Skull Merchant and unavoidable hits.

Well, thats just it. People DONT enjoy going against Skull merchant. You're not alone.

She's been a stain on the game since day 1. And will likely never change due to BHVR being to stubborn to admit they can do better.

So the person that you've linked has done a good job protecting themselves from people pointing out that this is kind of a silly video to post as proof of anything. After all, if I explain why it's wrong, I'm just over-analysing or whatever.

Still, I'll do it anyway.

There's a couple things to keep in mind here. The biggest one is that this was strictly avoidable, this is maybe the most avoidable a scan could've been. All this Meg had to do was keep an eye on the drone's beams (or time it in their head, if they're good at that) and just stop in the the doorway for a split second. At this point Merchant's still walking around the loop, so there's plenty of time to start making distance again.

The second is that this is only an injure because Meg had already been scanned twice. If this had been a single scan I'm willing to bet it wouldn't be posted as a big gotcha, because... y'know, it's just kind of getting unlucky with your timing and getting scanned, it happens.

The third is that if Meg had been forced to take an M1 by crouching (which in this clip I don't think is likely), that still works out in her favour. A Skull Merchant who has you at two scans is going to try and get a claw trap on you, and if you force her to M1 you, that means you've wasted all the time she spent building stacks on you instead of going for an M1. Forcing the M1 hit against other killers is seen as perfectly reasonable and in your favour, it's the same for Merchant.

The fourth and final one is maybe the biggest outside of the first point listed: This loop sucks and most killers who have some kind of ranged damage would hit you anyway. This isn't Skull Merchant having no counterplay and being super unfair, even disregarding that the hit was avoidable to begin with, because this clip is really just showing that this particular pallet kind of sucks against any killer with range.

Yes, skull merchant has to use her power as it is literally designed and the survivor has to stay in the area and get hit by the scan 3 times for it to do damage. That is literally the power, what exactly are you on about? Is suddenly myers some massive problem because you get downed for letting him build up to tier 3? Is nemesis suddenly a problem because you can do damage to them if they are already infected and you aren't able to cleanse it anymore? Is ghostface suddenly a problem because he downed you instantly before knew he was there because you let him expose you? Is trapper suddenly a problem because you walked into a trap?

It's a little goofy. Even the most stalwart defenders have to admit that much.

This is a serious outplay on a totally unsafe pallet and they get punished for it. That's just rough.

Considering how predictable and counterable the drones are in general, actually pushing survivors into situations where they can't reasonably avoid stacks is pretty difficult and does involve some kind of skill.

The fact of the matter is, she has counterplay and that counterplay is pretty interactive. There is, whether you want to hear it or not, skill expression on both sides here.

You can just not like her. You don't have to overstate your case by posting videos like these, where someone just doesn't counter her power and also gets a little unlucky.

I can't believe they'd add a killer that can injure you for free! Literally just have to press m2 a few times and you're guaranteed to be injured.

wait uh who were we talking about again

Anyway, my point is a lot of killers are going to have situations that feel unavoidable, but the choices you make beforehand lead you into that, which you can avoid. Doctor has existed since 2017 and sometimes playing against him is "guess i'll die". She got tagged twice beforehand, we only see the final tag in this clip.

No idea if she'd have had the time to stand still for a sec in the doorway to avoid the final scan, but it might've been possible.

Also what the hell does "mixed race checkspots" mean??? Is dbdtwt ok?

Skull Merchant is not a fun or fair killer to play against, and I’m tired of people jumping through hoops trying to defend her. None of the arguments used hold up to actual scrutiny.

She’s a setup killer, with no need for actual setting up.

People often liken her to Trapper and Hag in the way she’s able to lock down areas of the map with her drones, so the logical counter play is to hack her drones (akin to disarming Trapper’s traps).

The comparison seems to make sense, until you realise that Skull Merchant has NONE of the caveats of the actual setup killers.

Both Trapper and Hag are forced to be stationary and look at the floor during their trapping animations. Skull Merchant just has to tap M2 and the drone is set up for her without interfering with her chase. This means she doesn’t have to waste any time at the start of the match setting up and can just do it all as she goes. Where Trapper and Hag need planning, positioning, and setup time to deny a loop, Skull Merchant literally just has to tap M2 (losing NO distance) and the survivor is forced to leave. She doesn’t even have to be precise in where she places the drone, since the scan lines are so wide and cover entire tiles.

