Another Skull Merchant Rework Idea
I'd imagine that there are similar posts out there to this. If so, feel free to call me out for this post. But here goes.
As we all know, Skull Merchant has quite a few issues, namely from a lack of focus on one specific thing. she can expose people through floors without line of sight, she has stealth, she has a stacking haste effect, she has information (lots of it mind you), and she has pallet destruction.
Basically my idea for a rework or adjustment is this. her drones can still build up the lockon through floors and walls, but once a survivor is fully locked onto, the drone will attempt to launch a claw trap onto them. If the drone does not have direct line of sight (as in, the survivor has something solid between the drone and themselves), the claw trap will be stopped, the drone will break, and she will be down a drone for 60-90 seconds. When this happens, the survivor's built up lockon meter will reset, they will not be exposed, and the Merchant will be down a drone.
If two or more survivors are somehow locked onto at the same time, the drone will attempt to claw trap all survivors who are exposed/locked onto. If the claw trap lands, however, the survivor will be exposed for the duration of the claw trap's battery life, or until they fast vault a pallet, have a teammate remove the claw traps for them (this will work only if the teammate does not have a claw trap), or they are downed.
Also, her haste effect for each survivor being clawtrapped would be removed or delegated to an addon; drones can only be reset once before breaking, and sabotaged drones will continue to act as they do now, but they will not expose a survivor when applied this way
I am open to what you guys think about this, anything you would change or maybe point out that I'm not aware of?
TL;DR:
Drones launch claw traps that expose survivors.
Drones must have LOS to expose the surv with the traps
SM will not get a haste effect just for pressing M2 at a loop and having someone trapped
Comments
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Unless I'm missing something, I'm struggling to envision a scenario here where Skull Merchant actually gets to have a power?
If it's a multi-level map, she doesn't get to have a power because survivors can intentionally trigger it through floors. If it's a map with high walls (so, most maps) she only rarely gets to have a power because survivors can keep a wall between themselves and the drone. If by some miracle the trap attaches, she gets Exposed, but doesn't get any speed boost so there's no guarantee she can actually use it. It seems like she'll get to keep the information portion of the drones, but only until it attempts to launch a trap, since in most scenarios the trap will hit a wall or floor and that disables the drone, so that's severely hampered from how it is now. The only thing that's left is the stealth, and that's currently the weakest part of her kit by far- without changes that's barely a power at all.
As a genuine question to better tailor my response, how exactly do you envision this power being used?
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That's actually a good point. maybe instead, she'd still get the exposed and Killer instinct, but if the claw trap connects, it's the normal 60+ second exposure, but if it misses, then it'd only be 75% effective? She would still get the exposed, but it won't be as effective if you're on midwitch and place a drone below a generator
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Well, my question stands- how exactly is this power used?
I'm just not sure of the problem this is trying to fix. If it's just being able to expose through floors, wouldn't it be simpler to make it so the drone's range doesn't extend that far up and down? That way Skull Merchant can still set up her webs of drones to corral survivors towards and to give herself intermittent stealth (though not enough, that element still needs buffing), but survivors are always on the same level so they can always go disarm the drone.
With your idea, I'm not certain what the killer player is meant to be doing. You can't reliably use this version the same way as playing SM normally on live, since you're almost certainly going to be running a survivor towards your traps with a wall in the way so you'll get a massively reduced window to capitalise on the Exposed, and the speed boosts the devs gave her were meant to let her be more mobile and less defensive so removing that seems like it's going backwards to me.
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I think what needs to be done is revert the chase buff, inconsistent speed boosts, they gave her post PTB. A survivor doing the right thing by disabling her drones always ends up just punishing other survivors who may already be, or are about to be, in chase.
Instead they should give her some kind of actually chase power like a dash or something. It’ll pretty much be what pig or demo have but it’ll at least be something within her control.
In regards to multi story exposing from drones, idk tbh, only thing I can think of is not have them work through walls or at the very least only be half as effective.
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It's namely the exposure thing. I don't understand why the devs would give ANY killer the ability to refresh exposure timers on survivors with almost no effort. granted I don't own her and never plan on buying her, but that fact alone is an issue enough to me, none of the other killers with long-term base-kit exposure can just refresh it mid-exposure. I guess she can keep the speed boost, but why give any killer so much versatility for what seems like little investment?
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I mean, there are killers with permanent Exposed, I don't think that's really a problem?
The radius going through different floors, sure, that part could be a problem because her power is at least partially designed around survivors being able to disable it, but the Exposed duration refreshing is strictly weaker than the Exposed not having a duration at all.
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The only Killer I can think of with Permanent exposed is Tombstone Myers and maybe by some stretch Wesker and Plague. difference is that with Plague, you have to hit a survivor at least ONCE with your vomit and Wesker requires a dash and the survivor for some reason isn't able to disinfect. And these other killers have to at least see them SM gets it in addition to tracking where they are basekit.
Other killers don't get tracking, exposure, haste, "basekit" dissolution, and stealth, or if they do, it requires great effort on their end
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Leatherface and Hillbilly. Also, it's not Tombstone Myers, it's the other iri, the one that isn't unbalanced.
I have to admit, I think this is the first time I've heard someone say that Skull Merchant is too strong just in general. I can't say I agree, the problem is that she has all those elements but they don't tie together well and half of them aren't actually that useful or strong. She does need some changes to help her better fill her niche, but that doesn't look like slamming her with heavy nerfs.
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there is a million post that asks for a rework.
Here's an idea. Rollback the gen kicking nerf and give her an actual chase power.
fixed.
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I wouldn't say that She's too strong, but because of how all the things she has basekit come together, she's got a bit too much. I'd say take away from one thing and focus on another.
(Yes, the Tuft of Hair, i don't know why I got the two mixed up)
As for Billy and Bubba, bear in mind that they are punished hardcore for messing up a chainsaw attack, that and they -can't track you too well with their kit. Not only that but both of them have to charge their insta down, they don't have a ring of location revealing when the use their power (except for that one bubba addon) whereas SM has to hold you in a drone area for 10 seconds then m1 you, in my opinion, an M1 is much easier and consistent to get off than a chainsaw hit
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