New skullmerchant is even worse?
Just came back to DBD and played a few times against the new skullmerchant. I feel like this one is even better at protecting a 3-gen? I feel like you pretty much have to give up at times as this is just silly?
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No, you should learn about her new power more. Old Merchant was 200% more better at it.
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Correct. Old SM was better at it. However...
Current SM is still pretty much dead in the water. Boring mechanic, and they still pretty much patrol their chosen 3 gens from the start. One could argue any killer can do this.
But most don't. They tunnel instead. SM has an unhealthy mix of both. So keep going next, OP. Most do.
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Not worse. But still awful.
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Old SM was an absolute mess. New SM isn't my favorite, but is fine to face.
She's still something of a defensive killer, but she can't lock down 3 gens anywhere near the way she used to. Just played a SM who tried to set up a 3 gen. It took a few minutes for us to break, which is about the same as most other killers who try to 3 gen. This is no where near the old 30 minute to an hour games of trying to crack a chess merchant.
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How the heck should i know if she is good at 3gen? Before we even get close to a 3gen, my entire team has already dc'd or is dead.
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She is still absolutely pathetic.
- 6 Drones who will scann in an 10 Meter radius (so essentially 20 meters and the radius stack)
- Setting up a drone Grants the Undetectable status effect for 6 seconds
- Scanning will give the survivor one out of three permenant lock on stack, after three you will be injured, broken and they reset. If you were already injured then you have to mend while still getting the broken effect.
- For every scanned survivor she gets an haste effect up to max. of 7%
- Survivors with claw traps that are getting scanned are hindered by 10% for 6 seconds
- A disabled drone is retting itself after 45 seconds or you can just instantly replace them if you are close enough without any cooldown.
- She is not getting slowed if she uses or charges her power.
Her addons give her even more fun effects. More stealth crap, stronger and longer hindered or haste effects or exhaustion.
She is still powerful at holding her 3 gen since she's more deadly within her drones - which can be stacked easier and wider. I completely hate her and will not waste my time on that garbage excuse of a unskilled and brainafk killer. Will prefer any busted blight any day 😍
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She's still extremely good at holding a 3-gen.
She can also chase now, although that doesn't seem to stop people from dragging out games simply because they can.
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What causes me to get hurt when in the vicinity of the drone? The drone itself or SM needs to reactivate it.
I'm not sure half the time why I get injured. Yes, I know I'm within the radius but sometimes it happens and at other times it doesn't.
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You have to get scanned 3 times then a claw trap will be put on you and you will be trackable and broken. If you are scanned again while having a claw trap you suffer a 10% hinder and are revealed with killer instinct.
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New skull merchant can still hold a 3 gen + can be strong at chases
she is worse
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Skully needs something to be chopped out of her kit... she is overstacked right now. The kit has the potential to be engaging now with the scan lines approach, this was a REALLY good change to my mind, as the complete unavoidable AoE was just dumb... but she's still got too much in her kit at the moment. There are quite a few options to chop... but whatever one chooses, she needs to drop something.
I've been wondering for a while now if making her a 4.4m/s killer fixes a lot of her issues.
The fact she has such a powerful anti loop tool that: -
- Cuts off the ability to loop and makes it very hard to leave.
- Scans give her a speed boost that makes her even stronger at cutting off that loop.
- Scans give her a permanent live time track that prevents any ability to mind game, and also punishes a survivor for trying to leave.
- Naturally slows down the ability to run for saves/tap generators.
Makes it seem like she needs a hefty trade off. The 3% makes her 4.52m/s, and the 5% makes her 4.6%. I'd be tempted to make this "when chasing a scanned survivor 3%, when chasing a claw-trapped survivor it's 5%" flat buff.
The extensive boons she gets from survivors being scanned makes a lot more sense if outside of that she has a hard time keeping up.
The stealthing up to Survivors still works nicely at 4.4m/s, especially if you build for it, and the loop cut off seems reasonable to say she would be vulnerable to pre-running.
The fact she'd be 4.4 might encourage the 3-gen playstyle, but since you get the speed boost in chase of scanned/claw trapped survivors now, it's more a "you need to commit and use your loop shutdown with your speed/scan abilities while you have tjem" type deal.
