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Skull Merchant needs to some changes to become healthy
So, i've been playing as and facing some Skull Merchants after the changes and she feels worse to face than before.
She now has a strong capacity to harm survivors with her claw traps; she can defend an area with generators with drones easily. And the worst -> NO punishment for doing bad drone placement.
Me and my friends faced a "Chess Merchant" (Trigen Holding Skull Merchant) and the match was one of the worst i've ever been in years playing this game. Even when disabling drones or trying to ignore them and do gens was very hard. The SM had some luck on the map (Lery's) but she played so poorly in chases (whiffed a lot, took a pallet save, tried to body block the basement but could not do it) but still got the upper hand because an obnoxious build (Overcharge + Eruption + PWYF) and a drone setup.
I think she needs some changes:
- Disabled drones should have some downside for SM. She shouldn't be able to recall them, or at least make her endure a cooldown ( twice the normal cooldown) when recalling DISABLED DRONES (not the other ones). Its too much annoying that she can just recall a disabled drone and then put another one in the exact same place without wasting any time.
I really like the "new" Skull Merchant, but it feels she can play so badly and still get rewarded for that. And i don't think its good game design.
Comments
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The problem with having downside to recalling hacked drones is that disabling Drones isn't something difficult in the first place and can be easily spammed by whole team if they wanted to.
Then what? She will have almost no power or have to endure long cooldowns? Sounds like NOT fun at all.
I think she is fine as she is atm.
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she is wasting time. she is wasting time by walking around to place drones. how do you quantify poor placed drone from well-placed drone? those drones are visible regardless of how you place them. there is no hiding them and disable drones are completely inevitable.
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Considering her undetectable is tied to sending a drome and there's no downside to survivors disabling drones, I don't see why Skull Merchant needs a downside to recalling disabled drones.
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if she puts the drone in the wrong place, then it will be absolutely useless.isn't that a punishment considering that she has a limited number of drones?
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I understand that she is pretty unfun to play against but consider what her power really does and how long it takes her.
She is already Legion with extra steps and nerfing her would not make it any better. She'd still be a slog to play against (probably even more than now) because she would only set up her drones in chase. So you'd pretty much repeat her old Chase Merchant play style with worse results. That doesn't like a good idea to me.
Also, I'm not sure how she would be good at holding 3-gens now. The drones don't detect you while you work on a gen, so you can ignore them for the most part. And before she enters the drone's range you will still hear her TR, so you will know that she's coming. Her addons were also changed, so Overcharge shouldn't be that much of an issue anymore. Basically, if you nerfed her, she'd still be just as strong at holding 3-gens because her power doesn't help out in that situation anyway.
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Poor drone placement: right next to a gen. If you put a drone into a strong loop - like a jungle gym or something like that - at least the survivor have to spend some time going out of their way to break a drone. Now, SM can drop a drone next to a gen, wait for it to be broken, recall it and put it again.
She is still good at 3-genning. If you break her drones, she can comeback and put then again; if you ignore them, she can use her basekit stealth to aproach, eventually making you broken when running away from the drones.
There is a guy in my server doing streaks with her using a 3-gen build, and he already achieved 50 wins. Its not about just not knowing how to counter her, but she has the same "Sadako Rework" problem: with little effort SM can create high amounts of pressure
Its less than a week before her rework, but i still think she needs some changes, or at least a more clearer counterplay.
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You will hear her, if she comes near. The drones only have a 10 metres radius, so you definitely hear her approaching. Otherwise she would need to set up her drones in a direct path, which would drastically decrease her chase threat. And you would also know from which direction she would come and could just look in that direction.
The real problem with her 3genning was that survivors were immediately exposed and had to run much, much earlier to not go down and her addons, which synergized quite well with Overcharge and Oppression. Now she needs to get downs on you to defend her gens, which is a significant problem when it comes to 3genning. You can't leave the gens to chase and you can't regress the gens without chasing. So survivors will slowly yet surely pressure their way through.
I'm not sure how someone would get 50+ win streak with her 3genning play style now. Are there any videos of them? It might be I overlooked something and if that is the case I would really like to see that.
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The problem is: the cumulative damage eventually will get you broken and she will get a speed boost, making survivor easy prey to her power. And its worse than before, because at least you could deny her power getting a claw trap; now getting a claw trap only makes her stronger and you weaker. Combine this with the oblivious addon and you have the perfect recipe for a mess.
Maybe not 50+ correctly, but i'm certain more than 30 (You can count on his vod) I will send the link to his twitch on private message. I don't want to give any kind of popularity on foruns to people playing like this.
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perhaps you should learn to counter 3 gen killer play-styles. disabling drones takes as much time as her setting them and kicking gens then walking to another gen. all that time can be spent on doing another gen across map and survivor can also co-op 2 gens at once at same time as this is all happening. Putting drones back accomplishes nothing for skull merchant. like @Xernoton stated, you can always chip generator progression on every killer as long you do not go down and trigger any regression perks or fail the easy skill-checks.
The problem is: the cumulative damage eventually will get you broken and she will get a speed boost, making survivor easy prey to her power. And its worse than before, because at least you could deny her power getting a claw trap; now getting a claw trap only makes her stronger and you weaker. Combine this with the oblivious addon and you have the perfect recipe for a mess.
there is no reason to take any cumulative damage with how crouch walking eliminates any drone threat.
If 3 gens is such difficult play-style to counter, they might end up buffing Potential Energy perk so it becomes super easy to break 3 gens. I saw somewhere recently that they are thinking of improving Potential Energy.
Post edited by Devil_hit11 on0 -
Sorry but 3-gen playstiles have never been a problem for me. The problem is Skull Merchant 3-genning, and only this. Buffing potential energy will be a mistake, as would make every other killer worse just because of her.
As i've said, i've faced some SM playing 3-gen playstiles and it was very hard to beat: she spooked us out of her gens, waited until one of us took a claw trap, and then chased. If felt very cheap, as the SM in question was missing hits, falling for 360 and fov techs and many other things. In the end, she won not because a good dominance of her killer, but because her cheap tactics worked.
Maybe its because SM just changed and we are learning how to counter her - and some players are taking advantage of no one really knowing how to face her now - but i think the devs should monitore this killer closely as it can become a problematic killer again.
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the counter-play is same as old one. Hens has youtube video where he showcases 40 minutes of beating old skull merchants with 3 gen type play-styles.
The problem is Skull Merchant 3-genning, and only this. Buffing potential energy will be a mistake, as would make every other killer worse just because of her.
Buffing the perk in my opinion just means that survivor does not need to learn how to play against strategy. they can just take a gen that on other side of the map. go to it, charge potencial energy. go to a gen, insert 20% free progression and keep doing that until survivor finish gen to 100%. If you really struggle, you can use 4 BNP on 3 gen. I have not checked what record time of completing a gen is but I imagine it is less then 15 seconds.
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Big problem I have is she is the best stealth killer right now - near silent and with all the blind spots around most gens, it's just bleh. She lands free hits if not gen grabs most every match. And she can still just proxy camp the objectives - if you deal with the drones, she knows, if you don't deal with the drones...she knows even more.
Add some haste and hindrance in her base kit...she was bad before, she's just worse to versus now.
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I have fun going against most killers but this one, no.
I agree. Well said.
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She's easy to play and gets free haste + stealth and i'd even say she gets free injures by doing nothing. Survivors have to leave loops or they get injured and slowed.
Her gameplay at the moment is put a drone get stealth wait for survivor to leave loop get injured get haste down the survivor. Fun gameplay.
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