Debunking Skull Merchant's Common Complaints
There are a lot of things people like to say about Skull Merchant, and maddeningly, quite a lot of what's said is factually wrong, and even some of the stuff that isn't can be kind of misleading or misrepresented. This post isn't necessarily geared towards convincing you to like Skull Merchant, or even to stop hating her, but rather to try and make it so the discourse surrounding her is at least honest.
Fat chance, I'm aware, but maybe I'll convince some people.
I'm going to list some of the common complaints I see about Skull Merchant, and tackle each one in turn to explain why I think they aren't helpful and should probably be, like, retired. And not used anymore. Please?
1: "She takes no skill" / "She has no skill expression"
We'll start off with a pretty easy one. There are generally two things happening behind this statement, and both of them are things worth addressing. The first is that most people generally tend to not acknowledge the skill expression her kit does have, and that's typically because they don't even know it exists, so we'll start with that.
The Skull Merchant's skill expression comes in a few areas. General drone placement is important, largely for hiding them as traps but also because the nature of how they work means improper placement within a loop can make them useless, depending on what the loop in question is. There's also what some refer to as "lasertagging", which involves timing and aiming your drone placement mid-chase just right so you can instantly tag someone with a stack of Lock On as soon as the drone initialises and the beams come online.
Manually rotating the beams is a skill-expressive element of her kit as well, albeit to a lesser extent. It's also worth mentioning that she's still fundamentally an M1 killer, and you need to know how to do default M1 chases to play her well.
None of this is to convince you that Skull Merchant is cool and awesome and you should enjoy playing her. It's just to remind you that the initial statement - "she has no skill expression" - is factually false. If you mean that you don't find her skill expression compelling, you should say that instead.
The second thing happening behind this complaint is something that we're going to tackle in the next header, but it's ignoring everything a killer is capable of because they have one kind of cheesy strat they can use. This happens with other killers too, and it's just as silly there as it is here - you might as well just talk about the thing you don't like, without trying to act like there's nothing else possible for the killer to do.
2: "All she does is drop a drone at a loop and force you to leave"
I actually debated putting this one on the list, because to be fair, this strategy is annoying. I'm mostly including it because it was relevant to the previous point, but there is one thing to say about it beyond just pointing out it's not all she does.
Mostly, it is worth mentioning that she's the least offensive of the three killers that can do this. Unlike Artist and Knight, this strategy doesn't work at every loop and doesn't require you to run away immediately even on the loops it does work on. Still, it is annoying, so I'm not necessarily defending it.
I've also seen some people say that running away from the loop means you get hit straight away, unlike Knight and Artist, but, uh. I don't see how that could be true, let alone how to argue against it. If she's close enough to hit you like that, she was hitting you either way, idk what that complaint is on about. Maybe I just don't understand the complaint properly?
3: "She's uninteractive" / "She has no counterplay"
These two get to be part of the same header because they're inherently linked. There is actually quite a bit of interaction when it comes to the Skull Merchant's kit, and that comes as a direct consequence of the counterplay that she does, in fact, have. Note again that this is not an attempt to convince you that you should be having fun playing against her.
So, how do you counter Skull Merchant? This isn't an in-depth guide on that particular topic, so I'll try and keep it a little more light, but there are generally two elements to SM's counterplay: In chase, and out of chase.
In chase, the way the drone's beams work is crucial to her counterplay, and the interaction that comes from it comes from positioning yourself so the beams are blocked as much of the time as possible, and crouching/standing still to avoid the beams when you would otherwise be scanned by them. Sometimes you'll see some people saying you can't do that in chase, but you obviously can, people duck and crouch in chase all the time. It really depends on the length of the loop and how far away the killer is, and you'll forgive me if I don't find the concept of a killer's counterplay being nuanced and having a skill curve to be particularly compelling evidence towards that killer being uninteractive.
Briefly, I want to also touch on the idea that sometimes, when you crouch to dodge a beam, you get hit with an M1 instead. Again, briefly: Yeah, that's countering her. Forcing a killer like Bubba to M1 you at windows is part of his counterplay, because taking an injury to deny a better effect from the killer's power is not all that uncommon in this game. It applies to them, it applies to Skull Merchant.
Then we move on to out of chase counterplay, which revolves around knowing which drones to hack and when to hack them. If it's hovering over a generator, you'd ignore it, but if it's in a loop you think might be high traffic in the foreseeable future, you'd go hack it and reap the rewards when a teammate is chased there and SM has to replace the drone instead of benefiting from it. A direct benefit, as a reward for interacting with her power, or… counterplay.
Again, none of this is to say it can't be improved or that you have to enjoy it. I'm debunking a specific complaint here.
4: "Her kit is bloated" / "She has too many status effects"
I'll come out straight and acknowledge something: This is the most subjective thing on the list, but I do feel strongly enough in my reasoning to still make a case against it.
So, the reason I think this particular complaint is really misleading is the fact that it misses a very crucial detail: Her kit doesn't do much else.
The only things her kit does that aren't related to a status effect are the tracking on her radar and the fact that she can push survivors into interacting with a map prop, everything else comes from a status effect. This is different to other killers (especially ones closer to her in how recently they were released), who may get a few status effects, but get some of the value in their kit from more baked-in mechanics as well. Take Wesker, for example: he and Skull Merchant do a comparable amount of things, after all. He and SM both have:
- A way of speeding themselves up
- A way of slowing the survivors down
- A way of injuring survivors
- A way of applying Deep Wound
- A way of tracking survivors
- A map prop survivors interact with as part of the counterplay
The only thing Merchant has basekit that Wesker doesn't is stealth, outside of that they do a similar number of things. The difference is that Wesker's comes from a mix of baked-in mechanics and status effects, and Merchant's is almost exclusively status effects.