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Idk about worse, but I still think she's the least enjoyable Killer to face. Still see people giving up on 1st hook or DCing fairly often, and I still don't blame them lol.
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Yall actually make it to a 3-gen? Lol
Every dull merchant, everybody unfortunately forgets how to loop… and their cat walks across their keyboard causing them to take their chances… it’s very unfortunate..
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I really don't understand how people feel this way. The thing that let her hold a three gen before was that you got the exposed status effect when you were in the radius of the scan for too long. That's not a thing anymore. Can she still put too many drones out too close together? Yes, but I feel she's definitely not the 3 gen god she was before.
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I agree with that, i died multiple times as i play 5-6 times a week and since her rework i only won 1 time(s) but died like 50+ times and even more worse than the old one + not fun at all. They should rework it into another way in my opinion.
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Exactly, that is the main problem I'm seeing.
I recently played against one on Sanctum of Wrath, and I thought it was going to be an easy game because she played her first chases very poorly. Took a long time to catch up, even with her anti-loop kit.
But my team just gave up, they didn't even try! What I think was going to be an easy escape for us turned into an easy 4k.
I fear this killer might need another change. This situation isn't good.
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Agreed. I think, hopefully… they will be forced to change her.
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If they look at feedback regarding SM, they will. I don't think anyone has anything really positive to say about her.
I've disagreed with 99% of changes BHVR has implemented into this game since patch 3.1.0, back in 2019. So usually I am not one to call for something to be changed or reworked.
But in Skull Merchant's case, I honestly don't see another option.
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No change will ever "fix" skull merchant because people are so used to hating her it doesn't matter what she does people will insta-quit.
She isn't that bad now she's basically just a super charged clown. It's really funny because literally everyone was screaming at BHVR to make her do something in chase and attach hinder to claw traps. BHVR listened and basically did that and now the community has to cope with the fact it has no idea what it actually wants.
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It's not worse true but SM is still so problematic and bad design. Even they fix 3-gen issue, her power is still so bad designed.
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I think it can be done.
I just don't know how. But there has to be a way to make her fun without killing her identity.
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I didn’t see a single thread saying to give her a hinder effect with her drones, and I’m on here a lot.
I can’t take you SM defenders serious. In what world is she not that bad? If she’s not that bad, then why is she BY FAR the most universally hated and rejected killer in the history of DBD?
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It was probably the #1 most requested thing I saw on here. There wasn't a thread about it but it was in a lot of posts.
Because the DBD has SM Derangement Syndrome? People decided they hated her from the moment they thought she was a robot from the teasers and wasn't (which we got next chapter but it turns out the community didn't actually want that either).
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I never once saw anybody requesting that.
Or, maybe she has a broken and heavy kit that she can reap rewards from with the simple press of m2. Hindrance, broken, deep wound, info, haste, exhausted, etc.
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In comparison to what a lot of killers can do SM is far from broken it's just that nobody bothers to learn the match up.
Plague basically blanks every healing perks and keeps people one shot far better than SM does and Wesker does the free info plus hindered better. There really isn't anything she's the best at she's just a jack of all trades master of none killer.
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Plague has an easily accessible built in counter, cleansing. SM does not.
Wesker does less hinderance than SM does and it takes SIXTY seconds to apply.
At ONE stack of traps, she’s 13% faster than the survivor. On top of making you broken, and deep wounded. Not to mention all her addons just add more status effects and increase the numbers of the preexisting one. And ALLLLL you have to do is place down a drone.
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Nightlight stats mean little especially when everyone DCs against SM without trying.
Plague's "counter" makes her an insanely strong killer lol and Wesker gets that while having a stronger main power. It's not one stack of traps btw lmao idk where you got that from. You have to be scanned FOUR times for that to happen and those traps can be disabled.
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Just watch the video. He explains it perfectly.
1 stack as in 1 survivor trapped? What are you not understanding? As if getting a survivor scanned is hard. Lmao
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I've already seen that video and didn't find it convincing the first time so I very much doubt I'll be any more convinced the second time.
