http://dbd.game/killswitch
Skull Merchant - Insanely weak, yet problematic
The Weaknesses
Almost a complete lack of power in the chase
This is a weakness everyone saw coming but it still needs to be said. If you chase in a zone area, when you should be at your strongest, the drones... do nothing except hide your red stain. Ghost Face can also do that. And Doctor (Discipline). Oh, and Beast of Prey, that fantastic perk.
Yes, there are add-ons that help but add-ons exist to augment a killer or playstyle. They should not feel like requirements for the killer to function. We have an add-on that makes you 2% faster, or rather, go from 4.6 to 4.7m/s. Why is this an add-on? It's a small buff but can make an impact on a killer that otherwise has few options.
Exposure
Why is exposure a weakness? Sounds illogical. Making a survivor go from healthy to dying is powerful. Look at Nurse, she had to get nerfed because of that very thing.
Yes, healthy to dying. Are they already injured? Your drones now do nothing in a chase. Oh, they make Killer Instinct flash which can be helpful but that's only if they actually stay in the drone's zone the entire time after the 10-sec lock-on.
This contributes to her lack of chase potential, but generally, her drones are just not threatening on their own. Not to mention, over 30% of survivors are using Dead Hard, so they basically have two health states if they know how to use it to its full, broken potential.
Information
Here is the core issue with her concept: Information. She is meant to be a tracking killer. If someone has a claw trap, you can track them.
Who cares? Information by itself is meaningless. The strength of information lies in your ability to capitalize/utilize it.
A Trapper on Midwich hearing Claudette repair a gen on the other floor means little since he has to take the steps or drop down, giving her plenty of forewarning, and then chase her. The Nurse just teleports and she kills you.
BBQ on Bubba is just a nice perk to know where everyone is. The Artist and Huntress can potentially use it to get hits from across the map.
Skully... doesn't have any of that. She just has the info.
The Problematic Strength
Lockdown
This is the strategy everyone thought of the instant they saw her power in action. Place her drone on 3 gens and defend them.
Did they disable a drone? Tough luck, you have an extra (3/4) and it's on a mere 10-second cooldown. They also have a claw trap, so going near the drone sets it off until they remove it which will take 45 seconds.
Ignore the drone? Yeah, now you're a one-shot and she knows you're there. And if she can exhaust nearby resources, you won't be able to run away. You will die when she catches you unless you run fast.
Which leads to a massive problem. The match becomes a war of attrition. The killer can't leave their 3-gen because they lack any means of downing quickly, and the survivors can do the last generator because the drones will expose them and warn the killer.
Because of this, I wouldn't be surprised if her kill rates have her doing fine. More than fine, I bet she's actually doing very well. It's very difficult to beat a three-gen lockdown like this, even with a coordinated team, especially if the killer is running gen-related perks such as Overcharge/CoB/Eruption/etc.
Solutions?
This is difficult, as you might imagine. When I give my hypothetical solutions, I do it viewing her drones as special "traps." Stay in their radius too long, and the survivor is debuffed while the killer is buffed. It's her zone; she will kill you.
I think some elements of her add-ons should be base. Mainly, the purple add-on that gives her 2% haste. I'd like the entire thing, but just the 2% haste while keeping the action bonus tied to the add-on, I feel, would be helpful. Sounds small, but 2% a 0.1m/s increase can make a difference.
I would also like the drone radius to have a slight increase from 10m to 12m, just to better encapsulate a tile that, despite placing in the center, I often find it not covering enough.
Increase the duration a drone is disabled. You can keep manually activating and recalling the same, but a survivor disabling it should incur some sort of penalty. As it stands, it's a minor annoyance if you opt to do the lockdown playstyle.
After that, I would see where she goes from there. Maybe she could get a fifth drone to "trap" more tiles? Maybe the 2% haste is as worthless for killer as Dark Theory is for survivors?
I see a long, bumpy road ahead for this killer. I just hope it ends well.
Side note
I can confirm. Those hips don't lie. 😉
Comments
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I think having the drone not return to the Skull Merchant after being hacked for a longer time won't work. To really affect a 3 gen, it would have to take like 30 seconds or so, and I think that would generally just nerf her too much.
Drones have range restrictions, right? Like, a drone can not be placed within 22 meters of another drone. That should have a lingering effect after a drone is disabled. It's the easiest way I can think off for BHVR to implement such a nerf. 15 or 20 seconds probably. That way, when you disable a drone, she can't just place a new drone at that spot a few seconds later. Personally, I think even just 15 seconds would be enough. It shouldn't become frustrating for the Skull Merchant, but it should nerf her ability to lock down areas too effectively.
They could even add a visual indicator that shows you that you can't place a drone yet where a drones used to be just a few seconds ago.
