Everything you know about Skull Merchant is Wrong!
I am a Skull Merchant main. I am not amazing with her, but I've already hit the MMR ceiling with her at P34, and am getting non-stop P100s in my lobby with on average 3-4 surv escaping. At high level game play, she is quite low tier,.. but ppl still d/c from time to time on seeing her. I think because of some misconceptions they have about her.
IN CHASE:
In a chase, her power can be compared to clown. They both use their power to slow surv/hasten themselves in loops. However, clown does this much better:
Skull Merchants haste is only +3% with one person detected/claw trapped (+5%,+6% and +7% for 2, 3, 4 ppl at the same time, but really usually in a chase you only get it on 1 sruv). Clown gets +10% haste with one bottle.
In loops, Skull Merchant can Hinders a Claw Trapped survivor by -10% for 6 seconds. A clown's bottle hinders for -15%!!
On top of all that, clown can aim his power, stopping a surv running away. Skull Merchant can't. Also, clown gets the benefits right away, where skull merchant needs to get 3 scans off first!
No wonder survivors just run away from loops. It's not that she's any better than clown in loops (looking at numbers). It only because she doesn't have a way to stop a surv from running away. Her power is stationary.
AS TRAPS/AREA CONTROL:
She used to be OP pre patch in area-control, but the current skull merchant is less of an area control master than Trapper or Hag. Trappers traps are more lethat (they immobilize you instantly), Hag's traps make her insta-tele to you. With skull Merchant, not only can the survivor see your traps (drones) easily. If your not in a chase with them, they can easily crouch up and disable drones. Meaning, her drones are only good in an immediate chase (Whereas Hag and Trapper need to be in proximate area, not necessary in chase).
Needless to say, you can do gens/totems right underneath an active drone without it scanning you. So no point in trapping those.
AS STEALTH:
Her basekit stealth is undetectable 8 seconds after deploying a drone. It take 10 seconds to cool down from placing another drone. So it's never a perma stealth (even with +1second addon). Additionally, she's a 4.6 m/s killer with 32 terror radius. In 8 seconds you can cover just about 32 meters in a straight line (1st second is a fade out of your terror radius). So even if you do spot a surv 32 meters away and put up a drone and perfectly bee-line it to them, you'd have to zig zag to break line of sight, so at best she can surprise surv (mostly in indoor maps), but not as well as other stealth killers.
So next time you go up against a Skull Merchant, keep calm. In a chase, she's a less than clown with the option for you to just leave without any recourse from her. If you see her traps, and your not in chase, crouch or walk then hold still as scan goes over you, and you can easily hack the drones. And if you notice no one is being chased in the HUD, keep an ear/eye out for her sneaking up. She can never be perma stealth (without her irri).
The only thing scary would be facing her in indoor maps.
DETECTION:
This might seem like a good feature, but most of the time surv who are detected are ones in chase, so you already know where they at. If a surv is detected out of chase, then that means they did not see the HUGE circle highlight on the ground or the BIG scan lines, lmao. At my MMR it rarely happens.
PS> I'd love to learn from any other Skull Merchant mains out there, but can't find any. If you are one, pls drop some tips in comment for me <3 I am having a real hard time getting 2,3 or 4 kills at my MMR. Everyone just leaves loops, making her an M1 killer. If I commit to chase they'd go from loop to loop, and gens get done. And then from time to time, I get surv coming to chat and complain about her, "cause she slows surv down in loops", umm but less effectively than clown, but no-one complains about clown.
Comments
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I understand the number comparison between SM and Clown but they work slightly differently. With Clown you always have the TR. SM can be quite surprising during chases when suddenly she becomes undetectable. It gives a completely new idea of mindgaming and not everybody can cope with that.
I have more successes with the reworked SM. I think she can be more aggressive. Of course, you are probably right when saying at high MMRs she is inadequate.
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Nobody said she is not beatable. But nobody want to play long game against her.
