lets discuss we asked for a new killer and we got the skull merchant
thank you bhvr sincerely...you took a chance and gave us what we gave you feedback on
rememeber when we asked for less antiloop killers? remember when we asked for less range killers? rememeber when we asked for another trap based killer (might just be me)?
you got it the devs listened and provided a unique killer...and now people are dcing vs the skull merchant. remember if you dc you are making sure the devs dont receive accurate feedback so it will take longer for nerfs/buffs that much longer to implement. stick out your matches or just rush the gens...survivors only stay in the match as long as survivors will it.
the knight received almost equal outcry and now more people are learning how to outplay him and he has a similar style.
stop using knee jerk reactions and learn how to outplay the killer that just barely got released...it isnt the same as asking for a change to something like dead hard which has had enough data gathered and more deserving of a change
your thoughts?
Comments
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I get where you’re coming from, but the issue is that when somebody using the SM with a 3 gen build, holding a 3 gen from the get go, the games last FOREVER and it’s beyond unhealthy for DBD.
If they want to add a killer like SM, by all means. But the 40-50 minute 3 gen games have to change.
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Next OG killer: the Mafia Driver. His power is moving generators, ensuing a 4 gen on every map, thus solidifying the 3 gen meta another season.
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Please spare me the whole skill issue while throwing in DH combo. That's old. You definitely have a point with people dcing against the new killer but you're intentionally ignoring the core issues with the last 2 killers that people have been talking about in length. The main issue isn't their chase potential or whatever. It's the fact that they lock down areas and games that would be at most 15 minutes because 30+ minute games.
Knight was literally complained about because he has the ability to hold a 3 gen so long the servers will end the game. The problem isn't with zoning killers moving people out of loops. It's the fact that the core game is so unbearably bad with the gen speed that killers who lock down areas can hold games for way longer than it should.
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Merchant isn’t inherently bad but her combination with the current regression meta is since she now has no incentive to even chase since CoB overcharge is more than enough regression to grind the game to a halt
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If the devs wanted to make SM a trap based killer, they forgot to make the "traps" do anything of actual use
Trapper's injure and immobilize survivors for a while, Hags scare the ######### out of people and let her teleport across the map
SM's Drones are basically useless against healthy survivors and literally useless against injured survivors
Not only that, but Trapper and Hag's traps have the benefit of being pretty hard to spot, SM's drones can be seen from across the map by a one-eyed infant with cataracts and glaucoma, meaning that any possible stealth benefits go out the bloody window
She is not a trap-based killer, she is a 3-gen based killer, end of story
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"It's the fact that the core game is so unbearably bad with the gen speed that killers who lock down areas can hold games for way longer than it should."
So it's a gen speed problem?
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100% yes. The speed is so bad that a gen can literally take anywhere from 40 ish seconds to 180+ with the right perk set up and communication/killer. That's an immediate concern with the core game and how perks can make or break (literally break depending on what went wrong every patch update) that we aren't in a state where adding gen defense based killers or more speed up is a healthy idea
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Well, you can also do some horrible camping of slug builds with SM, so there is that.
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yeah. how about buffing knight's guards so they can hit good-survivors instead of super weak players? maybe the knight would be more incline to chase instead of camp gens? Same thing with Skull merchant and bunch of other killers with weak-chase potencial. slow downing killer with lackluster chase will not chase to lose.
people are not ignoring issues. it is just that survivor wants to have their cake and eat it. they want weak killers powers that they can auto-pilot win and they expect killer to chase and go for 12 hooks. Makes no sense to me, but whatever. People finally catching-up to the meta shake up of 6.1 after whole eruption copium.
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And this is what I've been talking about for months nonstop. Y'all have this weird obsession with trying so hard to flame 1 side for a game issue/balance issue that's only affected by dev updates. You guys need to stop making mindless assumptions for a large amount of people you've never played against and redirect that hostility into actual constructive criticism for the devs instead of coming here with us v them salt bot.exe posts
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Too few people seem to understand that such a wide range of times and amplitudes is bad for balancing.
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I would love it if Skull Merchant were a trap based Killer and would have less drones active but the drones could down or injure survivors. As it is, the drones are best at locking down a 3 gen since they only provide info. If there were less drones active at one time but the drones could actually injure or down survivors then there would be progress towards addressing the 3 gen issue and lack of interactivity.
