Skull Merchant and unavoidable hits.
I just don't understand how people enjoy facing Skull Merchant when stuff like this happens so often. They got outplayed at the most unsafe loop on RPD and got rewarded for it??? Yes, the survivor could've crouched, but they would have got M1'd anyways since you need to compensate for server lag and crouch for longer than necessary due to it. Can you even argue that it's avoidable?
Comments
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Well, thats just it. People DONT enjoy going against Skull merchant. You're not alone.
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Some people claim to enjoy it but I just find it hard to believe to be honest.
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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.
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I mean, that pallet is pretty garbage anyway. Just about any killer can do that.
Also, the big problem there is he could have crouched in order to avoid the stacks. So if he crouched then did the pallet stun he would have gotten away without injury.
Also further, it looks like this guy already has 2 stacks. So this isn't a free health state, this is a "free" health state that has built up over the course of that same chase, or a previous one where they already received a few stacks. Like, this would be thinking that wesker gets a "free down" because you are fully infected. When there was obviously multiple misplays that happened that resulted in you getting fully infected.
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When her first rework was being speculated I said that the nature of her power didn't allow for proper balancing but apparently it did so here we are.
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Breaking News: Killer uses their power to get an injury! More news at 11.
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If they crouched they would've got M1'd, as I mentioned, due ot the fact that there aren't many pallets in the area. And yes you are correct, any killer can get stunned by the weakest pallet in the game but they don't get rewarded for it.
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I'm asking how it's avoidable but yeah okay
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How does crouching there do anything different other than standing still there? Its the same thing. He got the pallet stun.
But i edited my post there and it looks like he got it at the tail end and the standing still actually didn't add stacks. The problem was this:
"Also further, it looks like this guy already has 2 stacks. So this isn't a free health state, this is a "free" health state that has built up over the course of that same chase, or a previous one where they already received a few stacks. Like, this would be thinking that wesker gets a "free down" because you are fully infected. When there was obviously multiple misplays that happened that resulted in you getting fully infected."
So again, this wasn't a "free health state" this was a health state that the SM has worked on getting previously through a previous chase or earlier in the same chase.
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You can remove Wesker's infection, the lock-on stays permanently until you get injured.
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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.
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I explained how its avoidable. The survivor there already had 2 stacks. So they already were building up to this hit. Yes, in that single instance, getting a single stack there was unavoidable, but that's still 1/3 of the stacks needed to get a hit.
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So you're explaining that Skull Merchant just has to do that three times for a guaranteed injure or an M1? Doesn't seem to difficult.
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Yes, but it still wasn't FREE which is what you are implying. They had to work at those first stacks to get them to the point where they got the hit. How long did that take? Probably a non-zero amount of time where the survivor was being chased.
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The scans lock on permanently until you get M1'd. For all we know, the Meg could've been on the gen where the stairs lead up to and ran to that loop with two lock ons from previous encounters. They can't do anything to get rid of those. Let's say she crouched at the doorway, she would still lose a ton of distance from the fact she has to guess if the beam has passed her (as it is not visible in the line form) and taking into account server lag just adds to it. Skull Merchant is a 4.6m/s killer unlike Huntress who is 4.4m/s.
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Drones in stealth mode accumulate a lot of tokens because of survivors running into them by accident because they don't see the scan lines. That does take zero effort.
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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?
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First part is correct! She was scanned twice before this clip started, so when the Skull Merchant gets a claw trap out of this situation, she's being rewarded for that as well as the single scan shown in the clip.
Second part is incorrect, you absolutely can tell if the beam has passed you. It's a little harder, and it involves keeping an eye on the drone, but with a combination of checking as you're approaching the door and timing it in your head, it's easily possible to know the beam's passed you. While you can't see the big glowy orange beams, you can see the lights on the drone itself. The beams start in a predictable position, they move at a predictable speed, and they move in a predictable direction. It might take a few tries before you get it down consistently, but you can know this kind of thing.
Third part is irrelevant, Huntress wouldn't have to move in this situation so her speed doesn't matter.
Finally, I want to highlight an implication you made in that second part: Let's say Meg does lose a ton of distance even though there's no guesswork involved. Then what? Does she... take an M1? Because that's preferable to getting hit by a claw trap, and actually the smart play in some scenarios against a few different killers.