Please don't reply to this to say you think Wesker is better designed, that's not the argument being made and you'd just be proving my point. If you're okay with that NUMBER of effects on Wesker, your problem with Merchant can't be the NUMBER of effects she has.
5: "She gets all her status effects just for pushing a button"
No she doesn't. She gets Undetectable for pushing a button, everything else comes from scanning survivors.
This is relevant because two very important things are true about the spread of Skull Merchant's effects. One, they're staggered, they don't all happen at once. Two, survivors being scanned is something that both sides are putting effort and skill into playing around; the killer wants it to happen, the survivor wants to avoid it.
This point mostly just loops back around to the arguments in the counterplay header, but it's a separate complaint so it gets its own header.
6: "She gets passive, unpredictable Haste"
The Skull Merchant's Haste effect is both not passive, and is very predictable. It only happens when someone is shown on her scanner, and it happens for twelve seconds after a single scan. This is information the survivor players do have access to, though I'll grant the duration is only something you'd know if you look it up.
(As an aside, I would very much like to see that duration conveyed to the survivors via their Lock On stack counter turning red while they're shown on the scanner, to address that.)
The only reason this effect would be passive is if someone's tripping drones outside of chase, which is almost always avoidable and the result of skilled placement when it isn't, which would make it not passive in the latter case. Being rewarded for survivor mistakes you can't rely on or force is not a passive effect.
7: "She's still the best at 3-genning" / "3-genning wasn't fixed"
This one doesn't pop up as much because I think most people kind of understand why it isn't true? But for the sake of completionism I might as well address it here as well.
The argument you see in favour of this complaint typically revolves around arguing that Merchant can set up her drones near generators, and survivors will get scanned when she comes to harass them away from that generator, building up towards a Claw Trap. The problem with this is… well, there are a few problems:
- This isn't actually guaranteed to happen. A survivor running away from a generator MIGHT get scanned on their way out, but they equally might not.
- This means Skull Merchant has to approach and leave the same generator three separate times before she even gets an injury, let alone a down. During this time, the other two generators are free to be repaired with no risk.
- Most importantly, other killers can make that initial approach, the time where Skull Merchant has to be content with a single scan, actually immediately threatening. They get objectively more reward for the same patrol pattern.
These things combined reveal that the situation being described is exactly why Merchant's 3-genning isn't still a problem. She is now at best on par with every other killer- which isn't to say that 3-genning isn't still useful, because it is, for every killer. She's just in a position where her power barely adds anything to the tactic anymore, let alone stall games out for fifty minutes like it used to.
8: "She has the best stealth in the game" / "Her stealth has no tell"
This is another slightly more subjective one, but I think one of the things people need to remember here is that her stealth is balanced with a short timer, not a tell. Every time someone lists a group of killers who have Undetectable but a tell, it's always the killers who have permanent stealth until some action is taken, whereas Skull Merchant's is on a timer.
…Also Dredge is on the list sometimes, but its stealth just sucks in general.
I'm not necessarily saying there's no argument to be had about whether or not that's a fair way of balancing stealth, but the fact that nobody is ever making that argument means the actual complaint made belongs on this list.
—As we close out the list here, I'm going to repeat an important caveat: This list is NOT evidence that there are absolutely no problems worth discussing with the Skull Merchant, nor is it meant to convince you that you should love and adore her. Keep hating her all you want, the point of this list is to at least try and make the discourse surrounding this killer more rooted in the actual, observable power she actually has in the actual game, rather than the misconceptions constantly passed around.In fact, as a show of good faith, I'm going to acknowledge a flaw I think this killer does actually have: I think the amount to which her drones can overlap is honestly a big problem, especially on indoor maps. That's a legitimate problem I'd like to see fixed, but to loop back to the point of this list… how often does that come up? Sometimes, but it's not one of the big and most common complaints, right?We can criticise and provide feedback for a killer while still being honest and fair about them, and that's what I'm trying to achieve here.
Comments
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No one reading all that if it pertains to Skull Merchant 🤣
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I felt it was worth putting out there all the same. Who knows, maybe it'll get through to a few people!
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While I appreciate the effort of the write up and for the most part agree, I don't think anyone who hates Skull Merchant is actually going to care because they made up their mind long ago and nothing is going to change it.
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Instead all these words, I really wish to watch someone to be chased by her more than 60 seconds to understand all your pro-arguments… Unfortunately, it is not happens often…
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i will not read, but, congrats for your text and, i still give up against SM.
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So long as you stop using these specific arguments to justify giving up, I'll consider it a win.
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I own but haven’t used her yet. Reading has inspired me to take the plunge. Thank you :)
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I have played her and i will die on this hill when i say.. She's not hard to play. She has very easy skill expression. Comparing her to my mains huntress and spirit she doesnt require much brain power.
Putting up drones to places where they are annoying isn't that hard. Nothing changed for me. I still don't and i never will like her.
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The skill expression being easier than other killers doesn't disprove that skill expression existing. It's still very possible to play her badly and lose as a result.
And, again, nothing in this post is supposed to change your mind on whether or not you like her. That's irrelevant.
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Good luck! She may not end up being for you, but there are a fair few fun elements to her, in my opinion.
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SM is just the Killer equivalent of holding W and pre-dropping on old Cowshed.
There's technically skill expression, sure, but it's not exactly something I'd brag over.
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How so?
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The community has for the most part completely rejected her, and even the passage of time hasn't really helped much. I appreciate you trying to be rational here, but you're going up against an entirely irrational feeling. Good luck with that.