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While she doesn't have a ranged attack, I'm not so sure that SM doesn't have anti-loop. She can deploy a drone that can cover an entire loop. The window and pallets are still usable by survs, but using them comes at the cost of potentially getting exposed and more. The drones are quick to deploy and retrieve. To be clear, I'm not saying her anti-loop is the best, but it's not non-existant either and can support her (already incredibly strong) 3-gening. As other people have mentioned, she isn't really a trap killer. So, while I agree that SM is pretty unique even among the class of territorial Killers and I sincerely hope there can be changes that make her a more viable Killer outside of 3-genning and gimmick slug builds, I'm not sure she meets the criteria you've laid out for 'getting what 'we' asked for'.
Now, the 'don't complain so soon' part....
Pardon the paraphrasing, I do understand what you mean and don't entirely disagree. But I don't think that is the issue with this particular Killer.
Let's look at the requirements for a 3 -gen strat vs Knight who previously held the crown for 3-genning: set up, area coverage, ability of Killer to patrol, and base regression capabilities.
Set up: Knight really requires no set up beyond maybe placing the first guard at the first gen while Knight goes to the others. SM requires a tad more, but really, not much and she can place all 3 drones (or just 2 in many cases) before the first goes into scan mode. Compare this to Trapper or Hag where their traps can be disabled with little to no risk from the moment they are placed (I'm talking base line, no add ons) and may often require multiple traps for 1 gen/area. However, Knight's first guard will eventually vanish on its own while the drone will remain until a surv takes it down or SM does, providing her unlimited and near completely reliable detection on all gens (she can cover more than 3. 3 is just bare minimum).
Area Coverage: Quite simply there is no 'territorial Killer' who can come close to touching SM here. 1 drone can cover multiple gens, the entire loop a gen is in, and/or multiple floors. Knight, on the other hand is 1 guard, 1 gen in the vast majority of cases. Only the most generous 3 gens where 2 of the 3 are practically on top of each other, can he have 1 guard cover 2.
This is, to note, the set up I hate facing with a 3-genning Knight the most. However, it still has more reasonable counters it to than SM. 1 surv can take the guard for a jog, locking up the Knight's power for a bit, surv 2 can sit on that gen for whatever time allowed before the Knight comes over while surv 3 can jump up on the gen Knight just left. Doing this is still a slog, don't get me wrong. Progress is incremental, requires at least 3 survs and all of them playing fairly competently, but the level of coordination isn't insurmountable for solo Q though I wouldn't consider it 'likely' either.
Compare this to SM - the other 2 gens are still protected. 3rd Surv can decide to ignore the drone and go for straight gen time. Except SM can see that they are there. 3rd surv can opt to leave the area before exposed granting a total of about 8 or less seconds of gen time (10 sec to full exposed - travel in/out time) and hope SM doesn't get back to them fast enough to drop another drone (she has base 4) to finish out the exposed and potentially get a quick down OR they can eat the exposed entirely if there are enough resources left to let them get out of the patrol area before they get downed. Base kick regression is what? 2.5? You could double surv time by doubling up, but yikes that is still miserable and the margin for error in regards to injuries and downs is even thinner than with the knight.
Disabling the drone is almost not an option. 3 seconds to place vs. 10 to disable and the fact that a surv that disables the drone is unable to disable another for at least 45 secs vs. 10 secs before SM can redeploy. You've also lost potential gen time. And of course, all this is assuming that SM leaves the drone in Scout mode long enough to hack it.
While other territorial Killers suffer a steep drop in effectiveness as the distance between gens increases, the coverage area of SM's drones allow her to 3-gen much more reliably and with a much higher potential to apply that strategy multiple times in a match. She can also with reasonable reliability lock down more than 3 gens at a time.
Moving on...
Ability to patrol - I believe Knight and SM are both 4.6 right? However, Knight doesn't have any where near the base detection abilities that SM has. He'll know where one surv is at most based on a guard chasing someone and the gen they might have been going for. However, the other part of patrol ability is knowing when and where to go. Knight's base kit cannot even come close to SM's here. She can detect across multiple floors, through LOS, and pinpoint any surv with a claw trap. Whether a surv interacts with the drone or not, she still knows. Checking the radar slows her down a smidge, but from the footage that I've watched, it's not significant in exchange for the information value.
Base regression capabilities/built in slow down - Setting a guard after kicking a gen may delay anyone from getting back on that gen for a few seconds. However, other survs can hop on other gens without much worry. The delay on the Guard gen can easily equate to progress on another without penalty. Whereas SM requires either a 10 second mini game, severely eating into any additional gen time and potentially providing an additional 10 secs of regression, or the surv is gaining exposed that will either push them off the gen pretty fast on its own, or provide opportunity for a quick down. If the surv goes fully exposed they now have to be extremely careful (i.e. much less gen time) for 60 seconds.