Getting scanned is only easy because your average survivor is oblivious and has the awareness of a drunk sloth. If you're not being chased you should never get scanned and in chase you can just leave the loop or use objects to block the lasers.
As far as status effects goes it's amazing to me that everyone says how trash blindness is but the second a killer you don't like can do it it's the most OP thing ever. The way exhaustion is applied it will generally happen after you've already used your exhaustion perks in chase. Oblivious is...fine, not amazing but it's fine although any aware survivor or isn't going to make a difference against and it doesn't do anything in chase and the added hinder is fairly redundant. Tbh when I play SM I mostly just use the supercharger and the ultrasonic speaker because keeping the haste up as much as possible is much better than random status effects.
I think part where people lose me is when people say she's "broken" when in reality she's extremely mid and the idea that she's anywhere near Nurse or Blight in strength is a complete joke. If people said instead she's annoying I'd probably agree with them because the way she can make quick work of a lemming survivor that isn't paying attention before you can crank out gens is very annoying she's comparable to Cenobite in how much of a pubstomper she is but a coordinated SWF that's calling out her location and keeps a dedicated drone hacker? She isn't that much of a problem to those types of players.
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I hate when people DC, but in her case i can at least understand why.
She feels very similar to the old Legion. No real interactive play, no reactive play, no real counter. You just get hit and downed in the dumbest way possible.
There is no doubt in my mind that Skull Merchant needs another rework. I have enough faith in the Developers that they have already realised that.
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So, what to do against Skull Merchant? You have an ace in the hole you want to share with us?
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Ok it’s very clear you’re not going to try and counter any of the points I’m making against her, but instead defend her with “well against the average survivor…. Drunk sloth….” Straw man this, straw man that.
Any player with a decent understanding of the game will understand why she’s an issue, and how her kit does way too much for so little input. I’ve played her and tested it myself. She’s by far the easiest - strongest killer in the game.
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You're not making any points besides "skull merchant bad" and I literally just when add on by add on saying why the whole "omg so many status effects" thing isn't really a big deal nor how the way the community talks about her really makes sense. Like none of it is strawman you just can't handle the idea of her not actually being the boogeyman the community makes her out to be.
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I can maybe understand why people want to DC against her. I mean, that match I mentioned, for example: it could have been a victory for us, but it was going to be boring to the extreme. No one really wants to go through that, I suppose.
Old Legion is an interesting killer to compare her to. One of the few things from the Old DBD that I do not miss, and everyone knows I don't say that often. There is a similarity in the way they are both problematic.
Like I said, the developers will know they have to change her again when they look at the feedback, as it is unlikely anyone will have positive things to say.
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How is the status effects not a big deal?!? Name another killer that can press m2. That’s IT, press m2, without ANY other mechanical input, skill, or thought, and can: injure, precisely track, deep wound, hinder, exhaust, blind, etc, while ALSO gaining some of the best stealth AND gaining haste.
Name another killer, please. Name another killer that do all of that with zero setup, and zero maintenance. All other trap killers / zone killers have to take the time to setup and maintain their zones, ie trapper and hag. Not SM, nope the drones do not go away, and they repair themselves if a survivor disables them. No other killer has that. Her zones can be permanently set and only get stronger as the game progresses and play area tightens.
Her hinder is more rapid and effective than any other. Wesker has to land an m2, which requires mechanical skill and has plenty of built in counter. Then the hinder takes a full minute to activate, and he doesn’t even get the same hinder SM does. Clown gets 5% more hinder, but it lasts a fraction of the time, and he has to strategically throw his bottles. SM not only gets significant, lasting hinder, that can be quickly applied, but she ALSO gets haste simultaneously. AGAIN, name another killer that gets that for brainlessly pressing m2. You start to throw in the addons and this is only made increasingly more miserable to face.
I think you can’t handle the idea that SM is literally free wins and requires ZERO skill or input to stomp 90% of the lobbies you enter. Or maybe you just enjoy playing a killer that is absolutely miserable to play against, for the sake of making people miserable. Who knows.
