Why play Skull Merchant at all?
Throwing my proverbial hat in the ring here. I've seen many arguments state that the only way to play SM optimally is to prioritise 3 genning - essentially picking three gens that are close together and patrolling those three while planting drones on them consistently - this is from the very beginning of the match.
I do not blame SM players for playing this way if they want to WIN. It seems fundamentally her kit is designed for her to excel in this and almost nothing else, so of course you need to appeal to her only strength.
But what is so appealing about this playstyle to begin with? You do not commit to chases. You are not really having to make any decisions or adapt your strategy as the game progresses. You are repeating the same action over and over again while slowly building up hooks (I emphasise, SLOWLY, games of this nature will take 20+ minutes). It's going to a gen, placing a drone, kicking it, then repeating this on the other two gens until you get a lucky down within the 3 gen or the survivors just give up out of boredom.
So I ask, where is the appeal? What draws people to this particular killer when you are essentially forced into playing her one very specific, repetitive and ultimately boring way in order to win? Why wouldn't you play say Wesker or Blight? Or if you enjoy the 3 gen aspect Knight? (He's more interesting than SM in every way and still appeals to the same strengths). There are many killers that you can play to win that do not force you into one very restrictive playstyle. I am honestly scratching my head here as to why this killer is seemingly so popular (given the level of complaints against her on this forum).
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The appeal is that her power has no penalty for using it. You play m1 killer whilst your drones monitor areas and find survivors, sometimes you can just use a drone as anti-loop as well with two certain add-ons. You can also do stealth plays within the drone area too.
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Tbh the first skull merchant I played didn't 3 gen. She had a hex build and defended the hexes. Didn't realise her game until she had devour hope on 3 tokens 🙃 kind of went downhill from there.
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A not insignificant portion of the playerbase derives enjoyment from making the other side have as little fun as possible. It's not so much about winning for them. It's the griefer mentality.
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Honestly, I try not to 3 gen ever, no matter what killer I am playing. The only time a three-gen occurs is when Survivors do it to themselves. So, I find Skull Merchant new and fun to play, to zone the survivors and chase after the exposed ones. Sure, I might put a drone over a gen or two or three, but rarely are they gens that are right next to each other; instead, they are the gens that survivors seem to keep returning to. Not every player playing as Skull Merchant is going to 3 gen.
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My humble opinion.
In a lot of games there are different tactics that are the equivalent of SM 3gening.
If you play RTS, you can play defensive and wait until late game for a big push.
Figthing games have zoners or ranged atakers that win by chipping damage.
Pokemon have "stall" strategy that focus on select tanky mons and win by hazards, poison, spikes and stuff.
Cards games like magic have control decks that wins by interrupting your opponent at all times.
All of the named games and strategies depends of win little by little or for long games, not every game needs to be a rush 4 minutes game.
Thing is, there are people that like different playstyles, not everyone wants to run fast and chase, or just think Adrianna its cool.
Dont think that a game been long is bad tbh :S
Dont really like SM, but dont hate it.
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I think she can do fine with a chase build, assuming you have decent add-ons. The purples all make her a beast in chase and the greens are pretty good as well.
Idk who thinks 3 genning from the start of the match is a good idea. 3 genning usually means nothing unless a survivor is dead. You can't really hold down 3 gens with 4 survivors alive if they are playing aggressively. It works if someone is being a potato and goes down with safe pallets still available to throw but even if they are all exposed they could be holding sprint burst and not care. Plenty of strong survivors don't even stop to heal if they are injured.
Really the ideal play is to hook someone and THEN 3 gen at that hook. But with SM they can just run up and trade unless you have lots of STBFL stacks.
Maybe it works vs. bad solo Q players but probably not against your average SWF on comms who are running prove and maybe have a BNP
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I genuinely do not understand why anybody would ever want to play her, like even for people who just wanna ruin other people's fun just pick knight. He does everything skull merchant does, but better.
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Going by every SM I've played against, they play her to troll people into quitting the game.
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Precisely for this reason I've actually been tinkering with a totem defense build rather than a 3-gen build. Currently Thrill of the Hunt, Devour Hope, Iron Grasp, and Deadlock.
Guard totems with drones, if one goes down you rely on Thrill to buy time to interrupt the cleanse (hence its use over Undying). Iron Grasp is for hooking away from your drones if needed, Deadlock is a flex perk I use as my crutch of choice. You can add other things there. Corrupt for setup time, Jolt for regression, Undying for additional totem protection (or if RNG screws you by putting one totem far away you can abandon it).