The TL:DR summary:
In short, SM can do everything required for a 3-gen strat far better, far more reliably, and with a massively bigger margin for error than any other Killer from the word go. The amount of strategy and coordination needed among survs to effectively deal with it is incredibly steep compared to others. Her kit flat out encourages use of gen progression perks and strong toolboxes because the window of opportunity to complete a gen is not only small, but her kit, combined with kick regression perks is incredibly high. Yes, I am sure a strat to counter her 3-gen and perhaps do so without a 20+ minute slog exists, but are those strategies reasonable to expect in the majority of games where this occurs? Exactly how much gen progress should survs be expected to carry in their load out in case they get one of these matches?
And now we have 2 killers who can bring the game to a near screeching halt. So far, I'm not seeing this so frequently as to change up builds, etc., but that could always change.
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yeah, that's called "malicious compliance" if you put it this way. not the playerbase fault for wanting a fun killer and getting slapped yet again with another joke.
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I wouldn't say she's a 3 gen based killer it's just the first thing everyone figured out you could do with her but I don't think that's what the devs intended at least not entirely. She's an info killer first and a trap killer second it's just the trap is not what everyone thinks it is, it's not the drone it's the claw trap.
The drones are just bait after a survivor disarms it the idea is to track them with the claw trap on and then trap them at a loop and then set down a drone and get them exposed. The reason the claw trap is important is because of the brown ultrasonic trap speaker add-on so you track them lock on and then when they vault the pallet you just hit them through it. Then after you hook you track the next person with a trap and the loop begins again.
The other reason she's not a 3 gen killer is you can go to the gens survivors are actively working on and put the the drones on them and contest from the moment the game starts. This encourages them to disarm the drones and start the chase loop and I think the devs intended players to actively move the drone network around according to where survivors were at the time. What actually happened was the flew over everyone's head and they defaulted to what they already knew which was 3 genning and it turned out being a bit too good on some maps.
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You are aware that being a pure information killer means exactly jack diddly when you have no way of capitalising on that info, right?
SM can't do a ######### thing with the info her drones give her because, in chase, she is a pure 115 killer, with nothing to shorten chases, shut down loops, or even break pallets faster, you take chases as SM and even if you waste her drones on shutting down loops, you have to deal with windows and pallets, with no way of counteracting or making that entire process easier
Knight a chapter previously could use Carnifex to break pallets instantly, chase a survivor down from multiple angles using Assassin, Or force the survivors very far away using Jailor depending on what guard was placeable at that moment, SM can't do any of that, her drones, in chase, are exclusively "go away from this loop" tools, waste all four drones on this and you are left with drones in less then amazing spots, and if survivors realise that, they'll just leave them there and go do gens
But please, do tell me that SM is actually fun or even good in chase, and that her power isn't a steaming pile of uninspired dogshit, I'll wait
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No way of capitalizing on it is the biggest meme I swear SM haters arn't aware she has legs lmao. Okay so I'm gonna explain this best I can so you're able to understand. When a survivor is exposed the time is 60 seconds so you have 60 seconds to go to the survivor and get them in an active drone area again. When you do that the timer resets completely so at that point it might as well be infinite so you capitalize of it by making everyone one shot.
Now I'm pretty sure you have no idea what any of her add-ons do because I already addressed the chases part. So that ultrasonic trap speaker I mentioned before what that does is if they have a claw trap on them and vault the pallet it breaks the pallet meaning if you know how to loop at all pallets are just a nonissue for SM. Alternatively you can go randomized strobes and make your drones clown bottles or geographical readout and give yourself 4 stacks of fire up with a 2% haste bonus. Lastly you can do advanced movement prediction which is just I'm all ears without a cooldown some people really like it I personally find it redundant since you can just track them through the radar but it is pretty nice. So you have plenty of chase tools it's just a matter of which ones you prefer tbh.
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Basement gen camping
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Her drones don't have much lethality, but her add-ons weirdly address her problems. By that I mean her drones should be something that buff her or debuff survivors when she deploys it well and, therefore, gives her an advantage in chase without necessarily being lethal on its own.
For example, the build I have most success with, since I like to utilize stealth, involves using Adaptive Lighting and Brown Noise Generator with Hex: Plaything and any other perks. Stealth and tracking are pretty great together, and she absolutely can act on the information she gets with the stealth as it makes it easier to sneak up and get cheeky hits on survivors during loops, or at points they were not expecting. As long as you know how to move unpredictably when the survivor can't tell where you are, you can hit them when they least expect it. This build is my favorite, has been pretty successful for me and, from my experiences, shows that she can do more than just holding 3 gens.