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You're massively oversimplifying how SM works. You don't just press M2 and all that happens lmao that's ridiculous, like if we assume everything is happening as quickly as possible at base it takes 12 seconds before you get hindered but that obviously doesn't happen first you run away to a loop and then you have to actually get hit be the laser 4 times which presumably you make it to at least one other loop so more realistically it's gonna take 20-30 seconds before your hindered and that's if it happens quickly.
Compare this to Clown who...*checks notes*...throws a bottle and gets the hindered instantly. So I would say Clown can do it easier and more quickly, you don't have to be strategic it's just throwing them at the survivors feet. I mean you can throw them at tree branches to spread the gas out if you wanna be fancy but that's largely not needed most of the time.
Also the drones are disabled for 45 seconds which is a decently long time in DBD time. It's better for the Skull Merchant to recall the drones and reset them up which there goes your no maintenance claim.
The stealth lasts only 8 seconds and she again has to keep recalling the drones if you want that to last past the beginning of the game and that's nowhere near better than Ghost Face who just has it on command indefinitely until they attack or get broken out of it or Wraith who's nearly invisible. So no not the best stealth in the game. It's like Pig level stealth, you should know they're coming when the TR instantly goes away and be aware. Because they're 4.6m/s and at 8 seconds that allows her to cover 36.8 meters while undetectable so unless she measures the distance perfectly and makes a beeline straight towards you you should probably at least hear the TR for a moment before it disappears.
Also you do actually need to give some thought to drone placement because if you place it awkwardly in a loop it makes it easier for the survivor to avoid the lasers and it's a bit cumbersome to redo it mid-chase so this is again massive hyperbole on your part. I'm not saying it's difficult it's basically the same way you do Artist crows but you do have to do it right or you'll get punished for it by good survivors.
Wesker doesn't take that much mechanical skill lmao but that's a different topic, I'll just say if Wesker was actually hard to play they would not be anywhere near as popular as they are. It's just dashing in a straight line lol.
So on the topic of SM hinder vs Clown hinder, SM is 10% for 6 seconds and Clown is 15% for 2.5 seconds at base. Over that duration the survivor loses 4m against SM and loses 1.5m against Clown although keep in mind Clown can keep throwing bottles so at two bottles it's 3m against Clown but also SM gains a little more distance because of the speed boost so generally SM's hinder does seem better for the most part but that's fair considering it takes longer to apply and it doesn't seem dramatically better just better.
A lot of this just seems like mindless hate against a killer instead of breaking down the numbers and actually understanding how the mechanics work. Again SM does do a bit of everything but none of it is the strongest version of something in the game and it's funny you suggest I'm doing strawman arguments while doing such blatant misrepresentation of SM's kit. If I didn't know what SM did listening to you you'd think she got every status effect in the game off a single scan with drones that had a radius of half the map you couldn't do anything about.
I also should probably be clear I'm not a SM main, I play her casually when I want a break from my actual mains I just never got the derangement syndrome so many others did about her so I guess I'm just immune to all this. When I do play her she is free wins sometimes but not because she's broken but because half the time I play her someone DC's the second they hear my terror radius or sees a drone. Against good teams it varies sometimes it's not too difficult against others they just seamlessly chain loops together and the drones don't really matter, I wouldn't say SM is map dependent but on maps with loops that are close together that does help against her for sure especially if the survivors are good loopers. So yes playing against and with Skull Merchant I'd argue a lot of it is overblown and I think we're at the point where the community will accept nothing less than SM getting Freddy'd which is not what happened with the rework she's still solid B tier and the community hates it.
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1) Boom. First paragraph you nailed the most important part. Her counterplay is holding W. The most boring aspect of the game.
2)Clowns power still adheres to regular looping rules. The hinder does absolutely nothing if you made it to the pallet / window in time. SM will still injure, break, and deep wound you.
3) What makes her stealth so great is she is already silent. You can hear ghostface, you can hear wraith, you can hear pig. She is silent.
4) I’m not buying “drone placement requires thought”. Yea bs lmao. You get to a loop and you press m2 where you want it. That’s not “thought”.
5) Wesker doesn’t take mechanical skill?! Ok guy… how can you expect me to take you serious if you’re going to say stuff like that…. Be real.
6) Reference paragraph 2.