She is still holding 3 gen and now she is even worse with braindeadly easy chase power.
So i won't blame anyone who don't wanna play against her.
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How do you play her? (build)
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Absolutely, but at my MMR becoming undetectable during chase means very little to survivors. They know which corners to wait for visual confirmation and play very safe. Plus losing TR during chase does the same thing as just moon walking, since the only benefit during chase is hiding red stain 😉
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I play a ton of SM. Think of her less as Clown and more as Trapper/Hag. The drones are her traps. She's a hybrid stealth+set up killer.
The drones aren't great when they're placed mid-chase, so don't do it unless you're trying to push someone off of a strong tile, then recall the drone immediately.
Place the drones at choke points, main building entrances, inside shack, basically anywhere survivors are going to commonly path. I get multiple passive claw trap injuries every game this way. Sanctum of Wrath is a perfect example. One drone on each staircase, and one drone on each side of the shrine. Anyone who crosses the map is taking a stack, and you have tracking on them.
You have some built-in game delay from the survivors playing around your drones. Corrupt is necessary on any set up killer at a high level. You need to set up her drones at the start and only carry 1 or 2 max. My preferred build is Corrupt/Pain Res/PGTW/Brutal
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<3 So happy to hear this. I agree 100%!!
One of my builds is Pain Red+Corrupt+Brutal . Instead of PGTW I had more success with monstrous shrine. Survivers I go up against tend to stay on gens 'till last possible minute, and it really throws them off (or I get two hook states)
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No matter what anyone says, she's an insta go next for me and nothing will change that
Play a killer that requires some brain pelase
Fun build on fun killer
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Which killers require a brain because legit have heard from survivor players:
Trapper: doesnt require thinking just put traps on loops and you get downs.
Wraith: doest require skill just get free hits
Hillbilly:does require a brain as long as you only m2 and throw the game on each chase.
Nurse: doesnt require a brain is an insta-win
Doctor: just use shock at a loop, doesnt require skill
Hag: just put a trap at a loop doesnt require thinking
Pig: just tunnel someone with a trap and instant win.
Freddy: he just spams snares in loops and teleport to gens with slowdown, not skill.
Myers: just pop tier 3 and you win the chase, no skill required.
Leatherface: basically better myers always has instadow avaliable, not skillfull at all.
Clown: throw one bottle at a side of the loop and you instantly win chase, no skill required.
Huntress: fridge sized hitboxes, any hit is because of the hitbox and snipes are mere luck, no skill required.
Spirit: just use phase walk and find the survivor, no skill required only headphones.
Legion: free slowdown and can injure everyone at once, no skill required to play.
Plague:nullifies healing and the proyectile is easy af to hit, no need for skill.
Ghostface: a bs killer that can get an instadown when he wants, just press m2 for free down, no skill required.
Demo: requires skill and is fun to play as long as they do not play optimally because that is cringe.
Oni: requires skill but if you are too good and know how to flick then it is cheating and easy af to play.
Deathslinger: bs killer can nullify any loop by hitting easy af shots with a broken hitbos, no skill necesary.
Pyramid head: just tunnel no skill needed.
Pinhead: the passive plays for the killer, you dont have to do anything.
Twins: you just slug and camp, no skill used.
Blight: insta-win pick. No skill necesary
Nemesis: zombies olay for you and the tentacle is undogeable, easy to play.
Sadako: just spam tp, why need skill?
Trickster: just spams knifes and win free downs.
Artist: place crow at loop-> win
Wesker: incredibly easy to play
Dredge: nightfall is OP and he has too much going for him, unbalanced no skill killer.
Knight: place guard at loop, thats it thats all knight gameplay ( I actually agree with this)
Cringe merchant: place drone at loop, that it bro ( I agree with this too)
Singularity: fun as long as the singularity does not pressure via slugging and lets himself get clapped by emps.
Xeno: easy mobility and free hits, no skill used.
Chucky: wesker 2.0, easy and no skill used whatsoever.
