http://dbd.game/killswitch
Balancing Skull Merchant
Let me preface this by saying that I think Skull Merchant complaints are blown to extreme proportions. She is a very powerful killer with a somewhat low skill floor, but the amount of people her hate her most likely comes from her legacy design, which was the most unfun Era of DBD. She was reworked heavily to be more chase oriented and that solved a lot of her problems with holding Areas. She can certainly still hold Areas, but not to a degree as before.
It’s hard to make Skull Merchant a “skilled” killer, her fundamental design doesn’t invoke any real skill, kinda like Legion in a sense. The main Idea rather than nerfing her into the ground, it should more focus on buffing survivor counterplay, instead of relying on standing still and crouching, and punishing poor placement of drones.
Here are some small changes I have in mind to add this
Nerf: Amount of inputs needed to disable a drone reduced to 5 (from 6) {EDIT, IGNORE THIS FAULTY INFO IT WAS ALWAYS FIVE}
Nerf: Recalling a disabled Drone now puts your power on a significantly longer cool down (20 seconds)
Nerf: Disabling a Drone will give you 25% Haste for 3 seconds, and endurance for 6
Nerf: Disabling a Drone While you have A claw trap will automatically reduce the remaining timer by 30 seconds
Nerf: Skull Merchant no longer gains haste through Scans, or Claw Traps [as someone who has played dozens of hours on Skull Merchant, there is an unbelievable amount of times I get a down because some moron across the map decided to cross my drone and give me a speed boost]
Buff: Increase the hindered status effect to 15% from 10% [I don’t want to Gut skull merchant also, I just don’t think having both a haste and a hindered seems kinda overkill, I think buffing the hindered while getting rid of the haste, seems to be a fair trade off]
these are just some ideas as someone who plays skill merchant to make her seem more fair and inline with other killers.
[side note, I think the reason a lot of SM mains get so defensive about their main, is due to a fear of them being gutted. I do find fun playing skull merchant, but I can see how it can be unfun to go against, but no one character gets as much hate as SM so I think her mains get extra defensive of her]
Comments
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BVHR has already shown a nerfed version of skull merchant from PTB. They would mainly just change Drone rotation speed by -50% and making crouching lasers grant survivor a 5% haste bonus for 5 seconds. Also they might bring double cooldown back where you get a cooldown for placing drones and cooldown recalling. PTB skull merchant in a nutshell.
They don't need that many changes. they need like 2-3 changes and the killer is dead/useless.
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Holy ######### you're wanting to basically remove her from the game. Just remove the Hinder or injure from Claw Trap. That's literally all they have to do.
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hinder OR injury, honestly doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea, personally I perfer the injury over the hinder, but that seems like a good idea. I was just trying to address the issue of counterplay with skull merchant. There is a lot of counter play and yet everyone just kinda ignores it, and it makes skull merchant a killer that is hyper inflated in kills due to the amount of people that just straight up give up. It’s frustrating, and I was hoping this idea would alleviate that argument while still keeping skull merchant as is.
That seems a bit… too much. I honestly don’t know, maybe I have to see what it would look like live, but a power that consistently gives the SURVIVOR haste seems just bordering beneficial to the survivors more than the killer. I don’t want Skull Merchant to be dead or useless, I just want her at a level where she isnt the most complained about killer in the game. Give survivors a boosted old MFT, and slowing drones to meme add-on seems kinda a cruel punishment, maybe Divine intervention. I am kinda find with the cooldown honestly, but there other changes just seem too harsh1 -
your changes are about as bad BVHR PTB merchant. As Ohtofu stated, skull merchant is fine as is. if they do nerf skull merchant, i'd just play clown to be honest. Clown doesn't get nearly as much D/C as merchant.
I don’t want Skull Merchant to be dead or useless, I just want her at a level where she isnt the most complained about killer in the game.
I disagree based off changes and the survivor that d/c do not want her dead because they don't need to play against her.
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oof, fair point, I wrote those changes out of fear of an inevitable skull merchant nerf, despite the fact she isn’t really a “high tier” killer. I wanna try and produce better ideas, any advice?
Also, I really really hope those PTB changes are a joke, I reread them over and over again, and they are just gonna make Skull Merchant another Freddy, literal F tier killer. What do you mean you took away skull merchants Area lock down to give it a chase power only to take away the chase power, what.This isn’t directed at you BTW, it’s at those changes
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i mean those were her ptb version. i don't think they gave you m/s for crouching, instead they slowed your m/s when holding down radar which just made player not use radar. something like that.
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still, the laser changes are insane, cause that just kinda makes skull merchant… bad, like you can outrun the lasers. The cooldown is fine I guess. If I have to be honest, I am 100% doubtful half of those changes will make it to live, I think the cooldown one is a good enough change, it addresses the main issue of drone spam, so now you gonna place us smartly. Reducing the speed when checking radar just sounds flat out annoying. It’s not too bad in hindering chase, but it’s kinda funny to keep pulling out the phone. That’s a personal thing. Looking at my changes, I definitely need to workshop them. In my head I thought it would add just one extra layer of counter play to SM but I just ended up making it even more clunky than before. Again, I highly doubt those PTB changes will make it to live (I really hope they address how bad it is)
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is that it? Is that the reason why skull merchant is so widely hated? Low skill floor with good reward. I like designing things no matter how bad my ideas may be cause I hope to improve, but I honestly don’t know how to make skull merchant “skillful” I know I’m not the best balance designer as evidenced above, but I really can’t think of a way to raise the skill floor without effecting the power level
Also nice Xenomorph Sneak0 -
I actually think the undetectable is kinda weak, the 8 seconds allows you to get plays once or twice a match, it kinda seems like a strange memento of her old power giving undetectable. Doesn’t warrant any complaints. Taking away BOTH the injury and hinder kinda makes her a worse clown, after you get a Clawtrap you are just kinda immune to her? way too brutal of a change. The undetectable isn’t useful enough mid chase to warrant the removal of both, if they remove BOTH the injury and hindered, it would make Skull merchant an F tier killer. If that’s your goal then you aren’t speaking on terms of balance you are speaking on terms of vengeance and pettiness, which I assume you aren’t.
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Artist is up there with Billy for the highest skill cap in the game
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