3 relatively simple Skull Merchant fixes
- When a drone is hacked, for the duration of the battery being on the survivor, leave a hacked drone on the floor that basically acts like a working drone in terms of drone placement. That means after hacking, no new drone can cover the same area for 45 seconds. With multiple drones being hacked, that would mean there is no real perma gen lock-down. (Especially on smaller maps)
- Add a rule that's basically survivor count=drone count. You dont need 4 drones when there are 2 survivors left.
- Then, to compensate for this massive nerf, make the 2% haste from Geographical Readout basekit and slightly increase the range of drones to somewhere between 36-44 meters, depending on how it affects drones on small maps. This, with change 1 would balance out quite a bit, survivors have a harder time crossing/getting out of an active zone without getting exposed, but when disabled it means a larger area cannot recieve drones untill the battery is gone.
This will make her better in chase, somewhat anti-loop, the 2% haste will help her with the relatively unused undetectable effect. But basically kills the really, REALLY boring gen defense that is only realistically beatable with active comms.
Comments
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- That's too much of a nerf. Also, survivors would harass this by always being on drones.
- So you would punish the SM as the match goes forward?
- Isn't the range too big? Way bigger than a jungle gym? I wouldn't approach, at all.
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- If they are always on drones, they are not on gens. Besides, the fact that SM right now can place a drone as soon as a battery is pulled off has similar vibes as kicking Victor. Kicking Victor should be something survivors want to do, but kicking Victor benefits Twins. Holding Victor hostage on a locker isnt something survivors should want to do, but it is by far the best way of containing Victor. SM has a similar issue, survivors shouldnt want to work on a gen with a drone nearby, but sitting on a gen with an inactive drone is the best way of getting it done. Getting rid of the drone and keeping the battery as long as possible is something that is really beneficial for SM during chase but detrimental to her drones, instead, neither option matters for SM, both are beneficial as destroying the battery through a pallet vault gives her an instant drone to place.
- Its not really a punishment. The drones are meant to be pressure for 4 survivors. Having pressure that is meant for 4 survivors when there are only 2 left is simply overkill. Is Pig punished the longer a match goes forward because she runs out of beartraps? No, she loses them because it would be an insane amount of pressure once people start dying off. I'd call it more of an oversight.
- I wont consider it too big, right now it's already the size of an average jungle gym. But right now, one of the issues for survivors is not the detection range, but the distance between 2 drones, especially on smaller maps. Besides that, it also has the benefit that Skull Merchant will have more pressure on bigger maps too. Survivors not wanting to approach that area would be the exact wanted result on bigger maps, while on smaller maps, deactivating 1 drone would mean reducing a ton of killer pressure at relatively low cost.
Without these changes, 3-gens will be "fixed" to be more managable for survivors, and a lot more killers rely on 3-gens. How will you differentiate between 3-gens that killers like SM and Knight can force vs 3-gens that survivors caused by fixing the wrong gens? Fixing 3-gens to be managable that even SM and Knight will have trouble keeping them forever will mean that a killer like Myers, Trapper and Clown will be entirely non-viable to play. Fixing SM and Knight to reduce their 3-gen capability and instead force them to switch focus based on survivor interaction with the killer ability is a lot more healthy.
In fact, I wouldnt mind if SM bloodlust timers were halved if she chased someone with a battery, to me that makes total sense.
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- No
- 3 minimum, maybe even maximum if she got other buffs to compensate.
- 44m is way too big.
I play skull merchant sometimes, shes fun when played in an anti loop manner. I've never used her to hold a 3 gen indefinitely.
if you were to increase the range of her drones with the current way generator placement works you could potentially be able to hold 4 generators with 2 drones.
I've already had situations where I've been able to hold 2 generators with 1 drone. Gen placement in this game is busted and Skull merchant can not only 3 gens due to this but she can hold 4 gens thanks to rng.
I don't think you can change much about her with out making her even weaker than she is now, or making her even more oppressive. She should be buffed but only after bhvr gets off their keisters and address generator placements.
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I'm not familiar with the Twins and number 3 I already addressed.