So aside from people playing billy and making sure they get a 4 man escape what killer does need a brain to use? I do not think you think like this but this are genuine comments I have read in-game, on the forums and in social media by survivors regarding killer skill.
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Lots of people have ptsd from pre rework SM and make assumptions about her gameplay the moment they hear the TR.
I went against a SM in Ormond who dropped drones around chokepoints, making it harder to navigate along with the constant undetectable confusing everyone.
I wouldn’t call that “brainless” gameplay.
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Absolutely! Pre-rework PTSD is to blame for this kind of mindset I think.
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I play SM as a stealth killer, she pairs extremely well with perks for it. I also played her the same before her changes, and I will say her new kit is much better for the game than it was prior. I find her 3 gen potential better than most M1 killers, but only because drones are intimidating to most players still. I would tend to agree she may need some kinda auditory sound while effected by the drone's stealth but that depends on how it would effect chases I suppose. I'm no balance expert with her.
When I play survivor, I have enough knowledge of the game plan to just do gens under the drones so the SM doesn't suspect much until she comes back around and harass her 3 gen setups until my teammates get a clue, or do the other gens. Doesn't always work, but I've gotten more wins than losses doing it.
I'm still not a fan of her lore by any stretch, but her gameplay is fun for how I use her.
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Question, do you use Monitor&Abuse with Adaptive Lightning yellow add-on that increases undetectable by 1.8 seconds?
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Good idea, but actually no. My go-to build is Adaptive/Brown Noise with Surge/Game Afoot/Dark Devotion/Furtive Chase. Really fun to me because I can constantly confuse survivors with TR. I am debating swapping Brown Noise for something though.
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weird build. my build with stealth merchant is monitor&abuse, bbq, sloppy butcher and stbfl with adaptive lightning. I have tried running the build with Gearhead to try get information on gens so you can place a drone before going to gen but it just ended up being that bbq gave me more direct info then Gearhead... the perk designed to show aura on people on gens. I wonder if they'll ever buff Gearhead to show yellow gens again.
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SM is not unbeatable but a total slog to play against. There is not much fun in a game against her because the most fun part about this game (the chase) is incredibly boring and predictable. Set up drone, win loop. The only way to beat her, is to dominate the 4v1. The 1v1 against her is best to be avoided at all costs.
These posts are not very convinincing because nobody actually takes the time to explain what is even remotely fun about her counterplay (or lack of). It's not only her 2 previous iterations that are to blame for her poor reputation but BHVR's utter failure when it comes to her.
2 reworks and all they came up with is a killer with no counterplay in chase (every counterplay is eliminated when she doesn't mess up, which isn't even hard) other than Shift + W. I still hate her visuals, chase theme, animations (what is that mori?!), lore on top of her power. For me to change my mind about her, they'd need to make some pretty big changes. Starting with the entire concept of stationary drones. Cut that crap and start from scratch.
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I would like that for gearhead, or at least allow us to change aura colors.
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nice, my stealth build for her is for gen grabs. It's hard to pull off, but such a rush when it works!!!!
Machine Learning, Tinkerer, Deadlock and Discordance(or Rancor). Basically, whenever a gen pops there is 30 second of gen grabbing potential. The rancor is to show where to go once a gen pop, and since I am undetectable (from machine learning) obsession won't know I have it.
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You are exercising your right to play SM.
I am going to exercise my right to never play against SM again.
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I've had some luck with Monitor&Abuse with Surveillance, jolt and pain res. Surveillance makes it so that you can hear a gen being worked on at 28meters, Monitor&Abuse makes terror radius 24 😉 so you can hear who is on a gen, before they can hear you, then drop a drone and go for them. Also pairs well with pain res and jolt, 'cause you'll see what gen got popped and track when surv go back on them.
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That's a not an issue, I don't take it personally since we'll never get to play against each other. I usually leave the bot alone on d/cs and use the game as practice 😘
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A wise attitude.
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Very solid, love the idea behind it!
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