Dull Merchant still can 3-gen very effectively
I wanted test myself. CoB + Overcharge are main perks ofcourse.
Sloppy Butcher for good slowdown, if they will heal after my hits gens will lose even more progres
And for final perk Jolt.
Ofcourse i needed to put drones next to gens. I know survivors can deactive them but i can active them again pretty fast. And good part, they are not losing stacks. So forcing them to get stacks also gives me good pressure.
I could not do that easily with any of killers but SM.
SM is honestly biggest failure of BHVR, it's understandable why people still hate her.
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This is more of a gen spawn problem than SM problem. Any Killer can use their power and equip 4 regress perks and hold games for long time if they are very dedicated.
This calls for 3-gen issue solving, not SM being bad as usual.
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That’s why, whenever I hear that annoying terror radius of her, I just run to the hook and point at it and go next. Don’t care if it’s Chase merchant or any other merchant, I’m not gonna bother playing against her. And then she does that cringe humptech cuz ‘WhY dOeS nObOdY wAnNa PlAy AgAiNsT mE’ and everyone knows how boring she is to go against
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I swear. Its nearly every skull merchant that does this. Also blight players.
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I've yet to try myself, or go against it either, but I don't see why this'd be much worse than any killer with a threatening power doing the same thing.
What was it about Skull Merchant's power specifically that seemed more potent than most others for this experiment, who else did you try it with?
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Guess they are mad or just really sad in real life. I’m guessing they are both 🤷🏻♂️
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But the point is non of killers can do that easily. SM's power just fits perfectly with this strategy.
I really hope BHVR is coming with good solution for 3-gen without making game misarable for killers.
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Chess Merchant is such a interactive killer to face! What the heck guys! SkIlL iSsUe!
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How exactly would you propose they "fix" 3-genning? And, if they actually did fix it, would you also be in favor of evening out the game? Because by design, the killer is extremely weak at the start of the game, and gets stronger as there are less and less gens to patrol. That is a fundamental purposeful design choice. So, would you be in favor of buffing killers at the start? Perhaps with an early trial warmup phase (like the old scott jund suggestion)?
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How? The power only picks up moving survivors. How is this any worse than a Legion or Plague who does this exact loadout?
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Doesn’t matter. She’s still a snooze fest to go against and could get deleted for all I care whether it’s chase merchant or chess merchant.
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You can easily force survivors into claw traps, which makes them broken. It doesn't take that long and worse still, she still has the Shotgun Speakers, which make OC such a nightmare.
Kind of funny, if you think about it. They nerfed Doc's synergy with it, because it would too hard to hit the OC skillcheck. But SM can still do it. And it's Doctor's own perk! There is an achievement locked behind him using that perk and yet he has no synergy with it! But SM, who has become notorious for using gen kick perks too well still has her synergy. Mind boggling.
What SM does now is to keep survivors broken with the claw traps, which forces survivors to pre run against her just like before. Applying claw traps has also become a lot easier, which allows her to keep her haste effect at pretty much all times. So she gets easy hits on top of that (especially when she sets up her drones in a loop to apply the hindered effect). Also, the problematic addons still exist.
At this point, I think she might be irredeemable. They reworked her twice already, she still has the same issues as before (incredibly boring to play as and against) and she is still unhealthy and I doubt they'll rework her again. This is more than just a failure.
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The drones don't mark people who are stationary or crouching. In order for a SM to "force" a survivor to get a clawtrap, they would need to chase them off a gen towards a drone several times til a clawtrap comes on. Even then, the clawtrap has a 45 second timer, so those addons which require active clawtraps arnt getting a whole lot of value.
As far as OC+shotgun speakers... Are you a goldfish? You need the ding sound to remember there's gonna be a skillcheck right away? This should only surprise you once. After that, it's a survivor skill issue if they keep failing a predictable skillcheck.
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It's really not hard to run after a survivor for 10 seconds, apply a lock on stack and then go back to your 3 gen. Especially once you have a bit of extra speed, because that makes it pretty much impossible to maintain distance. 3 gens are naturally a favorable position for a killer because they can get rid of the resources and get easier hits in the process, while also applying pressure to all 4 survivors in that area.