I've been using High-Current Upgrade (drone activation cooldown) and Low Power Node (increased drone active time) as addons, but I recently realized I would probably be better served with addons that exploit Survivors having claw traps like the Ultrasonic Trap Speaker or Powdered Glass, since the Survivors I'll most immediately target are those going for my drones to get my totems.
It's worked well in both bot games and live matches. Both live matches I got to try it in were ~15 minutes long (so not too long or short, worth mentioning given the extending nature of the 3-gen strat) and I got 3ks in both (one I let have Hatch, one legit beat me to it)
Another alternate build is this jumpscare build that was used during the PTB. I haven't had a chance to try it firsthand though.
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The appeal is I don't play her for the 3 gen strat. I play her for the tracking she gives as I always wanted a pure tracking power killer, and the stealth playstyle I use on her that combines well with her power. It's been pretty fun for me and I've had enjoyable matches.
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Also true. I consider tracking a personal weakness of mine so a tracking power is good for me. I'm also very fond of stealth builds.
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This. You see it on the flipside too with those survivors who have no intention of doing gens, they just want to harass the killer until they DC. Some people just get a kick out of making others miserable.
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At this point Skull Merchant is becoming my main because I played Trapper, well known awful killer all around, against an all meta SWF today and instead of being humble winners they tea bagged at the gates for the entire two minutes, and told me to uninstall and kill myself.
If you're going to make my life miserable, you have no right to complain when I make yours miserable too. And it's not like I can be MORE frustrated at this point.
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Wait until you verse a SM running the same strategy and you'll see what I mean. I'd be inclined to agree with you if I hadn't run into it myself.
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The appeal is to being able to play an M1 Killer that doesn't suck. With her you can commit to chases at the same time you control gens.
In fact the community used to say that M1 chases are the best ones as it is pure mindgame (despite dead hard). Now that they can face a Killer that can do that they don't like it, revealing (in my opinion) that what they really want is to win whatever the cost.
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Having a ton of fun with her without 3 genning.
Bad players will always try to find the easy way to play i guess
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I play her with the pallet add-on and loose screw alongside end fury to play a chase merchant. It’s super fun and I make sure to never camp a 3 gen. If survivors make one I’ll just continue to chase until one of us wins
She fun if a bit weak when played as anti loop/info killer
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Look, I grew up playing card games and my favorite playstyle was the burn/stall decks. Yeah, just like DbD I get flak and yeah, some people would rage quit our card game or my DbD matches when they realized what was happening. I’m okay with it because as much as you guys like to refer what needs to go or stay based on how ‘fun’ it is, I’m having a super blast playing SM, just like I did Forever Freddy. I’m not letting y’all’s opinion ruin my fun lol. I just wish my favorite way to play wasn’t being bullied out of the game~
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Another strategy I found to be pretty effective on small maps with lots of LoS blockers is placing drones in the center of the map, which does a few things:
-Since they are further away from gens it deincentivizes Survivors from disabling them, since theyre further away.
-It creates a giant zone that Survivors dont want to go in, as they risk getting exposed
-You can actually make use of your stealth this way
Its situational, but its definitely more fun and interesting than just planting drones at a 3 gen. Theres also the other form of utilizing her stealth by leaving a drone at a gen, then as you walk away you leave a trail. If the drone gets tampered with/spots some one, utilize your path to stay stealthy and catch them off guard.
The more I play her, the more neat tricks I find with her. Her drones are pretty versatile and there are so many neat things you can do with them. Just like Knight how ever, people opt for the boring route of refusing to learn them and just go for a 3 gen. It truly is a shame
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Not everyone plays her that way through at least not on purpose a lot of times survivors will 3 gen themselves anyway and then blame the SM player anyway even if they're going for chases. I've even been accused of camping both exit gates on opposite sides of the map before lmao.
But generally speaking I enjoy her gameplay loop of setup drones track someone with a trap then hook then go track the next person as it always keeps me engaged and saves me from having to do the boring job of looking for immersed survivors. Which you wouldn't think would be often but distortion is pretty popular these days. I also enjoy having better map presence and knowing I'm not gonna immediately lose 3 gens at the start of the game cuz survivors are mostly still too scared to go in drone areas.
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