Explaining The Skull Merchant Rework To Those Who Do Not Understand It
NOTE: This is from my understanding of what they are saying. Realistically we would need to see this rework ingame to know how it works, but Im just going off what BHVR has put and my interpretation of it, so expect some inaccuracies.
Lock On (Reworked)
Lock On is no longer built up by being in the Drone's Radius while active; Lock On no longer decays over time.
Lock On is reworked to be a status effect (probably indicated on the left side of the HUD where the Survivor Portraits are, similar to Sadako's Condemned or Tricker's Laceration).
The status effect has a meter that fills to 3. Receiving Lock On from being detected by a drone, fills the meter by 1. Upon filling the meter and receiving 3 Lock On status effects, the Survivor is automatically given a Claw Trap.
Receiving Lock On will afflict the Survivor with the (10%) Hindered status effect for 6 seconds and have their location revealed with Killer's Instincts for 3 seconds.
(It is unknown as to rather disarming a drone still applies a Claw Trap or applies the Lock On status, therefore nothing can be assumed about such.)
Drone Modes (Reworked/New)
The new Drone functions as Skull Merchants current inactive Drones, they will have lasers projecting from them and they spin around. The Radius no longer goes through walls NOR is it multi-level. Neither of the new Drones will detect a Survivor who is stationary, this includes stationary actions such as healing or completing Generators.
Stealth Mode
The Drone removes a majority of indication that it is there, removing the lasers and becoming quieter. The drone can still be seen and still has flashing lights on the Drone itself.
Even though it is slower than Scouting Mode, you must be careful and watchful to not be detected and disarm the Drone.
Scouting Mode
The Drone spins around faster and becomes harder to disarm directly, time your movement accordingly if you want to disarm the Drone.
Presumably these are intended for chases since they can detect moving Survivors easier.
Disabling Drones
Disabling a Drone will only be temporary. The Drones will be disabled for 45 seconds, upon being reenabled after the duration they are automatically put into Stealth Mode.
Failing to disable a Drone afflicts the Lock On status effect.
Claw Traps (Reworked)
Survivors who end up with a Claw Trap from the Lock On status effect will be afflicted with the following effects:
- If they are Healthy, they instantly become Injured. This only happens once the Claw Trap is put on and will not happen again for the Claw Trap's duration.
- If they are Injured, they instantly are afflicted with Deep Wounds status effect; no speed boost is given from this. This only happens once the Claw Trap is put on and will not happen again for the Claw Trap's Duration.
- If they are Injured or become Injured while having a Claw Trap on, they will be afflicted with the Broken status effect, which prevents them being healed to Healthy. This effect persists for the entire duration of the Claw Trap.
- The location of the Survivor is revealed to Skull Merchant's Scanner. This effect persists for the entire duration of the Claw Trap.
Claw Traps have a battery life of 45 seconds, they will automatically be removed upon losing all of their battery.
(Claw Traps use to instantly break pallets for Survivors who vaulted them. It is unclear as rather this effect is staying or being replaced as of now. From what Ive been told in the replies, Skull Merchant is still keeping the Haste status effect upon a Survivor getting a Claw Trap.)
Other Important Stuff
- Chase Music was changed (we dont know what it is going to sound like yet).
- Skull Merchant's footsteps are quieter than before.
- Skull Merchant is no longer slowed down while checking her scanner.
- Drone count was increased to 6 (maximum use to be 4).
- Drones can now be placed closer together, now being 16 meters (before having a strict range requirement of 22 meters).
- Skull Merchant instantly gains the Undetectable status effect upon deploying a Drone, this effect lasts for 8 second seconds.
Comments
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The Skull Merchant changes sounds like it's a hide and seek/hunting chase playstyle, which sounds actually pretty fun in my opinion.
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So... is it an improvement or a downgrade?
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They intend on nerfing her ability to stall Generators while buffing her chase potential.
To put it bluntly, I dont know if it is an improvement or not in terms of strength, but it is objectively better for the game's health since it removed her ability to stall a game for 60-minutes.
When we get the PTB, (if you can... some people are unable to sadly) I would recommend testing the changes yourself.
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It's a massive downgrade.
They removed her ability to camp 3-gens as effectively. But gave her almost nothing to help compensate for this. Playing as/against her now will be even more non-interactive for both teams.
I'm currently working on a post to explain why the changes are bad. Because my god there's so many bad decisions to go over.
This makes the butchery of Sadako's kit seem tame in comparison.
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It’s good that they eliminated her old play style. But I just feel like her new power sounds underwhelming.. cuz the way I see it, she is just an m1 killer because her power can only injure and NOT down survivors. Basically, she is another legion. I guess we will see in the ptb
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Honestly I disagree with this. I don’t see it as another Legion where there’s no incentive to heal. Thing about Legion is that his power will guarantee an injured state on a survivor and if a survivor gets hit with feral frenzy they get a speed boost. The dev update states that a survivor getting hit with a drone while injured won’t grant a speed boost, so there will still be an incentive to heal against new SM.
I could be wrong though.
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Thank you for this. I was trying to wrap my head around it all. Sounds much better than a one hour stalemate, so looking forward to it.
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The one thing they didn’t say is if the Claw Traps still provided haste. Which to be fair, I don’t think was a good design decision to begin with. I do hope that pallets breaking on Claw Traps stay though. Seemed like the only redeeming quality of her current kit.
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I think the infinite 8-sec Tinkerer is being underrated.
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I presume that the Haste status effect is being replaced by afflicting Survivors with the Hindered status effect, otherwise the speed difference (without Survivors having modified speeds) would be 10%-20% which I dont think BHVR would do. Also this isnt even considering how the Claw Traps can damage Survivors for a health state anyways.
Simply put, I dont think BHVR is keeping the Haste status effect on her, which is why I never mentioned it.
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I don’t know about the pallet breaking, but the Haste effect is still there, this was confirmed in another thread. It will trigger for a few seconds when a survivor gets scanned (even if they don’t have a claw trap) and will also be triggered if any survivor gets a claw trap (lasting for the entire duration of that trap).
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Knight was weakened one day by having its fellow AI made stupid, and SM is about to be made into a helpless woman after a lost adjustment. Singularity continues to suffer from the judgment of objects on the map, and Alien got a major nerf less than a month after its release.
The only reason to buy Killer now is to port the new PARK to Nurse etc.
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na she still has haste effect. i think every time they try to weaken skull merchant 3 gen. they may have accidentally buffed it. the 3 gen merchant might be undefeatable now. that thing might be 100% kill-rate...
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People will probably put drones near the vicinity of gens or choke points. So Survivors running to gens would get injured or have to mend before doing the gen
Sounds like a watered down version of SM
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In which case, I edited the post and put that the Haste status effect may persist as well. I really appreciate the feedback.
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I've never played SM before. And I've only played against her once.
It would be... difficult for me to judge her changes.
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Sounds interesting. I look forward to seeing all this in practice.
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