger" lunge to further strengthen her in chase cause again she is practically an m1 killer in chase. I think personally I prefer her ptb form, but the movement speed buff was nice. I think the only "good" change they gave her was the duration of the exposed effect, the terror radius drop off was just weird as it just feels like Beast of Prey base kit. Personally, I would prefer a more confusing terror radius where she goes undetectable when survivors are in her drone radius, and they hear her terror radius become louder for as long as they are in the drone radius.