http://dbd.game/killswitch
What if the Skull Merchant 3.0 rework was...
I know a lot of people played her in very toxic ways... but I loved to play her as a trap/set up killer... I know she will never come back, but if I can dream....
What if her 3.0 chages were:
- Now takes 2s to configure and deploy a drone to stop pooping a drone at tiles to shut them down, and make her a set up killer.
- Gave 2 additional drones to facilitate a more set up playstyle.
- Removed Undetectable and instead scans/claw traps apply Oblivious for the duration because drones should be for deliberately deploying to shut down a loop, not randomly thrown anywhere for Undetectable. This also gives the duration of the scan on the survivors HUD
- Removed Broken when Claw Trapped because getting deep wound is meant to cause a slow down and make healing take longer, while broken prevents healing... having both is redundant. Additional scans while claw trapped reapply deep wound.
- Gave her 1 scan line on a Scouting Drone that rotates faster so she has to use her direction switch ability meaningfully and poses a challenge for survivors, but no overload.
- Keep her stealth drones and buff them to remove the ring on the floor, and still have 2 scan lines so that the threat of an unseen drone is more dangerous, and the drone rotation is more reliable for Skull Merchant pushing survivors into her Web.
- Her haste boost from scans was made a flat 4% per scan up to 16%, but only applied when NOT in chase so that she has more ability to far off capitalise on scans and deal with hold W.
- Reduced her TR to 24m to help her set up without being detected as easily and off set the non immediate threat of getting scanned.
In this configuration she'd have more a configuration a bit like Trapper setup mixed, a bit of Freddy sneaking around, with a little bit of Clown anti loop/map traversal...
Would she still have been just as hated? 🥺🥺🥺🥺
Comments
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As someone who has mained her since she released, that honestly sounds even weaker than she is right now lol. So many people don't understand that Skull Merchant has to have that Haste, she has no way to down you outside of M1, Trapper can with his traps, Wraith has invis and mobility, Hag has mobility and cutting off loops, Freddy has always had his snares on demand to help him catch up and now also has his pallets, Clown has his bottles on demand etc.
2s to set up a Drone is just…. awful like unless she gets a way to down people without M1 that would actually make her unplayable unless you also remove the ability to hack them which would feel terrible ont he Survivor side. Removing undetectable would make her feel a lot worse, it's an invaluable tool for mind games and getting closer to people in gens as an M1 killer. Removing Broken when Claw Trapped is whatever because Claw Traps should not be your focus, people who focus on getting Survivors Claw Trapped are often wasting their time. It's nice to get people trapped yeah, but if you're hard focusing on it you're often extending your chase, not shortening it, especially with how easy it is to counter rotate spams at loops. Stealth Drones were kinda unhealthy imo, it never feels good to get randomly hit with something you couldn't even see. Her TR was already reduced to 24M a little while back.
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Isn't this literally just worse trapper?
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Thanks for the thoughts gents!
Maybe she would be on the weaker side of the roster, but that was always gonna happen because she had an above average killrate at mid to low MMR due in her 2.0 version. She had a similar problem to Legion and Pig, mechanically easy to play with a limited strength power, so thus struggles at high MMR, roflstomps low MMR.
The reason why her killrate was so high at lower levels was that was she could just put down a drone at any tile and just walk after survivors. There was no need to use her direction switch at all, no need to mind game, because the 2 beams always gave her enough slow down at loops to get hits from survivors trying to dodge it, or she got Haste if they didn't.
Her haste and lack of need to use her actual power, combined with the fact she could throw it up at any tile without slowing down whatsoever was the core issue of her design, she was rewarded for just walking you down. If she's still at 4.6 at all tiles, she still has to mind game, whether that's for hits or scans, she is forced to actually use her kit, rather it being a passive tile shutdown.
Admittedly this thread is a half answer on my part... which I didn't make clear... so my apologies gents... I would consider a number of other changes to her kit to strengthen her, but truthfully I wanted to address her core design contradictions from 2.0 and give a consistent and functional base to build upon, rather than get bogged down pushing a completely finished idea with controversies coming then on how I'd buff her.
My main thoughts now were:
- Her haste made looping against her inconsistent and typically unearned/random based on who walked into a scan line anywhere on the map. It could be brute forced by Skull Merchant for no skill... with similar issues to MFT.
- Her ability to put a drone down any time she pleases with 2 scan lines that overwhelm the survivor just by passively existing with no interaction from Skull Merchant is a problem. She should have to actually think about her drone placement and use her direction switch to get value.
- Stealth drones should act as a trap lying in wait as part of her Web, and shouldn't be advertising themselves. Similar to Hag and Trapper, you should be keeping a watch out for drones. This is a natural deterent to holding W from tile to tile, as leaving into the unknown greatly increases your chance of running into a stealth drone given their much larger reach than Trapper of Hag traps. It also gives a macro element because tracking scans allows you to identify survivors on 2/3 scans, and know they have to proceed with great caution for unhooks, etc.
