How tf do you counter skull merchant?
Not hating I'm just genuinely curious as to what the counterplay to her/her power is? When I walk into a drone it already gives me 1/3 ticks before I can disarm it? Then another time and then I am just in deep wound xD? I truly do not understand how she works and just want to improve my gameplay against her :) Thanks in advance for all the answers if there even is counterplay to her :3
Best Answer
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You crouch walk to avoid detection or stand still when the rays are about to hit you. When it comes to chase, good luck doing that.
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Answers
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You play like normal, hope the match ends quickly (which it likely will, considering that there's no shortage of people hook suiciding against her) and go next.
As for Skull Merchant:
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Designate one member to go around the map disabling her drones to clear a safe path for the rest of the team.
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The drone's beam won't scan you if you're crouching or standing still, so if you're approaching to disarm it that's your best tactic. You can still see the drone spinning in stealth mode, the lights on the side indicate where the beam is, it can be avoided in stealth mode too.
In chase, this is obviously harder, it'll come down to the specific loop you're at. There are definitely places you can stand or crouch in chase - people do it all the time to clear Exhaustion - but that's not every loop, you're probably better off just avoiding loops that have drones in them if you want to be more safe.
Hacking drones is a good idea in general, if she has to recall and replace the drone, you have time to leave the loop and avoid having to play around the drones at all. This obviously goes for if you hack a drone but your teammate is chased by her next, too.
Also be aware that anyone being scanned makes her slightly faster for a moderately long duration, so if you do mess up and get scanned, you might want to play it more safe with resources. On the flipside, taking one scan and booking it when you have an opening to make distance can absolutely be a good idea; being scanned is generally something to avoid, but even once you're actually getting Hindered because you got scanned a bunch, it's not an automatic fail state. It's like avoiding Clown gas- try to if you can, but you aren't necessarily instantly dead for running into it sometimes.
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As @mikewelk said, you can either crouch or stand still to avoid detection by the drones. You don't get detected while doing a gen, but if you let go then there is a risk.
In chase, she is not unlike Artist. If she places a drone in the area you'rte currently looping her, you have to leave. Otherwise you will get hit. Drones cannot put you in the dying state, but they can damage you.
I've noticed the more experienced Skull Merchants (judging by prestige level) will try to place their drones in strategic locations, so it is best to pay attention to where they are.
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I shall perform the crouching ritual to do just that, problem is I forgot the sequence... Do you mind reminding me please?
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The first thing you should be doing when trying to disarm her drones that you may not even be noticing is that you have to pay attention to which way the drone you're wanting to disarm is facing.
Her drones have two modes they can be in which are Stealth Mode and Scout Mode(I believe that's the name of the active/triggered mode at least) where in Scout Mode her drones rotate at full speed and you can actively see the scan lines(the moving beams) coming from the drone and when it's in Stealth Mode the drone rotates a lot slower, has its scan lines hidden, and is quieter than in Scout Mode and getting scanned will always trigger them to enter Scout Mode.
The way her drones work with scanning is that they go off of Line of Sight(LoS) which is what the scan lines are indicating and they will only detect moving survivors so all you have to do is simply stop moving whenever the drone is about to scan over you. Or you can just simply crouch walk up to the drone because, for whatever reason, crouching in general = no movement to the drones hence why that still confuses a lot of players which is a slower method to reaching the drone, but is a much safer method. Also if you're wondering how you're supposed to know which way the drones are facing when they don't even have visible scan lines in Stealth Mode all you have to do is look for the two bright lights coming off of either side of the drones. Those lights indicate which way the drone is facing because those are what projects the scan lines.
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I had the same thought. She’s got great anti-loop so if she places a drone at a loop it’s best to leave it.
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PixelBush posted this just now.
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^ Just finished watching this, it's got some good info in it. Very worth watching if you've got the time and patience to internalise all of it.
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PixelBush is trying so hard to justify SM at this point I’m expecting them to get engaged soon.
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In a solo queue game xD?
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Re: the drones, they have T-Rex vision. They can't see you if you're stationary. They also follow Hag rules in that you can also crouch walk without issue.
Even they're in Stealth mode (you don't see the radar zones) there should still be lights you can use to identify where they're scanning
Didn't see this post yet but, re: line of sight, this means drones no longer see through walls and floors like v1 drones did, right?
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Run to the hook and go next, don’t even bother playing against her cuz it’s just a waste of time. Luckily I didn’t play much when her chapter first came so whenever I load in to a game and the game says: ‘facing the skull merchant’ I can just alt+f4 my game and restart 😂
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