https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/472588/future-of-dead-by-daylight-forums
Bad Day for people who want SkullMerchant Nerfed
Reddit AMA confirmed she aint getting touched or changed till Next year they didnt say when next year so could be end of next year X_X
Comments
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This isn't bad news at all.
They confirmed that they aren't happy with her current state and have "bigger changes" planned next year. Compared to how long killer reworks normally take, next year is not that long to wait.
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Sounds more like good news that they are going to give her serious changes, which will obviously take a while.
I'm willing to wait.
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no nerfs or changes will fix the survivor issues anyway, having a rework for a rather boring killer in the future seems pretty good to me
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I don't think any future changes will make a difference. BHVR won't change the fact she places drones and tracks survivors and survivors will refuse to try against her.
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Nothing they can do outside of an actual complete rework will make smerch not cringe to play again. Zoners aren't interesting.
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No worries, actual complete rework will still 100% make survivors give up and game will be ruined thanks to them
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I'll take a rework next year over no rework at all. She's problematic and needs a lot of changes.
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Hopefully the solution until then is to retire her lmao
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This is such a tired narrative. Survivors giving up is a symptom of her having a problematic kit. Not vice versa.
Even the developers aren’t happy with her. Can we stop pretending survivors are the problem here and just admit that she’s badly designed.8 -
I took it as positive news. They aren't happy with her, which was great to hear. Her not getting reworked again for awhile isn't surprising - they've already put alot of time and resources into her previous reworks.
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Survivors give up against everything. There's not a killer in this game a survivor won't give up against.
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Nope, current merchant is literally weaker than 80% of killers and her kit is nowhere near complicated at all, if it is "problematic enough" to the point of giving up, that players would literally give up against any killers in the game maybe beside freddy
It's really ridiculous to hate literal 4.6 stealth killer with barely any antiloop or tracking
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People is up for SM to have skill floor increased.
But HOW can they make her skill floor increase when her power is literally click M2 and affect a whole tile?
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We dont know when next year and obviously people want her nerfed now finally unless its a full rework people will still hate her regardless of these changes and throw on first hook
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ironically people do want this which why is said bad day
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I'd rather play against skull merchant over a doctor any day of the week. It's shocking to me that there aren't more complaint threads about him.
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It doesnt discard her problem.
Each has their own things they dont want to play against (I hate Wraith, GF, Trickster for example), but SM has the most people dont like her, means she's a problem. Why do people being okay against Wesker who is much stronger?
Why dont killers want to play against Sabo squad when survivors give free 4K? Something isnt strong doesnt mean not a problem.
If killers forced to have 40% win rate, they will constantly drop from the match. Image you start a game knowing you have less than half a chance to even kill 2 survivor, a mistake will push the chance down further, and you will definitely drop from the match. Its the current state of survivors.
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with barely any antiloop
Right…
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hes just m1 killer with Anti loop has no passive slowdown or stalling potential hes not that great compared to newer killers nowadays
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People repeatedly says she has a problem but never actually explain what is a problem, and I know the reason is simply because she is a one of weakest killer in the game
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There’s always going to be the odd survivor who doesn’t like a particular killer and goes next when they see them.
But Skull Merchant is hated by such a huge proportion of survivors that it’s literally impossible to play a normal game as her. Can’t say I’ve encountered the same when playing any other killer.
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i do think giving her 6 drones from her previous 4 originally was a bad idea she can cover everything on certain maps
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Considering there's enough people complaining about rage quitting in their games and skull merchant isn't a very popular killer. You're likely just paying more attention to skull merchant games and subjecting yourself to confirmation bias.
There's also the fact that many of people who give up in skull merchant games would have still given up regardless of killer choice.
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People repeatedly says she has a problem but never actually explain what is a problem,
The arguments against Skull Merchant have been repeated ad nauseam on every platform DbD is discussed. You clearly just haven’t looked whatsoever.
I don’t have the time to give a comprehensive overview of all the things wrong with her. But to summarise the main complaint, she negates survivor skill expression (looping) and turns chases into a boring paint-by-numbers scenario:
- Reach a loop.
- SM drops a drone.
- You’re forced to leave the loop.
- Rinse and repeat until zoned.
It’s incredibly boring and involves no real input from the killer. The extent of their effort in a chase is just tapping M2 every so often.
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And that is barely a problem when her drone doesn't really contribute to down, she can be a little faster and survivors will be a little slower, but it's nowhere near strong as any other killer with actual power
drones do basically nothing unless survivors are on chase too
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That's your opinion (which isn't even objectively accurate, shocking players and forcing them to have difficult skill checks and forcing them to take a time out to regain sanity is the very definition of "stalling"). He's just obnoxious to play against. Skull merchant has bouts of stealth and drones to push survivors off a loop. The drones aren't even that big of a deal anymore. You can play "red light, green light" to deal with them. I don't get the hate honestly.