She even has other add-ons that help her even more during chases with her drones, such as faster lock-on time, or giving her haste and increased break action speeds, among other things. Tbh, I think some of the add-ons she has should have been given by default in order to give the killer more strategy options. However, I suppose utilizing the specific add-ons for builds is part of the strategy. Other strategies I've had success with when using her drones for tracking and buffs or debuffs involves using totem defender builds, skill check builds, and slower healing builds.
Again, just from my experiences, she seems like she can do far more with her drones than simply camp 3 gens. However, most people will always choose the option that takes the least effort and works. It's like tunneling, you can't make it go away, but you can give players more options so they don't feel like they have to do it.
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Personally, I love SM bc she not any killer we have in the game. I like the idea of an info killer who can use their power to find survivors. I get the complaints tho, stalling a 3 gen game for 30+ mins isn't fun and not healthy for the game. I just don't know what they could do to keep her an info killer but nerf her 3 gen issues. I know I have been playing her with a full chase build(no gen regression or info perks). Some of my fav perks on her are Bamboozle, Dissolution, STBFL, and Superior Anatomy. I have more perks I like running on her and want to test out more but I really enjoy having free info built into her kit and using that to get in chases faster. At the end of the day tho the easiest way to play her is sitting in a 3 gen at the beginning and stalling the game which ppl find boring. I just don't know how they could nerf that part of her gameplay without hunting all the other parts of her kit.
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This one had me snorting. This killer has so much potential. BHVR please, make it happen!
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Hope he can throw a gen at a survivor
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The new Insidious basement camping meta will have the killer jumping out of that corner and blocking the stairs with a gen and their own bodymass.
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Bubba will be dethroned
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... as it was foretold. It is known.
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SM is not a good killer because her addons or perks from other killers address her fundamental problems, I do not understand why you're trying to delude yourself into thinking that she is, Wraith needed addons to be even useable until only a few patches ago, that didn't make him good back then, same goes for SM now
SM is a pure 115% killer, just because she can walk does not mean she is good at capitalising on the info her drones give her, that is the equivalent of saying Trapper is good at capitalising on people getting caught in traps on the other side of the map because he's 115, news flash, he isn't, only in this case SM is worse then Trapper because Trapper's traps injure survivors, SM's claw traps do basically ######### all to survivors
Stop trying to defend SM with "oh her addons are good" or "oh she's good in chase you're just not doing it right", She isn't good in chase, she isn't good because her addons are decent, she is garbage and good for nothing but stalling out matches until the survivors DC or the server forces the game to end, This is not a opinion, this is a fact
Why you feel the need to defend a killer as lame, uninspired, and just plain bad as SM is frankly beyond me, but trying to tell me she's good because her addons are decent is not a argument, stop using it
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Remember when we asked for this? Remember when we asked for that?
Ok. Try this one out instead: rembember when we asked for another 3-genning stalling gen-kicking bot? Because I don't.
I don't care about the aesthetics, or the lore. BHVR took their chances. Fine by me, you can never please everyone.
But what the ######### was unclear about the last 6 months of complaints about the gen kicking meta and trials lasting forever, that they still make this killer power the way it is and nothing goes through their minds other than "Yup! Ship it! Pretty good job so far!"
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This is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand and going "lalala I can't hear you" so it obviously doesn't matter what I or anyone who is putting work in developing the killer's tech and are performing extremely well while not trying to 3 gen says. You very obviously just want to blindly hate the killer and say they're bad no matter what so this discussion serves no purpose.
All I'll say is add-ons are very much a part of the killer. Everyone was fine calling Billy one of the best killers in the game but then they took crack Billy away and everyone calls him ruined now. People like to blame overheat but let's be honest overheat doesn't do that much it just turned out a large part of Billy's power was in his add-ons. So saying add-ons can't make a killer good is just ignorant.
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it isnt the killer in all fairness it is the gen regressing perks being able to be stacked that makes it opressive
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I’d go as far to say it isn’t even that. It’s the layout of gens. So many maps have an extremely tight 3 gen that is soooo easy to defend from one central location.