7) Where am I misinterpreting her kit? Can she, or can she not, apply every single status effect that I listed? It’s a yes or no question. And we both know the answer is yes. I’m reading her loadout as we speak.
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- Okay? That's the counterplay for a decent number of killers? Should we rework all of them?
- If you get hindered by SM you're already injured and broken, I actually have no idea what this is supposed to be saying. Skull Merchant also has to care about windows and solid objects lol.
- She's actually not completely silent, her footsteps make a small amount of noise. You probably don't hear them without a headset so this is more of an accessibility issue similar to Spirit.
- Do you think Artist and Hag require thought? Not talking in terms of macro gameplay just in terms of using the power in chase.
- Wesker takes about as much mechanical skill as Demo who isn't terribly mechanically skill intensive. They're very average in terms of how hard they are mechanically you can probably be consistent with them after about 9-10 hours maybe less if you're used to similar killers. There's "techs" but you don't actually need to know any of them to be an average Wesker.
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- At the same time? No. Can she with the right add-ons? Sure but I already went through why that doesn't matter much and why Haste and Hinder are the only ones that really matter. I have no idea why this is such a big sticking point for people even the broken is bleh if you apply it in chase cuz it's gone after you down them so that's really only good if a survivor you're not chasing stumbles into a drone area and again as I said before that should not be happening against any good survivor lol. Like at the end of the day I think the root of what makes SM good is she presents a math problem survivors can't win against in terms of speed. Anything else isn't that relevant, the drones left unattended can be hacked, the stealth is fine but you arn't winning games cuz you get 8 seconds of stealth at a time if that was true Trail of Torment and Tinkerer would be a meta perks. The added status effects for the tenth time are largely trivial and either bad or happen in situations where they're less powerful. Really it's just that she's fast and can injure you without hitting you but so can Plague and Onryo can even kill you without ever hooking you and that's base kit for her. I'm just not seeing why Skull Merchant is this unbeatable force people are complaining about outside of people insta-quitting against her.
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1) A decent amount? Skull merchant, knight, and artist. What “decent amount” are you talking about? Holding W is a universal tactic, yes, but it IS skull merchant’s most encouraged counterplay, and that is so unhealthy and boring.
2) Even if you make it to the window, or back to the pallet, her drone will still take effect. That is my point. You will still get injured even if you make the loop.
3) I’ve got a fantastic headset. But not everybody can afford quality headsets or even a headset at all. She’s much quieter than any other stealth killer.
4) Hag requires a significant more input than SM does. I heavily dislike artist as well because of the counterplay she encourages.
5) Regardless, his mechanical skill level is leagues higher than SM, and his hinder is much less significant than SM. That’s my point.
Last: Did I say at the same time? No. I asked, can her kit cause all of those status effects? Many of them can absolutely be caused simultaneously. It’s undeniable. Her kit does way too much for too little effort with too little counterplay. The vast majority of players share that same view.
I foresee changes in her future again. Especially with her sky high kill rate.
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- SM, Artist, Knight, Hag, Clown, Executioner I would say are all killers your best off holding W against. I'm just asking if you think they should all be reworked.
- I mean I get that but I have no idea what that has to do with the hinder effect? You also have to get scanned 3 times before that happens. I will admit though as far as that goes I do think the lock on should have decay timer even if it's slow. I think the fact that it never decays kinda punishes people that are good at avoiding the drones for the most part.
- Sure and there are people that think Spirit should be changed for similar reasons, I personally have no strong feelings here.
- Hag isn't that different if you have double trap setting speed, they just have to leave the loop or they get hit. Fair on Artist, I have a friend who's a very good Artist player so I also don't think Artist is quite as bad people make her out to be either but I understand that takes a lot of practice to learn how to play against Artist and at least you're being logically consistent.
- I mean I will never suggest SM takes high mechanical skill she's bottom 5 or even bottom 3 as far as that's concerned. As far as Wesker's hinder goes I think the annoying thing is you have to let Wesker know where you are if you want to get rid of it so there's no real outplaying it unless you can do it while he's hooking someone and that's frustrating when he already has a strong main power but that's probably a different conversation.