SM only makes this worse. Much worse. Because with her, there are quite a few loops where she will just get a hit no matter what you do. That forces you to leave and heal, or leave prematurely every time she comes near you. In both cases you lose a lot of time, that you would need on the gen. A coordinated SWF can still break through, while most other groups just lose too much time due to a lack of communication.
If Team Eternal struggle with these skillchecks, then how do you expect an average DBD player to hit them? Call me a goldfish but I do not know the exact timing of OC skillchecks, though I do hit them pretty consistently when I can hear them. Even, if I know that a skill check will happen, it's not easy to hit it when I don't have a clue about the exact timing (which varies even with OC, as far as I know) and the timing needs to be very precise. I mean, try it yourself. If you can do it, then congrats. But I and a lot of other players aren't that good. Though we still play against SMs, who need to do very little to apply that effect.
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No, you don't understand! Everyone knows the proper counterplay is complaining about it based on 1-3 baby-mmr test games until they delete the entire character!
Looking up actual mechanics and playing around them is illegal!
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All killers can, i just did it with oni and i did not even have good perks, i was just doing a tome mission.
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Pretty sure you can do this on most killers pretty much just as easily... I don't think SM is the problem here unless anyone has strong evidence to the contrary? 🤔
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Hag, Knight, Trapper (with the right loadout), Wraith, Nurse, Blight and pretty much anyone with mobility/traps/map sense can hold a 3 gen with that build. SM is really no different and can do it less with her changes since the drones only pick up moving targets.
I do wonder if people actually think they can get killers straight up deleted by user backlash. If old SM didn't get deleted for her 3-gen play, new SM sure as heck won't.
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It kinda worked for Freddy 😔
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Why when I play her no-one gives up even I 3 gen them for long time? I would like that easy wins but instead I have to work for it.
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because youre bad and refuse to get better lol
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This is insane. People actually acknowledging the problem wasn't SM its been gen spawns and that several killers have this same 3 gen potential? Astonishing.
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people cant play the game really. Its that simple. Look at this thread and how many people are crying and saying they insta dc or insta go next. They dont bother learning to play against her then complain about her because they never took the time to try and learn how.
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You would need to start and drop a chase with a survivor several times to apply a 45 second annoyance eventually. This is assuming the survivor runs straight through the closest drone beam instead of trying to avoid it. As far as OC timing... it's like 1 second after you start repairing a kicked gen, which is why I said it's predictable. Unlike every other skillcheck, that one you know EXACTLY when it'll pop up. If the addon is giving you a hard time, I welcome you to say "Ding" as soon as you start repairing.
As far as the case with Team Eternal, it was completely different since that was OLD Skull Merchant. That iteration DID affect any Survivor in the area unlike now. There is significant differences to the point that it's not worth mentioning at all when talking about current SM.
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You do realize they 70%of the cast can do that right any mobility/trap killer could do what you did it's not a sm thing
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What is there to learn to play against?
I have an 80% +- winrate vs her and I still can understand why so many people elect to go next vs her.
It's mind numbing, binary, and tedious to play against her no matter the skill level. She's easily on par with legion but at least legion wins the subjective departments of looking cool and having cool chase music.
I get that you like her but she's just not liked. Which shouldn't matter anyways since survivor's opinion on your killer of choice should be a nonfactor. Just play bots.
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Corrupt and lethal should be basekit albiet weaker, the current perks should enhance their effect to a degree.
In return gen regression should be a lot weaker. Namely, DeadLock and Pain Res and Pop should be nerfed or reworked.
I would also gladly sacrifice Resilience gen speed, green toolboxes, and stacking speed buff for this.
On topic:
Skerchant is still terrible to play vs. They just moved her annoyances around.
Drone tics should decay and haste/slowdown should be removed entirely. Then she'd be okayish to go against I guess.
I'm not concerned with Skerchant players because nothing in her kit is Innovative or exciting enough to preserve. She's just a binary M1 killer that Stat checks survivors and brute forces.