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You can do loops fine with drones, obviously you can just leave loops as par with any other antiloop killer, but her hindrance is not strong in slightest
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subjecting yourself to confirmation bias
It’s hardly confirmation bias when she has a 70% kill rate because of how many people suicide on hook when they see her. The proof is in the pudding.
many of people who give up in skull merchant games would have still given up regardless of killer choice.
I don’t buy it.
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There's no way to know how much of her 70% kill rate is attributed to survivors giving up.
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Considering the drones will injure you, deep wound you, give you hindered, reveal your movements, AND give the SM haste this is absolutely not true.
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cleansing madness is dirt quick compared to other stall killers and his power doesnt injure just for looping if you think Doctor is worse then Skullmerchant theres an obvious skill issue
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Injure and deep wound only works while healthy, hindrance is 10% which is barely a problem, haste is 3% which is honestly nothing to be a killer power, there is countless loops that just can't be mind gamed, so revealing movement is hardly a problem too
Overall, with all your statement she is worse variant of crown (he has 10% haste, 15% slowdown, and even 16m of wallhacks), and crown is not even a good killer
So yeah, you've just confirmed how her problem is nonexistent
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Think about that for a second.
If her 70% kill rate is due to a high amount of suicides then that’s indicative that she’s miserable to play against and needs changes.
And if her 70% kill rate isn’t due to a high amount of suicides then she’s immensely overperforming and needs nerfed.
It’s a disaster no matter how you look at it.9 -
If you think 10% hindered is negligible in this game then you’re very inexperienced.
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I'm not arguing against changes. Personally I think BHVR needs to have disabling drones remove a stack of lock down and see how that affects her stats.
However, the claims that Skull Merchant is a problem because people are giving up against her in some higher than normal numbers is unproven and given the complaints against giving up in general is unlikely that skull merchant is a bigger issue in this department than just the general mindset of the average survivor player.
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You get deep wounded if you already injured. Healthy survivors just get injured. Her traps also inflicts broken which can be a difference in an adrenaline proc or a med-kit play.
Her Haste is only 3% if you're only survivor scanned/trapped. But she can up to 7% haste with all 4 survivors scanned/trapped. Also the comparison to clown ignores the fact that skull merchant doesn't have to throw 2 bottles and get both effects to go off at the same time whereas currently she gets both effect naturally as part of her drones scanning survivors.
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Doesnt Clown do 20% and hes still not good?
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Not really, just saying 10% with that small haste is not enough to counter most loops
Adrenaline or med-kit play is definitely not common at all so it's not a problem in majority of matches, alsoit's extremely unlikely you'll get more than 5% haste at absolute maximum, her drone is so easy to dodge to the point of nonexistent unless survivors are in chase, 7% haste is not something that should happen when they know what they are doing
So in most cases she is just a 3% haste with 10% slowdown killer, which is (basically) passive yes, but considering even crown is having hard time in like half the loops even with double bottle combo, those powers are definitely not enough to be a "unloopable killer with sole counter being predropping" It doesn't change the fact any other killers having much better power than her
The only uniqueness she has is undetectable, but then undetectable is nothing new or oppressive unless survivors are new players, especially when she is a M1 killer with barely any antiloop potential
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Clown can do 13% haste with 19% hindered or 10% haste with 19% hindered and 16m wallhack, yet he is still nowhere near good
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Doesnt flask of bleach add 7% more hinder??
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Clown is a perfectly serviceable killer.
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flask of bleach adds 4% hinder and his basekit hinder is 15%
He isn't, his chase potential is rather on good side unlike skull merchant, but simply not fast enough to deal with good survivors
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I will happily wait til next year if the changes turn that horrendous killer into something decent.
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clown has 15% haste for 6 seconds on yellow with cheap gin bottle and he has pink bottles for another 15%. his haste is == to her hindered. clown has bigger burst speed due to pink bottles and has 16 meter of wall-hack. skull merchant has less burst speed, more consistent speed but has the stealth factor. survivor d/c is irrational for skull merchant.
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Or they may make horrendous killer into something even worse, the evil incarnate merchant
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That's great. Next year, with the changes that are necessary, it really won't be that long, the suffering hopefully will soon be over.
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Alright in chase but map pressure is still nonexistentant
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I guess you haven't been reading the SM topics much then. I'm not going to long detail why she is unhealthy for the game you can go look yourself the older topics where many of us go into details why she requires full rework. Hopefully her model too.
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I want to see Skull Merchant reworked to focus on her being a stealthy tracker. You don't know where she is, but she knows where you are. But making that work with the drone concept is going to be difficult. Maybe if it was like a radar ping system where she could ping to find survivors in her drones' areas but the ping had a cooldown? I'm afraid I don't have many good ideas on how to improve her.
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That was the original skull merchant before she got reworked but she was so bad
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