How has SM not been nerfed yet?

So, you can believe one of 2 things. And it is not possible to believe both of them.

1. Skull merchant is the most overpowered killer in DBD history, so overpowered that she overshadows nurse as being the most powerful killer that this game has ever seen. And this even includes omega blink (5 blink, yes, 5 blink) nurse.
2. Everyone ragequits against SM and nopes out of the game as fast as possible, killing themselves on the hook and inflating her kill rates.

Which one do you think is more likely?

She's at that kill rate because people can't man up and actually play against her instead of DC, and when they do they have no game plan or awareness whatsoever. She goes on a 2-minute chase and they can't even be bothered to break the obviously incoming 3-gen because they were healing or messing with drones which wouldn't have even scanned them. They also don't hold W which is such obvious counterplay, and instead wait til she's right up on them to run, giving a free hit. So I'm highly doubtful that she's the issue, based on the constant misplays I see from survivors. You're complaining about Skull Merchant when Leatherface and Infinite T3 Myers can just guarantee a kill in endgame as long as someone is on hook.

I know how difficult she is to play against, just because teammates don't know her counterplay, but I don't want to play as her either, because my survivors always know the counterplay. Her being called OP is even more cope than saying old Spirit had no counterplay. She was always mechanically simple; at least with Skull Merchant they have the excuse that she's mechanically complex. I can see people complaining about her having Undetectable and Haste at the same time, but those mechanics separate from each other should not be getting as much heat as they are.

In Japan (Asia servers), it's not that common to see people giving up or trolling the moment they realize it's the Skull Merchant. However, it's not entirely nonexistent. Rather than giving up specifically because it's the Skull Merchant, there are more people who get upset and give up if they get hooked early in the match, regardless of the killer.

Because people are stubborn about hating her for some reason. Her current state isn't really all that bad, in fact the worst thing about her is actually the people that main her just because they know so many survivors don't like her, and therefore go out of their way to try and make people miserable.

A SM that just plays normally isn't anything all that good in terms of lethality, people just tend to go next against her because:

A) They're stuck on disliking her previous power iterations

B) Another player has already gone next and they don't want to play a 3v1

I mean, would that have been any different against any other killer?

The hate of anti-loop killers is fascinating to me. To me it seems like all killers need to be good at anti loop, but if it's anything other than dashes or ranged attacks, it's hated...

My theory is that the reason people hate anti-loop killers, is survivors want the ability to greed pallets repeatedly, and win back to back mind games against the killer. Any killer that can walk them down while leaving a sentry to do the work for them, prevents that like other killers do… but the usual argument is it doesn't take any "skill" to achieve… which is fair to say… but my viewpoint is how much does it matter?

• Knight cuts off with guards basically guaranteeing a hit.
• Artist blocks the window or pallet with crows, again near guaranteeing a hit.
• Skull Merchant leaves a drone that automatically builds up a hit over any low tile.

In all these situations the survivor can't keep looping to get that buzz of outplayed the killer and making them look like a fool, and there isn't really much chance of the killer screwing it up... However Trapper is also an anti loop killer. If say Trapper could just slam down a trap in 0.2s on the move to cut off a loop as he walks you down, he would be similarly hated as a "no skill" anti loop killer, but he gets absolutely dumped on cause his trap set speed is too slow to effectively use in chase, so he is nowhere near as hated… clearly there is an issue here…

Strong killers that diminish the mind games are also not well liked. Spirit with her ability to make all vaults a complete 50/50 gamble, Blight with his repeated attempts to rush until he hits you, Nurse with her unique gameplay mind games that for some reason don't count because it removes the ability to greed a pallet repeatedly. All of these remove the ability to chain loops together and keep greeding pallets... which goes against what people want.

The elephant in the room of course is that unless you want every single killer to have strong dashes at loops, and basically do the same thing as Wesker and Hillbilly, you're gonna have things that don't fit this gameplay mould... and some people also hate those killers too because they're strong... and there is an argument to say, is it skillful to catch a survivor at loop with Hillbilly compared to catching a survivor at the same loop with Myers? Now I love Hillbilly, but clearly these 2 things are not the same... so Myers needs something else to help him keep up... currently this is the threat of tombstones... but he could definitely use something different/more... and while in his neutered states I don't feel good facing him, I usually feel sorry for him when he gets absolutely cooked by a pallet stun after 3 greeds, cause this man is well on the way to losing the game.

People even hate Pig because of her slowdown, despite the fact they can absolutely greed the crap out of her and keep outplaying her at loops... but the fact she has a mechanic that keeps her relevant in the game... no that's not allowed.... I wanna loop her 5 times each tile, smash her in the face with pallet, run to next and keep her busy for 5 gens so I can teabag her at exit....

So with that in mind, personally I actually enjoy playing vs. Skull Merchant. I can't perma-loop her, but I'm not good enough to perma-loop killers anyway, and since the stacks reset on hook, I can survive looping vs. her drones about as well as I survive against other killers... usually better actually... so I don't mind her really... I will happily take a chase I survive 60-90s, especially if I can work a couple of crouch lazer dodges in there. She feels strong, she feels dangerous, but chances are I can almost guarantee at least 30 seconds of looping her, whereas other stronger dash killers can have me on the BBQ in 20s flat... I don't expect to be able to loop for 3 gens, so I have fun vs. her.

Guess that's the advantage of being relatively new... I don't have a preconceived notion of what killers "should" be. I have fun just trying to survive as long as I can, and trying to loop while avoiding her beams is pretty intense to me. The only Killer that repeatedly gets on my nerves is Blight, but since his nerfs I'm even having fun against him now that I can actually juke him without him just turning in rush round a corner and hitting me every time.

When you get hooked by Sadako, the bars of Condemned you had get locked in and on the HUD they become filled in. This means that you can't get rid of them anymore