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most killer can artificially slow the game down by 3 gens. the challenge for killer is to end the game, not necessary slow it. the most concerned as aspect of 3 gens is holding game hostage for prologues period of time, say 50 minutes. This should not possible now because the perks that slow gens down barely have any impact and base regression is 400%(4x slower) then survivor progression. matching lasting more then 20 minutes should not be a regular occurrence. It is just that with current system of infinity regressing generators, it is hard to balance such an extreme.
Skull merchant is not responsible for 3 gen. what trapping type killer do with 3 gen is that they make 3 gens risky to work on. Since your forced to finish objective, the traps are more likely to activate. Without 3 gen, there is no reliable way for a trapping killer to trigger traps. Survivors can simply entirely avoid every trap and spread to do gens. A trapping killer without their traps is M1 killer with no ability. As a result, every trapping killer is end-game killer. You play the game at 1 gen because you cannot ensure that your traps will do anything. You'll still try and end chases but like.... there is little that a killer can do when a survivor team rushes gens in 4 minutes. 3 gens is somewhat killer's last chance to win the game. It is only real way to stop gen-rushing as killer. that is why i am not sure what changes to 3 gens your looking for. the survivor already does gens 16x progression than the base-kit killer regression. you should be able to break any 3 gen with that much progression.
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Absolutely. Survivors have to move to get to and away from gens, this is what BHVR didn't think about.
Easiest fix in the world (and therefore unlikely to ever be implemented): Make it so Merchant can't recall hacked drones.
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Keep in mind the drone area isn't the same as before. You can move in the area, just not through the moving beams. Time it right and you can run up to the gen just fine. Can also crouch walk without triggering anything.
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Against a Merchant patrolling a 3-gen, you can't time when you have to move away, and you certainly can't be standing still or crouching when you have to. Even being able to get away without a free hit at all is something you can consider yourself lucky to have achieved considering Undetectable and Haste. And approaching the gen unscanned at the very least costs time, every time, also making gen defense more effective for her. Plus she has 6 drones, the scan zones of which can also overlap; she can turn a huge area around a gen cluster into a "want to move? okay, enjoy being broken, deep-wounded and hindred, as well as giving me haste" zone.
There is no reason to allow her to recall hacked drones. If she actually plays a chase-based style where drones will inevitably end up around the map, 6 are plenty for them to never all be on cooldown. All recalling hacked drones does is enable oppressive area control because hacking drones does nothing, she just recalls and resets as she patrols, getting Undetectable for it and also constantly having drones in stealth mode where you would have to crouch all the way through the scan zone if you wanted to avoid getting scanned.
For the record: Unrecallable hacked drones is the very least they could do. The killer would still be one of the most ill-designed pieces of gameplay I have ever seen. There is no little to no skill involved in anything she does, she puts up drones and gets everything for it. It is mindboggling to me how anyone chooses to play her when there's so many more engaging killers to choose from. I'm proud never to have played her beyond the initial testing phases. I feel bad for having bought her (with Shards, to my defense), her lackluster or downright bad perks certainly don't justify owning her either. I suppose it's the fact that it's incredibly easy to effortlessly win against any group that isn't a coordinated SWF by playing for a 3-gen, "chases" not being a real thing with Undetectable, Hindered and Haste. In my experience the people playing her also do so precisely because they know she is obnoxious to face, enjoying that aspect. Even her mere visuals and sounds have become synonymous for many with a bad time.
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Your entire argument requires the killer to chase you away from a gen multiple times, during which you not bother trying to avoid the beams at all before the stacks finally add up enough to do anything. How is this any worse than Plague 3 genning , who can break you just by puking on the gens... or Legion, who would be getting constant full team FF hits by the forced close range 3 genning requires?
Your argument about stealth+overlapping drone areas btw don't work. Stealthing requires having a drone in hand, meaning you can't use 1 of your 6 total drones to overlaping on 3 generators.
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I don't get why SM get this amount of hate. I agree she isn't one of the most fun killers to play against, but I prefer to face a merchant 100 times over a Legion, Hag or Clown and I'm not even counting the OP ones (Nurse and Blight).