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Her power involves little skill and little risk and zoning survivors to get scanned isn't anything difficult. You don't lose distance by placing a drone like the distance lost when placing a bear trap like Trapper. You can't just get tier three with Myers by holding down stalk the entire game at loops whilst Skull Merchant can just press M2 to deny any value out of loops, etc.
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Killer mains will tell you to crouch.
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She's being rewarded for survivors not being able to remove lock on in any way and yet getting tokens being super easy. She is indeed. Such a reward for such little risk shouldn't be a thing. Yes you can tell but it's more difficult than just being able to see the line which is what I meant. Taking an M1 just doesn't sound like the best thing to do, especially when you're under the pressure Skull Merchants can put on you whilst they could be jamming out to music without a care in the world if they get stunned because they'll make that distance back with the survivor being forced to crouch or stand still (most people don't know that you can crouch against her drone).
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Had one tell me to run Urban Evasion to help loop Merchants...
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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.
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I don't think we'll see that happen anytime soon. Once people face more Skull Merchants as their pick-rate will most likely rise, I hope more recorded examples will come that make it harder to justify than to say "just crouch".
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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.
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I can understand Skull Merchant frustration, but my friend that's a loop I constantly down survivors at with M1 killers. Stop using unsafe pallets to try and prove a point.
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Some people are masochists. I believe there are those who like to face her but they’re probably something like 4 people out of the playerbase. Perhaps the same people who like to suffer while playing Twins.
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Well this was one of those situations and it seemed laughably easy and took very little skill. I don't see the skill aspect at all. Her counterplay is interactive for sure, doesn't make it good though.
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? The Skull Merchant got stunned at the loop lol, watch the video instead of looking at the thumbnail.
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Yeah, it's hard to wrap my head around the idea of liking suffering - especially when it comes to a literal video game...
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It seemed that way because it looks like no attempt was made to counter the drone.
Now, I'm not sure if this person does actually know how drones work and just mistimed it, which is easily possible, so I don't want to say for sure they were just ignoring the drone. I'm just saying that whatever the reason, the thing Skull Merchant was rewarded for here is a misplay on the survivor's side.
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She got outplayed at the unsafest loop in the game (arguably) by a survivor standing still (counterplay againsther drone). So there was an attempt and it's glaringly obvious.
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Oh, come on, man.
That survivor standing still wasn't doing it to counter the drone, they were camping the pallet to drop it and get the stun. The point where they need to counter it is as they're running away- you can see they only get clipped just before they get out of the radius, so they crouch for a split second there and then keep running. That is what countering the drone in this situation would look like.
This is agonising, the clip being posted shows the most cut-and-dry obvious scenario where crouching the drone is the absolute best call. You already have distance, the killer isn't closing that distance immediately because they just got stunned and they have to navigate around an object, and you're only in danger at the very edge of the radius so you only have to do it once in a position where you've already made distance so it's less damaging to you.
Based purely on their movements - and again, I'm not psychic, they could have mistimed the rotation - it doesn't look like that survivor is paying any respect to the drone at all. If someone runs in a direct straight line against Huntress and gets downed, even after getting a stun on that killer, they're misplaying. It's the same here.
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That's because you are talking a 10 second clip out of context. Look at all of the factors:
- They already had 2 stacks, do you know how long it took or what was done to get those 2 stacks? No you don't
- They were at one of the worst most unsafe pallets in the entire game, let alone the map.
- Why is that pallet so bad? Because literally right next to it by the stairs, is probably the strongest pallet in the entire game, why didn't they drop that one?
- Were they trying to save that god pallet? If so, they got outplayed here by getting to greedy.
- Was that pallet already gone? If so they got outplayed here because they used that god pallet too early, or someone on their team did, or they ran to an area where they knew there wasn't a pallet.
- The pallet that they were out would have been a "guaranteed health state" for probably 90% of the killer in the whole game.
- The reality is, sometimes you got to take the hit, this a 1v4 game, not every situation is meant to have a counter to it. Sometimes the "counter" to a situation is to not put yourself in that situation to begin with.
