Brainstorming Ideas on buffing Skull Merchant (add ur ideas!)

claysgaming

I was talking to someone else on another thread and decided to brainstorm my ideas on ways to make Skull Merchant less painless to play. Feel free to add your ideas below as well!!
→hacking drones is extremely easy and has no penalty, so maybe…
- hacking a drone inflicts survivors with a non injuring clawtrap for 45 seconds, making them vulnerable to hindered on consecutive scans (like the iridescent addon, her power is focused on surveillance, eh?)→this would also make a lot of her clawtrap addons actually useful

-scanning surviors reveals their aura for 3 seconds, making it easier to control drones from accross the map

-add addons that make hacking drones more difficult, maybe one that increases the amount of hotkeys that need to be pressed for hacking a drone?

-considerably increase drone setting speed, making the deploy animation of the Skull Merchant much faster (too many situations where you miss an M1 because of the animation)

-crouching and standing still does not protect you from scans anymore (might be controversial, but I think its still fair now that there is 1 scanline and no stealth mode. + you can still hide behind objects)

LMK what you think <3

MechWarrior3

While I like your ideas a lot I think they should just go through with a whole rework. Her current state has gone on for too long now if you ask me.

claysgaming

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4066374#Comment_4066374

Tbh I think she has been reworked too often and at this point it would change her identity too much. Plus it would spare them work, too

AlwaysInAGoodShape

I personally believe a proper skull merchant rework should meet the following criteria:

1. It removes the "Sh#t a drone" effect. Which is where Skull Merchants get free value in chase without really doing anything, while survivors have to crouch and try other advanced things without input from SM. (Basically getting value without having to do anything actively herself)

2. (DEPRECATED) doesn't create a 3 gen situation.
Now number 2 isn't relevant anymore because of the gen regression limit, which makes things easier

I think your first idea is great. Adding a more severe penalty for hacking drones could really help. I would personally make it the exposed status effect, especially because it pairs perfectly with her ability to gain stealth when recalling a drone (which was an incredible good idea by Pixel Bush)

I also agree with creating more visibility with scanning. I would make it so that each time a drone scans you, it reveals the aura of that survivor for a full rotation of a single scan line. Even if they're working on a generator, and remove any form of invulnerability from scans, but remove the ability of scans to injure/cause slow down

Then I would make drones being able to injure non-crouching survivors after Skull Merchant changes the spin direction on the drone. Whenever SM changes direction, she slows down. Why? Because now you have a balanced chasing mechanic with proper counterplay, that the SM has to work for actively, and doesn't give her free injures due to her slowing down, if a survivor predicts the rotation change, so I partially agree with crouching not affecting aura scans, and would keep it only for injure scans, and in this case, rotation changes could both injure and down survivors in 1 single go. (After hitting a survivor, you wouldn't instantly be able to change direction of course, but it would have to finish a full rotation again before it's possible to alter it again)

[Deleted User]

I learned yesterday that Skull Merchant's ability can make you exhausted, and what could've been a much longer chase turned into me being wacked when I tried to use balanced landing. Since the wounds are still fresh I don't want to see her get buffed. (JK)

Tbh every Skull Merchant I've VS'd had a really good player behind it locking down gen patrol routes for her, and hook saves effectively and my soloq teammates being soloq, so tbh I don't understand her exact weaknesses besides M1 chases. However when I vs good skull merchants we are forced to constantly be broken like a Plague can because like I said, they lock down areas of the map of their preferred patrol route.

I wish I understood her ability and add-ons better but she's one of the killers I have yet to play as. I have a lot to try out since coming back to dbd almost 4 months ago.

SoGo

I would:

Readd stealth mode, with it not building stacks, but instead triggering a temporal two line scan that does.

Remove the cooldown between dropping drones.

(To start things off at least)

Some addon ideas:

Loose Screw: You can detonate inactive drones from afar. They do damage.

Infrared Upgrade: scanlines work through colision.

ShanoaLegendaryPlz

Drone ai minions roaming the map searching for survivors to lach onto and track,

while her powers are more centered around her big claw having different abilities. And the tracking device.

claysgaming

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4066387#Comment_4066387

Another idea I just thought of is relying on the idea with the non injuring clawtraps: you could make it that survivors hacking drones get a non injuring clawtrap for 45 seconds (making them trackable and vulnerable to hindered) and while having that clawtrap, hacking another drone either gets you lock on stacks or you could make an addon that it injured you (like trappers iridescent addon). Another addon would be that the scanlines go through walls but have a slightly smaller radius.

I think the idea with the clawtraps would make it that that the addons with the clawtrap status effect would actually be useful, sparing an addon overhaul. Other than that I could think of soooo many addon ideas. Another idea would be an addon that surviors get lock on stacks when hacking drones, however max 2 only (it cant injure) or bring back the addon that pallets vaulted by a clawtrapped survivor breaks. Theres sooo much you could do, even with her current version.

Alen_Starkly

I would like the devs to bring back the OG Skull Merchant. First of all, the 3-genning issue has been predominantly tackled (gen kick limit, eruption rework, overcharge & call of brine nerfs), so that non-engaging playstyle wouldn't get to live again. If necessary, her old addons that impacted skill checks could get reworked as well. OG Skull Merchant was quite unique and I enjoyed playing as her. I never attemped 3-genning, I enjoyed using drones and tracking people.

The other suggestion is to undo the heavy nerfs that she's received. She needs 2 scanlines. She was never OP to begin with, people were exagerrating. When I faced decent teams, they knew how to dodge scanlines. You might think something like "oh but she got injuries for free". I disagree. You needed to be scanned 3 times for that to happen, and if you knew how to dodge the scanlines, it would take a while. Ghoul on the other hand gets free injuries almost guaranteed. Also unlike this version of SM, the Ghoul has an insane map mobility. A lot of killers have come out since Skull Merchant, that compared to her, are busted in 1 way or another. Ghoul, as I mentioned. Then Henry, who is pretty strong. Dracula is also very strong. Springtrap as well is quite decent. And don't get me started on Nurse and Blight.

Even the slugging playstyle was nerfed, thanks to the rework of the perk Knockout. Any remaining chance for slugging is something that many killers can do. If this is a problem, it needs to be solved globally. It's not a problem caused by SM. Blight is a much, much bigger problem in this playstyle. SM doesn't even hold a candle to him.

Considering that Skull Merchant was never strong to begin with, and that a lot of relatively much stronger killers have come out since her release, I see no reason why the devs wouldn't revert her to her 1st (active drone zones, a lot of macro play with tracking bia clawtraps) or 2nd version (2 scan lines, 3 scans injure). Her 1st and 2nd versions were fun to those who like her (and didn't use toxic playstyles), and she had decent abilities to win matches. Her 3rd version (current, gutted) is really, really bad. There is no justification for it, especially if you have cancelled her long-ago announced rework. (which you are free to inform us on)

claysgaming

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4066910#Comment_4066910

I agree with the latter but I feel like her first version was genuinely weak. 3 genning was her only strength and she was quite weak in chase. But I do think that the big nerfs should be undone because well, she was high C tier at best there. And thr 70% killrate came from ppl killing themselves on hook.

I still dont think she needs a rework, just significant buffs