- Undetectable doesn't make sense how it triggered with the rest of these changes, and with the radar therr is no room for Undetectable to fit in the kit... hence the TR drop. This combined with Claw traps/scans now applying Oblivious, but no longer broken, a Survivor has paranoia of if she's still pursuing them (she always knows where they are remember) and if they can stop to mend/heal.
- The Oblivious changes are further pronounced by her out of chase movement speed buff, where she can swing around high tiles from unexpected routes to close distance quickly before the survivor notices her coming. Think Legion Feral Frenzy without a Terror Radius or HUD indication she's coming.
There are a number of buffs I would consider here, but often people talk about the buffs they would give instead rather than the overall proposed package. My bad for not making it clear I'd consider subsequent buffs, but I hope that gives a little better context/food for thought.
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Personally I think she really needs complete rework but I'm not fan of what they suggested either.
- Drone can be remotely controlled to scout the area (no longer has scan lines but detection zone), if any survivor is found by the drone they will get clawtrapped and locked on.
Clawtrap - survivor has to manually remove clatrap by inserting the right buttons, but there is a choice to be made. If survivor removes clawtrap they will lose healthstate when healthy and broken for 60s while injured suffering deep wound, if they retain the clawtrap any pallet they vault is broken. There is limitation that the scan must happen outside of SM TR.
Locked on - lasts 30s, it sets timer before survivor is able to remove clawtrap.
New ability: pathway
SM can create scout path that drone will be flying back and forth, any survivor that comes in contact with the drone will be highlighted on skull merchat radar and suffer scouted status effect for 30s. Scouted status effect grants SM undetectable for the timer.
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By the way I saw p100 SM players mainly focusing on either changing rotation or playing with the stay still add on and they did pretty good, better than people give SM credit for.
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That sounds very weak. Setting time longer than Hag for something that can be so easily denied with high visibility...
Especially without undetectable, which was/is kinda only thing going for her.
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It waste so much time for little effect. Basically does nothing outside of chase.
The change that killed her most is you are not detected even on fast vaults.
You can easily have better results by using drones only for undetectable and play oldschool "machete man".0 -
I know but at the same point she really needs rework simply by how passive she was and it was main reason i never found taste to play her more than once in a month.
State 1.0 Holding 3 gen effectively, keeping game hostage, but have nothing for chase.
State 2.0 Holding 3 gen effectively, keeping game hostage, have minimum tool in chase
State 3.0 Having chase tool that is completely passive, deploy drone, gain haste, give hindred and hold w untill you get hit or follow survivor leaving loop and reset the progress
State 4.0 Having bad chase tool that must be actively manipulated to become better, giving her main strenght in stealth
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Aye thats fair, I think thats part of her problem though, cause especially now we can see that her power is basically garbage, and when I play her I literally just throw a drone to be a 4.6m/s undetectable killer on demand.
As I look back at it, there would definitely need to be buffs, but I was more focused on cleaning up her baseline design so that the different parts make sense together to build on.
I did consider for example 2 scans instead of 3 for a claw trap, and other such buffs, but I didn't want to get it a whole bunch of controversy over such things xD
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I'm a P100 SM. Rotations are the most important thing because that's the only way you get Haste now. The no scan line movement is kinda just troll, people have to be really bad to get hit by those lol.
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Especially now her drone scan lines are always visible in range 🥴
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I have played her a lot and got to prestige 50. I have liked OG skully more tho, but didn't really have an issue with next version tho.
State 1: that was created mostly because of perk meta, it would be not even close as strong now. Devour hope holding would be tho.
State 2: still perks, wouldn't work now
State 3: sad is it was simply weaker version of Clown with stealth. I still don't understand the hate about it.
State 4: current version is simply pathetic
I think best would be to use drones purely for information in some way + stealth and give her something else for chase.0 -
To be honest I think her previous version (before getting nuked) was easy to salvage. She would be fine if they simply removed broken and nerfed hindered…
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Aye we had many great discussions on Skull Merchant.
Version 2.0 was on the right track, she still had issues, but the bad PR she had just meant all discussion got drowned in a sea "just delete".
Your "always mending" suggestion was one I really liked.
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I am pretty sure many survivors would welcome Skully after Kaneki plague in their games :D
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I don't think so… the main issue behind her reworks were the massive hates towards her. She was just boring to play, boring to play against and had kit with practically non-existing skill expression and interaction. Was kind off alternative Knight who back in the days just instapopped guard at every loop and hit you for free. Not that current version of Knight would be more fun in any ways I kinda feel that 90 % of the game you don't play against Knight but bots.
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Boring to play didn't seem to be an issue, simply because that's subjective, otherwise noone would play her, but he pick rate was not that low.
boring to play against and had kit with practically non-existing skill expression and interaction
She was definetly possible to get decent chase against, so I personally didn't have an issue and it would be even easier with nerfed hindered.
Like really, before you got injured you could just try to predrop and hold W, after injured she was weaker Clown…the main issue behind her reworks were the massive hates towards her
Not something you can fix, so doesn't seem relevant to me.
Removal of broken would make her less noob stompy, simply because even if you run into it outside of chase, you are free to heal.1
