Skull Merchant players, why are you even playing her?

I think a lot of people pick her because survivors give up against her.

Almost every time I see Skull Merchant it’s the same shtick of anonymous mode and playing in the most offensive way possible. Like obviously not every Skull Merchant is like that, but if you’re someone who is specifically out to ruin peoples’ games then who is more appealing than the one killer everyone already hates?

Her kit and addons make her a "build your own killer" which is obviously what they are going with when they designed her.

Look at her base power, what exactly does it do? A "little" bit of everything.

• She gets some undetectable
• She gets a little movement speed (3/5/6/7%)
• She gets a little tracking
• She gets a little anti-loop
• She gets a little area control

But, she's not really good at any of these things without addons when compared to killers that specialize in those things.

• Her stealth is weaker than stealth killers like pig, ghost face or wraith
• Her movement speed bonus is weaker than every other killer's power that makes them move fast (spirit, clown, blight, twins (victor) etc.)
• Her tracking is weaker than doctor, or plague, or legion.
• Her anti-loop is weaker than nemesis, PH, clown, etc.
• Her area control is weaker than trapper, hag etc.

Her undetectable is really short and can only move 36 meters during the duration (about a terror radius) which isn't really that far.

The movement speed increase is nice but generally you are only going to have 3-5%, and 3-5% isn't REALLY that significant in a chase or for map traversal. Especially without a "full anti-loop" power

Her tracking is decent, but she has to pull out her monitor to see it, which takes a little time, and it requires survivors to get a trap on them for the tracking to work, or be tracked by a drone. Most people also don't realize the tracking isn't perfect, it updates in intervals of 1 second and doesn't show a constant position. Meaning its hard to use in chase to track for mindgames.

Her anti-loop is ok, but even if the survivor completely ignores it, your "guaranteed hit" takes 9 seconds, and its heavily countered by "leave the loop". It also only injures like legions poer. She also slightly hinders survivors if they stick around too long, but the hinder is relatively weak, you are still safe around a solid pallet or window.

Her area control is ok as well, but easy to counter by crouching and disabling the drones making them completely useless and they can't defend generators.

Now take a look at all of her addons:

Brown:

• Skill checks smaller for claw trapped survivors
• Tracking duration increased
• Claw trapped survivors get blindness
• Reduces immunity for scan lines.

Yellow:

• Increase undetectable by 20%
• Make scanlines not move
• Skill checks quiet for claw trap
• Reduced disabled drones time
• Extend claw trap time

Green:

• Claw trapped get oblivious
• Aura revealed after claw trap removed
• Claw trapped get exhausted
• Claw trapped get sloppy
• Hindered increased by 3%

Purple:

• Aura of claw trapped survivors revealed
• Increased action speed after dropping a drone
• Increase speed of scan lines
• Increased duration of hinder

Iridescent:

• Increase haste effect but lower duration of traps
• Become undetectable when drones disabled

Now think about what all of these addons do. They aren't really THAT powerful, but they lean into one of those attributes about her.

• Do you like playing her more stealthy? Run the undetectable duration addon and you can get 95% uptime on undetectable, or the iri for extra undetectable times and confusion, or the oblivious addon. Combine that with something like monitor to make your terror radius smaller so that 5% difference is even smaller. Or better yet, with distressing to make it BIGGER and make it even more deceptive where you are coming from.
• Do you like her being able to move fast? Take the tracking duration timer (for longer haste), or the increased haste effect, or the action bonus speed when dropping a drone. Along with some haste perks like rapid brutality. So you can move even faster, and catch up in chase after breaking pallets or gens
• Do you like to have more tracking capabilities? Take the tracking duration time, or either aura reading addons along with something like lethal to increase their duration even more. So you can REALLY know where they are at all times
• Do you like anti-loop? Take the hinder duration/effect increases, take the scan line immunity duration so they get scanned quicker along with something like bamboozle to shut down loops entirely. So your drone in chase is a big threat they want to avoid.
• Do you like area control? Take the scan addons that make scanning better, take the the undetectable when drones disabled to discourage survivors breaking your drones, take the reduce disable time for the drones, along with hex perks that you can use that your drones can defend for you if you pay close attention. So your drones can defend areas without you being there.
• Do you like utility? Take the sloppy addon, or the exhaustion addon, to enable hit and run or counter exhaustion perks
• Do you want to go for anti skill check/gen defense? Go for the skill check addons and take skill check perks like overcharge allowing you to pressure survivors who are working on gens trying to land skill checks (throw in your undetectable and it can be really scary)

Or combine any of these effects together to create a strategy that you want to use.

All of the addons are effective at doing something and improving some aspect about her in a way that can fit your playstyle and perks. She can be played in many different ways very effectively. The only addon's i'd say are "weak" are the claw trap specific ones because they are more situational, but in the situations they work they are still quite powerful.

Basically, she's a "build your own killer" she can do a little bit of everything, and then you can build her in a specific area toward something that you like to do through your addons and perks meaning that even from game to game, you can play an entirely different playstyle with the same killer.

Personally speaking, i like to play her as a stealth killer or as an anti-loop/chase killer. When playing for stealth, i take the undetectable addons so i'm stealthy for a large portion of the time and sneak up on people, but the downside is i rarely have drones for a chase, meaning if i want to use them in a chase i have to recall drones, giving the survivor extra time in the chase.

When playing anti-loop, i take the scan immunity and the action speed. So if they just drop the pallet i can break it quick with that + brutal. But if they don't drop the pallet i can quickly injure and hinder them with the decreased scan immunity.

I personally argue that she is actually the best designed killer BHVR has ever made, because she has so many ways to play her. Yes, her release was rocky, especially with the 3 gen situation. But that was more with 3-genning and less with her. Her current iteration is much better, and people immediately leaving games is because they aren't willing to actually play against her and learn now that 3 genning isn't as effective.

"How do you feel about choosing her in the lobby knowing that a player will automatically give up?"

Why would anyone avoid doing something to make bad people happy? Because people that give up from start survivors or killers will destroy the game for everyone. You try to put the blame on the people that wants to play this game shame on you! People giving up early needs to be banned it's up to BHVR to do something about them.