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They explained it, it technically requires some skill but its such a minimal amount you should not be proud of.
Its like beating a toddler at chess, you technically have to know how the game is played and have some skill to win, but its so laughable easy.
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Oh, they edited it after I responded, I see.
Nope. Skull Merchant's skill expression can't be waved away, it's just there and it's not substantially less than a lot of other killers. If you don't find it compelling, that's perfectly fine, but it can't be dismissed for the sake of convenience in argument.
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Despite the fact I absolutely DESPISE Skull Merchant, I did give this a read and it does shed light on a little things; but it doesn't change the fact that her kit, or her power in general NEEDS to be reworked.
Comparing her to wesker is unironically unfair because for wesker to know your location, he needs add-ons; which is an unlikely circumstance in comparison to SM who gets it borderline for free.
Wesker's basekit and SM basekit aren't even remotely similar, and yes, she does get an unpredictable, (Almost) uncounterable haste. It is OBJECTIVELY bad if people have to go out of their way to LOOK UP her kit to figure out why she suddenly sped-up mid-chase.
No one is going to know this unless they play Skull Merchant, and in the survivor's case, literally never. They need to make it VERY transparent that she does get a haste status effect to the community. (Possibly during the game, but some sort of transparency when reading about her power that makes it clear that she can gain the haste effect due to reasoning XYZ.)
Addressing that last statement of her stealth mode having no indicator is true. Unless you're running Premo/Spine Chill, you'll never know she's coming unless you get lucky and her undetectable status runs out before she gets to you.
Speaking in PERSONAL experience, there have been COUNTLESS times when a skullie has snuck up on me. You'd think I'd be able to hear something of her approach (Audio is a big part of DBD, It's often how I identify killers, I switch between the Hud and Audio Cues. Even Stealth killers like Ghostie and Myers can be heard.) But she's COMPLETELY silent, it's unwarranted.
I would note stealth killers that have an obvious indication that they're in their undetectable status, but the only ones that i can think of where you CAN'T do anything to force them out of their power is
SM Myers (Or Myers in general, we can't really do much about forcing Myers to change stalking tiers TBH, that's on the killers end of things; so that's technically NOT in survivors' control.)
Onyro
Chucky ( Sort of Subjective because Chucky tends to giggle a lot, but I haven't ever heard him giggle before he spawns out of the depths of darkness.)
(Wrath and Ghostie are pretty obvious, cause we — as in survivors —can actually do something to get them to be detectable. )
Every other argument you stated seemingly has merit and reason to it, but I doubt it'll change the minds of those who despise Skull Merchant, playing her or facing off against her. (Reasonably so, Mine included but respect for getting this out there.)6 -
not it cant be dismissed, she does have some skill expression, however if you compare her to any killer that has mechanical skill expression, even only a little bit. She falls off, truth is while skull merchant haters love to sell the fact that she takes no skill, skull merchant defenders incredibly exagerate how much skill expression she has. Just getting one unknown bounce down takes about 1000 times more skill SM will ever take.
And thats why people tend to call her no skill, because the skill she does require its so easy to obtain you don't even take it into account.
TLDR she has skill its just that every killer has that level of skill to them at the very minimum.
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As a quick correction, Wesker DOES have tracking in his basekit. Survivors who use the First Aid Spray give off Killer Instinct for him to follow. It's obviously not used in the same way, because the actual way the powers play isn't relevant to the comparison, but it is part of his basekit.
The point of comparison is how many separate things their power does, and in that regard, he and Merchant are very similar. There's only one extra thing that Merchant does, basekit, which Wesker doesn't have an analogue for, and I don't think a single effect makes that much of a difference when it comes to a kit being bloated.
Speaking to the Haste, again, it's not unpredictable. It only happens when someone is scanned, and it happens for a predictable amount of time, not counting addons. You ARE shown when someone gets a stack, so knowing that Haste was just triggered is a thing, but I will repeat that I do think the duration should be shown to you mid-match. I'll also agree this game could do with more in-depth power descriptions without needing to go to a wiki, that would be useful in general.
Finally, I think you missed the point of the Undetectable thing, so to clarify: I know she doesn't have a tell. I'm saying that the people who say this is bad, and point out that every other killer with Undetectable has an audio tell, always miss that Merchant's Undetectable is balanced with a DIFFERENT downside. All those killers - minus Chucky, to be fair - have stealth that isn't timed, it lasts for as long as they want it to last or until the survivor breaks them out of it. Merchant, by contrast, has her stealth balanced via it only lasting eight seconds.
I'm not saying there isn't a discussion there, I'm saying the discussion needs to start from the question "is a short timer a potent enough downside to balance her", NOT the statement "she's unbalanced because she doesn't have an audio tell".
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You're putting your thumb on the scale there by specifying MECHANICAL skill expression, though. Sure, she and a few other killers have much less of that - although not none, "lasertagging" is legitimately quite hard - but that's not what they're geared around so it doesn't matter as much.
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After pixelbush did his guide I played some SM as lasertagging was quite interesting to me, it took me two matches to learn how to do it consistently.
Yes me being a slinger player might have affected that learning curve but if lasertagging is one of her biggest skill plays, you can learn it in about two trials.
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It's the big mechanical skill expression, but there are other kinds of skill expression. Everything else, from drone placement to macro play juggling to solid fundamentals to maximising stealth, is still skill expression.
It's not a pedantic difference. Playing Skull Merchant without those elements is going to go poorly for you the second you play against survivors that are actually trying.
I'm aware I'm also putting my thumb on the scales with that specific caveat, but I think it's also fair to discount games where your opponent just gives up or has no clue what they're doing when evaluating how much skill a killer requires, y'know.