As for 2: Pig's traps require action. You cannot avoid them. Drones can be avoided unless it is an absolute must to turn them off. The two killers are not comparable.
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1- Exposed effect is an iri addon
2- The drones will only trigger killer instinct if the meter on the survivor is full (base kit)
3- Hacking a drone completely removes the drone for the duration of the bracelet, and the bracelet effects depend on addons (exhaustion, blindness, oblivious, etc). No more 5% haste and breaking a pallet if a vault happens.
4- The Skull Merchant can't activate her drones by herself or call them back. She has to wait for a survivor to hack it. She can retrieve the drone after a while (if no survivors interact with it) by approaching the drone's location (Like Trapper's traps).
5- Survivors need to remove the bracelet (like PTB), so if 3 survivors keep the bracelets with them she can't place any drones
MAAAAAAAAAYBE now she would be bearable.
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That's even worse than OP's suggestion, like this would absolutely destroy her.
SKull Merchant's not strong killer at base, she's literally got nothing outside of drones. They facilitate her stealth, her extremely conditional mobility increases, her tracking, literally everything about her is the drones. So while the OP wants her to severely hamstrung, but maybe slightly viable on tiny non split level maps. You're suggestion amounts to "Hey I don't like this killer lets just punish her even daring to use her power since she's not getting deleted from game."
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1) What exactly does her power do then? That would literally remove half her power because you'd have no incentive to get rid of the drones, which consecutively would also remove the part where she gets faster for every claw trapped survivor. Getting detected by a M1 killer that has nothing else is not exactly threatening and considering that the drones would detect you anyway there is literally no point in deactivating them.
4) This makes her a weaker Trapper. Trapper at least has the benefit that his traps actually do things and they aren't highlighted for you from a mile away.
5) Again, why would a survivor ever decide to do that? They wouldn't even care about the drones in the first place.
This would make her bearable but also incredibly dull to face and absolutely horrible to play (way more than she is now). If you want a killer to actively be removed from the game, just say so because that would be easier than making all these changes.
In my opinion, nothing short from a complete rework of everything (yes, everything) that makes up this mess of killer will redeem her. They put a million things into her and it just doesn't fit together. Everything from her lore, her visual and sound design, to her animations and gameplay feels lackluster because nothing fits together. She looks like a mercenary but is portrayed as some kind of wicked assassin using drones for surveillance and striking on her target out of nowhere. Her drones in game are super flashy, so you see them from miles away and can even locate her by watching where she places the drones. For a stealth killer she is way too flashy and loud in everything she does and her whole gimmick doesn't make for a chasing killer but a more territorial play style (3-genning), which again doesn't fit her lore. Apart from that her chase music and animations are awful. Whoever was responsible for that should have long and hard look at the final product and ask themself; "Is this really what I want to sell people? A 4 seconds loop chase music and the most boring, uninspired and unnatural animations?"
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4. Survivors working in gens don't have their lock on timer increased so they will not get exposed
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all of those changes would kill her on the spot
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You gonna even remotely consider what to give her for a power then cause that is literally supposed to be her standout ability as bad as it is.
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Or you could just make it so when a Survivor is locked on it just puts a Clawtrap on them instead of exposing them
Could also buff her stealth to activate faster and last longer
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Yes, I considered it. The answer is nothing
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Most of these suggestions would just make her a terrible killer. I know people hate her and so it's tempting for your 'rework' to just make her trash and then you can forget about her existing but that's not what a rework is supposed to do.
The huge issue is that she already is a terrible killer in chase even with her slightly increased movement speed, because her drones just don't help much in chase. At best you can drop one to force a survivor out of a strong loop, but if the survivor is injured it doesn't even do that. You -need- to put drones next to gens in order to get value out of them. Even if you aren't 3-genning as SM you still NEED to put drones next to gens or they're just so much weaker and usually ignorable.
Any rework would need to weaken 3-gens but ALSO make her drones more useful in actual chase in a way that makes her actually good in chase overall. It also wouldn't rely on a survivor having a trap on to be chaseable, she should be able to chase a non-trapped survivor well.
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Exactly what I want
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