So I fixed Skull Merchant...I think
-Drones no longer build lock-on
-Entering an active drone area hinders the survivor by 5% and lingers for 3 seconds after leaving the zone
-Lingering undetectable duration now 5 seconds up from 2 seconds
-Now gains a cloak effect when gaining undetectable from an active drone and it's duration is attached to the lingering stealth timer
-Drones Active Mode Duration changed to 10 seconds down from 20 seconds
Now for add-ons
Adi Valente Issue 1- Increases the lingering duration of the undetectable status effect by 25% / Is Yellow rarity up from Brown
Low Power Mode - Is Brown Rarity down from Yellow
Powdered Glass - No longer gives the hemorrhage status effect / Is Yellow Rarity down from Green
Shotgun Speakers - Survivors suffer from a 5% action speed penalty when opening, unlocking, cleansing, and blessing when in the active drone radius
Adaptive Lighting - Is Green rarity up form Yellow
Vital Targeting Processor - Increases the hindered penalty from entering an active drone area by an additional 2%
Randomized Strobes - Increases the the time survivors are hindered after exiting an active drone area by 3 seconds
Thoughts? The idea was to make her more dynamic in chase with cloak mindgames and making her fast fitting her sort of cyber ninja persona. Numbers might have to be tweaked but the general idea should make her more fun to play as and against and make 50 minute games no longer possible. Shotgun Speakers are changed from making to games a slog to a nod to people that like playing totem merchant.
Comments
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Still not useable in chase so fundamentally flawed.
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That's like saying Wraith and Clown arn't usable in chase. I don't think these changes will make her A tier but not every killer has to be.
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And what exactly is this supposed to fix? Her chase potential would still be weak, so 3 gens would remain the way to go. Even if survivors are no longer exposed, the hindered effect still forces them to run out of that drone's range as soon as she comes near. That basically makes her the same as she is now.
Smaller tweaks will not redeem this killer. She is irredeemable with her current gimmick. They need to change completely how the drones work.
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This is where I think the community gets a little bit hysterical over SM and loses perspective. SM is not the only killer that can 3 gen literally every killer can 3 gen this just makes it so that she can't make the game last 50 minutes. Also her chase potential would not be that bad with these changes it would basically make her 8-10% faster than survivors and undetectable which is a massive deal in chase. It also gives her the ability to hit and run like wraith so no it would not force her toplay like she does now.
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Clown's power is almost ENTIRELY only useful in chase, making that kind of an odd example.
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That's literally my point? The point of these changes is to make her a wraith/clown hybrid with tracking capabilities.
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Actually, that is not right. This is a down grade of her chase potential. Right now, she has an inbuilt haste effect. By removing the lock on from her drones, you automatically remove that as well.
The main problem with SM is, that she forces survivors to leave gens way earlier than they normally would. If they don't do that, then they get hit / downed. This is what makes her 3 gen strategy so oppressive. Apart from always knowing when what gen is being worked on.
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Lock On is the Exposed effect, not the Haste effect. The Haste comes from them being tracked on her little tracker pad, whether it's from being inside an Active Drone radius or from a Claw Trap.
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The haste isn't attached to her lock on it's attached to how many survivors are trackable so it's not going anywhere.
As far as 3 genning every mobility killer can check every gen in a 3 gen as much as they want and Artist can send crows and all the gens like saying only SM can 3 gen well is goofy.
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Feels like a mixture of clown and wraith.
Question, do the drones still give KI, or not? Since you don't build up the exposed?
Also, wouldn't these numbers be a bit concerned when comboed with her haste effects?
Like, she whould be basically in Bloodlust 2 all the time, wouldn't that be problematic?
Anythig is better then what she is now.
Maybe with some number tweaks, cooldown number of drones or area size. Maybe that is a way to fix her.
But i think is kinda worryig when the only thing we can do to fix badly design killers is giving them haste or hindered to survivors.
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No the killer instinct would no longer be a part of her kit
I would expect her to be BL2 a decent amount of the time but so is effectively clown so I don't see it as an issue.
The idea is to have her have phases she starts as a hit and run stealth killer and then as survivors disarm drones she becomes speedy in chase and survivors will have to decide when they wanna deal with each mode.
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Nice so now shes wraith but a setup killer and without the speed burst out of cloak.
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It seems I was wrong. Thanks for correcting me on that.
With this in mind, your rework might actually improve her after all. Still, I worry that she will be almost as oppressive in 3 gens as she is now. We have all seen the game against Team Eternal.
The SM didn't need any hooks to delay the survivors because they could hardly work on gens for longer than 5 seconds before they would need to leave again. Otherwise they would get hit and go down. So they had to leave way in advance every time.
With a high mobility killer there is always a short break before they can come back or attack you. With SM that isn't really the case. And that is only if the team can ignore the drones, which isn't the case for every team.
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The SM could only stall that long for a couple specific reasons.
- Shotgun Speakers for silent skill checks which should be changed and is in this version. This makes oppression much less likely to gain value with overcharge
- The value of eruption was underappreciated in the team eternal game, they could get it consistently due to the lock on exposed mechanic so everyone was always one shot. This again would not be possible in this version due to that being scrapped in this version because could gens be camped yeah sure but as long as people are healing up that isn't gonna lead to much.
Yes the SM player will always know how where people are but that's literally her power, she's a tracking killer and it's not any worse than what a plague or artist could do.
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Uhm, did we watch the same game? That guy got like 4 downs the entire match. 2 of them before the 3 genning really started. So Eruption didn't do much here. It was mostly Overcharge + Oppression + Shotgun Speakers.
I don't know how this game would have gone against a normal public team without Shotgun Speakers (though I have a pretty good idea given how most survivors react to SM). Maybe this would have made all the difference, maybe it would have ended the same way (assuming nobody disconnected).
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He got about 4-5 downs but eruption procced and except for maybe one of the times it was about a full gen of progress worth of progress that got erased. The only reason it didn't procc more was because team eternal started going into lockers to avoid it.
Otz interviewed team eternal after the game and they said without a doubt the skill checks were what made the game so difficult so there's no doubt in my mind it's SM's current synergy with gen regression perks that makes her 3 gen game so strong.
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