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Very solid article, and as someone who is similarly invested in squashing the misinformation and the subjective arguments presented as objective fact around Skull Merchant, I see very solid reasoning in every point made here.
I have pondered on SM for a long time, and read many suggestions and discussions from people trying to improve her experience, and I do feel there are improvements that can be made to her kit. At this point it'd be near impossible to save her reputation, but she is objectively not far off a decent place, and her being objectively fine would be good enough for me.
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Appreciate the kind words!
There are definitely a few things that could be improved, but I'd argue nothing super transformative. A few small nerfs, some moderate QoL issues, maybe one or two things buffed to offset the nerfs, and she'd be totally fine. The only thing that can save her reputation, if anything, is just time for the fire to die down, but in the meantime a few small adjustments can help those who pay more attention.
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Absolutely agree. I feel like @VomitMommy pretty much nailed it myself. My list of changes mostly come from their rework:
- Nerf: Survivor HUD marked red when a survivor is scanned and on her radar to help survivors track her speed boosts easier.
- Nerf: Broken removed to encourage attempts from survivors to heal. This creates more macro decision making for SM to switch chase to a scanned survivor while they are still injured. Also allows survivors to decide to deliberately eat a scan to remove their stacks while SM is occupied to try and mend/heal.
- Nerf: Slow on clawtrap scan reduced to 5% hindered (was 10%) to reduce its obnoxiousness but still cause slow vaults.
- Buff: Speed standardised. While any survivor is scanned SM gains 3% bonus movement speed. While any survivor is claw trapped SM instead gains 6% movement speed.
- Nerf: Drones that are disabled cannot be recalled.
- Buff: Auras of disabled drones marked in red.
- Buff: Drones recovery reduced to 35s.
This provides a number of counterplay options to survivors, makes it much more clear what is happening, but largely leaves her lethality intact. Her speed boost from claw traps makes her more deadly to face at loops, but at least is predictable, and the much less harsh hinder effect means there is still an undeniable skill element to Skull Merchant, she can't just unga bunga you down with scans until she gets a free hit.
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imo you won't ever save her reputation.
i mean this in good faith, I'm sure you've done your homework and that what you've got to say about her gameplay makes sense but that will never change the fact that I despise this character and would be much happier if she was removed from the game entirely.
To me personally, Skull Merchant represents everything wrong with modern killer design. It's not that she's too strong, it's not that she's OP, overtuned - however you want to put it. The simple gist of it is, she is FRUSTRATING to play against and sucks the enjoyment out of the matches she's apart of for the majority of people. This is why she's the killer people just straight up give up while playing against (I don't endorse this, for the record it's lame behaviour).
She isn't the only killer this applies to but she is one of the most egregious, along with killers like Twins and Knight. Couple that with a lame base design that BHVR has to heavily compensate with new cosmetics, a backstory that feels more like a first draft than a finished product.
This last point is extremely petty but she also ruined shelter woods.
I'm glad some people can get enjoyment from this character, but for me - I'd be much happier without and no amount of "debunking" will really change that.
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That's nice?
This post isn't trying to do anything to change your opinion, I said so like five times. As long as you don't use any of the quoted arguments above to justify your hate, and as long as whatever arguments you do use aren't factually wrong, I don't really have an issue. We're going to disagree, but that's fine.
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If you wanna fix SMs reputation, you should probably try convincing people that playing against her is fun and worth their time instead of trying to 'objectively' prove xyz.
Most people who complain about her don't really care what argument they use, they just know they hate her. That's what it seems like to me.
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The skill expression being easier than other killers doesn't disprove that skill expression
existing.
I feel like this is a very weak defense, though?
We could have a killer that goes through walls at light speed and instantly sacrifices survivors on touch and you could still argue there's some semblance of skill expression in its kit by needing to know where survivors are and being able to quickly analyze at a glance what you're seeing at such a high speed so you can distinguish players from props in that quick blur of speed. It doesn't change the fact that there's not enough nuance when you can just ping-pong your character from map edge to map edge in hopes that you get a free kill.
Hardly ever you'd see something with literal 0 skill expression. That doesn't change the fact that Skull Merchant's kit does a lot of the heavy lifting for her.
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I'm not trying to fix her reputation. I'm trying to answer a lot of common misconceptions about her so that, if people do want to keep talking about her negatively, they're at least referring to things that are accurate.
I know a lot of people who hate her are irrational and won't listen to reason no matter what, but I'd like to have faith that it's not everybody, and I can reach some people at least.
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It definitely is.
You might say there's a big amount of skill expression, but there isn't.
Placing a drone at a loop and getting value either way is not expression. You may say, "But what about my lasertagging"
That's honestly like saying, "What about Billy parkour". Kinda interesting? Sure. Useful? Not really. Its also not really hard to do at all. It's like a window tech, not hard to do but usually not useful. You'll get the same amount of value from just plopping a drone down in a loop and forcing people to either leave or get hit.
Honestly, it would be better for SM's rep if people just let the hate die down instead of trying to fan the fires. And if it never dies down, maybe there's a problem with the Killer.
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That's not the argument being made, though. The argument being made quite often is that she has no skill expression.
People do try to walk it back by claiming that TECHNICALLY it exists, but that her kit still plays on autopilot and you don't have to perform or showcase any skill to win, as you're doing here, but that's also not true on top of being a different argument.
What exactly would you do with Skull Merchant, against survivors that are actually trying, to autopilot a free kill? Throw down drones and zone survivors away from loops? That's basically the only thing she has that skips any skill expression, and it's not as though that's a particularly strong strategy on any of the three killers that can do it. It's a problem because it's dull, not because it's too strong or gives free results.