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true but that is the games rng for you haha
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and there are perks to stop 3 genning i made a whole new post listing them after playing against knights and merchants most of my weekend...it is all about adapting and using the same gen rush strategies that are prevalent
the dead hard comparision is to show that killers have adapted to dead hard and survivors just have to adapt to a new gen rush mentality versus 3 genning
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it is cob with overcharge stacking it should be one or the other honestly
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The entire reason i am going "lalala i can't hear you" is because your argument is entirely nonsensical, whatever tech options SM has are done easier and better by other killers
Using her power for shutting down loops? Every other killer in the roster with the exception of Trapper, Hag, Myers, Pig, Legion, Ghostface, Twins, and Sadako can do it better then her, Wraith has the benefits of moving fast, Billy, Bubba , and Oni can break pallets and down people instantly, Nurse is Nurse, Huntress, Plague, Deathslinger, and Trickster can hit over small loops, Doctor can prevent survivors from vaulting, Clown can either slow down survivors or increase his own speed, Spirit forces survivors to guess where she is, Demo and Nemesis can break pallets fast and hit from unexpected angles, Pinhead can slow survivors down and force medium vaults, Artist is Artist, Wesker is Wesker, Dredge can force 50/50s using the Remnant and Knight has 3 different flavours of shutting down loops depending on which guard he has active
Using her drones for Stealth? Wraith, Myers, Pig, and Ghostface do that better and have more going on then just stealth, Myers and GF can instadown, Pig has in-built slowdown (even if it is kinda #########), and Wraith goes fast
Using her drones for the Exposed? Billy, Bubba, Oni, Myers, and Ghostface all do that faster, easier, more skill expressive, or a combination of the three
Using her power for tracking? Literally any aura reading perk or addon does that better and without requiring survivors to do interact with something they have basically #########-all reason to interact with unless it's to get rid of one that's covering gens
And no, I am not saying addons are not meant to be part of a killer, What i am saying is that they are not meant to act as a excuse for a bad basekit, they are either meant to be small comfort buffs, or gimmicks, not band-aids that let the killer do anything of interest
Accuse me of blindly hating the worst and least interesting killer to disgrace this game all you want, I played her on the PTB for longer then I should have, all she can do that isn't done better by other killers is 3-genning until the server forces the game to end, and the only thing that is going to fix that is a full rework, not tiny buffs or addons
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Killers definitely have not adapted to DH. Literally just yesterday I've seen at least 20 different comments complaining about DH and various us v them threads about the perk.
You have a point with adapting to different situations but please don't use a false example as a point of contention.
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i obviously dont speak for other people who play killer but each person adapts at a different mmr base...you either grow as a player and try new things or just stay at the current level (which is fine as long as the player is happy)
using the same logic i can say survivors havent adapted to avoid getting tunneled because i see those complaint threads as well...even though it is possible to run a complete anti tunneling build
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there are honestly so many variations that can be run...a full hex build with drones guarding the hexes, a chase build with drones forcing surivors to run away like the knight, an impossible skill check build with her addons, etc. it will be interesting to see what other people think up (i am pretty sure the cob/overcharge meta will be nerfed soon)
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does hex plaything actually give you value since you can make the survivor oblivious with the drones already?
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When it is applied, it does help sneak up on survivors that you arent already chasing if they havent cleansed it. Just helps account for stealth in many areas. On top of that, it create another objective for the survivors to do.
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Go back two weeks ago and this forum was flooded with complaints from *killers* about her. How weak she is, how basic, how frustrated they are at the devs, and how they aren't going to even buy her (and evidently they're not - I'm not seeing alot of people playing her). It's interesting that this narrative has now become all about how survivors are receiving her, how survivors need to learn to outplay her, when BHVR has had a huge influx of negative feedback from killers too. So maybe you got what you wanted, but it doesn't feel like the general community did.
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survivors dont disarm the traps? paired with the brown addon that gives dissolution value or the hindered effect they are actually quite good as traps not to mention when you chain them together to keep the survivor oblivious as you go from drone to drone perimeter. playing her that way is like a tinkerer value most of the match...try it out
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the knight was also received in the same way and now look at the 3 gen knight complaints mixed in with the merchant...anything new and seen as op are knee jerk "nerf immediately" not "lets give this a chance and learn how to deal with the new killer".
pretty sure survivors have learned how to adapt out of necessity and game knowledge/skill
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fair enough i have been playing a stealth stbfl style by chaining drone auras to stay oblivious and then chase survivors with the brown addon (dissolution) and exhausted effect addon.
still will try this out thanks for the input ^_^
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I'll play her when she stops being worse and less fun Knight
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I do something a bit similar as well. I will place drones where I think survivors are likely to run to in a chase (main building and shack are usually two) along with other drones in key interest areas on the map so that chased survivors will be most affected by oblivious. And STBFL helps out a lot during those chases. For anyone that isnt in a chase with me at the moment, I would hope they are affected by Plaything so that either they won't suspect I am coming towards them or that they are putting their time into cleansing the totem. The reason I use the longer undetectable add-on is because sometimes I like to stay under the drone and pop out when I know someone is coming. Or if they avoid the drone and go around a building, I can do the same thing on the other side with the undetectable. However, I have considered switching it out for something else, such as the add-on that gives haste and quicker break action speeds.
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