And then there’s the fact she doesn’t even have to manually rearm disabled drones. If Trapper wants to reset a disabled trap, he has to walk over to it and manually rearm it. Hag is much the same. If a trap gets wiped away from an area where she wants one, she needs to go there to place it again. Skull Merchant though? Her drones automatically rearm for her, quickly enough that a survivor has to hack it 2/3 times in the time it’ll take them to do a single generator.

Crouching drones is not valid counterplay.

There’s also the whole argument of “just crouch or stand still” that gets brought up every time. But in most circumstances, trying to do this will still end with you being hit. Sure, there are some really safe tiles where this can work. But at most loops if you keep abruptly stopping in the middle of your chase, she’s just going to catch you up and M1 you. Crouching is only consistently viable to avoid scanning outside of a chase, not during one.

Overlapping drones.

Another frankly silly thing Skull Merchant can do is place 2/3 drones close by, resulting in overlapping scan lines. These become completely unavoidable in chase and make hacking them take even longer outside of a chase.

There are certain maps where survivors are forced to move through specific thoroughfares often. Just place like three drones in them and boom, you’ve split the map up with minimal effort. The main lobby of RPD, Haddonfield houses, the bottleneck on Azarov’s, etc. Survivors either have to be CONSTANTLY hacking the drones, or they’re denied huge chunks of the map when it comes to chases. It’s silly how little effort this requires.

She‘s a stealth killer with none of the caveats of a stealth killer.

Skull Merchant has on-demand Undetectable. But unlike most of the actual stealth killers, she gives no warning to the survivors to be alert. Wraith shimmers, grunts, and rings his bell. Myers breathes LOUDLY and has the Halloween jingle play when he tiers up. Pig makes mechanical sounds while crouching/uncrouching and roars before an ambush. Chucky has voice lines and footsteps. Onryō even has a whole LULLABY.

Skull Merchant though? She gets Undetectable with no downsides. Her footsteps aren’t particularly loud. Her breathing is relatively quiet. Etc.

She can unironically pull better stealth plays than actual stealth killers sometimes.

Lock on stacks cannot be removed.

Once again, there’s really no meaningful counterplay for the survivors. There are times you will be forced to take a drone scan, and there’s nothing you can even do to mitigate it once it’s happened. Compare it to Trickster’s laceration or Unknown’s weakness, which take more skill to land and can completely decay mid chase. But Skull Merchants drones, which are way easier to use than a ranged killer, offer no way for the survivors to undo the damage. It’s a case of just waiting until you eventually get broken.

Status effect, status effect, and more status effects.

The amount of status effects her kit has is just silly. She has lock on, Undetectable, Haste, Hindered, Deep Wounds, and more with add-ons. Trying to keep track of it all and make informed decisions in a chase is such a hassle.

Against any other killer you can (mostly) accurately judge whether or not you’ll make it to a vault or pallet. But against Skull Merchant? It’s hard to know. There’s not adequate visual feedback on when she gets a speed boost.

Plus she has addons that mess with the intensity and duration of her effects, so even if you figure things out for one match, the next one will be different!

3 genning.

Is she as good at holding a 3 gen as before? No, but she can still drag out matches longer than a lot of other killers. The anti 3 gen mechanic means that she won’t win if the survivors are committed, but most survivors aren’t interested in playing the tug of war for the amount of time the mechanic will take to kick in.

Place your drones around the generators and tightly patrol them. Two things can happen:

• Survivors are meticulous about disarming drones, which equates to less time spent on the generators. Plus you can easily recall and replace them and waste even more time.
• Survivors don’t disarm the drones, which means when you patrol the generator they’re forced to navigate through the scan lines. Either they take a scan (and eventually have to mend, wait out broken, and heal) or they crouch/standstill the drones which allows the Skull Merchant to catch up and M1 them.

Players

Skull Merchant often attracts a specific style of players. Obviously not every Skull Merchant player is like this, but the vast majority I see are anonymous mode, hitting on hook, being unpleasant in post-game chat, etc. Maybe I’m just unlucky with the ones I encounter, but it’s a very apparent trend for me.