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This is not a bad breakdown of her.
Me, personally, I will still argue she doesn't need both haste and hindered at the same time. My reasoning versus your Wesker argument is the hindered is applied if a survivor is max infected, where as skull merchants is just 3 tags from the drones AND she gets the haste at the same time. Wesker can move fast, but in smaller doses, where Skull Merchant's haste is active as long as each survivor is tagged. Which, to be fair, shouldn't be too much if survivors are careful with the drones. I guess between SM and Wesker, Wesker's mechanics feel more fairly implemented, which is important to distinct.
I also say this as someone who enjoys playing SM myself as a stealth killer.
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Well, for starters, talking about things like lasertagging isn't like talking about Billy parkour. It's much more like responding to people saying Artist doesn't have any skill expression by pointing out things like snipes across the map, or using her power for tracking, or actually aiming through walls without zoning people away from loops.
As in, it's completely true and invalidates the claim that she doesn't have any skill expression, even if the problem of "throw thing down, survivors run away" being boring does still exist.
You don't get the same value from playing her properly and from zoning survivors away with drones. You get substantially more from playing her properly. Dropping drones at every loop is just a lot easier.
Finally, I've said multiple times I'm not trying to improve her rep or change people's minds. I just want the discourse about her to be honest and accurate, which I don't think is unreasonable.
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I believe those statements are called hyperbole. They are trying to make a point, which is that the skill to value ratio is extremely skewed on SM. She takes very little skill, whilst simultaneously taking away most Survivor skill, while generating a lot of value. Hope that clears it up.
Oh, you'll down them eventually. She's got old Legion syndrome in that. She might lose, but there's literally nothing you can do about her getting free downs.
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Still worth calling out, because she does in fact take skill, doesn't take away survivor skill, and doesn't really give much value out of her cheaper strategies against semi-competent survivors. It being hyperbole doesn't make it less wrong, either literally in terms of what's said, or in terms of what's meant.
Is it a ton of skill? Eh. It's a low skill floor, but not much lower than the average killer. A low skill floor isn't an inherently bad thing as long as the killer still has skill expression and counterplay, which Merchant does.
You'll down someone eventually with just bloodlust, there needs to be more than that before old Legion can be invoked. Not to necessarily defend the Artist-Knight-Merchant thing of zoning survivors away, it is kind of boring, but it's not that bad.
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A lot of the hate for SM stems from her original kit upon her release rather than her rework which puts more emphasis on chases rather than defending generators.
People just don't want to change their opinions.
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I think the complaints about her being a 3 gen killer at the moment is weird. I haven’t seen them do it in a long time so I agree there. I still hate her tho
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I agree with some of this but also disagree with some of this as well.
We'll start off with a pretty easy one. There are generally two things
happening behind this statement, and both of them are things worth
addressing. The first is that most people generally tend to not
acknowledge the skill expression her kit does have, and that's typically because they don't even know it exists, so we'll start with that.Id just like to say, I kind of agree… but at the same time I disagree.
Skull Merchant does take at least some skill, the issue is that the skill ceiling is way lower compared to other Killers while also more rewarding. This aspect I do not mind but it leaves this weird area in balance where I feel like other Killers could be buffed to appropriate reward for the skill required to play them.
This one doesn't pop up as much because I think most people kind of
understand why it isn't true? But for the sake of completionism I might
as well address it here as well.The argument you see in favour of
this complaint typically revolves around arguing that Merchant can set
up her drones near generators, and survivors will get scanned when she
comes to harass them away from that generator, building up towards a
Claw Trap. The problem with this is… well, there are a few problemsSkull Merchant is not as good at holding a 3-gen as before, but she is still undoubtedly strong at holding it since the zones she creates forces Survivors to either: A, sneak around the drones and avoid scans, thus wasting time for the Generators to regress, or B, disable the drones wasting more time. It leaves Survivors in an awkward position where the only counterplay to the drones is to waste more time.
Knight is definitely in a better position for holding 3-gens than Skull Merchant in my opinion, but outright denying it as if it still isnt an issue is definitely not the play to make in my opinion.
The only things her kit does that aren't related to a status effect
are the tracking on her radar and the fact that she can push survivors
into interacting with a map prop, everything else comes from a
status effect. This is different to other killers (especially ones
closer to her in how recently they were released), who may get a few
status effects, but get some of the value in their kit from more
baked-in mechanics as well. Take Wesker, for example: he and Skull
Merchant do a comparable amount of things, after all. He and SM both
have:~ A way of speeding themselves up
~ A way of slowing the survivors down
~ A way of injuring survivors
~ A way of applying Deep Wound
~ A way of tracking survivors
~ A map prop survivors interact with as part of the counterplay
When you ignore nuance than yes, they are the same, but the two are very much different from one another.
- Wesker's way of "speeding themselves up" does now allow for multi-directional movement, you are given a lot of restrictions for your burst of speed, and a cooldown for using it.
- Wesker's way of "slowing Survivors down" is through infection, which requires more skill to land due to the restrictions of Wesker's power. Also Wesker's Hindered effect is now at 4% Hindered. Skull Merchant's Hindered is at 10% Hindered.
- "A way of injuring Survivors" is just an outright pointless point to make, all Killers have this, and yet again, it is ignoring nuance.
- Wesker's way of "applying Deep Wounds" requires him to slam a Survivor into another Survivor, which is not only difficult but heavily relies on the Survivor messing up horribly. For reference, it took me several months to get the Crash Course achievement since slamming a Survivor into another Survivor is really rare.
