Making Skull Merchant less frustrating to play against
Skull Merchant has a super high killrate, no doubt due to many survivors giving up or not taking the game seriously against her. But I think part of this isn't just her reputation as a 3 gen killer. It's also because a lot of her power feels very oppressive, or straight up unfair, especially for solos who can't play around her tracking or stealth very effectively. You can get screwed over by things that are completely outside of your control, and she can put you in lose/lose scenarios quite often. Her counterplay also feels lacking in many different areas.
Some tweaks to make her less frustrating to play against:
- Hacking a drone removes the ability to recall it for 10 seconds. The fact that she can just instantly recall a drone as soon as it is hacked makes the counterplay feel meaningless, especially if she's patrolling nearby. It doesn't have to be something crazy like 30 seconds, but just 10 seconds would mean SM has to commit some time if she wants to replace a drone, instead of just recalling it instantly and replacing it on the fly, maybe even mid chase.
- Hacking a drone now removes 1 stack of Locked On. Right now, there are currently no ways to remove Lock On progress, which feels awful. Once you're at 2 stacks, you're just 1 little mistake away from being broken. I know you could say "that's the survivors mistake", and I agree, but that doesn't make it feel fair to go against.
- Skull Merchant only gains speedboost from survivors within 24m of her. This one is a big one. It feels really bad to chase vs a Skull Merchant when 1 or 2 survivors are locked on. Perhaps someone gets locked on across the map mid chase, and suddenly SM moves faster. It feels like you're punished by your teammates mistakes, even when your teammates aren't anywhere near you.
- Reduce drone count to 5. Another pain point is how enormous her web of drones can become, especially if she manages to coax the survivors into a 3 gen scenario. This might be a little overkill, but I think it's worth considering.
Some other ideas that may or may not be good, would be to reduce locked on duration, or make it possible to reduce it by hacking drones. And maybe reducing the Hindered strength. Though I would be careful with nerfing her in too many ways at once to ensure she doesn't feel underwhelming to play as.
Either way, I actually like her current power. A little stealth, some drones, some chase and some info. I think with better counterplay, she could go from being absolutely hated to being at least tolerated. I'm not saying you should implement every single change at once, and killrates don't tell the whole picture, especially not with someone as unpopular as SM. Maybe she's more balanced than we think, and people are just giving up too easily against her. Or maybe the hook suicides are a symptom of another problem, like mentioned. Any thoughts?
Comments
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I agree with the lock on removal upon deactivation of a drone, but that's it.
Limiting a killers power doesn't change much but make it worse for the other side.
A big reason people don't play singularity as much. He can still replace his pods instantly.
Why this is balanced is he has to BE THERE to do it.
Same with SM, she has to physically go back to the spot to replace it she can't do it from afar. Sure she can recall it, but it's not like she can replace it from across the map, and that's why it's balanced.
With the new 3 gen changes and Visual effects to her scanner, I've had no issues playing against her, she's still annoying, but I don't hate her more than Clown or anything.
I'd prefer they focus on killers who actually need reworks and changes instead of changing a killer AGAIN that already received 3 reworks. (She's already confusing enough).
No matter how she is changed people will still DC against her.
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The second to last part is so important to emphasize to me. imagine more changes like what we just got for hillbilly (Thank you behavior), but for other killers. Imagine a pyramid head with good addons, a freddy that's fun to play(I know it's a problem with licensing, but let a poor guy dream), or heck even a myers that doesn't run out of their power for the rest of the match and can't instakill you.
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Exactly, if a killer isn't Problematic or Weak, don't change them. No need to be nerfing Skull Merchant when she's a B Tier Killer at best...
Only reason she has a high kill rate is because EVERYONE dcs against her, my teammates never stay, she's not even that bad anymore.
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B tier based on what? Getting more than 1 or 2 out against her is extremely rare from what I’ve seen. And that’s whether or not people give up. The drop drone get free injure or force them to leave loop and get free injure, is very effective and easy to win with.
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Bruh free Inure means nothing in DBD.
Legion and Plague do it WAY better and WAY faster. Legion is the weaker variant, and plague is the stronger variant with actual anti loop.
Also the only reason it's rare to have 1 or 2 out is because survivors rage quit so often against her for no reason now.
When I have a full team and nobody DC's we get out every time. She is B Tier based on how she plays against the average team who doesn't DC. We aren't some sweatlords.
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i get wanting to make her less frustrating to play against but these changes would make her abysmal to play, i agree with the Recall prevention and Lock-on removal changes, but the rest of these are just unnecessary nerfs to a perfectly average killer.
i already run meme builds on her just so i hope the survivors can atleast have a bit of fun because i enjoy playing her and i want others to have fun too despite how despised she is.
here’s some suggestions i have though:
Increase the haste boosts she gets from detecting people (maybe doubling it). BUT, she doesn’t get the speed boost near a surv (around 12-24M) so that she gets some actual map pressure that she completely lost with her rework while not giving her perma bloodlust in chase.
also here’s an ACTUAL change she needs: give drone rotation direction changing a cooldown, cause literally, the one important counterplay she would have in chase (dodging the beams) is nullified because she can just keep rotating it back and forth so you can’t crouch to avoid it.
also this a personal thing: i feel like if she’s in chase the drones should start in recon mode because otherwise it’s awkward trying to aim the slow ass drone.
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The majority of games that take place are not 4 man swfs. An “average team” is not representative of the average game.
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This is not a reason to Buff SWFs by nerfing a killer down to solo q level. That's not how to balance a game. The issue is not with the killer.