- You keep repeating this and idk where it's going cuz like again it largely doesn't matter. There was a discussion going around quite some time ago where people were trying to figure out who could apply the most amount of statuses at the same time and it was killers like Wraith, Dredge, Nemesis and these are not exactly high tier killers. Just mass hitting survivors with status effects doesn't matter if they're not in the right context or attached to a strong main power.
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Be prepared to have that reaction a lot as their balance team has been a failure for awhile. They've been doing a lot ot heavy survivor nerfs and killer buffs and the buffs don't even help killers have more fun.
You can feel the lack of passion and effort.
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I wish I could be as optimistic as you. My guess is, they've given up. Slog Merchant is a failed concept and no amount of tweaks will change that. It's her core that is the problem and it's clear they want to stick to it.
I don't understand how some people can actually enjoy her either (you described her gameplay loop perfectly imo) but I understand not wanting that to be removed. In all honesty, I think this is BHVR's worst mistake yet. They created a killer that is hated beyond reason by many and loved by others. No matter what they do, there will be a lot of backlash and it won't be forgotten.
Truthfully, I don't even want to give this killer another chance anymore. I have gotten used to hating her and it's more than just her power that I abhore. It's (literally) everything about her. For me to even consider changing my mind now, after 3 iterations that I despised, they would need to pull off a miracle.
My good will regarding this killer was barely existent to begin with and now it's completely gone. As long as I don't play her and just keep on ignoring her power when I get matched with her, I don't have to suffer through her gameplay. I die quickly and go next. Win-win for me and most other people it seems because there aren't a lot of people that want to play against her anyway.
Her gameplay to me is incredibly boring and her counterplay is the same. There is absolutely no thought in any of it as far as I am concerned. Set up drone, adjust rotation and play M1 killer and pre drop, Shift + W rinse and repeat until you eventually are cornered and go down because you don't get to leave anymore (no speed boost on hit when you're already claw trapped). Slog Merchant reduces both sides to bots. Every loop plays the exact same and the outcome is always predictable. I miss the interactivity of the chase with her.
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That's just wrong lol.
People hated old Legion too and he had dc almost all time. And after BHVR fixed him, people stopped dc. People are still dc'ing against SM because simply BHVR did not fix her problems. She is still bad design.
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I don't think you understand how her drones work now. There are a bunch of ways to avoid detection including standing still. It's really hard to get a claw tap on a survivor who isn't a potato.
Is she fun to play against? Not really. Is she awful to play against? Not really. Is she strong and oppressive? Not at all.
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A lot of survivors are babies, will complain about anything, and didn't bother actually learning what the changes were. She's definitely not the worst killer to go against.
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Ye ye , why survivors are not giving up against Chucky and Xeno? Both killers are much stronger than SM. But yet, survivors are playing against those two.
Toxic baby survivahs are not learning, SM is just fine. Sure
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This entire discussion feels VERY familiar. We had the exact same with old Legion. And when you think about it, they also do almost the same, in a slighty different way, but the outcome is the same. The only difference is that you have to "Hold W" to avoid her power in situations where you should defnitly NOT hold W and you get hit while old Legion had to wait for power. The experience overall feels exactly the same. The more i think about it, the more obvious it gets. Even the Legion = DC deja vu's are coming back with Dull Merchant.
Oh and i almost forgot: Why are you even discussing about this killer? Does anybody seriously think she wont get nerfed like crazy? Defending her is a little bit ridicilous and counter argumenting is beating a dead horse.
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So, you stand still in a chase. 200 IQ thanks for teaching us.
It makes me always wonder and crack up sometimes what people think about others here. Especially about people who are around since many years, have X thousends of hours and play in competetive matches. I mean, isnt that a little bit crinch? Like telling Christino Ronaldo how to kick a ball.
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They do though? As someone who plays a good amount of Xeno I can confirm plenty of survivors give up against me so this is just wrong.
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They don't. Not in my games at least.
I am playing Chucky from day one to today, he is my new main. And almost nobody is giving up against him. I don't play Xeno so much but i am seeing good enough in my survivor games. And nobody is giving against him as well.
But SM? Whenever i see her, i know it's just game over.
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