This entire point you made is a bit dumb in my opinion. Anyone can make a similar set of comparisons by ignoring nuance. Here, let me show you:
"Freddy's power is the same as Trapper's power"
- They both have ways of injuring Survivors.
- They both have ways of downing Survivors.
- They both place a form of trap.
- Their powers create notifications for the Killer when disabled.
- Their powers create an audio cue when ran into or disabled.
Now do you see how dumb it is? Do you see how nuance is ignored here?
There are a lot of things people like to say about Skull Merchant, and
maddeningly, quite a lot of what's said is factually wrong, and even
some of the stuff that isn't can be kind of misleading or
misrepresented. This post isn't necessarily geared towards convincing
you to like Skull Merchant, or even to stop hating her, but rather to
try and make it so the discourse surrounding her is at least honest.Listen, I understand it can be frustrating. And while I do have aspects of Skull Merchant that I dont like (e.g. the illusion of choice with her power… also dw, I have this issue with a few other Killers as well), I do think she gets over-hated due to people not really understanding how her power works.
This being said, I do think there are better ways of addressing it. A lot of points made just feel like "well if X has this, why cant Y have this?" instead of actually addressing what the counterplay or play would be.
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To address the Wesker point- it is a response to the argument that Merchant's kit is bloated specifically and cannot be taken out of that context. The point of making that comparison isn't that the two killers work similarly, it's that they do a similar NUMBER of things, but people don't call the other kit bloated.
I picked Wesker because they happened to share a surprising number of superficial similarities, making the comparison easier. My entire point in bringing it up is that people say Merchant's kit is bloated but typically, if pressed, what they mean is that they don't like how her kit uses its tools.
This is why I said not to try and argue that Wesker is better designed. The fact that you are making this argument proves that the problem isn't the NUMBER of effects Skull Merchant gets. That's the point being made.
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To address the Wesker point- it is a response to the argument that
Merchant's kit is bloated specifically and cannot be taken out of that
context. The point of making that comparison isn't that the two killers
work similarly, it's that they do a similar NUMBER of things, but people
don't call the other kit bloated.To answer this as bluntly as possible, part of the reason is because of how much you interact with an aspect of that Killer's power.
With my "Wesker can apply Deep Wounds" counterpoint, being put in Deep Wounds rarely happens against Wesker, as I mentioned it took me several months to get the Crash Course achievement, and in a public match, I still have yet been put in Deep Wounds against Wesker.
Meanwhile, you compare this to Skull Merchant, and it feels like at least once every match I am forced to engage in mending from Deep Wounds, and for other (less experienced) players, they are forced to engage with that aspect of her power even more.
This is why I said not to try and argue that Wesker is better designed.
The fact that you are making this argument proves that the problem isn't
the NUMBER of effects Skull Merchant gets. That's the point being made.I mean your post also just ignores the fact that Skull Merchant can just do more?
- Wesker has a 40-meter Terror Radius, Skull Merchant as a 32-meter Terror Radius, which is a massive difference between the two, making it harder for the Wesker to sneak up on Survivors.
- Skull Merchant can also apply the Broken status effect, which Wesker cannot do basekit.
- Skull Merchant can also become Undetectable, which Wesker cannot do basekit.
I just wanted to address that real quick.
But this is where I do kind of agree with you, it's not a matter of the amount of effects in total but how often people are forced to engage with those effects. In Skull Merchant's case, she gets some buffs and the Survivor gets a lot of debuffs all at once, so you are not only forced to engage with it but the amount is inherently abundant when you are forced to engage with it.
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I'm not sure what the point of your overall reply is here, if you agree that it isn't the number of effects?
Like, I don't mean to be rude, but you're repeating my point back to me. The problem isn't, and can't be, HOW MANY effects she has. The problem must, for the people who say this, be HOW those effects are used. That's the entire argument being made in the section you're responding to, I'm not ignoring anything or removing any nuance. I'm making that argument.
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My point is that I both agree and disagree; Sorry for my wording, Im just having a hard time trying to explain this.
It's not solely because the Skull Merchant has a large amount of effects, nor is it the fact that players are forced to engage with some effects; it is the the fact that players are forced to engage with a large amount of effects. To put it as bluntly as possible, it's not solely either aspect, it is both aspects put together that people have an issue with.
Think about it like this:
- Take a Killer like Plague for example, you are forced to deal with the Broken status effect and the option between cleansing or not cleansing to provide her power. Being forced to engage with the Broken status effect is not an issue, since it's only a small thing to deal with.
- Likewise, with what you mentioned, Wesker has a lot in his kit, but players are not forced to engage with aspects of his kit constantly. Im not constantly forced to engage in mending from Deep Wounds, and I am given a lot of agency as to rather I want to engage in certain aspects of his power (e.g. the option to cleanse or forego infection; which after the change from 8% to 4% Hindered, is something you can actively consider now).
Skull Merchant has both, a power you are forced to engage with AND a lot of effects, not just solely one thing. It's not one moving part, but multiple moving parts coming together to form something that people do not like.
So, where I agree with you is "it is not how many effects", since on it's own, you are right. But where I disagree is ignoring that it is at least part of the issue.
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So, it should be acknowledged: This is still a different argument to the one I was responding to initially, which is the point of my putting it in the list to begin with. When that particular complaint is based on anything that isn't thoughtless surface-level irritation, the problem people actually have isn't the thing they say.
But, to address that argument too, I alllmmooost agree? I mostly don't agree because, frankly, most of what she does is necessary for how her power functions, and I mean that from the perspective of playing against her, too. She needs the Haste, the Hindered, and the injury at bare minimum in order for dodging drone beams to be something survivors are pushed into doing.