And then, I would personally give her two buffs. The one is to increase the amount of drones she can place to 5. This way she can cover more of the map, which already would encourage her to spread out more.
The other buff is to increase the lingering duration of her undetectable status effect after she leaves a drones radius. I think her undetectable is key to making her a more viable killer. But right now, 2 seconds of undetectable is pretty damn weak, and doesn't allow you to sneak up to people most of the time. If this was increased to 4 or 5 seconds, she'd be in a much better spot.
I don't think making some of her addons basekit is needed. She already has a lot of aspects built into her basekit, and those need to be enhanced. And the undetectable effect is definitely the one I would buff.
I really do hope BHVR finds solutions for her. Because unlike many, I really love her design, and find her generally fun to play as and go against, without the 3 gen lock down playstyle. I guess you could also argue that the 3 gen problem is a problem of the game itself, and not hers specifically. But it would still be nice if BHVR could find a way to weaken her 3 gen a bit but increase her overall effectiveness.
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What if the drones could explode
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The three gen thing is just too much. No one enjoys playing these thirty minute matches over and over again. I've experienced THREE skull merchants doing this in my current session. I'm just going to take a break for a month or two and hope something is done about these obnoxious lockdown builds where there is negative gameplay for everyone involved. I don't care if you buff her in other ways. Just get rid of this three gen nonsense. I figured Behavior would have learned their lesson with the Knight but apparently not. I don't care if killers are strong in chase at all. I just don't want to sit in the same games for 30 minutes.
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the undetectable is to hide red stain. its not really for stealth and its definitely not a key to making her better. her biggest problem is her chase. she has no advantage in the chase at base-kit to chase. Hiding red stain is not enough of advantage because most of the loops also have see-through objects for survivor to stand at vantage points. the loops are too unfair for her. this is actual problem with like 75% of the killer cast. its too time consuming to chase survivors around loops.
killer's only option is to not chase and 3 gen because by 3 gen, they can break loops and stall out the game until a big portion of the map is a giant deadzone. With territorial killers, its even more encouraged to play like this because their power designs encourage staying 1 area. hag, trapper and skull merchant all have terrible 1vs1 chase and power designs all about gaining advantage in 1 area. inherently, these killers are just designed with the idea of camping. Nerf their camping and they have nothing left.
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I feel like the Skull Merchant is one of those killers whose power is to be low-key annoying all match. Kind of like when you go against a Legion who keeps stabbing everyone and it's like, "Oh, hey. Legion's doing the thing. Guess I'll mend."
I feel like maybe there's a strategy where one person's on drone duty (or maybe two people are on drone duty), but I can't work that out in solo q.
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bHVR should put SOMETHING in the Survivor HUD that helps with dealing with 3Gens.
Something that informs the other survivors of whats happening.
Skull merchant is really really good at 3gens, and SoloQ survivors are not.
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Deja Vu is a perk.
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But is it enough?
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Deja vu does nothing if the killer camps a 3 gen
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congrats u can see the 3 gen now that u know it just see her camping the 3 gen all the time, congrats u achived nothing! i love the extremely bright suggestions killer mains always give.
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Deja Vu shows you the 3 gens closest to each other. It's not needed because SM will show you those 3 gens within 30 seconds of the game starting by placing a drone above them.
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I run it and it does nothing to prevent the killer from protecting said 3 gen at the start of the match. Dead dawg is the perfect example. Unless you spawn in the back and everyone has toolboxes to blow through those gens, your chances of winning are next to 0 once the drones are up.
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Not a killer main but keep being sarcastic and hostile for no good reason.
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How much of this was necessary to get your point across?
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This.
Out of all the games I had against Skull Merchant, only one did not find 3 gens close to each other and camp them excessively.
In the end, I just drug the game out because in each situation the survivors were getting chased out, DC, etc,. These matches go on forever and its ridiculous these drones have Infinite + 4 at the start? I like the Knight's Guards because he gets haste now + they don't last forever, they move around, and it's a dope concept.
Skull Merchant is just really bad. Killer mains are not vibing at all with her kit being basically useless and her perks are subpart. Even the Twins perks are pretty lame: they need to stop releasing chapters, and start doing quality of life changes.
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Loaded into Haddonfield with a SM running overcharge, COB, brutal, and PWYF. Aura add on and silent skill checks, immediately went to camping the 3 gen at main... We did not even play that match, we went next. I do not understand how some people want 45 minute wars of atrition.
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"You can loop her for ages" - and that's exactly why Skull Merchant has to rely on a 3gen to even stand a chance. Anythinge else is a guaranteed loss for her so all she can do is try to make you feel as miserable as her. She's without a doubt the greatest failure of a killer BHVR has created so far.
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