There is a difference between mechanical skill and strategic skill. Think like playing a fighting game. The clip you are looking at, is someone who is at half health, against someone with full meter, and knocked down in the corner. They guess the 50/50 wrong, and then lose the round, and then you are complaining that the 50/50 is OP. When the problem there wasn't the 50/50, it was they they failed multiple times. They:
- Let their opponent build full meter
- Got to half health
- Got pushed into the corner
- Got knocked down in the corner
- Then lost the 50/50
They failed multiple times to get themselves into a situation where their opponent would win.
Or imagine chess, where you blunder your queen early, then complain about some move the other player did with their queen to win. The mistake wasn't "queen OP" it was that you lost your queen to begin with, and put yourself into that bad situation.
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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?
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EZ clap baby survivor. Noob. Git gud. Skill issue.
This is exactly why people don't like to play against her.
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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.
Post edited by OnryosTapeRentals on12 -
A killer that you need a PhD in this games mechanics to understand how to properly counterplay her is totally a fun, engaging, and well-designed killer for both new player and vets!!
Oh yeah, that solo queue problem that everyone complains about, make it so your random teammates can screw you over mid-chase by walking into a drone!
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They were standing still instead of moving from side to side to get the most reaction time to drop the pallet at the right time. That is her counterplay after all and notice how they didn't get scanned because it is counterplay and not the best thing to do but something you're forced to do?
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Plague injures you, true, but she doesn't have anything to deny loops. You're just injured, just like Legion's ability.
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Again, they were doing that because they were camping a pallet. If they weren't camping a pallet, it would've been a hilariously bad idea and nowhere close to real counterplay.
The part that matters is if they avoided the beam as they left. After all, they're not being scanned while camping a pallet, so that part's irrelevant. The core question is: Did they take the steps to counter the power when that power is actually threatening them?
The answer is no. They just ran in a straight line and didn't look like they were regarding the drone at all.
I'll mention it again, because it's an important comparison. Imagine the following: Everything about this scenario is the same - the same loop, the same stun, the exact same pathing and actions from the survivor after the stun - but the killer is Huntress. What happens?
Now do the same, but instead of replacing Merchant with Huntress, we make two changes: The killer is Trickster, and the survivor is one blade away from a health state. What happens?
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We can assume those tokens were built passively by stealth drones as well which is the most likely scenario. They were at the most unsafe pallet probably because they had no time to react (possibly due to eight seconds of undetectable) and stair loop shouldn't be dropped at five gens since it's like the equivalent of shack pallet. Nevertheless, they got the stun with the pallet so this is all irrelevant.
They couldn't do anything about the two lock on stacks, they didn't get pushed into a corner, and they didn't get knocked. Did you even watch the video?
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What. She has at max three pools of corrupt regardless of whether they cleanse or not.
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The counterplay to Merchant is camping pallets and pre-dropping, something I believe you stated yourself. If it was a Huntress, you would still have a chance to dodge the hatchet, likewise with the Trickster and his knives.
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I just cannot understand how there can even be one sane person who still has the will to defend this stuff.
Yet apparently there are also many.
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I don't remember saying that, I'm not sure what you're referring to? In any case, the counterplay to Skull Merchant is varied, but typically involves avoiding her drone's beams.
Speaking of which: Remember, we're changing nothing about this clip for the thought experiment. If the survivor does exactly what they do in this clip, what happens?
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Back on my discussion about Skull Merchant's counterplay like two-three months ago? Where you said her counterplay was like Clowns where you camp pallets and pre-drop, also stating that Clown is better than her or something.
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People defended Chess Merchant, this is light work for them.
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Oh, right, I do remember that now.
That's kind of a different argument- I brought that up to say that if you reach the worst case scenario, there's still stuff you can do. It's not her main counterplay, it's just an option you have if you're in the worst case scenario of being claw trapped and getting Hindered. I also did not say Clown is better, I said Clown's numbers are higher, because they are.
The argument was: If you can do it against Clown with higher numbers, you can do it against SM with lower numbers.
Her main counterplay would of course be avoiding that outcome for as long as possible, which is why this clip is silly to use as evidence against her. None of her counterplay was actually used here.
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So standing still whilst in chase and in the drone's range isn't counterplay now?
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