SWFs will always rule this games meta, it's 4 players vs 1.
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Why she need boostspeed?
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Hacking a drone removes the ability to recall it for 10 seconds.
Sure, but display in red aura hacked drones.
Hacking a drone now removes 1 stack of Locked On
Sure, but increase length of hacking like double, or triple, so it becomes passive slowdown if you want to get rid of it.
Skull Merchant only gains speedboost from survivors within 24m of her
Sure, but bring back pallet breaking with claw trap, otherwise there is absolutely not point. It's already gutted.
Or make movement speed bonus static 7%, doesn't matter if it is claw trap or tag, nor how many players have it.
Skull Merchant when 1 or 2 survivors are locked on. Perhaps someone gets locked on across the map mid chase, and suddenly SM moves faster
Then you are just bad. You really want to balance killer around survivors, who don't know how to play against her? You should never get a claw trap outside of chase. Learn to crouch and look around... It's not that hard imo.
Reduce drone count to 5
You wanna make it work through walls again?
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Mainly because she is just M1 killer without a power in most cases otherwise?
That small speedboost is a big deal to make her playable. That's why.
People didn't like her defending totems / gens, so she focus on stealth / chase now.
What exactly she has for chase without that speed boost? Hindered that is up to survivor, if ever becomes active? That's just trash.
I will gladly get rid of hindered for pallet breaking on claw trap btw, that was way more fun for Skull merchant.
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After considering it for a bit, I've changed my mind a little on her. I think she only needs two changes.
- Hacking a drone removes a stack of Lock On
- Removed stealth mode from drones completely (not the 8s undetectable, I mean the drone mode where their scanlines are invisible)
Some say she's fine balance wise, and I actually agree. But, she has mechanics that exlusively affect newer players, or players that don't know her power all that well.
Yes, it's easy to avoid being scanned by stealth drones. Just look at the ground to see the circle. But why does this need to exist at all? It's not hard to do, sure, but it's also not very interesting or intuitive either. All it does is cause beginner players to get hit out of nowhere by drones.
If removing stealth mode means fewer random injuries because people avoid the drones better, then good! A good SM player doesn't rely on getting free injuries on noobs to win anyway. And this change wouldn't even make a difference in high mmr. In fact, it would be a small buff to her looping because your drones in loop now rotate faster by default when you deploy them in chase.
Either we remove stealth mode entirely, or we just make stealth mode drones scan lines visible. But I feel that this would be too big of a nerf with how slow the rotation is. I don't care if it's a skill issue, invisible scanlines are unclear, unintuitive, and serves no purpose but to harm less experienced players while doing nothing against stronger players. And that to me is the kind of bad, pointless mechanic that can go to simplify the power. Get rid of invisible scanlines, or stealth mode entirely.
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Hacking a drone removes a stack of Lock On
Removed stealth mode from drones completely (not the 8s undetectable, I mean the drone mode where their scanlines are invisible)
Issue is the combination. Basically survivors get rewarded even more for hacking drones and drones are easier to find, because you can see laser accross the map, so you can also avoid those loops easily.
That basically makes it completely pointless to even try setup drones in advance and use it only for stealth and in loops.
I think removing stealth mode for drone will make her even more boring to play, because that's simply not a chance to try play trap style with her at that point.
I would be fine with removing Lock on, if you display disarmed drones in aura. So survivors can remove lock on, but also give skull merchant an information. I think that's a fair trade.
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I personally don't like how her M2 is on auto pilot. She's a very passive killer. It's very easy to get injured when looping or running away from the killer. Yeah you can couch walk or stand still during a scan, but that slows you down a lot for the killer to catch up. With Knight he can only have one of his buddies at a time and only for a limit amount of time on a set path. Plus you have to stop as you set your path. With SM, you just have to press M2 and your drone is out at a loop and you just need a survivor to run through it three times and they get injured, then if they run though it again, they're hindered. She requires very little to no skills. So with that and a lot of people giving up on hook when they get her - I'm not surprised at all that her kill-rate is so high. It will be interesting to see if BHVR address this or not with her or just leave her how she is.
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She doesnt need a nerf. Stealth drones encourage stretegic placement rather than just on top of gens. She's fun to play and I rarely get to play against her despite playing primarily survivor.
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These changes would be wayyyyyyyyy too harsh. Just remove the Hinder, that's literally all they have to do.
The First change, fine I guess.
You should not be getting scanned outside of chase, and if you could remove stacks it would be nearly impossible to get Claw Trapped. Or it would create a boring situation like old Sadako where people will be competing to get rid of their stacks.
NO. Just absolutely NO. That is an extremely harsh nerf for no reason.
Absolutely not, on bigger and outdoor maps 6 can still feel rough. I also have not seen a single SM 3 gen since the changes.
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Just remove the Hinder, that's literally all they have to do.
I rarely get to it, but I think it would be kinda an issue when survivors could completely ignore drones while injured. You rarely get value of Hindered, because survivors avoid it...
I can see lowering it to 5%, but there should be something so drones can't be just ignored imo.
I also have not seen a single SM 3 gen since the changes.
It was possible before current patch, but not really when gens get blocked so fast. You kinda can play 3-gen with pop, but not really Chess merchant style anymore.
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Is she really balanced? Because it gains undetectable and speed while passing through drones and the survivor becomes slow and loses 1 state of health. That makes her boring. Not to mention that the hitbox is not normal. When it's her, it's already known that two people will probably disconnect or kill each other in the first stage of the hook.
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