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You regularly can't avoid beams when having to leave the gen because that would just let her hit you. Again, often you are lucky if you even notice her coming to your gen in time to leave at all. Stealth mode drones are also a thing. It is worse than, say, Plague because of 1. Undetectable, 2. Haste, 3. Hindered. You also have to mend out of Deep Wound every then and again, and are also Broken. And she has add-ons like Shotgun Speakers.
What "stealth+overlapping" argument? Overlapping drone zones exist and stealth drones/Undetectable exists. Has nothing to do with one another, they are just things that happen at various points in a match.
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The things that you are complaining about are things that are avoidable and within your control. The "forcing" is time consuming AF if no one is doing any chases and instead 3 genning. You sound like the type of person who rushes through several drone areas and get claw traps when SM isn't chasing you at all, then complain that you can't hit a skillcheck because you don't hear a ding for the next 45 seconds.
Im done talking about this since it's obvious there's no hope in you looking at what you can do to improve your gameplay at all besides complain.
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Its really just a matter of 'content creators blamed her for a problem that wasn't her fault then it became cool to hate her so now people don't stop'.
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Lots of people have ptsd against SM. To the point that it could have been a SM without addons or perks on Red Forest with a wide gen spread and people would still complain.
SM lives rent free in a lot of places
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Alot of ppl also have no clue how to handle playing against her. The amount of survivors who get marked and injured for free while the killer is nowhere near them is STAGGERING. People will run through ALL the drones on the way to a gen or an unhook... Then I see complaint posts like this and I can't help but eye roll a little bit.
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The "forcing" isn't some activity you have to make time for, it's literally what patrolling a 3-gen setup entails. You will chase survivors off gens constantly.
The idea that Merchant is not a particularly potent 3-gen killer and let alone that a killer like Legion could do the same thing is frankly laughable. Just play against a 3-genning Merchant once and the difference is painfully obvious. I guarantee an even only mediocre player will win 90+ out of a hundred matches as 3-gen Merchant against any group that isn't a competent and coordinated SWF, with little to no effort or thinking required. Drone 3 gens, patrol them, get free hits and downs due to Undetectable, Hindered, Haste. Eruption, Surge, Weasel, Overcharge. The only matches they can lose are those where somehow no 3 gens spawned anywhere close to each other.
There is no point in us talking about it indeed. It's vanishingly rare that forum discussions lead to game changes anyway. Devs in all likeliness aren't even reading some 90% of posts to begin with. They have already said they are working on a global "solution" to the issue of 3-genning, it's just that as per usual, it will take many more months if not years to see the light of day, and what it will ultimately look like is another question still. There is bullshit in the game like Vial Blight, Tombstone Myers, Cherry Blossom Spirit yadayada, but Merchant is legitimately the only killer I have no interest whatsoever in playing against. But making hacked drones unrecallable would at least actually make her have to chase people and not just patrol gens until she inevitably gets kills handed to her.
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Dull Merchant's wet dream
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Pretty sure THAT kind of gen spawn isn't suppose to happen, lol. Oof
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I just played a 40 minute game as 3-gen merchant and no lie, one of the bots went afk. Got the crows notification and everything. I guess they do learn from real survivors.
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I do that as well. Skull merchant is the most miserable killer to verse. Can still hold generators hostage and it's extremely unhealthy gameplay. Killer still chases the gens rather than the survivors.
I refuse to play against her because I don't have time to be in 40-60 minute game with my experienced SWF when she's being fed haste, undetectable and an easy 3 gen set-up from the start. I've tried to tolerate her however...
I just go next, sadly.
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She's disgusting imo
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This doesn’t really seem a SM issue, tbh.
Remember you can just hold onto a gen and you won’t need to bother with the drones at all. They don’t scan you if you don’t move.
She still needs to push you off manually. And at that point… So does every other killer?
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My Sadako with just Jolt would love this setup, what even is this?
Another reason I think the swamp maps need an overhaul.
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no it is. i always look for that 3 gen setup on merchant. it is rng to get it but this variation means you do not need to play the god windows on that grim pantry side.
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I'm just imagining a Huntress camping the dock with a hatchet raised, just staring at that 3rd gen.
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Yeah, I still do not waste my time in any dull merchant game :)
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Can we get a sexier skull merchant skins please.
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