Skull merchant seems very weak
The hindered nerf feels excessive, me and one of my friends were playing on the PTB and they thought the hindered was bugged because they could barely feel it unless I was running the green extra hindered add on. The haste being removed does not feel good either .
I think drones starting in active mode is good. I know however that a trap setting playstyle is enjoyed by SM players such as Pixelbush and I think the removal of the second scan line has made that significantly weaker.
Versing her doesn't feel like much has changed other than she is a lot weaker. This is first impressions but I was suspecting it from reading the patch notes they released.
Comments
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BHVR was very clear these changes are meant to gut her until a future rework we have no idea when will happen.
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She is downright awful now. Pretty much just an M1 killer.
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They need to just toss this entire patch out. Barely anything worth bringing to live except some perk changes.
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just wait for rework like crowman says.
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Didn't they say it was happening in the second half of 2025? That is very far away !
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They need to revert the Scan Line nerf. It's genuinely terrible.
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They completely reverted the planned Twins rework and Freddy has been pushed back a few times now. There's no way to know when BHVR will actually put out a rework for Skull Merchant as they seem perfectly fine with leaving her in a terrible state.
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Nerfed a Killer for being too annoying. Nerfed another for being too strong (fair enough), nerfed a third because… why again?
Gutted one of the most unique and fun interactions/offerings in the game to push a Finisher Mori system nobody even wanted.
Overbuffed some perks while others are fine and healthy changes.
This PTB sucks eggs. There is scarcely a SINGLE thing here that should ever make it to live. Worse than the Twins PTB from a few months ago.
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She's objectively terrible now. The haste and hindered nerfs were enough to make her garbage, but the scan line reduction thing makes her the worst killer in the game.
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She's trash now. There's no other way to say it.
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It’s too easy to avoid the scan lines. At the very least, the acceleration of the Skull Merchant herself should be toned down, and two scan lines should be maintained.
However, the change where scan lines can’t be seen from a distance hasn’t been applied, and you can still see the scan lines from anywhere. If this change were implemented, perhaps even just one scan line might be acceptable... But as it stands, the Skull Merchant in the PTB feels like an unnecessary nerf.
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Noticed some odd things. Played 4 games in custom with bots so far and the results are…ew. I cant make a post on it atm but in a few days I can and Ill write down all of my findings and stats. So far, this is embarrassingly extreme nerf that even the bots cant take serious. It REALLY feels like I dont have a power and Ive had 2 games go by where I dont get a single claw trap on a survivor. Really nervous for actual matches
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I've already had actual matches and yeah, it is really really bad.
If someone out there is still getting DCs or easy 4ks I would love to see what really happens in those games.
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Yeah, I believe that when I see it. My money on we won't see the SM till 2026. I don't care what the devs say, they never delivered a huge rework on time. Look at twins. Enjoy the wait everyone..going to be a long one.
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In my opinion, making the drones always in the active state was a good change. The haste/hindered nerf possibly okay. But going from 2 to 1 scanlines is too much. Especially for a killer that will get a rework 1 year from now . Like, what were they thinking? Skull Merchant is not only played by toxic people. Many others enjoy playing her for strategic, non-toxic reasons. You can't just destroy a killer that many (yes, many) love just because many more people hate her. You had a year to roll out periodic balancing changes, and you just didn't.
Not to mention that this week's Dev Bundle in the store contains Skully's and Feng's skins. Many Skully enjoyers who don't know about her changes going live in 3 weeks will spend their money to buy the bundle, only to wake up 3 weeks later to a horrible truth that their loved killer is now trash and not worth playing. Please don't try to make money out of those poor people who don't know what's going to happen with Skully.
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I truly think they just need to revert the scan line nerf and not go through the idea of reworking her
I really think she can still be salvage in her current state, just not the way bhvr did to her
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She should gain bloodlust even when placing drones and looking at her scanner if they are going to get rid of haste
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Finished my 5 games with her and heres some notes
1. Out of the 5 matches not one exceeded 15 scans and one only had THREE scans
2. Pretty much every scan I had to work very hard for with constant rotation and drone deployment
3. 5 claw traps in all 5 matches (One match had 2)
4. Most scans basically meant nothing because I was in chase and didn't need the radar or they were injured and didn't get a trap regardless
Theres no redeeming qualities to this killer, you may get 1 injure in a match from a claw trap, thats about it10 -
In my opinion Skull Merchant is overnerfed now. Her drones are completely useless. She is so weak now.
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It's impressive how they managed to kill Skull Merchant but buffed Blight the first time they tried to balance his addons. This is not a good change. Gutting a killer shouldn't be the way to go. Ever. Especially not for an extended period of time.
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She's awful, literally feels like i'm being trolled playing a killer without a power. They should just scrap these changes until they're ready to do a proper rework, her pick rate isn't even that high.
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The nerfs are too much for someone who will get a rework 1 year from now. If the rework were happening in January, then i would somewhat understand. But "second half of 2025" is too far away to justify the overnerfing.
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1 injure from claw trap per match seems to be the average, yes, at least in my experience so far. I wanna play a few more games, but this is not looking good.
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She get Freddy treatment
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Worse than freddie in my opinion. He has 15% slowdown on snares while she only has 5%.
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But it works every time not only when aslepp. Plus her addons are stronger. So she is bottom 3 now (Freddy and Trapper still worse)
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Yeah this is overkill she not even that strong to warrant this guttering, i dont understand why the devs has wasted time and resources on her when she is getting a rework next year.
If they want to tone down her kill rate which is fair enough even though i highly suspect it due to survivors hook quitting. Then get rid of the hinder and let her keep haste. Rework the hinder addons to give a 1% increase to her haste speed or a 1 sec increase duration then leave her till her rework
iam clearly frustrated with this guttering and my gut tells me all this feedback will fall onto deaf ears but im willing to voice this as if we accept this guttering style then it will have a nasty ripple effect for future killers balancing
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Survivors passively fall asleep.
Survivors don't passively gain lock on.
Even with the sleep requirement, survivors are going to be hit by snare slow way more often than they will get hit by drone slow since they need a claw trap and manage to hit the very avoidable singular scanning line.
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bump
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Yes I feel 3 stacks for health and hindered doesn't compare to someone like Legion who gets the first health state free.
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