The only real exception to her power just, being a pretty straightforward "dodge this or you get hit with predictable status effects", would be the Deep Wound, which I think is kind of an annoyance that doesn't need to be there. The stuff you're actually forced to deal with otherwise is just… Undetectable. One status effect you're actually forced to deal with is not a large number. Everything else you're thinking about is the penalty for failing to counter her, not something you're forced to deal with no matter what.
Which, isn't that how powers are generally supposed to work? You take the action to counter it, and avoid the effects that it has? You don't usually have a choice in whether or not to engage with the effects, you just have the opportunity to avoid them to begin with.
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This is still a different argument to the one I was responding to initially
Pardon me for that, Ive kind of been flip flopping around but it's moreso that I just have multiple issues with the post, it's not just one specific thing.
- The original comparison between Wesker and Skull Merchant was kind of bad in my opinion, since Skull Merchant just has more going on in terms of bloat, which I felt was originally left out, it was also just ignoring the conditions at which such effects happen.
- But also I wanted to address other aspects of your argument, I did this through follow up replies instead of editing the original post to include these arguments. This is my mistake and I apologize for any confusion it might have caused.
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a lot of player discount M1 killer gameplay as "Not skill". Somehow, they liked compare this to repairing generators or something as survivor. M1 killer gameplay is very intricate in dbd. It is why a lot of player that are of the higher rank MMR don't really play M1 killers because of how intricate it is and how fragile making few mistakes makes you lose. At face value, it doesn't take genius to look at complaints and see how weak most of arguments are. it is pointless to address them.
the power only adds to her kit. The power doesn't do anything if you don't use tools correctly. Most killer powers do the heavy lifting…… when used correctly. Spirit's power grants large boost of speed but what matters is how you use the burst of speed to gain advantage. an incorrect use of burst of speed will not be effective if not used correctly.
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Merchant is honestly one of the most boring killers in the game. She needs to be reworked entirely. Drones should have patrol paths and when survivors are detected by them that drones will chase the survivors and injure them. 2-3 drones max, decent cooldown on them, can be destroyed by pallets but at the cost of the pallet being destroyed instantly.
She looks bad ass imo but very boring to play as and against. I can’t even make a video on her because she is such a snooze fest.
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Someday, when SM will gain a cult following and a fonder, more forgiving reputation, you shall be seen and sought out as the sage who told everyone!
On a serious note, I DID read all of it and I agreed with most things (insomuch as a survivor main who has never played killer can!). Great write up!
(っ'-' )╮ =͟͟͞͞ 💀✨2 -
Theres a lot to unpack here
- The skill expression might exist but its not really that much compared to other killers and the gap between an ok skill merchant play and a great one isn't visible enough to appreciate, most skull merchants can just slap down a drone at every loop and call it a day specific min max placement and rotation is a neat idea but I go entire matches without seeing anything special against most of them, ive probably not even seen a single drone rotate the opposite direction since they have added it or even felt the need to use it myself.
- The drop drone playstyle is easy and frequent and because the stacks can only go up and not down until you either get hooked or get broken its not that fun to skip out of a loop after being tagged
- Her counterplay is niche at best and just gets countered by the strategy from point 2, if you hack a drone and go to that loop you likely get ~1 loop out of it which is the same that you would get out of a loop without a drone in it yet so its a waste of time and 2 less than any other m1 killer which is just always going to feel bad hacked drone or not go to a loop if its too hard to loop place a drone. Stacks have no counterplay other than lul just injure yourself they are near permanent, replacing a drone isn't much of a downside she doesn't get slowed while recalling, she doesn't get slowed while placing, the 10s cooldown is only important if all the drones happen to be hacked in one area where you can chain them together and only then that just buys you 10s for every drone that was hacked after the first, and each of those 10s the "counterplay" bought likely cost close to the same amount of time to find and hack all of them in the first place, and you only benefit IF you chase there or they might recall anyway when they see them hacked across the map and then its fruitless
- The problem with comparing the number of effects is the limitations between them, weskers speed comes at the cost of a cooldown while skull merchants can technically be constant, his power comes at the cost of a turn rate limiting what loops he can use it around while base movement speed its universal for any loop, ect its not really a fair comparison but basically souping up basekit numbers on an m1 killer is more universal than an m2 killer with a hit or miss power that may or may not be usable at a loop.
