Skull Merchant's 3 worst Add-ons
(Credits for the Wiki for easier information access.)
I feel like it kind of self-explains what's the problem. The only purpose is to deplete Distortion Tokens actually and well... Your power already has information that ignores it. As Skull Merchant you also tend to not use information Perks.
A quick fix from top of my hat would've been to make Survivor who disabled Drone have their Aura revealed for 6s.
I wish this Add-on was less.... Pointless? I don't know.
It's a rather meme Add-on. It's fine-ish as it is for a meme and it's obvious on what it does so the player knows it's a meme.
Also, that's just a calm before storm.
I feel like I could rant about this one for a while so I'm trying to be as brief as possible.
The Haste gain is actually laughable when even compared to Perks like Dark Theory or Made For This.
In average match you will have 2 Tracked Survivors at the same time. Rarely 3 Survivor and almost never 4 (if you do, it's worth a screenshot tbh.).
Normally, you move at 4.83 m/s (120.75 %) in that case. With the Add-on, you move at 4.8875 m/s (122.1875 %).
The different is about 1.18% (calculating differnce from m/s, not from percentages).
I feel like the moments where that Haste can come in clutch is almost none I think. Especially given the downside it has.
Your Claw Traps from base 45s now last 22.5s. Supercharge on top makes the durations 51.75s and 25.875s respectfully.
It decreases the odds of having something like Tracked Survivor + Claw Trapped Survivor which gives us that usual scenerio mentioned earlier which is obviously not something you want.
Additionally, it causes Survivors to be able to recover from Claw Trap injuries much faster due to shorter duration.
On top of that, several of her decent Add-ons have anti-synergy with it due to less of Claw Traps' uptime.
Less opportunities in-chase to get value from Drones' Hindered and thus you get lower value from Vital Targetting Processor and Randomised Strobes.
Less opportunities to sneak on people with Brown Noise Generator.
Less odds of applying Powered Glass.
And etc.
The only 3 Add-ons that remotely could get synergy with "more frequent" Claw Traps due to shorter life-span are: High-Current Upgrade (increases duration of Tracking by 1s, Loose Screw (6s Exhaustion on recently Claw Trapped Survivor) and Infrared Upgrade (4s of Aura reveal on a Survivor who had ther Claw Trap removed). But even then there are even better Add-ons for that or in case of HCU, it's better by itself.
On Skull Merchant, it's far better to have longer duration of Tracking rather than frequency of it... Aside from maybe Prototype Rotor...
You would prefer having Supercharge to apply your Add-on effects more frequently and likely. You would prefer having High-Current Upgrade to get more value out of Haste on Tracked Survivors. If you REALLY want higher Claw Trap frequency then master double-using of Drone Rotation in-chase to "slow down" the Beams, especially with Ultrasonic Speaker, one of her universally best Add-ons.
I'm not even sure on how to change this Add-on. As the quick fix, swap the numbers? 50% stronger Haste for 25% less of Claw Traps' battery. At least the upside/downside would feel more even.
Yeah, I could've been MUCH MORE DETAILED about Expired Batteries but gosh I really, really don't like this Add-on in the current state.
Other 2 took a lot less space together.
If a Community Manager manages to read it, it can count as a Feedback post.
However, I really want to also start discussion about these Add-ons. Maybe even find people disagreeing with me and give their reasons why I might have wrong opinion.
TL;DR Expired Batteries is the F-Tier Add-on. Low Power Mode is between E and F. Advanced Moevement Prediction is E-Tier but also really pointless in its' current state.
Comments
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awhile back i asked to buff expired batteries, high powered mode and supercharger.
What i suggested was expired batteries was haste bonus to be buffed from 25%->50%
Supercharger to be buffed from 15% ->30%
High powered mode to be buffed from 1 second -> 5 second.
-What changed?
Low powered mode was nerfed from -25% cooldown on placing drones to that a joke meme add-on.
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Low-Powered mode would be quite good if it worked only when drone is in stealth mode, but would rotate otherwise.
Or it would change your active ability (rotation) into making it rotate/stop.
But current version is just bad.
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With the exception of the first one, all others are good. Low power mode can be placed like artists crows at loops and behind cover. It forces survivors to either be scanned or interact with the drones. They can dodge the rotating thing but this one they can't when in chase. The third one is a great addon when combined with the low power mode. You can end chases faster. The first one was more useful in the previous iteration of skull merchant. Then, the addon would give you6 seconds of aura read while in the area. It was really "movement prediction". Now it feels like it can be used with profit at shack but for those occasional long distance injuries, it would not be as impactful.
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Expired Batteries give following "extra Haste" on top of your Haste with these numbers:
1 Tracked Survivor: 0.7281553398%
2 Tracked Survivors: 1.19047619048%
3 Survivors: 1.41509433962%
4 Survivors: 1.63551401869%
Even Tier 1 NOED gives you 2% Haste.... Expired Batteries are so laughable with the Haste buff it's insanely garbage.
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it is nerfed version of her purple geographic readout that used to be 2%. this one is 0.72% with a -50% penalty. it also has no vault speed... or pallet break speed.
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I fail to understand. Are we talking about same addon?
Low-Power Mode
By intermittently powering on and off non-vital components, the Drone can stay on for longer.
- Causes the Scan Lines of Drones to no longer rotate.
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my mistake, i thought you were talking about expired batteries. low powered mode was re-design to be cooldown add-on though i don't know why i have cooldown for placing drones in first place.
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Because of her stealth.
That addon allowed infinite stealth for Skull merchant (with that other yellow addon), which devs didn't seem to like.
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wasn't that one of their goals in her rework to improve her stealth?
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Her stealth is already improved, or at least easier to use, when it is on demand.
That addon combination made her stealth infinite, which clearly wasn't intended. Sadly they changed that addon in hurry and made it completely useless, which is sad when it could be actually fun addon with some tweaks.
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