- She gets her best one for the start of the match at the push of a button, and while the other ones are not exactly at the push of a button they aren't much harder than that since it basically is up to the survivor to decide if she gets them or they leave the loop vsing the most common playstyle, niche out of chase speed and tracking is an ok thing but most of the time when she ends up getting the status effects it was close to the push of a button and not a complicated setup of carefully managed traps
- This one is actually fine, this is something survivors can pay attention to and take note of and is a silly complaint that is a punishment for lack of due diligence
- As the play area decreases skull merchants power is comparatively better than most other killers compared to something like clown having half the map for the same amount of drones means she gets a lot more powerful if drones cover ~10% of the maps play area halving the size of the play area means drones cover ~20% of the remaining space her power just becomes stronger in small tight nit areas with no real setup penalty against most teams she can easily pick one from the start of the match and make it a hassle which is usually too much for my poor solo queue teammates it doesn't create the most fun or fair matches
Ah the stealth with no tell, yes this is one of my favorites many a time I have made this argument and maybe a discussion or two about it so lets start by going down the comparison list, this one breaks away from the normal list for better formatting
Again almost all killers with any stealth mechanic in their basekit niche or not has a couple tells or drawbacks to it to balance it out
Wraith - Has to uncloak and has loud uncloaking sounds and gnashing sounds while cloaked
Myers - Has to stay slow to be stealthy has some breathing sounds still even with the drawback of being 105% speed for more of a tell
Freddy - Lullaby on oblivious survivors removing TR depth but still letting survivors know when you are within 32m, not always active and takes a decent amount of time to earn passively or has to be actively earned
Pig - Has to either ambush or uncrouch giving a bit of reaction time and moves slower while stealthed
Ghostface - Cooldown based and decently loud whooshing sounds
Demo - Global sound and big stomps so that undetectable is mostly just for show after portal travel
Onion - Lullaby while cloaked, and has to uncloak to hit
Dredge - whooooooooooooooooooooooooshing, and has to earn it a bit
Chucky - (This one is the closest to skull merchant so pay attension) Timer based stealth, global footstep effect, laughing, cooldown that isn't active while in stealth, oh yeah and a 110 killer
Compared to skull merchant, timer based stealth, easily reachable 80% uptime without addons due to cooling down while active her uptime isn't able to reach 100% anymore which is good but 96% with addons is still pretty strong I don't even know how fast a TR fades back out or back in but it might not even reach back to her full 32m at that speed
Her only "downside" to her stealth being "timer based" its a marginal point at best since even the other killer with a timer based cooldown has 4 countermeasures to make his stealth weaker and more spread out that skull merchants and have to actively rely on it, 8s or 9.6s is enough to get most things done, it takes 7s to reach a gen that is 32m away you can very easily gauge the distance and have perfect stealth all the way over to it with any amount of los blocking
she isn't slowed, she doesn't have footsteps, she doesn't have a passive area sound (including breathing), she doesn't have a lullaby, she doesn't have to exit her stealth before interacting with survivors, she doesn't have an activation time to enter stealth, her cooldown is active while she is in stealth, and she doesn't have to build it up as a passive / global power. Its not even a comparison at that point her stealth is just silly and should get a counter balance or two
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Alright, let's crack into these!
1: So, this one is both not true and kind of irrelevant to the point being made. This post is a series of responses to common complaints, and the common complaint is that she doesn't have any skill expression. Not even that she doesn't need skill to win, that her kit doesn't have skill expression in it to even use if you wanted to.
I'd maybe buy that as hyperbole if so many people didn't double and triple down on it when pressed, so responding to the actual thing said is fairly important.
As for her having drastically less skill expression, or the whole "an okay skull merchant play and a great one has too small a difference to appreciate" thing, that's a little subjective, but I'd argue it's definitely not true. An okay Merchant play would be a basic trap or just trying to zone, and a skilled one would be hidden traps, perfect rotations, lasertagging, sniping through tiny gaps in the terrain… you'd immediately be able to tell the difference if you were paying attention and engaging in good faith. She's a killer with a low skill floor, but that isn't inherently a problem as long as her kit has skill expression and counterplay, which hers does.
2: Not sure what the point of this one is, I already acknowledged that dropping drones at loops is boring.
3: I laid out some of her counterplay in the post, and you'll notice not all of it revolved around hacking drones.
4: You're making my point back to me here. Remember again that this is a series of responses. If people want to have a conversation about the implementation of Skull Merchant's power effects, and they're starting from the position of acknowledging that the number isn't the problem, that'd be something- but they don't want to have that conversation. That's not the argument being made. People say her kit has too many effects, so I'm pointing out that it doesn't have more than other powers, comparatively. If they have a problem, and they don't also have that problem with a killer like Wesker, the problem can't be how many effects she has.
5: She still doesn't get her effects for the push of a button. Even if we're only looking at her dropping drones at a loop to force survivors into running away, and we're ignoring everything else, she still only gets Undetectable because the survivors are running away and denying the rest of them in most cases. If she wants to reliably get use out of all of her status effects, she has to put in a lot more effort than just pressing a button.
6: We agree on this one, so moving on.
7: This seems to hinge on her drones being AOEs that prevent traversal entirely, which, they're not. They're small rotating hazards that can be easily avoided when the killer isn't there to force you into moving at inopportune times. Skull Merchant gets less from patrolling a 3-gen than other killers when it comes to how her power interacts with it, that's just a fact.
8: Finally, we have the stealth. It seems like you're not quite acknowledging the point, which is that you can't JUST say she doesn't have an audio tell and act like that's proof her stealth is broken. This is one of the points that I wish people would have an honest conversation about, because I think there's a lot of room to discuss how fair her stealth is, overall. People don't do that, though, they just say she doesn't have an audio tell and act like that's all that needs to be said.
There's only one other killer with timed stealth, as you point out - so clearly stealth is typically not timed - and I don't think it's unfair to say he gets those other tells too because he's tiny. You're never gonna see him like you would a full size killer even without LoS blockers in some locations, and he needs LoS blockers to be much smaller than anyone else. Yet more nuance that would go into an actual discussion if anyone were inclined to have one.
Again, it bears repeating: This post is a series of responses. If you think the complaints being responded to are malformed and unhelpful, welcome to the state of Skull Merchant discourse, that's the thing I'm trying to address here.
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I don't want to make another list so lets double down on the stealth
If you want a simple argument since you can't read a big one here you go
Her stealth needs a tell or downsides because all other stealth killers have a tell or downsides even the one with a similar "timer based stealth" has tells for his stealth so its a bad argument to make that be her balancing factor to her stealth since her timer is long enough to score hits and it being only 1 direct comparison is silly in a game with 3 months between characters and aren't all stealth characters, if her stealth lasted ~4s or ~5s the argument for timer based stealth would be fine but it lasts 8s to 9.6s its too much time to go without a tell
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